• Home
  • Opinion
  • Quizzes
  • Redistricting
  • Sections
  • About Us
  • Voting
  • Events
  • Civic Ed
  • Campaign Finance
  • Directory
  • Election Dissection
  • Fact Check
  • Glossary
  • Independent Voter News
  • News
  • Analysis
  • Subscriptions
  • Log in
Leveraging Our Differences
  • news & opinion
    • Big Picture
      • Civic Ed
      • Ethics
      • Leadership
      • Leveraging big ideas
      • Media
    • Business & Democracy
      • Corporate Responsibility
      • Impact Investment
      • Innovation & Incubation
      • Small Businesses
      • Stakeholder Capitalism
    • Elections
      • Campaign Finance
      • Independent Voter News
      • Redistricting
      • Voting
    • Government
      • Balance of Power
      • Budgeting
      • Congress
      • Judicial
      • Local
      • State
      • White House
    • Justice
      • Accountability
      • Anti-corruption
      • Budget equity
    • Columns
      • Beyond Right and Left
      • Civic Soul
      • Congress at a Crossroads
      • Cross-Partisan Visions
      • Democracy Pie
      • Our Freedom
  • Pop Culture
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
  • events
  • About
      • Mission
      • Advisory Board
      • Staff
      • Contact Us
Sign Up
  1. Home>
  2. Voting>
  3. voter registration>

Meet the reformer: Aisha McClendon, who's switched from campaigning to registering

Our Staff
September 11, 2020
VoteAmerica's Aisha McClendon with Biden campaign volunteer Mitzi Wallace-Wills

VoteAmerica's Aisha McClendon (left) and Biden campaign volunteer Mitzi Wallace-Wills.

VoteAmerica

This summer VoteAmerica, which operates nationwide registration and turnout programs, hired seasoned Democratic operative Aisha McClendon as national constituencies director — focused on bolstering the nonprofit's work with churches and historically Black colleges and universities. She had previously been a regional constituency director for Mike Bloomberg's 2020 presidential campaign, after running national African American outreach for the Beto O'Rourke campaign. Before that she'd worked for a state legislator in her native Texas. Her answers have been edited for clarity and length.

What's the tweet-length description of your organization?

VoteAmerica works to ensure high turnout. We provide easy resources and tools to register to vote, sign up to vote by mail, request an absentee ballot, get election reminders, find a polling place and contact local election officials, etc.


Describe your very first civic engagement.

Registering people to vote on the campus of Dillard University, the historically Black college I attended in the 1990s.

What was your biggest professional triumph?

Spearheading the inaugural prayer service by the Black Caucus to open up the 2012 Democratic convention. It is always a struggle to get people to think outside of what they have ever done, and we had a lot of roadblocks — from buy-in from the party to getting sponsorships and finding speakers to volunteer their time. It was a huge task, and I had to call in a lot of favors, but we did it, and it was terrific. You know it's a good night when Rev. Jesse Jackson and Michael Eric Dyson crash your party!

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

And your most disappointing setback?

Struggling to deal with people acting against their self-interest. People are not often empowered to get out of their own way.

How does your identity influence the way you go about your work?

Who I am is my work, who I am is my profession, what I am is my calling. I will always be a Black woman. I take the task of ensuring that Black people, especially women, are always included in the picture of what America should like.

What's the best advice you've ever been given?

It was from the late civil rights and women's rights leader Dorothy Height, when she saw me trying to move to the far edge of a group posing for a photo, almost hiding myself. She said to me: Don't stand on the end; that's how women get cut out of history.

Create a new flavor for Ben & Jerry's.

Non-dairy Blackberry Cannoli. Who knows how it would taste, but those are two of my favorite things!

What's your favorite political movie or TV show?

"The West Wing," hands down. It reminds me of one of my first jobs, working in the executive office building next door to the White House during the Clinton administration.

What's the last thing you do on your phone at night?

Honestly, scroll through Facebook.

What is your deepest, darkest secret?

I may or may not have a "W" from an old school computer keyboard!

Related Articles Around the Web
  • DNC Launches Virtual Seat at the Table Black Women in Politics ... ›
  • What should Biden's VP expect? - POLITICO ›
  • Aisha McClendon - Chief Of Staff - State of Texas | LinkedIn ›
  • Beto O'Rourke hires Aisha McClendon as director of African ... ›
voter registration

Want to write
for The Fulcrum?

If you have something to say about ways to protect or repair our American democracy, we want to hear from you.

Submit
Get some Leverage Sign up for The Fulcrum Newsletter
Follow
Contributors

Reform in 2023: Leadership worth celebrating

Layla Zaidane

Two technology balancing acts

Dave Anderson

Reform in 2023: It’s time for the civil rights community to embrace independent voters

Jeremy Gruber

Congress’ fix to presidential votes lights the way for broader election reform

Kevin Johnson

Democrats and Republicans want the status quo, but we need to move Forward

Christine Todd Whitman

Reform in 2023: Building a beacon of hope in Boston

Henry Santana
Jerren Chang
latest News

Does partisanship impact happiness?

Lynn Schmidt
14h

Return copyright to its roots: Compensate human creators

Samantha Close
14h

It’s the institutional design, stupid! With a parliamentary system, America could avoid gridlock and instability

Milind Thakar
06 February

Poll: Americans’ legislative wish list for new congress shows frustration with political systems

Benjamin Clary
06 February

Podcast: Why Democrats fail with rural voters

Our Staff
06 February

Your Take: Religious beliefs

Our Staff
03 February
Videos

Video: America's civic education gap: What can business do?

Our Staff

Video: What does it mean to be Black?

Our Staff

Video: The dignity index

Our Staff

Video: The Supreme Court and originalism

Our Staff

Video: How the baby boom changed American politics

Our Staff

Video: What the speakership election tells us about the 118th Congress webinar

Our Staff
Podcasts

Podcast: Why Democrats fail with rural voters

Our Staff
06 February

Podcast: Anti-racism: The pro-human approach

Our Staff
03 February

Podcast: 2024 Senate: Democrats have a lot of defending to do

Our Staff
02 February

Podcast: Collage: The promise of Black History Month

Our Staff
01 February
Recommended
Does partisanship impact happiness?

Does partisanship impact happiness?

Big Picture
Return copyright to its roots: Compensate human creators

Return copyright to its roots: Compensate human creators

Business & Democracy
Video: America's civic education gap: What can business do?

Video: America's civic education gap: What can business do?

Video: What does it mean to be Black?

Video: What does it mean to be Black?

It’s the institutional design, stupid! With a parliamentary system, America could avoid gridlock and instability

It’s the institutional design, stupid! With a parliamentary system, America could avoid gridlock and instability

Government
Poll: Americans’ legislative wish list for new congress shows frustration with political systems

Poll: Americans’ legislative wish list for new congress shows frustration with political systems

Government