Extra! Extra!: What The 2020 Election Says About America

Now that the election results are (I think pretty much all?) in, this week’s Extra! Extra! reflects on what the 2020 election says about America. We also look at what the Supreme Court has been up to this week with its new ultraconservative majority, where things stand with the pandemic and some political situations unfolding around the world (including proposed protections for LGBTQ+ people in the EU).

The Results Are In: What the 2020 Election Says About America

The crisis isn’t too much polarization. It’s too little democracy.

Democrats Have a Much Bigger Problem Than the Senate or the Electoral College

Himani: The basic premise in the first article here—that Republicans can’t win a majority but America’s political structures are rigged so that they secure power—is not new. What I appreciated about this article is that it points out how this electoral bias affects the ability to push forward non-Republican policy. As Ezra Klein writes:

“It forces Democrats to lean into the messy, pluralistic work of winning elections in a democracy, and allows Republicans to avoid that work, and instead worry about pleasing the most fervent members of their base. It forces Democrats to win voters ranging from the far left to the center right, but Republicans can win with only right-of-center votes.”

As I read this, I thought about the rift among House Democrats that started with anonymous claims that progressive positions cost seats in the House, followed by AOC’s interview with the NYT and then Conor Lamb’s interview. That whole fiasco was truly, as Klein writes, “the messy, pluralistic work.”

It’s frustrating, to say the least, to be forced into the position of watching the policies you believe in constantly be compromised while the other side can run with the increasingly extreme versions of their agenda. Practically none of us wanted Biden to be our candidate. The issues we care about the most won’t get nearly the resolutions they need (more on that below).

And yet the cold, hard reality of the numbers remains. The second article linked above, an interview with Ari Berman about redistricting now that the census is over, discusses how Democrats did not regain control of state houses and so maps will be as gerrymandered or possibly even more gerrymandered than they were after the 2010 census. Which means Republicans can continue to secure power at all levels of government without ever winning majorities. Buried in that article, is this statement from Berman:

“I don’t think [Democrats failing to win state houses] was for lack of effort or for lack of organization. I just think these were really, really difficult places to win seats. And I think Democrats have a red America problem. It’s very, very clear they’re not competing as strongly as they should be in states that are red or haven’t flipped yet from red to purple. And a lot of the seats that needed pickup were in the redder parts of purple states. It was about the more conservative suburban areas, the rural areas? That’s where the Democratic Party really underperformed.”

So at the state-level, the same issue exists: needing to pull together a pluralistic coalition that, by necessity, must include some conservative constituents.

We can argue that the electoral college has to go (it really does) or that districts should be determined by independent, non-partisan coalitions (they should). But that’s never going to happen so long as Republicans can continue to hold power, and they will continue to hold power because the scale is tipped in their favor.

We can argue that the two-party system has failed. But I’m not sure that the alternative will get us out of this mess. We see this in countries that have parliamentary systems, that at the end of it, there’s a coalition building that has to happen across ideological lines. And, historically in America, voters on the left splinter off from the Democratic party in favor of third parties that cost them elections far more off than voters on the right splinter off from the Republican party.

I don’t have an answer here. Within myself, I’m constantly divided. At times, I become frustrated with those on the left who are unwilling to compromise, even though I agree with their political positions, because their inflexibility costs us any progress we might make. But often, I also find myself frustrated that “compromise” means putting limits on abortion access or gun control or racial justice and allowing the oil, gas and auto industries to continue to exist.

At the heart of this problem, of course, is how many white people supported Trump’s reelection. Their unwillingness to be persuaded or to compromise on any of these issues is what’s going to do us all in.

Natalie: Just to piggyback off what you’ve said here, Himani, one of the things that’s been interesting (read: distressing) to me about the current conversation is how much of it is gendered and racialized because of the involvement of Alexandria Ocastia-Cortez. As she pointed out on twitter yesterday, she’s not saying anything that’s demonstrably different than what Beto O’Rourke or Doug Jones — both red state Democrats — are saying but she’s the one that’s singled out as “radical” or accused of “lashing out.”

Social media is making a bad political situation worse

Himani: One thing I find frustrating about these articles about social media and polarization is that it seems to imply a false equivalence of people on both ends of the spectrum growing further and further apart. But let’s just be clear: a not insubstantial portion of the far right is deep down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole as a result of social-media-driven polarization. And, social media’s approach to political coverage is blatantly one-sided. Consider, for example, this expose from October, revealing that Mother Jones and a host of other progressive news sites that were specifically targeted to reduce traffic on Facebook to appease the right. Youtube continues to host content that undermines the election results.

To the thesis of the first article we’ve linked here, this is just another form of “too little democracy” and it, too, is stacked in the favor of conservatives and the Republican party.

What the Future Holds

The Biden Agenda: Obstacles and Opportunities

Himani: This overview article and the series as a whole provide a balanced look at what we can realistically expect from Biden given the divided government and issues of pluralism mentioned above. It’s not enough, but it certainly is leaps and bounds ahead of where things stand today. (Or where they will likely stand in two months.)

The Election Is Over. Here’s a Vision From the Left for the Next Four Years.

Natalie: So much of this hinges on Georgia so just in case we’ve got some folks from the Peach tree state reading this:

GEORGIA: It’s time – again! Runoff elections for both of Georgia’s U.S. Senate seats will take place on January 5. Request your ballot NOW at https://t.co/7mvF0m9IGx #LetsGetItDoneAgain #gapol pic.twitter.com/IjuqEmwEoO

— Fair Fight (@fairfightaction) November 10, 2020

Meanwhile at the SCOTUS

Argument analysis: Justices sympathetic to faith-based foster-care agency in anti-discrimination dispute

The Affordable Care Act May Live to Die Another Day

Natalie: Despite having a vested interest in case’s before the Supreme Court, the left has never been as invested in the future of the courts in the way the right has been…to, I believe, to our detriment. As of today, the president has appointed 222 judges, including two district court judges approved by this week, and more approvals are coming during the lame duck sessions. Even if Congressional Republicans have a “coming to Jesus” moment after 2020’s said and done, as Joe Biden hopes for, the judicial legacy of the Trump era will reverberate for years. But, I digress….

The new session of the Supreme Court started the day after the election and, already, they’ve heard two big cases that’ll have a disproportionate impact on the LGBTQ+ community. First, there’s Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, which essentially asks if Philadelphia was justified — legally — in its removal of Catholic Social Services as a foster care contractor because of CSS’s refusal to certify unmarried couples or same-sex married couples to be foster parents. The city felt that CSS’s position violated its non-discrimination policy. The case was the first heard by newly appointed justice, Amy Coney Barrett.

Then, earlier this week, the Court heard California v. Texas, a case that could destroy the Affordable Care Act. Court observers who are far smarter than me, including Elie Mystal at the Nation and Mark Joseph Stern of Slate, seem to agree that “Obamacare” is safe, for now. But what’s worth noting — at least from my vantage point — is how deeply the “religious freedom” argument (read: anti-gay animus) reaches on the bench.

During oral arguments in Texas, one of the big arguments was around the individual mandate and its current penalty. Since the ACA’s passage, Republicans in Congress have effectively ended the mandate without actually ending it: that is, they haven’t eliminated the mandate’s language from statute but they have set the tax penalty to zero. Conservatives on the Court are so bothered by this…even though no one is actually harmed, the mere possibility of harm warrants the dissolution of the ACA. Contrast to their reaction in Fulton, where the mere possibility of harm — no gays were harmed by CSS because gays know enough to go to another foster agency — isn’t enough to justify Philadelphia’s strict adherence to their non-discrimination policy.

The hypocrisy, it burns.

Sam Alito Delivers Grievance-Laden, Ultra-Partisan Speech to the Federalist Society

Alito drops pretense of impartiality, delivers political remarks

Natalie: When I talked to Mary Bonauto, the Civil Rights Project Director at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), she noted that the opponents of marriage equality have been relentless in their efforts “to delegitimize the Court’s ruling and reasoning in Obergefell.” And while that’s helped me gird myself for attacks from the right, hearing Justice Alito speak so brazenly last night was jarring.

In a different time, this kind of speech would’ve been unthinkable, but with the wind of a 6-3 conservative majority at his back, Alito breathed new life into the bench statement from Justice Thomas that he’d co-signed. Alito was a man who was certain that he could be as brash and as brazen as he wanted and suffer no consequences….which, coincidentally, undermines his entire argument because if opposition to same-sex marriage meant social castigation, then why is Alito on that stage in the first place? Why hasn’t he been thrown out of the public space?

But, as the saying goes, “When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression,” and Justice Alito feels very oppressed…and that could spell danger for the rest of us.

Denmark Will Kill All Farmed Mink, Citing Coronavirus Infections

Himani: Remember back when everyone was blaming the wet markets for COVID-19 and a few voices timidly pointed out that factory farms in the West pose the same (or possibly even greater) threat? Well, here we are. COVID-19 has mutated on mink farms in Denmark, according to Vice over 200 people have contracted the mutation and there are concerns that the mutated version will interfere with vaccine efficacy. For now, scientists are saying there isn’t enough data available and we should all hold tight. But in the meanwhile, a few million minks are going to be killed just in case (after being bread and living in inhumane conditions just for their fur…) I really, really have no faith in humanity.

80 percent of those who died of Covid-19 in Texas county jails were never convicted of a crime

Natalie: This is going to be a real stain on American leadership and its people…how much we turned a blind-eye to the suffering of those behind bars. In my home state of North Carolina, we’re seeing a spike in COVID transmissions in our prisons and those incarcerated inside the deadliest federal prison in the country are suing in federal court.

We have so much to answer for…let’s just hope we’re all alive to see justice.

Pfizer claims its Covid-19 vaccine is 90 percent effective so far. Here’s what we actually know.

Natalie: As encouraging as these numbers are, the thing that threw cold water on my celebration about Pfizer’s progress — aside from what Vox lays out in their piece — is the reporting that the virus needs to be stored at -94°F (-70° C). There’s no precedent for distribution of a vaccine on this large a scale even anyway…so we’re already in uncharted, difficult territory…the idea that we’d have to navigate that and prepping all pharmacies to store the vaccine in dry ice? That feels like an impossible task.

Himani: Also, you gotta love Big Pharma. Pfizer’s CEO sold millions of dollars worth of stocks the same day as this announcement. So, you know, instead of working to figure out the scientific and logistical issues regarding the vaccine development and distribution, he was busy figuring out how he could make the most money off of the whole situation. Cool.

Canada Just Opened Its First Shelter Exclusively for Sex Workers

Global report: lockdowns start to limit Covid-19 spread in Europe

Some Political Updates from Around the World

EU proposes new rules to protect LGBTQ+ people amid ‘worrying trends’

Himani: This seems like a long overdue but incredibly encouraging step in the right direction. I’d love to hear from folks living in the EU for their perspectives on this proposal and what its potential impact could be.

The surprising Armenia-Azerbaijan peace deal over Nagorno-Karabakh, explained

Himani: It looks like the war in the Caucasus may finally be coming to an end? There have been a couple of ceasefires the last few weeks that fell through, though. This article does a good job of explaining the recent peace deal and how that affects the different players in the region.

Belarusian Activists Say More Than 800 Detained At Anti-Government Rallies

Georgian Police Use Water Cannons To Disperse Election Protest

Myanmar Election Delivers Another Decisive Win for Aung San Suu Kyi

In Midst Of Pandemic Crisis, Peru’s Legislature Impeaches The Nation’s President

Evo Morales to return from exile to Bolivia in 800-vehicle convoy

Our Time to Shyne: WeHo’s First Woman of Color Councilwoman, Sepi Shyne, as Interviewed by Her Wife

On November 4th, my wife and West Hollywood Commissioner Sepi Shyne officially declared victory in her race for City Council and became the first out LGBTQ+ Iranian-American elected anywhere in the world. Locally, Councilwoman-Elect Shyne’s success is again history-making on several fronts, including being the first woman of color ever elected to the City Council and cementing the first female majority in West Hollywood history.

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Congratulations Sepi! How do you feel?

I am incredibly proud of the success of our people-powered campaign. We laid out a broad and progressive vision that protects renters, rejects special interests, and reimagines how we invest in our quality of life in West Hollywood. I am grateful to everyone who placed their trust in me, and I look forward to earning the trust of those who didn’t vote for me. Together, we will move our city forward and ensure that West Hollywood remains the gem it has always been.

What is your role on West Hollywood City Council?

After I get sworn in on December 7th, I will be a council woman for the city of West Hollywood, and my role is to help run the business of the city. As an elected council woman my colleagues and I are responsible for appointing people to commissions & boards, voting on items before the city at the council meetings, attending city events and most importantly carrying on the will of the residents of West Hollywood.

Did you always know you wanted to run for office?

I never thought I would ever run for local office. I was an undocumented immigrant until I was 16 and growing up, I felt like I was living in multiple worlds even after getting my green card. My Iranian world at home, the American world outside of my home, and my LGBTQ+ world. After graduating from law school, I became a citizen. Voting has been the greatest privilege. I didn’t know I was going to run until I decided to run in 2018 in order to help my community and after being inspired by the November 2018 blue wave, women’s wave and rainbow wave and for the first time I saw other middle eastern women getting into office so I thought maybe it is possible for me. Long before wanting to run for office in order to be of service, I fought for our LGBTQ rights for more than 20 years. What started my advocacy was the discrimination I experienced. In my second year of college, my ex-girlfriend and I were sitting at our favorite coffee shop chatting about our college classes and holding hands. The next thing I knew, a police officer and the new manager were standing over us. The officer looked down at us and said, “the manager doesn’t want your kind in his establishment. You need to get up and leave,” and then the cop blew a kiss and winked at me. My ex and I felt scared and powerless. We ran out of the coffee shop in tears. Later that day, I told her, “I am tired of feeling powerless, we need to go to law school, learn the law and stop this from happening to others!” From then on I have been fighting to protect my communities. And now, I will be bringing my advocacy to City Hall.

