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Cori Bush, who was dismissed as unelectable two years ago, tripled her 2018 fundraising total on her way to defeating an incumbent congressman in Missouri's Democratic primary Aug. 4.
Surge of donations to Black candidates tests old assumptions
Aug 11 2020
Black Lives Matter activist Cori Bush's victory over Rep. Lacy Clay, a senior member of the Congressional Black Caucus, captures both the pain and the promise facing a new generation of African American candidates.
Bush narrowly bested Clay, who's represented St. Louis for two decades, in this month's Democratic primary and is overwhelmingly favored to win the House seat this fall — benefiting from this year's surge of donations to outsider candidates of color, for decades among the least likely politicians to benefit from the tidal wave of cash coursing through the campaign finance system.
Bush lost to Clay by 20 points in the primary two years ago. But money started fueling her comeback in a big way this spring following the police killing of George Floyd, which sparked mass protests across the country about police violence and systemic racism — and promises by the marchers to follow-up with intensified political activism.
<p>Bush tripled her fundraising from 2018, raising more than $200,000 this spring alone — twice Clay's receipts in April, May and June. She also benefited from close to $250,000 in outside spending, most of it from the progressive group Justice Democrats.</p>
<p><p style="text-align: center;" id="sufn"><a style="font-weight: bold;margin:40px auto;font-size:2rem" href="https://thefulcrum.us/st/newsletters">Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter </a></p></p><p>It was an impressive turnaround for a 44-year-old registered nurse, single mother and political novice who had been dismissed by campaign experts as unelectable. "We've been called radicals, terrorists," Bush told supporters on election night. "We've been dismissed as an impossible fringe movement. That's what they called us."</p>
<p>Bush is one of a record 267 <a href="https://cawp.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/resources/press-release-record-women-of-color-candidates.pdf" target="_blank">women of color</a> running for Congress this year, half of whom are Black. Many were initially overlooked by the leaders in their respective parties but have gone out to raise substantially more than their opponents — especially in the second quarter of this year. </p>
<p>Especially for Black candidates, both men and women, the recent money surge reverses generations of institutional fundraising bias that's hindered their advancement, baked into both societal wealth gaps and campaign finance rules.</p>
<p>Money has flowed not only to individual candidates like Bush, particularly Black Democrats representing their party's progressive wing, but also to a burgeoning infrastructure of nonprofits, consulting firms and political action committees focused on voting rights and voter turnout, campaign training, fundraising and directing contributions to candidates of color. </p>
<p>These include Fair Fight PAC, a group associated with 2018 Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, which has raised an astonishing $26 million in this election cycle; The Collective PAC, which recently <a href="https://time.com/5852534/black-lives-matter-2020-elections-voting/?fbclid=IwAR2QjzgYufJd-_4FZbsFK-cVaTGjP_ZjKMuhx7rSjoQP6MKOwwxP5bSHF4k" target="_blank">received $2 million</a> from Michael Bloomberg for voter registration; and the racial justice group Color of Change, whose membership reportedly shot from <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/14/us/politics/black-lives-matter-racism-donations.html" target="_blank">1.7 million to 7 million</a> in a matter of days after Floyd's killing under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer. </p>
<p>Individual Black candidates are also raising big money. Also in Minneapolis, attorney Antone Melton-Meaux has raised more than $4 million — allowing him to spend twice as much on advertising than first-term incumbent Ilhan Omar, his opponent in a highly competitive Democratic primary on Tuesday. </p>
<p>In South Carolina, Jaime Harrison, the former state Democratic Party chairman, has raised <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/races/summary?cycle=2020&id=SCS2" target="_blank">$28.6 million</a> in his challenge to GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham, who's collected <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/races/summary?cycle=2020&id=SCS2" target="_blank">$29.9 million</a>. John James, an African American Republican challenging incumbent Democrat Gary Peters for the Senate in Michigan, has netted <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/races/summary?cycle=2020&id=MIS1" target="_blank">$20.5 million</a>, just behind Peters's <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/races/summary?cycle=2020&id=MIS1" target="_blank">$21.6 million</a>. </p><p>African American women, who traditionally face