Can you explain the importance of having a Queer Women of Color in local office?

As a woman, a woman of color, a queer woman, a feminist, an Iranian-American and an immigrant that use to be undocumented, I bring a perspective that relates to so many members of our community whose voices haven’t been heard. I am able to view things with multiply different lenses and because of that, the future of our city will be able to reflect, not just the majority, but all members whose voices are just as important.

It’s no secret that women running for office are faced with multiple obstacles. Could you share your experience?

There was a lot of misogyny during my race. This was my second run for office and I almost flipped the former mayors’ seat during my first run. This time around I was a front runner challenger and I was told by multiple people to drop out of the race and instead support a cis white male candidate who had never run for office and give him a chance because it was just wasn’t my time and that somehow I was not as qualified. I defied that notion! On the local level, the endorsements given to the male candidates so easily vs. female candidates who are made to jump thru hoops was very telling. Too often women of color are told it’s just not our time, but the truth is… it’s always our time!

As a lawyer who has years of advocacy fighting for the LGBTQ+ community, and a former city commissioner why was your qualification in question vs. your male counterparts with less experience?

History has shown us that women & women of color have had to work ten times harder even if they are more educated and qualified than their male counterparts. I was going up against a very strong boys club, and luckily we shattered that! We have the first-ever female majority on West Hollywood City Council, and I was able to achieve this without any endorsements from the female nor male incumbents that serve on council.

What are your visions for West Hollywood?

We need to bring back our community feel and take the time to get to know our neighbors. West Hollywood needs to create more affordable housing for all so that our beloved community members aren’t forced to leave due to economic displacement. During my time in office, I would like to pass stronger protections to protect our renters, so that they’re not in fear of eviction while living in their own home. I want the BIPOC & LGBTQ+ communities to feel safe and have a voice, and we can do that by creating a social justice task force and appointing more BIPOC & LGBTQ+ onto commissions and boards. We also need more gender equity on our commissions and need to limit developer contributions to candidates for office.

What plan do you have to rebuild our community during COVID-19?

Economic recovery in West Hollywood as well as small business support. My biggest concern and priority is that we continue to keep the community safe and housed during the pandemic. That all community members have the proper resources to continue being housed, and our economy is revived as well. I have an extensive small business support plan as well as wanting us to diversify our revenue stream.

What advice would you give Queer Womxn running for office?

Follow your dreams and don’t let anyone stop you. I’ve achieved a lot of firsts, but I just opened up the pathway with strength and determination. You all have the capacity and the ability to make your dreams come true and run for and get elected into office. I encourage all of you to do so! Please reach out to me. I’m always here and willing to be a mentor for anyone of you who want to get into politics because that’s where our power lies.

Just for fun. What advice would you have given Bette Porter who ran to become mayor of Los Angeles?

(Lol) She should have gone harder after her competitor. It is possible to fight hard like I did but still have integrity.

Black Women Organizers Deserve More Than Just Your Flowers and Thank Yous

Feature image, from left to right: LaTosha Brown, co-founder of the Black Voters Matter Fund, Stacey Abrams, founder of Fair Fight and Nsé Ufot, the CEO of the New Georgia Project.

It’s starting to become a little bit like clockwork. There’s a major national election, and all over social media there are overflowing streams of stories about how for Democrats, Black women voters are a lifeline. That without their over 90% voting bloc, Democratic agendas would die at the ballot box. Then well-meaning non-Black liberals and progressives write “Thank you Black women!” or “Listen to Black women!” or “Black women will save us!”

It’s true that Black women, no matter the age demographic, lead in voting percentages at higher rates than any other racial and gender groups in the country. It’s less reported that Black women are never voting to save “America from itself” — we aren’t voting to save your democracy. We’re voting to save ourselves. We’re using the most powerful collective tool available at our disposal to save our own communities from the racist, racist (yes I said this twice on purpose and not a typo), patriarchal, violent system that we’ve been saddled with by design.

This year in particular, as so many celebrated the election of Joe Biden and the defeat of the racist human horror show that is Donald Trump, one story began bubbling up — that for the first time since 1992, and after nearly 15 years of “almost purple” promises — Georgia was likely to vote for a Democrat for president (as of the time of this writing President-elect Joe Biden leads Donald Trump by 14,057 votes in the state, 49.52% overall, a number that is going to be hard for Trump and the GOP to overcome, though they are trying their hardest to distract the media with their lies). More than that, the strong turn out had also forced a double run-off for Georgia’s two Senate seats — keeping alive the admittedly slim, but not yet impossible, margin of hope that the Democrats might still be able to gain control of the Senate and therefore Congress as house warming present for the Biden Administration. Giving us a real chance to finally have decent values in the laws of our federal government.

Black women organizers, like former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams of the organization Fair Fight or LaTosha Brown, co-founder of the Black Voters Matter Fund, and Nsé Ufot, the CEO of the New Georgia Project, became the focal point of this year’s “thank yous” — with Melissa Harris Perry, professor of Black politics and the Maya Angelou Presidential Chair at Wake Forest University, going as far as to make a biblical joke on Twitter that, “I’d like to see Joe Biden wash Stacey Abrams’ feet with his tears and dry them with his hair.”

When Stacey Abrams lost her 2018 gubernatorial race after rampant voter suppression cost her 55,000 votes — she didn’t just get mad. In a 2019 Vogue feature (aptly titled “Can Stacey Abrams Save American Democracy?”) she told the magazine that she “sat shiva for 10 days” and then she picked herself back up and “started plotting.” Her plotting lead her to start the voting rights organization Fair Fight, which along with the efforts of so many other Black women organizers, registered more than 800,000 new voters in Georgia. Abrams told NPR that 45% of these new voters are under the age of 30 and 49% are people of color. But Stacey Abrams and these other powerful women first started organizing to turn Georgia Blue more than a decade ago. Georgia’s demographics don’t match its leadership, that’s a problem of voter suppression, and not a lack of desire. Organizers knew that with increased voter participation, as well as eduction around elections and voter rights — another future was possible.

A thing about America is that we like to celebrate our victories by saying a quick “thank you” and then just as quickly forget the past. But democracy doesn’t work like that. It requires that we remember. It requires that we work. Honestly, it requires that we never stop working. So if you’re excited that Black voters and organizers in cities like Detroit, Philadelphia and Atlanta, and Indigenous voters/organizers in Wisconsin and Arizona, and Latinx voters/organizers in Arizona and Nevada, saved America from the majority of white people in this country who felt perfectly fine voting an incompetent, dangerous, racist, misogynist, wannabe dictator back into office — please remember these four things.

First, that none of those communities — who overcame forces looking to discount their vote at rates that are unfathomable and positively dystopian to the majority of white Americans — did that work to save you. Second, you can best honor them by championing (and pressuring your elected officials to champion, especially if you live in “moderate” or “swing” districts) progressive values like economic justice, Medicare4All, Indigenous land rights, worker protection, climate change, and a radical transformation for how we imagine “policing” in this country that isn’t scared of words like “defund.” Third, that none of those values can be enacted until Democrats take control back of the Senate.

And finally, Number Four — much like Stacey Abrams, still stinging less than 10 days from her gubernatorial loss, there are only 55 days left until the Senate Georgia run off and it is time we get to work.

Look, I am not Autostraddle’s strongest political analyst. And that’s OK! We have a lot of very smart humans on our staff, and I’m proud to be their colleague and editor. I also believe in the good of our community to do actionable work. I believe we don’t have to be experts to help. And there’s still a Senate race to win in Georgia (two of them, in fact!). So that’s why I am here today.

If you are reading this, and you are not Black, please heed my words: Black women do not need your flowers. We do not need your Thank Yous. Those overly effusive tweets and Instagram posts? We’re good. Being acknowledged is nice, it’s a beginning. But what we need is for you to follow the example that Black women have set for more than the last 200 years: Roll up your sleeves and Get. Back. To. Work.

Here’s a few places where you can start.

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Fair Fight

“Fair Fight Action engages in voter mobilization and education activities and advocates for progressive issues; in addition Fair Fight Action has mounted significant programs to combat voter suppression in Georgia and nationally.” (Founded by Stacey Abrams)

Volunteer Local in Georgia // Volunteer Nationally

Donate

Black Voters Matter Fund

“We seek to achieve our goals with the following 5 core beliefs in mind: 1) The key to effective civic engagement and community power is understanding, respecting and supporting local infrastructure. 2) Black Voters Matter not only on election day, but on the 364 days between election days as well. This means we must support individuals and organizations that are striving to obtain social justice throughout the year. 3) Black Voters Matter *everywhere*, including rural counties and smaller cities/towns that are often ignored by candidates, elected officials, political parties and the media. 4) In order for Black voters to matter, we must utilize authentic messaging which speaks to our issues, connects with our hopes and affirms our humanity. 5) The leadership, talent and commitment demonstrated by Black women in particular must receive recognition and, more importantly, *investment* in order to flourish and multiply.”

The Black Voters Matter Fund does work in Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Alabama and Mississippi. (Co-founded by LaTosha Brown)

Volunteer Local in Georgia and also Nationally

Donate

The New Georgia Project

“The New Georgia Project is a nonpartisan effort to register and civically engage Georgians. Georgia’s population is growing and becoming increasingly diverse. Over the past decade, the population of georgia increased 18%. The new american majority – people of color, those 18 to 29 years of age, and unmarried women – is a significant part of that growth. The new American majority makes up 62% of the voting age population in Georgia, but they are only 53% of registered voters.” (CEO Nsé Ufot)

Volunteer Local in Georgia

Donate

ProGeorgia

“ProGeorgia brings together the power of existing non-profit groups to work in a more strategic way, with new tools and technology, to change the policies of our state. ProGeorgia is building infrastructure by supporting, connecting, and coordinating civic participation efforts of our non-profit member groups. And ProGeorgia is implementing ways to win policy and electoral battles for progressive social change.” (Executive Director Tamieka Atkins)

Volunteer Local in Georgia

Donate

Georgia STAND-UP

“Georgia Strategic Alliance for New Directions and Unified Policies (Georgia STAND-UP), a Think and Act tank for Working Communities, is a Georgia alliance of leaders that represents community, faith, academic, and labor organizations that organize and educate communities about issues related to economic development. With the goal of alleviating poverty and encouraging regional equity through the empowerment of leaders and the inclusion of community benefits, STAND-UP empowers residents to ensure economic development meets the needs of their neighborhoods.” (Executive Director Deborah Scott)

Donate

Donald Trump Is a Loser: We Celebrate, and Then We Get to Work

Finally, after a week spent alternating between intense obsessive election anxiety and pretending to not have intense obsessive election anxiety for the sake of this or that middling zoom meeting, the specific four-year nightmare of Donald Trump earned its closing date. On Saturday, the vote was called in favor of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Donald Trump — who declined the opportunity to mail money directly to the voters in the weeks leading up to the election, who has spent the last eight months literally murdering his potential supporters  — finally fell far enough behind in a few key swing states that the electoral college votes fell squarely into Biden’s hands. Yes, this specific nightmare is ending. But we are nowhere near achieving our actual dreams.

Still, we can take a minute to celebrate. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris received over 73 million votes, the most of any presidential ticket in U.S. history. Kamala Harris will become the first woman, the first woman of color, the first Black woman and the first South Asian woman to serve as vice president. Her chief-of staff, Karine Jean-Pierre, is a Black lesbian. We have a team who have indicated a willingness to listen and evolve on issues where they’ve let us down in the past, who are behind LGBTQ equality, who plan to restore our standing on the world stage and our presence in international efforts to tackle climate change. The second time I teared up on Saturday night was when Biden said he was assembling a team of scientists to tackle the pandemic. We have an administration that actually believes in science, a very useful tool during a medical emergency! (The first time I teared up was Kamala talking about her Mom, the third time was on my sofa at 10 PM watching celebration videos on TikTok from various cities set to “This is America”?)

Once again, Black voters and Black women voters specifically propelled the Democratic ticket to victory. They tipped the scales in cities like Detroit, Milwaukee and in Philadelphia to shift swing states into Biden’s hands, with an estimated 91% percent of Black women voting for the Democratic candidate. As Taylor Crumpton wrote in The Washington Post, “Black women are the country’s most powerful political force.” Georgia, a state that hasn’t elected a Democratic presidential candidate since 1992, is swinging blue following an unprecedented effort by activists including Stacey Abrams, Tamieka Atkins, Helen Butler, Deborah Scott, Nsé Ufot and LaTosha Brown, whose created networks and work to highlight voter suppression brought an estimated 800,000 new voters to the polls this year. Furthermore, in Arizona and Wisconsin, Indigenous voters were a major force swinging the election in Biden’s favor. The communities most disenfranchised by the current system and corroded by the pandemic and its corresponding recession delivered this win. Meanwhile, exit polls show Trump continuing to be the more popular pick amongst white men and women and all people of color being much more likely to support Biden. Those same polls also show that the kids are all right  — 68% of first time voters voted for Joe Biden, and he owes his success in part to powerful networks of youth organizers.

Listen. None of us here were stoked about Joe Biden. In July, when it was looking like he was set to be the nominee, 98.7% of our readers indicated that they were not enthusiastic about voting for Joe Biden. But we sure did!

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On Saturday, despite a pandemic that inspires within many of us a constant simmering panic regarding being around other humans, many of us flooded the streets in cities worldwide to celebrate this historic election. I woke up on Saturday in West Hollywood to a lot of honking cars and texts, including a friend who declared a desire to “pop bottles” at the ungodly hour of 9:30 AM.

We knew people would be congregating at the corner of Santa Monica and La Cienega — an intersection where the crosswalks are painted rainbows and the neighborhood’s many well-off gay men face a bounty of options for drinking and dancing — and so circa 1 PM, my pod and I were headed there in our masks to be, you know, “in community.”

Because Donald Trump — a profoundly stupid and hateful white supremacist / rapist / adult baby / misogynist / xenophobe / transphobe / capitalist / narcissist — had been voted out of office, and good news has been in short supply this year, and everybody needed one thing to be happy about for one minute. It was a restrained celebration insofar as most of us, at this point, have committed ourselves to a small group of humans we socialize with exclusively, and many stayed home to stay safe, which was the smarter choice. But there was so much joy in the air we fear.

One of my friends had decided to wear a royal blue suit and aviator sunglasses and scream “I’m Joe Biden!” all afternoon, a bit largely disfavored by her girlfriend but very popular with the crowds. So we were blazing down Santa Monica and she was leaning out the window doing finger-guns and screaming “Thank you for your votes!” to the crowded sidewalks. Then she ducked in to pass a champagne bottle to the front seat and leaned towards me and said, “just so we’re all on the same page here, we are celebrating for Joe fucking Biden right now, like we are all screaming right now for Joe fucking Biden.” She took another generous swallow and was back out the moon roof, screaming.

That about sums it up, you know?

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Exactly four years ago, while we sorted through our collective devastation and fear regarding the actual election of the worst person of all time for the office of President of the United States, Rachel Kincaid wrote a post for this website called “We Grieve, and Then We Get To Work.” In it, she listed things we could expect to see in the coming years: a deeply racist, colonialist, misogynistic GOP having much greater freedom and power to create, block and enforce legislation; a violent colonialist agenda against Native people, a Supreme Court appointee best described as “a huge loss,” and “violence, from the white people all over the country… who voted for this.” She implored white people to listen to people of color in the coming years, and to “study the civil rights movement and other liberation movements, not like you’re getting ready for a test but like you’re getting ready to help people survive.” She was, of course, correct about what would go wrong, and also correct about what comes next.

We got rid of Donald Trump. And it is exhilarating. A dark cloud lifting, you could say. A moment of relief. A moment to scream and breathe and breathe again.

And if you have a shred of hope right now, if you, like me, are perhaps white and/or otherwise privileged enough to not have been personally targeted by the Trump administration, then we can’t let ourselves get complacent.

If this past administration: throwing migrant children in cages separated from their parents, declaring “good people on both sides” at a violent white supremacist rally, referring to Black Lives Matter as a “terrorist group,” ordering the U.S. border closed to immigration from Muslim-majority nations, pardoning legendary white supremacist sheriff Joe Arpaio, retweeting racist conspiracy theories, decrying the removal of confederate statues as “un-American,” flooding local police departments with military-grade weapons, referring to protestors against racialized violence as “looters and lowlifes,” attempting to undo DACA, gutting plans to expand internet and telephone access in tribal areas, limiting the use of consent decrees that monitor local police departments who violate citizens’ civil rights, suggesting that four congresswomen of color “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came,” taking zero action to prevent the spread of COVID (which disproportionately impacts Black and brown communities) while blaming its spread entirely on China, rolling back Obama-era housing rules to diminish racial segregation in housing, calling Kamala Harris a “monster” and Maxine Waters “an extraordinarily low IQ person,” doing anything his cronies could think of to prevent Black communities from voting, proclaiming racial sensitivity training a “racist” and “radical” program that teaches people to hate America, calling undocumented immigrants and/or gang members “animals,” pushing for a greater police presence in public schools, expanding ICE and private prisons, appointing exactly zero Black judges to the Appeals Court, hiring numerous white nationalists into top positions in his administration including policy advisor Stephen fucking Miller, removing caps on phone rates for prisoners, repeatedly scapegoating immigrants and communities of color as criminals and the primary sources of gun violence — among SO MANY OTHER THINGS — and, finally, received 71 million votes despite all of this —

— if this doesn’t wake us up to the incalculable human rights catastrophe of systemic racism in this white supremacist police state and implore upon us the urgency of doing everything we can to change that for as long as we live — then we don’t deserve hope.

Extra! Extra!: As the Dust Settles, Here’s What We’ve Learned So Far in the 2020 Election

Last week I was full of the nervous anxiety you feel when you know something big is about to happen, and you’re just counting down the clock. This week I’ve been full of the nervous anxiety of indefinite waiting. And yet, in that time, so much has happened in the world. In this week’s Extra! Extra! we share some reflections on the 2020 election and news on events from Vienna to Poland to Ethiopia to the Philippines to New Zealand to Chile.

Election 2020 Updates

If Trump Tries to Sue His Way to Election Victory, Here’s What Happens

Natalie: It seems clear, between the expanding margins in the remaining states and the president’s tweets this morning, that this is the path that the Trump campaign will take next. They will move out of state court and into federal courts, in part hoping to lean less on the facts — after all, there are none to buttress their claims of fraud — and more on exacting political favors from those judges he put in their seats.

What’ll be interesting to me is seeing in which states the Trump campaign calls for recounts in. Aside from being highly unlikely to flip the results of an election, they’re also an expensive gambit — the Wisconsin recount will cost the campaign $3M, for example — and the campaign was threadbare before the election. It’ll be interesting to see if some strategy starts to coalesce around which states to challenge or if we’ll just continue to see the campaign throwing everything against the wall and seeing what sticks.

Some Reflections on What We Know So Far

This Is America

Natalie: These last few days have been a lot for many of us. Even if the numbers remain what they are — that is, Joe Biden winning the presidency by an unprecedented amount and flipping Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona and Georgia (!!) in the process — the sting of these last few days will still linger. As she is wont to do, Roxane Gay really gets to the heart of the matter here.

There is part of the country that sees “equity as oppression,” that believes “in democracy that serves their interests,” and Biden has to govern in that…we have to live in that and I don’t really know how.

Looks Like Black Voters Were Correct to Be Pragmatic

Natalie: Joe Biden was not my choice in the Democratic primary…he was not my second choice or my third or even my fourth…but I understood — particularly as a black woman from the South — about why folks were coalescing around him. There was a pragmatism at the root of it all…but Julia Craven makes an argument about policy that I don’t think really stands up, when compared to exit polls from the primary. State after state revealed that black voters embraced the policy ideas of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren but ultimately voted for Biden because they, ultimately, didn’t have as much faith in white voters to support those ideas in the campaign.

Himani: Natalie, you once said to me, “Black people know white people better than they know themselves.” I was reminded of the truth of that statement when I read this op-ed from Julia Craven. I’m also reminded of this Tumblr post that was shared with me earlier this week. As theteej writes after seeing countless white people grieving that there wasn’t a Big Blue Wave on November 3: “But what they were really grieving was their own innocence. Their naïve assumption that they could be the heroes in a story, in a history of violence that was expressly built for them, even if they wanted to deny it.”

As of writing this, Vox has already called the election for Biden, but the Associated Press hasn’t yet. I went to bed last night looking at a less than 2,500 vote margin in Georgia thinking, “the fucked up part is that, were it not for the rampant voter suppression in Georgia, we wouldn’t be waiting” and woke up this morning to see that the razor thin margin had shifted the other way. Regardless of what happens in Pennsylvania, Georgia is looking like our last hope for Democrats to regain control in the Senate. And the person we have to thank for that is Stacey Abrams. A Black woman who was shafted by the system (of course she was) but continued to put in the work anyways (of course she did) because she knows how to play the long game: that none of what any of us on the left want to see happen is possible without restoring the franchise to Black voters. Because the racially targeted voter suppression that is rampant in this country is one of the main reasons why this system is, as theteej writes “expressly built for them [white people]” and why as, Craven writes, Black voters don’t have the same luxuries of choice going into the voting booth that white voters do.

Many Places Hard Hit By COVID-19 Leaned More Toward Trump In 2020 Than 2016

Rachel: This is unfortunately just a confirmation of things we already knew, in a few ways. First of all, that among his supporters, Trump’s reaction to the pandemic or lack thereof is unfortunately not going to make a dent; if evidence or even threats to their personal health were going to make a difference, they would have a long time ago. If anything, Trump’s underlying rhetoric around the virus – any reference to the impact your choices have on others is an attempt to control you, truly strong/powerful people don’t have consequences for their actions, science is usually a hoax – has reified their belief systems. More important than that, though, it brings me back to the ‘voting against their own interests’ discourse we’ve seen applied to white voters, especially working-class white voters, who have continued to vote Republican and vote Trump even when it meant losing things they desperately needed, like jobs, healthcare, or stimulus money. I need pundits and white laypeople to finally let go of the narrative that this is a baffling choice to “vote against their own interests” and look at the situation objectively to acknowledge what’s happening: white people are rational actors, not helpless confused children; they can see the facts as well as anyone else and their choices indicate that they consider their priorities to be harming Black & brown folks and maintaining their place in a racial hierarchy, and they are in fact voting in that interest. Reckoning with the fact that many, many people in the US have prioritized racism as a value over their own lives and that of their families in a pandemic is intense, for sure, but there is no space left to realistically consider anything else, and in thinking about Trump folks from here on this is the framework we all have to acknowledge (even when it comes to our own friends and family, white folks).

Mississippians Overwhelmingly Voted Down a Jim Crow–Era Election Provision

Himani: This truly seems like an unprecedented turning point in Mississippi. I honestly didn’t even know about this century-old, incredibly disenfranchising policy that, basically, rigged elections in the favor of White people. I’m (cautiously) optimistic that in the elections to come we’re going to see even greater changes and movement towards racial equality in Mississippi.

Native voters are indeed something else

Record number of Native American women elected to Congress

Rachel: There will be so much talk about electoral demographics and analysis of breakdowns in racial voting blocs in the days to come, and certainly, we should talk about it! I do want to make sure that it doesn’t get lost, as Native issues so often do, that Native voters had both remarkably high turnouts and remarkably high returns for Biden this election, incredible when you also factor in how poorly resourced and suppressed our government keeps most Indigenous communities. Native communities have been under attack from the Trump administration for so long, and have been hit so hard by COVID with no relief or resources in sight; it’s worth noting in the larger election narrative how hard they showed up to oppose Trump, especially in many battleground states like Wisconsin, where more than 60 percent of eligible voters in Menominee County registered this year, and Arizona, where Native Americans are 5.6 percent of eligible voters and went overwhelmingly for Biden. Related, while Democrats as a whole haven’t won significant and in some cases have lost House seats, we’re seeing a record number of Native women elected (although, to be clear, not all the Native women elected here are Dems); Cherokee, Ho-Chunk, Laguna Pueblo, Chickasaw, Navajo, Native Hawaiian, Tohono O’odham and Ponca members are all represented.

Natalie: This is such great news. Of course, I’m thrilled to see the Native American caucus gain new membership and seeing Sharice Davids win re-election. The Navajo Times adds some specifics: “Apache, Navajo and Coconino counties, the three that overlap the Navajo Nation, went solidly for Joe Biden, with…a 97 percent turnout for Biden compared to 51 percent statewide.” That’s really unprecedented and I hope Rachel’s right that it means that Native issues will be elevated in the Biden/Harris White House.

Environmental Havoc as U.S. (#1 Contributor to Emissions) Leaves Paris Agreement

U.S. Officially Leaving Paris Climate Agreement

Super Typhoon Goni leaves devastation across the Philippines

Eta Is Now A ‘Major Hurricane’ As It Barrels Towards Central American Coast

7.0 Magnitude Earthquake Strikes In Aegean Sea; At Least 14 Dead In Turkey And Greece

Natalie: Earlier this week, the United States formally exited the Paris Climate Agreement. The nation that is responsible for a disproportionate amount of emissions has absconded on its responsibility to do something about it. And while a change in the White House will help, no doubt about that, I wonder how much losses in Maine, Iowa and (probably) North Carolina will cost us in the fight against climate change. Sure, we might be able to win the Senate seats in Georgia in the New Year or be able to gain ground in the midterms (2022) but particularly on climate change, immediate action is absolutely crucial.

The Super Typhoon, Eta, the earthquake…they’re all stark reminders that we can’t keep waiting to do something.

And We (All) Really Need to Do So Much Better

Cars too dangerous and dirty for rich countries are being sold to poor ones

Himani: This is one of the most infuriating things I’ve read in awhile (yes, even in the midst of all this bull shit that Trump is pulling). All these Western and developed countries selling off cars with poor emissions and low safety to developing countries so that they can say they’re meeting their climate benchmarks…? I’m almost at a loss for words on this… It feels like yet another version of the U.S. selling ridiculous amounts of non-recyclable plastic to Asian countries so that Americans feel good about all of the waste they’re creating in the world. The “reduce” part of the equation seems to be eluding us. The only real answer to climate change is to reduce consumption, not shift it somewhere else “out of sight, out of mind” as they say.

The State of Government Around the World: The Grim

Ethiopia Edges Toward Civil War As Federal Government Orders Attack On Tigray Region

Himani: Things have not been looking so great in Ethiopia for months now. In addition to this news about the potential for war in the northern region of the country, there was a massacre in a central region (Oromia) over the weekend that left over 50 people dead, although some reports suggest that is a gross underestimate. There is a long history of ethnic tensions in East Africa that I can’t provide any meaningful insight on because I just don’t know a whole lot about it. This latest issue in Tigray, though, is at least partly a response to the federal government’s putting off the 2020 elections until a vaccine is available for COVID-19 or (in other words) indefinitely.

Israel Uses Cover Of U.S. Election To Destroy Palestinian Homes, Critics Say

As India drifts into autocracy, nonviolent protest is the most powerful resistance

Natalie: Given that nonviolent resistance has its origins in India, this does not surprise.

Himani: That is incredibly true, and I also think about the fact that the RSS, the ruling BJP party’s paramilitary sibling, was established pretty much the same time that Gandhi was promoting nonviolent resistance. That modern India’s acceleration towards authoritarianism has its roots in the same independence movement that gave birth to nonviolent resistance. What we’re seeing in India is how susceptible democracy can be to corruption, that some people wield difference as a weapon because winning is the only thing that matters. What we’re seeing is yet another reminder of how precarious democracy really is.