the biggest barriers to political fundraising, have in some cases well outraised their opponents in recent months. In central North Carolina, Democratic challenger Pat Timmons-Goodson raised <a href="https://dccc.org/ratings-change-cook-political-report-shifts-nc08-towards-timmons-goodson/" target="_blank">more than twice</a> incumbent Republican Rich Hudson in the second quarter, netting $845,000 to his $329,000. In the race for an open House seat on Long Island, Democrat Jackie Gordon has $1.1 million cash on hand, giving her an <a href="https://dccc.org/ratings-change-cook-political-report-shifts-ny-02-toss/" target="_blank">11-to-1 cash advantage</a> over Republican state Rep. Andrew Garbarino. In Ohio, Democratic challenger Desiree Tims outraised incumbent Republican Michael Turner of Dayton by <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/507589-desiree-tims-outraises-longtime-gop-rep-michael-turner-by-more-than-300000" target="_blank">more than $300,000</a> in the second quarter.<br></p>
<p>"They were not top tier-candidates according to the chattering class," says Glynda Carr, president and CEO of Higher Heights for America, which assists politically active Black women. "But they went into their elections and frankly out of their primaries as the races to watch."</p>
<p>Not that the institutional fundraising obstacles facing Black candidates have suddenly melted away. The nation's enormous racial wealth gap, whereby the average white family has <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/02/27/examining-the-black-white-wealth-gap/" target="_blank">roughly 10 times</a> the net worth of the typical Black family, has only worsened since the pandemic. And plenty of African American candidates complain of being rebuffed by the Democratic establishment. These include Erica Smith, who aspired to be North Carolina's first Black female senator, but who saw <a href="https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/election/article240156358.html" target="_blank">$12 million lavished</a> on Cal Cunningham, a white male, by Democratic groups on the way to winning the nomination to challenge GOP incumbent Thom Tillis.</p>
<p>Advocates of campaign finance reform <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/breaking-down-barriers-faces-small-donor-public-financing" target="_blank">have long argued</a> that political money rules that steer unlimited, often-undisclosed contributions from a handful of wealthy white billionaires to unrestricted outside groups tend to freeze out candidates of color. Public financing to match low-dollar contributions tends to to diversify the candidate pool. </p>
<p>Black candidates still face ingrained assumptions about their electability and fundraising clout, says Steve Phillips, the founder of Democracy in Color, which advocates for more racial diversity in politics.</p>
<p>"The rhetoric is easy," says Phillips. "But doing the hard work to actually move the resources" is much harder. "Are we going to balance out the financial playing field here, or not?" </p>
<p>He noted that a Bay Area fundraiser scheduled for Tuesday, which will divvy receipts between several Democratic Senate candidates, showcased the white man running for Senate in Georgia — Democrat John Ossoff, who will face Republican incumbent David Perdue this fall — but not the Black candidate, the Rev. Raphael Warnock, who is running the same day in an all-candidate special election for the state's other Senate seat.</p>
<p>"It's reflective of the blinders that white gatekeepers have," says Phillips. Still, he noted that a recent philanthropic outpouring will steer literally hundreds of millions to groups run by people of color. </p>
<p>The Open Society Foundations, run by philanthropist George Soros, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/13/us/politics/george-soros-racial-justice-organizations.html" target="_blank">has announced</a> $220 million in grants to groups advancing racial justice and civic engagement. Novelist and philanthropist Mackenzie Scott, previously married to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, <a href="https://www.barrons.com/articles/mackenzie-scott-becomes-the-second-largest-funder-for-racial-equity-01596060819" target="_blank">has given $587 million</a> to racial equity groups.</p>
<p>"That's both the promise and the challenge," says Phillips. "Those contributions do transform the landscape. But is the rest of the donor universe going to follow suit?"</p>
<p><em>Carney is a contributing writer.</em></p>
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Civic Ed
True
Mario Tama/Getty Images
Alumni of Houston's Jack Yates High School participate in a vigil honoring George Floyd, who played football at the school.
Twelve years of school never taught me Black lives matter. Time to fix that.
Aug 06 2020
Before graduating in June from high school in Sugar Land, Texas, Tangirala launched the Anti-Racist Curriculum Reform effort to persuade school districts to teach more about racism and include more perspectives of people of color in social studies.