Four people ‘killed in cold blood’ in Vienna during night of terror

Muslims worldwide are protesting French President Macron’s crackdown on Islam

Himani: The violence in Vienna is horrifying, as well as some of the brutal murders that have happened in France recently. But I do worry that Westerners respond to situations like this in ways that only further create the environment for resentment and (in some cases) extremism. Macron’s hypocritical leaning into “religious freedoms” at the expense of granting French Muslims the respect and autonomy that other religions get in France has, understandably, angered Muslims the world over. As far as I know, there’s no connection between what’s happened in Vienna and what’s unfolding in France, and I’m not trying to claim there is one. But I do worry that the Viennese response will mirror what’s happening in France, which will only serve to further alienate Muslim communities in Europe.

The State of Government Around the World: The Hopeful

‘You have to be daring’: groundbreaking leader of Canada’s Greens ready to seize her moment

Why New Zealand rejected populist ideas other nations have embraced

Rachel: This article was fascinating to me, and I’d love to hear other thoughts on it; the dek at least on social media seems to argue that the reason NZ/Aotearoa hasn’t been fertile ground for far-right extremists is that Murdoch-owned media enterprises, like Fox, aren’t as present there. Reading through the article, though, that thesis seems less specifically argued; it notes that several politicians and public figures have tried to brand political campaigns as far-right Q-Anon-inspired crusaders, and all have flopped pretty embarrassingly. It’s true that it doesn’t seem FOX or a similar surrogate is a big presence in NZ, but it also doesn’t really account for how big a factor social media and especially YouTube and Facebook are in these movements, especially QAnon; at this point extremist media doesn’t recognize borders, and so it feels to me that the story is more complicated. The other point of note is that the overall rate of satisfaction with government in NZ is very high compared to other nations and has remained so for decades, whereas in the US it’s consistently dropping; maybe overall satisfaction and stability just make the population less vulnerable to radicalization. However, several Scandinavian nations also have responsive governments with high rates of satisfaction, and white nationalist movements still have a foothold there, too (although I’m not versed enough in their electoral landscape to know how far-right politicians are faring). Would love to hear from folks abroad about this!

Poland delays abortion ban as nationwide protests continue

Natalie: The pushback on this abortion ban has been one of the most inspiring things to watch over the last few weeks…and, of course, I can’t help but wonder if/when an attempt to undo Roe comes to pass in the United States, if we’ll be as bold or as brave.

Chileans want a more equal society. They’re about to rewrite their constitution to have it.

Himani: In what has turned out to be an incredibly difficult and depressing year, this is probably the most uplifting news I’ve read. When the protests broke out a year ago, many writers pointed out how Chile was the living example of what happens when you take free market economics to its endpoint, and it was atrocious: A seemingly meagre four cent fare increase had such serious consequences for so many people because of the decades-long income inequality. As I followed the protests in Chile, I really could never imagine that it would end in rewriting the constitution that had made those free-market principles the rule of law. There’s so much difficult work ahead for Chileans and not much time to do it in, but this truly feels like a bright moment in this otherwise grim year.

Rachel: I can’t agree enough with Himani; this has been incredibly heartening and centering to watch. I’ve noted a couple times in this column how meaningful it has been to me to watch ideology, organizing and protest tactics be communicated between nations and communities, from Palestine to Hong Kong to Chile to the US; I’m so happy for the Chilean people about this development and it helps me sustain hope that this kind of change is possible elsewhere, too.

Lesbian, Bisexual, Queer, and Trans Candidates Won Big Again in State Elections This Year

It seems like we’ve been stuck in purgatory this week, awaiting the results of the 2020 presidential election — but as the final ballot counts continue to trickle in from the remaining states, and things continue to look better and better for Joe Biden, we’ve actually gotten lots of good news about the LGBTQ women and non-binary candidates we profiled in our 2020 Voring Guide.

It isn’t all rainbows, though. Unlike 2018, when the rainbow wave overwhelmed and helped drive gains in the House and across the country, Tuesday’s results were a mixed bag.

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A Mixed Bag

+ In California, Georgette Gómez lost her Congressional bid in the CA-53. Votes in the state’s legislative races are still being counted but early numbers don’t look good for Jackie Fielder in SD-11 or Jackie Smith in AD-06.

Still, there’s encouraging news in early returns for Susan Talamantes Eggman (SD-5) and Abigail Medina (SD-21). Either would be the first LGBTQ woman of color to serve in the State Senate if they win.

+ In Texas, Democrats were as optimistic about their electoral prospects as they’d been in decades but that optimism did not bear fruit on election day. A particularly disappointing showing among Democrats along the Texas-Mexico border cost Gina Ortiz-Jones a win in the TX-23.

Efforts to win back the State House also fell short though Ann Johnson’s success in HD-134 means that the LGBTQ Caucus will gain a new member.

+ In Minnesota, Angie Craig has declared victory in the MN-02 but the race remains tight. Even if the numbers hold, Craig will likely find herself in court — and facing a possible do-over — soon thereafter.

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But there is plenty of unabashed good news

+ Entire slates of LGBTQ+ candidates won their legislative races in Colorado, Kansas, Maine, Nevada,New Mexico and Vermont.

+ In Oklahoma, the state elected its first Muslim and first black queer lawmaker in Mauree Turner. They are also the first openly non-binary state legislator in the nation’s history.

+ TRANS WOMEN ARE WINNING: Lisa Bunker and Gerri Cannon from New Hampshire and Brianna Titone from Colorado were both re-elected their respective state house races. Titone’s re-election is particularly sweet given the level of anti-trans bigotry she was subjected to throughout her campaign.

Among the newly elected: Stephanie Byers in Kansas and Taylor Small in Vermont make history as the first openly trans elected officials in their respective state houses. Also, in Delaware, Sarah McBride won and will become the nation’s first trans state senator.

+ ELECT BLACK QUEER WOMEN: Though much of the news from Florida was disappointing, Michele Rayner’s election in the HD-70 was a triumph. She will become the state’s first black queer woman in the legislature.

We’re still waiting to see what happen in Georgia‘s statewide races but when the legislature reconvenes in the new year, Kim Jackson will be among its membership. The Episcopalian priest will be Georgia’s first LGBTQ state senator.

Jackson will share that distinction with Rhode Island’s Tiara Mack who will become the first black queer woman to serve in the state senate.

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Here are other Lesbian, Bisexual, Queer, and Trans Candidates who won their races on Tuesday (list will be updated as we get additional confirmations):

+ Arkansas – Tippi McCullough

+ California – Toni Atkins and Sabrina Cervantes

+ Colorado – Daneya Esgar, Joann Ginal, Leslie Herod, Sonya Jaquez Lewis and Brianna Titone

+ Delaware – Sarah McBride

+ Florida – Michele Rayner

+ Georgia – Park Cannon, Kim Jackson, Renitta Shannon and Karla Drenner

+ Illinois – Kelly Cassidy

+ Iowa – Liz Bennett

+ Kansas – Stephanie Byers, Sharice Davids and Susan Ruiz

+ Maine – Lois Galgay Reckitt, Laurie Osher, Sarah Pebworth and Charlotte Warren

+ Massachusetts – Jo Comerford

+ Michigan – Jody LaMacchia

+ Missouri – Ashley Bland Manlove

+ Montana – Kim Abbott and Andrea Olsen

+ Nebraska – Megan Hunt

+ Nevada – Cecelia González, Dallas Harris, Sarah Peters, Melanie Scheible and Pat Spearman

+ New Hampshire – Lisa Bunker, Gerri Cannon, Sue Mullen and Rebecca Perkins Kwoka

+ New Mexico – Brittney Barreras, Carrie Hamblen and Liz Stefanics

+ New York – Deborah Glick

+ North Carolina – Vernetta Alston, Deb Butler, Allison Dahle and Marcia Morey

+ Oklahoma – Mauree Turner

+ Oregon – Tina Kotek, Kate Lieber and Karin Power

+ Pennsylvania – Jessica Benham

+ Rhode Island – Rebecca Kislak, Tiara Mack and Deb Ruggiero

+ Texas – Jessica Gonzalez, Mary Gonzalez, Celia Israel, Ann Johnson, Julie Johnson and Erin Zwiener

+ US Virgin Islands – Janelle Sarauw

+ Vermont – Becca Balint, Kathleen James and Taylor Small

+ Washington – Kirsten Harris-Talley, Laurie Jinkins and Nicole Macri

+ West Virginia – Amanda Estep-Burton

+ Wisconsin – Marisabel Cabrera

+ Wyoming – Cathy Connolly

Some Good News: 2020 Legislative Wins So Far

While we all anxiously await the official word on the presidency, it doesn’t seem like a half-bad time to look at some positive news. There were pieces of state, county and city legislation passed in this election that are worthy of celebration — or at least a small flicker of hope in our hearts. Many of these measures and propositions were included in our extensive 2020 LGBTQ Voter Guide, where you can also find out more about the queer candidates who ran in this election.

Please share in the comments if there are winning ballot measures that you’re excited about — not all voting results were in when this was written, and this list is by no means exhaustive! Additionally, I recognize that a “win” is subjective and you’re welcome to give us your own take in the comments too.

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California

Prop 17 in CA

Restores the right for convicted felons on parole to vote!

San Francisco Prop I

Doubles San Francisco’s real estate transfer tax on properties of $10 million or more, for the city’s general fund.

San Francisco Prop E

While not the police abolishment being called for, this reform measure does toss out a previous mandate to keep the city’s police force staffed with 1,971 full-duty officers, which may be a step toward defunding the police.

Los Angeles Measure J

Requires that Los Angeles County spends at least 10% of its discretionary general fund on “alternatives to incarceration” programs, to keep youth out of prison and programs to support the people coming out of prison.

Colorado

Prop 118

Provides 12 weeks of paid time off for workers with health emergencies and who are caring for sick relatives or newborns. This time can be extended to 16 weeks for pregnancy complications.

Prop 114

Supports a plan to reintroduce and manage grey wolves on designated lands west of the continental divide to restore natural balance to ecosystems.

Prop 115

An attempt to ban abortion in the state after 22 weeks of gestation was rejected by voters, maintaining Colorado as one of the seven states in the country with no limit on when people can have an abortion.

Florida

Amendment 2

Raises minimum wage to $15 an hour, by the year 2026, and would affect an estimated 2.5 million workers in the state.

Illinois

Chicago Public Question 3

Restricts the sale and possession of firearms defined as assault weapons or magazines that can hold more than a certain number of rounds of ammunition.

DuPage County COVID-19 PPE Stockpile Advisory Referendum

Advising the county to stockpile PPE for distribution to nursing homes, first responders, health care providers and at-risk communities.

Maryland

Question A

Supports the city issuing $12 million in bonds to provide funding for the Affordable Housing Program.

Nevada

Question 2

Recognizes marriage between couples regardless of gender, and repeals a previous 2002 Question 2 that defines marriage as between a man and a woman.

Ohio

Akron Release of Recordings from Police Body and Dashboard Cameras After Use of Force Charter Amendment

Supports requiring recordings from body/dash cams to be released to the public.

Oklahoma

Proposition 7 in Oklahoma City

Replaces gender-specific language such as “councilman” with gender-neutral language such as “councilmember.”

Oregon

Multnomah County Measure 25-214

Provides free preschool that prioritizes BIPOC students, funded by higher-income earners.

Multnomah County Measure 26-217

Again, it’s reform, not police abolishment and there is no promise that a police oversight committee will prevent further police violence or abuse, but voters did decide to put in place an independent police oversight board to investigate police records and activities, and time will tell us what this means.

Rhode Island

Question 1

Removes “Providence Plantation” from the official name of Rhode Island.

Texas

Austin Prop A 

Austin will be investing $7.1 billion dollars in an expansive mass transit rail system.

Garland Proposition A

They’re gonna build a much-needed, new library branch! Good for them.

Washington

Referendum 90

Mandatory sexual health education in public schools, starting in kindergarten, though parents can opt their kids out.

Marijuana & Drug Legislation

Legalized Recreational Marijuana: Arizona, Montana, New Jersey
Legalized Medicinal Marijuana: Mississippi
Legalized Recreational and Medicinal: South Dakota
Decriminalized personal possession of all drugs and legalized psychedelics for medical purposes: Oregon
Decriminalized psychedelics: Washington DC

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Slide into these comments and to tell us what local wins are bringing you a sparkle of joy today!

Tracy Chapman Said “It’s Time for a Revolution” in First Television Performance in Five Years

This whole entire Election Situation has already reached impossible levels. It’s very real, and very serious, and very scary. I hope to take away from none of that very important focus by telling you that the 2020 election has also brought Tracy Chapman back to our lives with her first televised performance in five years. (Holy shit.)

Last night, as the stars twinkled in a night sky on an Election Eve that was less than three days after a Blue Moon Halloween, Tracy Chapman took to “Late Night with Seth Meyers” to perform “Talkin’ Bout a Revolution,” from her 1988, legendary queer, six-time platinum self-titled debut.

Ahead of her performance, Chapman released a simple statement: “This is the most important election of our lifetime. It is imperative that everyone vote to restore our democracy.”

Autostraddle Managing Editor Rachel Kincaid put it best:

https://twitter.com/danascullyirl/status/1323666625942401027

The performance begins with Chapman’s famous silhouette in side profile, filtered in black-and-white. Her guitar starts strumming and everything, just for one moment, feels focused in its purpose. Then she sings, the richness of her voice just pouring into what’s been left hollow and scared:

“Don’t you know / They’re talkin’ about a revolution / It sounds like a whisper / While they’re standing in the welfare lines / Crying at the doorsteps of those armies of salvation / Wasting time in the unemployment lines / Sitting around waiting for a promotion.” 

Tracy closes her performance out with a elegant tweak to her iconic lyrics: “Talkin’ ’bout a revolution / Go vote,” as the word “VOTE” appeared behind her small block lettering.

I dare your heart not to pound directly out of its chest! You know what you have to do.

US Election 2020 Open Thread: Hoo Boy, Here We Go!

Today is the day! Whether you’ve been dreading it or wishing desperately for an end to election cycle news and wanting to get it over with, we’re all in the same boat now, and that boat is this open thread. We aren’t liveblogging this election, both because doing so in 2016 took a regrettable personal toll on the livebloggers (me and Yvonne) and because there are plenty of other resources that can provide you minute-by-minute updates better than we can. We’re here to provide a communal space to feel less alone and to help process a bit among friends, and because it’s so confusing to even know what to do on this day, one which will be filled with anxiety for most of us but which won’t contain anything concrete until late evening at the earliest, more likely the next day (or several). Not sure what to do with your tired brain and nervous energy? You can put it here!

Do you have voting experiences or frustrations to share? Local races you’re keeping an eye on? Questions about candidates or election law you’re curious to hear thoughts on? Need to scream into the void? Not in the US and want to ask someone what the fuck is going on over here? This is the spot! What’s going on for you?

2020 Voter Suppression Efforts They Don’t Want You To Know About

This post was written by Himani Gupta and Natalie Duggins.

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“When elected officials feel they may not have the power anymore, they have two choices,” Stacey Abrams suggests in the new documentary, All In: The Fight for Democracy. “They can either be more responsive to those they lead, or they can eliminate the people they have to answer to.”

Far too often, the choice of today’s politicians choose the latter option.

But our history is laced with these moments: periods of social and political advancement for women and people of color, followed by a ferocious backlash meant to disrupt and disenfranchise and, above all, sustain the patriarchy and advance the cause of white supremacy. The election of Barack Obama in 2008 ushered in the latest backlash. The shift had less to do with the fact that the United States had elected its first black president — though, it’s hard to imagine the timing being purely coincidental — than the fact that the Obama campaign had brought 15 million first-time voters into the process. That fact, for politicians desperate to hold onto their power, was untenable.

“The Obama coalition becomes the hitlist for voter suppression: how do we stop African Americans, Hispanics, Asian Americans, the young and the poor from voting?” historian Carol Anderson asks in All In. “The Supreme Court decision, Shelby County v. Holder, allowed that to happen.”

In Shelby, the Supreme Court eliminated the section of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) that determined which jurisdictions were required to seek federal approval before passing new any voting laws. The majority, led by noted VRA opponent John Roberts, thought the coverage formula was outdated, making it unresponsive to current needs and thus creating an unconstitutional burden for states. But for voting rights advocates — to quote the late, great Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg — “[t]hrowing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.”

After Shelby what used to be a bipartisan pursuit — the VRA required periodic reauthorization and each of those renewals were signed by Republican presidents: Richard Nixon in 1970, Gerald Ford in 1975, Ronald Reagan in 1982 and George W. Bush in 2006 — became a completely partisan exercise. Democrats wanted to expand the franchise, Republicans wanted to limit participation, under the guise of non-existent voter fraud. Shelby set off a firestorm of anti-voter efforts: from voter ID to voter roll purges to the elimination of voting precincts to gerrymandering.

The impact of those efforts were felt mightily in 2016, the first national election following Shelby. Over 1600 precincts closed in states that would have been subject to preclearance. According to a post-election study by Priorities USA, a Democratic super-PAC, turnout in 2016 decreased by 1.7 percent in the three states that adopted stricter voter ID laws but increased by 1.3 percent in states where ID laws did not change. All In highlights a voter purge — meant to excise people from the rolls who hadn’t participated in an election for six years — in Ohio that wrongly kicked 400,000 people off the voter rolls. All in all — even before factoring in Russia interference and suppressive action from the Trump campaign — it seems increasingly likely that the 2016 election wasn’t decided on November 8, 2016, it was decided on June 25, 2013.

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To a degree, voters have become hip to the game. Having learned from 2016, campaigns adjusted their engagement strategies and pushed turnout to unprecedented levels for a midterm campaign. But even as voters learn to play the game, according to the stated rules, Republicans are hard at work rewriting those rules. And while the courts have been a firewall in some areas of the country, Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell’s dogged efforts to reshape the federal judiciary are already starting to have a suppressive effect on the 2020 election.

Then, once you add COVID-19 to the mix, there’s a real potential for historic levels of voter suppression. Here’s a look at some states where voter suppression efforts are already at work:

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The documentary, All In: The Fight for Democracy, is now available to watch on Amazon Prime Video. If you run into an issue while voting, call or text 866-OUR-VOTE (866-687-8683) to get voting help from a trained Election Protection volunteer.

Real Candidates and Party Reps on What’s at Stake for Trans Rights in the 2020 Election

Journalists these days have diluted the last vestiges of Walter Cronkite neutrality for rabid tribalism and the co-opted neologism of fake news. It’s not that partisan cheerleading is necessarily a bad thing in an age of politics-as-bloodsport. In fact, it goes against the old-school muckraker manifesto propagated in Ethics in Journalism classes at mid-level state schools across America.

Back in my J-School day, I was taught by bespectacled septuagenarian on a clattering typewriter as he relived his byline glory days and a spec script he submitted for NBC’s Law & Order. In this quaint scene, he almost crushed up Marlboros in an amber-glassed ashtray for full-on cliché.

It’s not inherently biased to say that President Donald Trump is a master media manipulator. In the 1980s, he lowered his voice a few octaves and moonlit as his own publicist to curry favor with New York Post journalists. In Trump’s America, impartial journalists have officially died.

Criticisms could be made, but I figure it’s best to shoot straight. The average Pete Buttigieg voter repeatedly told me to get a job at Starbucks Corporation for the transgender health insurance. After my thwarted attempts at obtaining trans health care with the rainbow capitalists at Starbucks for two years, I became further disillusioned with the mainstream Democratic party. “Why don’t you light your ballot on fire as you leave your polling site if you despise the Democratic party that much?’ a liberal on Facebook recently snarked. And trust me, I’ve considered it.

Now I’m not a complete dyed-in-the-wool revolutionary, but I’ve certainly sniffed around the hard-left socialist ramparts over my lifetime. I spent a good part of 2008 attending the Party for Socialism and Liberation meetings in East Harlem and then I ended up voting for a communist who lived out of his station wagon for alderman.

Full disclosure: I currently live in one of the wealthiest counties in America with two conservative bioparents who literally watch ten hours of Fox News every damn day. I’ve witnessed Judge Jeanine’s bleary face blown up on a plasma TV screen probably 900 times this pandemic alone.

I also briefly volunteered for the Democrat candidate rebuttal in this piece for Autostraddle on the current political trans landscape. Courtenay D. Rogers ran for District 63 of the Tennessee House of Representatives in 2016. “I come from a conservative military background and was pretty Republican until 2008. I was like, “Who is this Obama guy? He looks cool,” she told me. Since Rogers is the current treasurer of the Williamson County Democratic Party, I figured her perspective was vital at understanding the political calculus behind trans issues in a deeply red state.

On the subject of LGBTQ+ marriage equality, inter-party squabbling has subsided despite concerns about Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s religious background and a last-minute Supreme Court nomination. To hear Rogers tell it, most moderate Democrats in her staunchly conservative district are supportive of transgender rights. Given this quiet storm before a potential dust-up over the SCOTUS’s Obergefell v Hodges gay marriage ruling, Joe Biden has made concessions to the queer community with a recent National Coming Out Day acknowledgement on Twitter.

Biden’s transgender surrogates, meanwhile, are quick to bring up Biden’s leading evolution on marriage equality as his sole trans community bona fide. In a recent New York Times re-telling, trans activist Sarah McBride’s friendship with the Biden family was trotted out to drive this talking point home further. Despite the political goodwill and a general Trump animus, I witnessed grumblings on social media from my far-left trans peers over Biden’s refusal to enshrine medical gender transition coverage beyond mere basics and the Democratic party’s open hostility toward the decriminalization of sex work.

As a former New York City resident, I followed Green Party presidential candidate Howie Hawkins for over a decade and was particularly moved by his Facebook treatise on transgender health care, which seemed more impassioned than anything within the Human Rights Campaign wing of the Democratic party. Of course, Green Party veep candidate Angela Walker is the second queer woman of color to run for vice president of the United States after Angela Davis.

In 2014, Walker ran for Milwaukee County Sheriff against Fox News pundit David Clarke and gained 20 percent of the vote. Earlier in the decade, she formed the Black counter-response to the city’s Occupy Wall Street movement in Decolonize the Hood. I felt it was important to gain clarity around this subject of trans health care with other party representatives. Walker was interviewed by phone at a laundromat and was joined by an earlier interview with the party’s leading trans activist, Margaret Elisabeth.

Finally, I became aware of Joe Kishore’s writings on World Socialist Web Site. (At the time, I was actively stockpiling copies of Monthly Review in my Harlem apartment.) He’s been an active presence in the Socialist Equality Party’s national stage since 2008 and has spearheaded a worker-led inquiry into the bankruptcy of Detroit. As of 2020, Kishore is his party’s nominee for president on the Colorado ballots with write-in options elsewhere.

In the issue of fairness, Autostraddle reached out to candidates from the centrist Unity Party, Alliance Party, and the Bread and Roses Party. Kanye was unavailable. I was also marginally intrigued by libertarian candidate Jo Jorgensen’s free-market approach to solving the trans health care crisis. “What we need to do is start with Medicare, Medicaid, and start off by putting dollars into people’s accounts,” Jorgensen said at a recent rally. According to a libertarian press release, Jorgensen’s plan would reduce paperwork and slash the cost of health care by 75 percent. (Admittedly, my socialistic Twitter blusterings probably scared off the libertarian press contact.)

The following phone interviews were conducted separately and edited for brevity.

Green Party US

Angela Walker, Vice-Presidential candidate

Margaret Elisabeth, Co-Chair of the Green Party and National Lavender Green Caucus

Autostraddle: I know that a lot of progressive people have reservations about this election. I’m going to use my friend as an example. In 2016, he voted for Jill Stein. This year, he feels motivated to vote for Joe Biden. What is your pitch to those young millennial voters who might be considering Biden-Harris this election cycle?

Walker: I say the same thing to that as Howie does. If you are a leftist who votes for Joe Biden, nobody is going to know that you’re a leftist. You’re voting for a candidate with policies that don’t reflect what you want. I understand that people are afraid right now. They should be. This is a very hard timeline to live in. The current administration is awful. However, a lot of the conditions we’re seeing predates the individual in the White House. I think we need to be honest about that. For people who are leftist, don’t waste your vote on a candidate who’s not going to give you what you want. Joe Biden is not offering policies that people are asking for. Medicare for All is off the table. The watered-down Green New Deal the Democrats offered? They pulled that off the table. If you’re doing a vote for harm reduction, I’m not going to criticize or vote-shame anyone. If I still lived in Wisconsin, which is classified as a battleground state, my vote would be Green. I believe in a certain way. This duopoly takes our vote for granted. The Democrats take marginalized communities for granted, too. They feel like they don’t need to make any concessions to what we’re actually asking. We’re not asking for things they can’t give us. They choose not to. The corporate donors don’t allow it. When that’s the case, you’re not serving the people. For me, I’m voting my conscience. I want a full-strength Medicare for All and a socialist Green New Deal. I’m not willing to kick the can down the road and hope Democrats will care about climate change.

Elisabeth: I certainly understand the pressure to (vote for Biden-Harris). If you live in a swing state, that kind of pressure is going to be significant on you. If you live in a safe state that’s going to go red or blue significantly, voting for a Green Party candidate is the right way to go. It doesn’t compromise your efforts on the POTUS candidate. Even in a swing state, I would suggest that the downballot candidates have more of an impact on your day-to-day life and there are Greens who are running in these states. You can vote Green safely without worrying about compromising your chances on getting Trump out of office.

Autostraddle: The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated issues in the trans community in obtaining health care. According to Texas Monthly, 77 percent of transgender Texans do not have proper legal documentation, which proved problematic in terms of COVID-19 drive-up testing centers. Post flattening the curve, how is the Green Party planning to bridge this trans health care disparity?

Elisabeth: If I could speak broadly from the Green Party perspective, trans people face a pretty significant issue when we go to access health care in that we don’t often have insurance. When we access health care without proper documentation, we are refused it in a pretty startling manner. My opinion is that a national ID legalizes trans people in a way that addresses this issue and bypasses the states. My home state is Tennessee and I noticed that you’re calling from Nashville. And Tennessee will never permit my birth certificate to be altered. There are a few other states that have these same restrictions. That can be a very challenging issue for a trans person and it can lead to having documentation that isn’t correct. The Green Party articulates ways to change this from a national perspective. Of course, we’re mindful that people experience their identities and genders in their own unique way. We make the position that self-identity is something we respect and we encourage others to do as well.

Autostraddle: With the Democrats, what would you say are the biggest mistakes that they haven’t quite grasped in terms of transgender health care?

Elisabeth: From my perspective as a political person, the most significant issues are being brought up before the Supreme Court right now. The decision about firing people from their jobs for being trans was a massively big deal. Under the Obama-Biden administration, there was an opportunity for Obama to sign an executive order to protect trans people and other minorities from discrimination under federal contracts. When that was on the desk to be signed, they actually removed the trans protections. When they had a chance to protect trans people, Biden and Obama did not. I would say that is probably one of the most telling events for trans people within the last ten years of political development. The biggest myth that Democrats have in regards to trans health care is the interconnectedness between health care, trans housing rights and trans job protections. These issues are very much intertwined. The Democrats approach these issues in a very piecemeal way. We need a holistic approach that addresses these issues collectively.

Autostraddle: In my talks with trans women of color for this piece, another issue of concern revolves around sex work. I’m not a trans woman of color. However, over the years, I’ve seen how difficult it has been for me to earn a living while not passing in heteronormative society. I was wondering if you could speak to Howie’s stance on this particular issue in regards to the underground economy.