<p>"I come here today to talk about how I feel. And I feel like we are treated differently from other people." </p><p>The voice is from the elegant, determined, cocoa-tinted but tear-streaked face of a girl who's no more than 10 years old, imploring an online audience that includes me. And this was not the only such video I've seen recently.</p><p>Since the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor joined the deaths of countless others who have perished due to the stigmas of race, so many of our social media feeds have been filled with flicks of violence, pleas for change — and seeds of hope that our world can be converted from black and white to technicolor, once and for all. </p><p>"I don't like how we're treated, and just because of our color," the girl continues. "It doesn't mean anything to me." But the color of her skin makes what she's saying all the more powerful — and should assure her voice reverberates in the minds of people of every color on the spectrum.</p><p><p style="text-align: center;" id="sufn"><a style="font-weight: bold;margin:40px auto;font-size:2rem" href="https://thefulcrum.us/st/newsletters">Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter </a></p></p><p>I don't like how Black students are treated, either. I have seen firsthand the immunity non-Black students receive in the classroom justice system versus the Black students. </p><p>My own skin color is not exceedingly lighter than those who have perished because of police brutality. It's a shade somewhere in the middle, dark enough that I know this is my fight, too. </p><p>The United States is a lofty name for a nation torn so pathetically asunder. And as our political polarization widens to create an increasingly unstable climate, today's teenagers face more mental burdens than the older members of Generation Z. As just one example, we have been told white mass shooters deserve impunity because they're mentally ill, but nonviolent Black protestors are "thugs."</p><p>Approaching graduation led me to realize something blatantly obvious: Never in 12 years of school, not once, was I taught anything about present-day racism. There was instruction on the civil rights movement back in the 1960s and the reasons behind it — but not a single instance where we learned in-depth about the manifestation of present-day racism, or even had a school-sponsored conversation regarding today's prevalent racial bias. </p><p>My teachers and school administrators were great educators and people, so ultimately this came down to a failure of our curriculum. </p><p>Discussion and civic education are the keys to societal reform; if we aren't striving for that, we have nothing left to be proud of. </p><p>This was the reasoning behind my effort to press school districts to do two things: First, incorporate more voices of people of color, especially their views on history and social thought, in lesson plans. Second, sponsor dialogues in schools to talk about the realities of present-day racism and its diverse manifestations.</p><p>Present-day racism may not necessarily include lynching or apartheid. It often has a subtler presence on and off campus — the haughty undertones of a condescending voice, or the affinity for rules and regulations that only stifle people of color. These seemingly minor infractions may not appear to put lives at risk, but they still encourage mindsets that put people's lives at risk every day. </p><p>This is what racism looks like. Why is this not explicitly taught in our schools? These crucial developmental years are the perfect time to expel any unjust biases lingering in mind.</p><p>More than a thousand students and graduates of five districts in the Houston area have signed up to support us in just a few months — and we're already working on expanding our initiative into New Jersey, California and Arizona. </p><p>We're eager to have more help, and to take our cause to more places. Don't wait for someone else to do it tomorrow. You can't keep social justice on hold. </p>
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GOP Gov. Kim Reynolds had been under intense pressure from Black Lives Matter and other civil rights groups.
Iowa ends status as only state with lifetime ban on felons voting
Aug 05 2020
Correction: An earlier version misstated details of the executive order.
Iowa's governor decreed Wednesday that most felons in the state may vote starting this fall, ending the state's status as the only place in the country where convicted criminals are denied the franchise forever.
Expanding the political rights of people who've been to prison has been a top cause of voting rights groups for years, but the cause has gained fresh urgency this summer as the nation undergoes an intense reckoning with systemic racism — especially in the law enforcement system.
"It's a big step for so many on the road to redemption," Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds said as she signed an executive order in her Des Moines office, fulfilling a promise she made two months ago after the General Assembly deadlocked on a more complex plan for eventually returning the vote to felons.
<p>Under her order, almost all felons will be able to register after their incarceration is over and they're through with probation or parole — matching the laws of 21 states. (Sixteen others allow felons to vote upon release from prison.) Iowa's murderers and most serious sexual offenders will be able to petition the Board of Parole for voting rights after they're released. </p><p><p style="text-align: center;" id="sufn"><a style="font-weight: bold;margin:40px auto;font-size:2rem" href="https://thefulcrum.us/st/newsletters">Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter </a></p></p><p>The governor's office said her order does not condition voting rights on the payment of any fines, fees or victim restitution. Making felons fulfill such financial obligations was part of what the Republican-majority Legislature said it wanted as a condition for advancing a state constitutional amendment toward a referendum. </p><p>It's also the law in Florida, the biggest state to ever restore felon voting rights by popular vote, but a federal appeals court is hearing arguments this month on whether that amounts to an unconstitutional poll tax.</p><p>Lawmakers who support a constitutional amendment, which would outlast Reynolds' term, say they will try again next year. </p><p>Until now, the only way for a felon to vote in Iowa was to get individualized permission from the governor. Fifteen years ago, Democratic Gov. Tom Vilsack issued an executive order allowing felons to register after being released. About 115,000 felons did so, but Republican Gov. Terry Branstad put an end to that permission in 2011.</p><p>Reynolds' order will allow as many as 60,000 additional people to register in time for the November election, when the battle for Iowa's six electoral votes looks like a tossup and so does GOP Sen. Joni Ernst's campaign for re-election. </p><p>Nearly 10 percent of Iowa's Black population would benefit from the new rules, according to a four-year-old estimate from The Sentencing Project, an advocacy group.</p>
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Black Voters Matter Co-founder Cliff Albright on Amplifying the Black Vote
Jul 27 2020
Organizer: Leadership Now Project
Join us for a briefing with Cliff Albright, Co-Founder and Executive Director at Black Voters Matter Fund, one of our 2020-II Portfolio organizations. BVM received national attention in 2017 when they helped mobilize Black voters during the U.S. Senate race between Doug Jones and Roy Moore. In 2018, Albright and the BVM team travelled throughout seven southern states in "The Blackest Bus in America" energizing voters and exposing voter suppression. We will discuss their voter registration effort March on Ballot Boxes (M.O.B.B), the power of relational organizing, and ways to fight back against the voter suppression they have seen already in primary elections across the U.S.
Location: Webinar