Walker: We support the decriminalization of sex work along the lines of the way it is done in New Zealand. We like that model over the Nordic model because police have no business in a lawful transaction between two consenting adults. And when you criminalize something, you’re forcing it underground and opening up people to the possibility of trafficking. One thing we want to make sure is that crimes against transgender people are prosecuted as hate crimes. You cannot violate the rights of people being who they are in terms of transgender, gender non-conforming and non-binary. We differ from Joe Biden in so many different places. The most glaring difference is our policy of community policing. In a lot of police oversight committees, you have ex-cops. These people know each other. Why would you have cops look out for cops? They’re not going to prosecute their own. We need to make police agencies accountable to the public by having people in the community elected to serve as the oversight committee. In terms of defunding the police, you need a force that’s the size it needs to be. Only five percent of what police actually do in this country is going after violent crimes. So we need a police force where people are screened for implicit biases and making sure folks are not coming in from specific backgrounds to cause harm. We want to start allocating funds toward social services and counseling. We want to also end qualified immunity, where police officers accused of wrongdoing are shielded by police unions. Instead of defund the police and the message coming from the streets, Mr. Biden is offering to give police pay raises and throw more money at police agencies. That’s not what we’re asking for and not we need.

Autostraddle: A Democratic voter brought up this argument on my Facebook feed. If the Green Party wants to get these issues out there before the public, nobody is stopping them. How would you respond to that?

Walker: This is not an accident that third-party candidates do not get the same attention. Media-wise, they do not have access to the debates. If you watched the news this week, our party has been pushed off the ballot in my home state of Wisconsin through Democrat chicanery. It’s also happening in Pennsylvania. We kept our ballot access in Texas because those activists ended up having to pay a poll tax. That’s illegal to have that forced on them. It’s really been an uphill battle. People feel like we’re just not trying hard enough. We’re been beating on the door to talk to CNN. They have didn’t have any interest in talking to us until these debacles in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. And then, they naturally put a negative spin on it. There’s a concerted effort to keep us out of the public eye.

Autostraddle: There’s been a fracture in the Green Party among the old guard and trans-exclusionary radical feminists. And some trans folks have been hesitant about joining amid the current TERF wars. As Angela Walker is a queer person of color, could you speak to that and help alleviate those concerns?

Walker: We’re going to have resistance. This party is changing. There are people who have been part of the party for many years, who have not had their worldview challenged. They have held certain views about people and they’ve been allowed to express those views with little pushback. And now that they’re getting pushback, they’re upset. They’re going to stay upset. We’re not going to stop. For people interested in joining the Green Party, we’re no different from any other party. There are a lot of people here who are dedicated into making this party a welcoming place for all of us under the LGBTQQAI rainbow, people with disabilities, people of color and all those places where we intersect. They might not have traditionally seen themselves as part of this party. That is a goal of this campaign and that is a goal we’re going to continue going forward. Don’t let the old guard stop you. They’re being phased out.

Elisabeth: This is a tricky thing to articulate. Many people in the Green Party don’t consider themselves as transphobic. If you ask them, they support trans rights. For half of our existence, we’ve had explicit trans rights articulated in our platform. This gets into a pretty delicate space of what I can say and what I’d like to say. As much as I disagree with the slowness of how this issue has played out, I respect the process. Within the broader Green Party, this isn’t much of an issue. Volunteer-based organizations like the Green Party will tend to have strong personalities. After 2016, the Green Party grew quickly with a lot of younger progressive voters. There has been a clash between the young progressives who joined the party recently and the Green Party old guard. If you’re someone like me who’s a visible queer trans person, your experience in the Green Party would vary by region. The Green Party is a federalized group, which means that each state party is decentralized. Hopefully, in the near future, this (TERF) issue will be long gone and done.

Socialist Equality Party

Joe Kishore, Presidential candidate

Autostraddle: Let’s jump right into it. What would you say is the main concern for trans working-class people and how would your party seek to address these concerns over the two corporate parties?

Kishore: First of all, the challenges confronting working-class trans people are fundamentally the same as those that confront the working-class as a whole. I think that there are specific issues related to democratic rights. The Socialist Equality Party seeks to unite the interest of all workers. The Trump administration as a whole is willing to incite violence. Under this horrific pandemic, they are terrified of the opposition within the working-class to the policies of the corporate-financial structure and the backing of the two major parties. The Trump administration is turning toward extreme measures. On the other hand, the Democratic party speaks for the financial oligarchy. It doesn’t represent a genuine alternative to the Trump administration. The basic issue confronting all workers is the intervention of an independent political program, which represents the interests of all workers. And that’s a socialist program and revolutionary program to overthrow the capitalist system. And that’s a system that’s based on the economic interests of a tiny oligarchy.

Autostraddle: There’s a sizable segment of socialist representation within the LGBTQ+ community. To help readers understand the nuances, could you elaborate on the differences between your party and the Party for Socialist and Liberation’s Gloria La Riva? You also have Alyson Kennedy in the Socialist Workers Party.

Kishore: There is a number of socialist organizations beyond the ones you mentioned. You have the Democratic Socialists of America, which is very much part of the Democratic party. There are complex historical issues involved when addressing the differences. The PSL has its origins in Stalinism. The best way to answer that question is to explain the history of our movement. The Socialist Equality Party has an international perspective in uniting the interests of the working-class against capitalism. Our movement has its origins in the fight of Leon Trotsky against Stalinism and the perversions, repudiation and counter-revolution against the internationalist perspective that animated the Russian Revolution. The Trotsky movement fought through the 20th century against Stalinism and bourgeois nationalism. Maoism was opposed to the development of the international movement for the working-class. One common feature of those movements was their nationalism. The Trotsky movement is always from the perspective of internationalism and workers of the world uniting. All workers of the world have the same basic class interests and socialism can only be realized on a world scale.

Autostraddle: America is gradually on a march toward fascism and Trump has hinted at refusing a peaceful transfer of power. If Trump doesn’t relinquish his office, how will your party offer a counter-response?

Kishore: First of all, it’s important to stress that Trump didn’t come out of nowhere. He’s not some interloper in the Garden of Eden of American democracy. He is the product of capitalism, decades of growing social inequality and the extreme concentration of wealth in a handful of billionaires. He is also the product of endless war. The development of a movement against Trump needs to be based on that understanding. The Democratic party keeps social opposition constrained within a framework that doesn’t challenge the interests of the corporate elite. That’s their role and they represent another faction of the financial oligarchy. A fight against fascism and far-right violence needs to be based on a movement of the working-class and the development of a class struggle. The working-class cannot be constrained around what the Democrats will not accept.

Autostraddle: As we touched upon, socialism has appeal for the younger and LGBTQ+ voters. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has sway among this demographic. How does your party counter the appeal of AOC?

Kishore: It’s the Democratic party. A lot of young people were supportive of Bernie Sanders, AOC and others because they spoke about issues of social inequality. Their basic role has been to channel that opposition around the Democratic party. Sanders is now a cheerleader for Biden. His argument is that in order to stop Trump, you have to support Biden. That’s the only way to restore democracy. In fact, it’s a political dead end. As long as the opposition is constrained in that framework, there’s no basis in which to fight Trump. The Democratic party created the conditions for Trump to emerge. In fact, they collaborated with Trump for the past four years. In 2016, Trump’s greatest strength was that he presented himself as opposition to the status-quo and Hillary Clinton. Figures like Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders provide something of a leftward gloss to this reactionary political party. Their aim is to maintain the political domination of the Democratic party.

Autostraddle: The Green Party put us in touch with Margaret Elisabeth. She’s the co-chair of the Lavender Green Caucus and a representative of the transgender movement within the Greens. Do you have any similar public -facing transgender representatives within the Socialist Equality Party?

Kishore: Well, we have supporters who are trans. Are you familiar with Andreja Pejić? She’s an Australian model and actress. She’s a trans woman and a supporter of our movement. I did an interview with her a couple of months ago. It was actually a very interesting interview. She sent me something this morning that I thought was interesting. She said, “Poor working-class cis white men are also a massively underrepresented group. We always say that the white cis man is the oppressor. The majority of them are heavily exploited. Stop trying to mask class.” There’s all types of politics that are very much associated with the Democratic party, which elevates issues of race, gender and sexual orientation. There was an essay published in the 1970s that’s gaining popularity in circles that we would call the pseudo-left. It was published by a group called the Combahee River Collective, a Black lesbian feminist organization. They concluded with the statement that white men are inherently reactionary. They are embodiment of vested power. We reject that view. We insist that the working-class is a revolutionary social force. All races, genders and ethnicities have a common class interest. We oppose the type of politics that elevates the issues of identity into the fundamental social categories. White workers are exploited by capitalism. With the question of race, the Democratic party has been pushing that for decades beginning with affirmative action in the late-1960s.

Autostraddle: In my research, I found essays where socialist writers constantly attack your organization as inherently racist. What do you say to voters concerned about issues of police brutality being disregarded or minimized?

Kishore: The socialist movement has a long history of opposition to all forms of racism and discrimination, and the SEP proudly upholds this tradition. What we reject is the notion that the fundamental division in capitalist society is race, and that the United States is divided into “white America” and “Black America.” Racial minorities, including African American in the United States, are divided along class lines, and the politics of race serves the interests of privileged layers of the upper middle class and the ruling elite. We insist that the fight against racism is a fight to unify all workers on the basis of their common class interests in opposition to capitalism. The recognition that police violence is fundamentally a class issue–an elementary principle of Marxism–does not deny the reality of racism in the police. The police are drawn from the most reactionary layers of society. But interpreting police violence as a form of racial oppression cannot explain the fact that workers and youth of all races are victims of police violence, that police violence is a plague in countries throughout the world, and that it continues in the United States under the leadership of Black mayors, governors and police chiefs as well as white ones. The effort to racialize the fight against police violence, promoted by the Democratic Party and its political affiliates, aims at cordoning off the courageous struggle of workers and youth against police murder from the broader struggle of the working class against capitalism, thereby subordinating it to bourgeois politics.

Democratic Party

Courtenay D. Rogers, Former Tennessee House Democratic Party candidate

Autostraddle: We are mostly talking to political figures around the subject of trans health care. In Tennessee, we still have legal roadblocks even under Obamacare.

Rogers: We have to fight to expand Medicare across the country. Right now, we’re fighting to hold onto what’s left of the ACA. It was absolutely not perfect. There were a lot of problems with the rollout. It’s the only option for anybody with a pre-existing condition. If Trump wins, that’s gone and we’re completely screwed. When we’re having these conversations, we need to include very specific trans rights. In Tennessee, I’ve seen a senator and a commissioner bring those issues to the table. It’s so sad, though. We can’t have get Medicare.

Autostraddle: Something that I found striking is that there seems to be a window of opportunity around having these conversations. After the first debate and the president’s COVID diagnosis, Trump’s core base has splintered further and a great deal of people are having issues around health care and the pandemic. What do you say to progressive LGBTQ+ voters who have reservations with the way the Democrats are handling health care and might be considering the third-party candidates mentioned in this article?

Rogers: I wish we had more than a two-party system. I think independent voters are super important. At this moment in time, we have to choose between two old white guys. One of those candidates is completely unfit to be president and should not hold any power whatsoever in this country. And then, you have Biden with 40 years of experience. I’ve said this to many people. Biden was not my first, second, third, fourth or fifth choice. In the primary, we had an incredible candidate in Elizabeth Warren and I still can’t believe we ended up with the two old white guys. However, Donald Trump is the worst president we have ever seen. He’s completely ruining our democracy. If he wins, we will lose even more rights than we’ve already lost. At this point in time, third-party votes are dangerous. Once again, America is looking to its most vulnerable populations to save it.

Autostraddle: This hits upon a point that Joe Kishore brought up. The modern Democratic party is entrenched in identity politics and pitting us against each other. As a socialist, he proposes meeting these needs under the umbrella of the class struggle. If Biden gets elected, how do you propose that Democrats address highly individualized concerns?

Rogers: When I first started volunteering with the Williamson County Democratic Party, it was very white. We still have a lot of work to do there. It’s definitely gotten a lot younger, though. That’s important. Younger people are naturally progressive. They are more empathetic with Black Lives Matter and trans rights. If we can get those people running for office, we will see a huge difference. Not to be morbid or rude, but there’s a generation of people that will literally die out before things drastically change.

Autostraddle: I wanted to get your thoughts on an issue I touched upon with Angela Walker. I’ve noticed that a sizable chunk of trans women of color on my Facebook feed are upset with Kamala Harris and her negative views on sex workers and denying transgender prisoners proper access to gender reassignment surgery. Why do you think Kamala Harris has yet to adequately address their concerns? She’s from a state with a large demographic of LGBTQ+ voters.

Rogers: I have no idea why Kamala Harris decided not to get involved in this conversation. She’s a Black woman running in the United States of America. It’s a country founded on racism. I can see why she’s very careful in the conversations she’s having. As someone part of a marginalized community, she may be empathetic to other marginalized communities. I can’t speak as a Black woman. I’m a pretty privileged white lady here. She’s probably playing it safe to get moderate voters or else our country is going to implode. Black Lives Matter and trans rights are unfortunately hot-button issues. At this point, we have to save our democracy.

Autostraddle: To bring the point home, we’ve reached an age of cynicism under President Trump. This carries over into tried-and-true demographics of LGBTQ+ younger voters. Going forward, how do you repair the damage with this core progressive group?

Rogers: If you were born in 1984 or later, you’ve never known America with a functioning government. If you’re raised in a place where government has failed you often, you feel hopeless and helpless. To be honest with you, that’s the point where a lot of people look to oppress and maintain power. If you make people feel desperate long enough, they give up hope. They’re like, “Screw it. My vote doesn’t matter.” We have to set the example by voting in local elections and explaining to people that everything won’t be fixed with one new representative. From a big picture perspective, AOC is a great example. She’s not taking any bullshit, but she has to straddle that moderate line to help the betterment of the party.

Autostraddle: Once again, we’re circling back to what SEP candidate Kishore touched upon. He mentioned that AOC has to acquiesce to the corporate establishment within the Democratic party and this hinders effective change. Do you care to respond to that?

Rogers: In no way am I comparing myself to AOC, but I know what it’s like to be a progressive running for office in a very conservative place. If you want to get your foot in the door as a woman, you might have to acquiesce a little bit. It’s called life. I’m not saying you take dirty PAC money and do the exact opposite of what you campaigned on. The United States of America is not extremely liberal or extremely conservative. It’s right in the middle-of-the-road. If you truly want to serve everybody, you sometimes meet in the middle.

AS Political Survey: What Top Political Issues Most Matter to Queer Communities During the 2020 Election?

As we head into the 2020 election, our contributing data brain, Himani Gupta, is analyzing data from past Autostraddle surveys to find out what issues are most important to our community and what is currently at stake.

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Have you ever wondered what America would look like if the reins were handed over to queer people who are women, non-binary and/or trans?

Wonder no more! Using data from Autostraddle’s first-ever political survey, I present to you the gay agenda, as told to me, by you. In this post, we’ll look at the top priority issues in our community, including: LGBTQ+ rights, climate change, income inequality and more!

Who Took the Politics Survey

Before revealing the gay agenda, let’s take a quick look at who took the Politics Survey.

The Politics Survey could be accessed by anyone online through a post on Autostraddle’s website. The survey was open December 3, 2019 through January 10, 2020. Our analysis sample consists of 2,384 queer people who are women, non-binary and/or trans.

In July, I reached out to 994 Politics Survey respondents who said they were comfortable with being contacted about their responses. 662 people completed a Follow Up Survey between July 26 and August 16.

The figure below shows demographic characteristics of Politics Survey and Follow Up Survey respondents, along with comparison data on the U.S. population.

For more information on who took the surveys, see the “Who Took the Survey” portion of the post on health care.

Before the Pandemic, Our Community Had a Fundamentally Different Set of Priorities than the U.S. Population

The Politics Survey presented respondents with a series of issues and asked them to indicate whether each one was a “top priority” for the U.S. President and Congress, “important but lower priority,” “not too important,” “not a priority” or “should not be done.” This set of questions was taken from the Pew Research Center’s annual political survey of U.S. adults.

The figure below compares the percentage of Politics Survey respondents who selected each issue as a top priority to the results from Pew’s January 2020 survey. Two things stand out immediately. First, our community has a fundamentally different set of priorities than the U.S. population overall. Second, our community has a broad consensus on what the most important issues are and are not.

One of the several limitations of using survey questions intended for the U.S. population generally is that they overlook some key issues. A glaring omission in the Pew Research Center’s question about top priorities is, of course, LGBTQ+ rights. We also asked respondents to list other top priority issues. Reproductive rights, voter suppression, criminal justice reform, income inequality, gun control and the housing crisis recurred in the responses.

The Autostraddle Politics Survey dove into several of these topics to get a better view of respondents’ perspectives. We’ve previously covered reproductive rights, health care and criminal justice reform in greater detail.

LGBTQ+ Issues: “It’s Hard to Not Pick Them All as Top Priority”

There aren’t a whole lot of surveys focused on LGBTQ+ issues from the perspective of LGBTQ+ people, so for this part of the Politics Survey, we developed our own questions (drawing from a survey by Out.com/YouGov last November and the Pew Research Center in 2013). Once again, we listed several issues and asked respondents to tell us which ones were priorities (using the same categories from earlier). The figure below shows these results.

So many of these issues were important to the majority of our respondents. But breaking these results down by demographic characteristics reveals some important differences.

By and large, more trans women and non-binary respondents rated LGBTQ+ issues as “top priorities” as compared to cis women respondents. A higher proportion of trans women and non-binary respondents consistently selected issues that disproportionately affect trans and non-binary people as “top priority” compared with cis women respondents. This includes insurance coverage for LGBTQ-inclusive care, increasing support for organizations dedicated to LGBTQ+ youth homelessness and increasing access to PrEP.

The differences were especially striking for bathroom access (top priority for about 75% of trans women respondents, about 65% of non-binary respondents and about 55% of cis women respondents) and decriminalizing sex work (top priority for nearly 70% of trans women respondents, about 60% of non-binary respondents and about 40% of cis women respondents).

On expanding gender options on government ids, trans women and non-binary respondents differed: about 45% of trans women respondents said it was a top priority compared with a third of non-binary people and cis women respondents. In the comments, several expressed that they’d rather see gender identity removed from ids altogether.

Differences by age were also prominent. Respondents aged 45 or older were generally less likely than younger respondents to select these LGBTQ+ issues as top priorities. Some of the policy-specific differences correspond to what we’ve previously discussed with criminal justice reform, where older respondents were a little more ambivalent about progressive criminal justice reforms. For instance, only a quarter of respondents aged 45 or older said decriminalizing sex work was a top priority issue compared with half of respondents under 45. Also, respondents aged 45 or older were much less likely to select health care related issues (insurance coverage, trans-inclusive medical training and access to PrEP) as top priorities.

There were few, generally modest differences when comparing LGBTQ+ priorities by sexual orientation, race, disability status, income and where respondents live.

Of course, this list of issues is also not comprehensive. In comments respondents indicated other LGBTQ-specific concerns they had. These included expanding refugee and asylum status for LGBTQ+ people, making gender identity and sexual orientation protected classes in civil rights law broadly, reversing the trans military ban and making health care inclusive of intersex people.

Climate Change: “We are Frogs Sitting in an Ever Hotter Pot of Water.”

Over 90% of Politics Survey respondents selected climate change and “protecting the environment” as top priority issues. In a later question, 99% of Politics Survey respondents said the U.S. needs to do more to address climate change compared to 67% of registered voters (from an August 2019 Quinnipiac poll). Politics Survey respondents saw the situation with extreme urgency. Again and again, in the comments, respondents expressed devastation (variations on “We’re all going to die” showed up repeatedly) and the existential need for immediate, meaningful action. For so many respondents, this was the single most important issue, far above any of the others.

In terms of what to do, 94% of Politics Survey respondents said a Green New Deal that “[invests] government money in green jobs and energy efficient infrastructure” was a “good idea.” This level of support is the same as the 93% of U.S. adults who identify as progressives, but much higher than 63% of adults overall (from a July 2019 NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll). In the comments, several respondents said the Green New Deal is just a starting point and that much, much more needs to be done. As one person observed (and others similarly reflected), “The real answer is ending capitalism.”

The Economy: “It’s a Lie.”

In stark contrast with the U.S. population overall, Politics Survey respondents largely deprioritized traditional economic concerns, with a third or less of respondents selecting any of the following as a top priority issue: “improving the job situation,” “strengthening the nation’s economy,” “dealing with global trade”, “reducing the budget deficit” and making Social Security “financially sound.”

Respondents living with disabilities and those aged 45 or older were 10 and 20 percentage points (respectively) more likely to say that making Social Security “financially sound” was a top priority, probably because more of these respondents utilize or know someone who utilizes Social Security. However, in both cases the communities were divided on this issue with less than 50% of respondents living with disabilities and respondents aged 45 or older choosing that as a top priority issue.

Around 80% of all Politics Survey respondents felt that “dealing with the problems of poor and needy people” was the top priority economic issue. As mentioned earlier, many respondents listed income inequality as another top priority issue; several others mentioned equal pay, student loan debt and labor rights.

90% of Politics Survey respondents wanted to see a $15 national minimum wage, compared to 56% of U.S. adults overall and 86% of progressives (from a July 2019 NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll). Many respondents commented that the minimum wage should be even higher. Several noted that it should be tied to cost of living to account for current variations across the country and to control for future price increases. Others would rather see universal basic income instead.

Relatedly, 94% of Politics Survey respondents felt that the federal government needed to do more to ensure equal pay between men and women in the private sector, while registered voters in the U.S. were much more ambivalent (from a September 2019 Politico/Morning Consult poll). In the comments, several respondents also raised the need to address income disparities by race.

On student loans, 93% of Politics Survey respondents supported forgiving up to $50,000 for people with household incomes below $250,000, compared to 57% of registered voters (from an April 2019 Quinnipiac poll). Even accounting for our younger, more credentialed (and therefore more debt-laden) sample, Politics Survey respondents were still far more in favor of loan forgiveness and many commented that all loans should be forgiven.

Race Relations: “He Just Lifted the Mask.”

“Addressing race relations” was a top priority issue for a much larger proportion of Politics Survey respondents than U.S. adults. In a follow up question, 98% of Politics Survey respondents said they thought “white supremacist groups pose a threat in the U.S.” compared to 65% of registered voters (from a March 2019 Quinnipiac poll).

90% of Politics Survey respondents felt that the “level of hatred and prejudice in the U.S. has increased” under Trump and 8% said it hadn’t changed, compared to 64% of U.S. adults saying “increased” and 28% saying “hasn’t changed.” In comments, several Politics Survey respondents elaborated that the visibility and violence of hate and prejudice have increased under Trump, though the underlying beliefs haven’t necessarily changed.

In terms of prejudice against different racial groups, sweeping majorities of Politics Survey respondents viewed prejudice against Black people, Latinx people and Indigenous people as “very serious problems:” 93% when asked about Black people, 88% when asked about Latinx people and 84% when asked about Indigenous people. In contrast, just under 45% of registered voters said prejudice against Black and Latinx people was a “very serious problem” (from an August 2019 Quinnipiac, which did not ask about Indigenous people). And on the other end, more U.S. adults selected “reducing crime” as a top priority rather than “addressing race relations,” even though we all know that policies around so-called crime reduction only serve to exacerbate racial issues in this country. In contrast, just 6 percent of our Politics Survey respondents viewed “reducing crime” as a top priority issue. Instead, in the comments respondents raised substantial overhaul of the criminal justice system (police and prison abolition) as a top priority.

Immigration: “Climate Change Doesn’t Recognize National Borders”

52% of Politics Survey respondents selected “dealing with the issue of immigration” as a top priority, but many commented that they didn’t know how to answer that question since the way in which the issue was dealt with would dramatically change their answer (ie, “open borders” versus “build the wall”).

96% of Politics Survey respondents supported a pathway to citizenship which is the same as the 95% of progressives who support it though far higher than the 64% of U.S. adults nationally (from a July 2019 NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll). However, 83% of Politics Survey respondents supported decriminalizing crossing the U.S. border without authorization compared to only 54% of progressives and 27% of U.S. adults overall. 89% of Politics Survey respondents also wanted to see asylum laws “loosened to accept more claims” compared to just 25% of U.S. adults (from a September 2019 Harvard/Harris poll).

Politics Survey respondents commented on the hypocrisy of harsh immigration restrictions given that the U.S. was founded on stolen land. Many mentioned the extraordinary cruelty at the hands of the Trump administration: the detention of children and family separations. Several wanted to see ICE abolished. Others observed that the legal pathways to immigration and citizenship were incredibly complicated and impossible to navigate.

Another theme that emerged in the comments was the lack of responsibility on the part of America. Many people trying to enter the U.S. are fleeing conflicts of American making in Latin America and the Middle East. Asylum, which already had an absurdly low cap during the Obama years, has been practically non-existent under Trump. Instead, Politics Survey respondents wanted to see fully open borders, especially since climate change (also largely of America’s making) is creating yet one more refugee crisis.

U.S. Military: “They Need to be So Majorly Defunded”

Politics Survey respondents largely thought that “defending the country from future terrorist attacks” was not a top priority; over 50% of respondents indicated that this was “not too important” or “not a priority.” When it came to “strengthening the U.S. military” over 50% of respondents flat out rejected that proposition and said it “should not be done.”

Many respondents commented that military spending should be reduced and reallocated to public services in the U.S. or the State Department. Generally, those who left comments opposed war and wanted the U.S. to end its long, imperialist entanglements in Latin America and the Middle East. Several observed that Trump made an already-bad situation decidedly worse with his ignorance, erratic behavior and pandering to dictators.

At the same time, some commenters acknowledged that extricating the military isn’t straightforward, either. For instance, many referenced Trump’s abandoning the Kurds in Syria, as an instance where, while they generally opposed U.S. military involvement, they also opposed suddenly withdrawing troops without diplomatic solutions in place.

Gun Control: “I Carry a Bleed Kit Because Shootings are So Common.”

Gun policy wasn’t on the list of issues on the Pew Research Center’s 2018 political survey, which I used as the basis for the Politics Survey. (It was on Pew’s 2020 political survey and 46% of U.S. adults viewed it as a top priority issue.) The Politics Survey did include a few questions on gun policy, however.

97% of Politics Survey respondents supported the House bill closing the private seller loophole on background checks. Background checks have broad support in the U.S. with 83% of registered voters in favor (from a September 2019 Quinnipiac poll). Among our Politics Survey respondents, there was also strong support for an assault weapon ban and mandatory buyback with 89% supporting. U.S. adults are divided on this issue, with only 43% supporting (from an August 2019 Monmouth poll).

There was a notable difference within our community on gun policy by gender identity. Cis women, non-binary people and non-binary women respondents were in favor of the gun control policies mentioned at roughly the rates noted above. The majority of trans women respondents also supported the policies mentioned but not by the same margins. On mandatory buybacks, specifically, 72% of trans women respondents supported the policy while 15% opposed and 14% were uncertain. In the comments, a few trans women respondents explained that a foreseeable consequence of the mandatory buyback is greater police presence in low income, predominantly Black communities, a position also held by progressive Democratic presidential primary candidate, Julián Castro.

Many, many respondents (across all genders) wanted all guns banned. Over 80% were worried about a mass shooting in their communities. So many described being traumatized by gun violence and mass shootings that had already happened in their communities and living under the constant threat of gun violence. Several respondents wanted to see bans for domestic abusers and law enforcement disarmed, as well. But another theme that emerged among a minority of respondents was that — in the absence of disarming the police, military and white supremacists — oppressed, marginalized communities should arm themselves in self-defense.

And Then There Was a Pandemic

So much has happened since the Politics Survey was fielded, so we followed up with some of the original Politics Survey respondents to see how their views have shifted. Instead of repeating the questions on top priority issues from Pew, we used a series of questions asking whether different issues in the U.S. are “a very big problem,” “a moderately big problem,” “a small problem” or “not a problem at all.” (You might think Trump himself wrote the answer options for this question, but it was, in fact, taken from Pew’s American Trend Panel.)

The results are shown below. As we saw in the Politics Survey, Follow Up Survey respondents have drastically different concerns than U.S. adults generally, and they also broadly agree on what problems are the biggest and not the biggest.

The pandemic and the treatment of racial minorities (people of color) in the criminal justice system were considered “very big problems” by nearly everyone who took the Follow Up survey. Climate change and health care affordability were viewed by Follow Up Survey respondents as “very big problems” at the same rates as these issues were top priorities on the Politics Survey. On the other end, terrorism, violent crime and the budget deficit were considered “very big problems” by roughly as few respondents as who thought these issues were “top priorities” on the Politics Survey. Several respondents commented that they thought domestic terrorism and state-sanctioned violence were very big problems but knew that this is probably not how the question was intended.

Once immigration was clarified by the use of the word “illegal,” Follow Up Survey respondents unequivocally rejected it with two-thirds declaring it to be “not a problem at all.” Unemployment came to the forefront for over half of Follow Up Survey respondents, more than doubling the quarter of respondents who viewed the related issue of “improving the job situation” as a “top priority” on the original Politics Survey. While the questions are asking slightly different things, this drastic increase is likely in response to the rampant unemployment in the wake of the pandemic.

When asked to identify other big problems, many of the same topics came up as in the Politics Survey free responses. Right-wing extremism and fascism were new additions that occurred with some frequency.

LGBTQ+ Priority Issues Shift towards Trans Rights and Supporting Youth

In the Follow Up survey we asked respondents to identify their top priorities among the same LGBTQ+ issues from the Politics Survey. These results are shown in the figure below. There were meaningful shifts towards prioritizing issues affecting trans people and LGBTQ+ youth and decriminalizing sex work. Interestingly, despite the Supreme Court ruling on LGBTQ+ employment protections in Bostock earlier this summer, ensuring equal employment rights remained a top priority issue for over 80% of Follow Up survey respondents.

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So there we have it. If queer people who are women, non-binary and/or trans were running the country it would be, undeniably, a more environmentally friendly, equitable and humane place to live. And while the U.S. is a long way from achieving the things so many of us care about, this election — like every one that came before it and every one that comes after — brings us one step closer towards realizing the policies we want. The work doesn’t stop with voting (by any means), but it’s a critical part of our political action toolkit. And after the election, we need to keep applying pressure on our newly-elected officials to make our priorities their priorities.

What Does It Mean to Have a “Civil Debate” with a Man Who Put Children in Cages?

Until this year, my nephews’ annual birthday celebration included a trip to the local kids’ museum downtown. I’d take the day off work, pack lunches and a good selection of snacks and we’d catch a city bus downtown — they were fascinated by city buses when they were younger, school buses, however, not so much. We’d get to the museum and the boys would spend four or five hours moving from station to station, enjoying themselves so much that they barely wanted to stop for food or drink.

We added another tradition to those annual trips to the kids’ museum a few years ago: as soon as we arrive at the museum, we take pictures. They’re so used to me snapping pictures of them, they don’t bother to ask why I’m doing it. They don’t realize that it’s my way of making sure that I can identify every stitch of clothes that they’re wearing. They never notice that I’m taking their picture next to the ruler so that I know how tall they’ve gotten. They don’t know that I’m preparing for the moment when I look up and one of them isn’t there.

It happened one time. I looked away for a second and then one of them was gone. I jumped up and grabbed his brother, pulling him from one station to the next in a frantic search. A member of the museum staff saw me and came to my aid. What’s his name? I told her. What’s he look like? I answered. How tall is he? What’s he wearing? I don’t know, I don’t remember. She called a description out to her colleagues, based on what little information I’d provided. I was still frantic — annoyed by the crowds of kids who made the search for my nephew much harder — and so, so mad at myself for not noticing what he’d been wearing.

They found him within minutes. He’d made his way back down to the first floor to the toy trains and was with another member of the museum’s staff. Relief made its way through my body — loosening my grip on my other nephew’s arm, slowing my heart rate back down to a normal pace — and I ran to reunite with my nephew who, of course, was unbothered. He just wanted to play with the trains, he said, blissfully unaware that he’d given me one of the scariest moments of my life.

I thought about that day again last night, when Kristen Welker asked the president about the more than 500 children who were separated from their parents by this administration’s grotesque immigration actions. I thought about the fear I experienced on the day I lost my nephew — for just a little while, in a museum brimming with cameras and staff — and tried to imagine what it must be like to be one of those parents… to have that fear be omnipresent in your life… and to have the man responsible for it, show not even the slightest bit of remorse for your pain.

“Mr. President, your administration separated children from their parents at the border, at least 4,000 kids,” Welker asked during last night’s debate. “You’ve since reversed your zero tolerance policy, but the United States can’t locate the parents of more than 500 children. So how will these families ever be reunited?”

Donald Trump never answered the question and, instead tried to hit all the immigration buzz words he knew: coyotes, cartels, bad people, the wall. It was nonsensical, of course — the question was about family separation so the idea that coyotes or cartels are primary actors is absurd — but Trump is invested in turning out his base and they eat those buzz words up with a spoon. Welker continued to press him about how he would reunite the kids with their families and he deflected blame to the Obama-Biden administration. They built the cages, he said, ignoring the fact that no one had even asked him about that. Welker pressed again and Trump conceded that there was no plan before returning to his buzz words.

“We’re working on it very… We’re trying very hard,” Trump answered. “But a lot of these kids come out without the parents. They come over through cartels and through coyotes and through gangs.”

Biden, on the other hand, at least had the decency to be indignant about the separations, saying, “Parents were ripped… their kids were ripped from their arms and separated, and now they cannot find over 500 of the sets of those parents, and those kids are alone. Nowhere to go. Nowhere to go. It’s criminal. It’s criminal.”

Trump was granted time to respond and, instead of offering a rebuttal, he tells the national audience about how well those 500+ children are being kept. He said, “they are so well taken care of. They’re in facilities that were so clean.”

The facilities where they lie in cages on concrete floors, wrapped in mylar blankets… the facilities where story after story suggests that those children aren’t just being traumatized by the separation and the conditions, they’re being sexually abused while in custody. Their facilities aren’t clean, they are not “so well taken care of”… the president is a liar.

There are people who are calling this debate “civil.” Because Trump wasn’t the ranting, raving bully that he was in the first debate, there are people willing to cede the debate to him. He managed to climb over the lowest of low bars so, of course, let’s dub him the winner. That’s how much the political media is invested in tone.

But this debate was not civil. There is nothing civil about orphaning 500+ kids as a matter of public policy. There is nothing civil about putting them in cages. There is nothing civil about the way we’ve treated these families who came to the United States — in accordance with the law — and asked for mercy. This is not civil… and the fact that anyone thinks so says more about them and the things they value than what actually happened on that debate stage.

Last night was the final presidential debate before Election Day (11 days away). Biden was as effective as he’s been throughout this campaign, litigating the president’s failures, and Trump didn’t do enough to expand his outreach beyond the base (and, in particular, among that part of the base that spends as much time as he does embracing conspiracy theories). It’s my hope that it’ll be the last time we see the president on the national stage…but I worry that what we’ll be left with is a politics and a media who never really disagreed with Trump — not on policy — they just didn’t appreciate his tone.

Extra! Extra!: Everything Not the Election It’s Been Hard to Keep Up with

With less than two weeks to go until the presidential election, I find myself losing sight of all the many other things going on in the world. I’m sure many people feel this way as well. This week’s Extra! Extra! looks at a whole slew of non-election related news, including LGBTQ+ rights and the trifecta of global pandemics: police violence, climate change and COVID-19. And then, of course, we do take a look at election-related news too.

LGBTQ+ Issues

In Shift for Church, Pope Francis Voices Support for Same-Sex Civil Unions

Rachel: I’ve been thinking all week about how to feel about this as a cultural/lapsed Catholic. On the one hand I think even this (ultimately abstract, as it doesn’t amount to a shift in dogma or Catholic theology) gesture will make a genuine difference for many queer folks growing up in Catholic-practicing families and communities, as families and loved ones may genuinely revisit their stances; on the other hand, the Vatican still went out of their way to state as recently as 2019 that the existence of trans people “annihilates the concept of nature”. On yet another hand, this is absurdly too little too late – it’s 2020! Civil unions??? – and ultimately, regardless of theological beliefs, the Vatican as an institution is an inherently oppressive and colonial one; symbolic tolerance of LGBTQ folks is… not liberatory, really. This thought does not have a resolution! I would very much like to hear from other LGBTQ Catholics and folks historically colonized by Catholic empires.

Texas social workers can now turn away LGBTQ, disabled clients

Himani: People keep talking about how Texas is turning purple. That may very well be true but as long as Greg Abbott is governor, it seems like state-driven policies in Texas will remain a deep shade of red. Earlier this year, we saw how Abbott used the governorship to try to undermine police reform in Austin. Now he’s at it again by “recommending” to the state’s Board of Social Worker Examiners to remove the civil rights protections for queer, trans and disabled people. And, unlike the city of Austin — which stood by its police budget cut — the Board caved to this pressure from the governor. The ramifications of this decision are clear.

Barrett was trustee at private school with anti-gay policies

Himani: Yes, this article is about Amy Coney Barrett’s deeply homophobic views, but also let’s talk about private schools for a hot minute. As per this AP article: “the school’s and organization’s teachings on homosexuality and treatment of LGBTQ people are harsher than those of the mainstream Catholic church” — which, given Rachel’s comments earlier, is a pretty low bar… This is a school that told a gay student to tell a lesbian parent of prospective student that they would have no place in the school, and that this applied to trans and queer families and students on the whole. The school has enshrined the notion of marriage being solely between a man and woman, prevented children from LGBTQ+ families from enrolling, itself bullied its own LGBTQ+ students, … the list goes on and on.

And yet, as the AP article continues, “The actions are probably legal, experts said.”

This is a private school that has received taxpayer money in the form of vouchers. And this is among the many, many reasons why the policy shift towards “school choice” is such a terrible, terrible idea. There’s a long list of other reasons why it’s bad, but tax-payer funded discrimination is pretty high up there.

Police Violence, the World Over

Himani: Police violence was at the forefront of the American conscience this summer. But police violence is, truly, a global problem. Right across the border, Canada is grappling with some of the same issues as the U.S. in terms of the wide latitude it gives to law enforcement and the deadly consequences of that. An ocean away, Nigerians have taken to the streets over that very issue. Over in the Philippines, Duterte is obstinately justifying the thousands upon thousands of extrajudicial killings that have happened at the hands of the police on his watch. In Belarus, police are violently suppressing protests as people demand their right to free and fair elections, much like we saw in Portland earlier this summer and witnessed in Nigeria this week as well. A similar situation is playing out in Thailand, but just today it seems like the government is responding to the pressure from pro-democracy protests. These are just a few instances of police violence that have made the news the past couple of weeks.

Just like we've seen in the U.S., the police in Nigeria are responding to protests about police brutality with more police brutality. pic.twitter.com/j1K5Ydxefm

— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) October 21, 2020

Police Were Warned About No-Knock Warrants. Now, a Black Man Is Dead

Tens of Thousands March in Belarus Despite Police Threat to Open Fire

Thailand’s Prime Minister lifts state of emergency. Protesters give him three days to resign

‘I’m the one’: Philippines president takes responsibility for drug killings

Federal Agents Used Toxic Chemical Smoke Grenades in Portland

Climate Change and Racism Go Hand in Hand

Himani: From the beginning, climate change and racism have been close bedfellows. For centuries, white, Western colonials prioritized their own (short-term) prosperity at the expense of indigenous people and the environment. And those patterns continue. The oil tycoons and land developers and big agricultural corporations know the environmental consequences of their actions. But they don’t care because they don’t have to live with them in the present and won’t have to deal with them in the future. And when some of the effects of climate change start to be felt by those in power, they turn to their two favorite approaches: cultural appropriation and trading in one problem for another.

The great hypocrisy of California using Indigenous practices to curb wildfires

Knock on Wood: How Europe’s wood pellet appetite fuels environmental racism in the South

This is my message to the western world – your civilisation is killing life on Earth

COVID-19 Update

‘Drastic rise’ in Malawi’s suicide rate linked to Covid economic downturn

Himani: It’s such a horrible bind we’ve put ourselves in the world over. The only safe way to exist, to try to fight the virus is to shut down economies. But shutting down economies leads to devastating consequences for the poorest people in society. In Malawi, where half the country lives below the poverty line, this has resulted in a sharp increase in suicides. If only, we as a global community, structured our societies differently. If only we did not endlessly chase after dollars, as Rachel notes below, as well. A pandemic might still have wreaked havoc in the world but perhaps not quite as much death, destruction and devastation.

8 Million Have Slipped Into Poverty Since May as Federal Aid Has Dried Up

Rachel: There’s been a lot of (rightful) criticism of the passive voice here – people didn’t “slip” into poverty, as a happenstance, but were thrust into it by the government. Similarly, ‘dried up’ is some very careful phrasing; federal aid was actively denied to us despite calls for it; aid that was actually meant for small business was instead reallocated in bulk to corporations; many businesses that did receive aid weren’t actually beholden to use it to pay workers. All those points are crucially important; I’m also thinking of this news in light of the development just yesterday that GoFundMe has expanded its own relief program in the form of Causes, which include Covid-19 relief. It’s too kind to say it’s a farce – not only has the government abjectly refused to care for its people, but in doing so has created a vacuum that allows a private company to step in and make a profit just by facilitating other private citizens trying to keep each other alive. The invisible hand of the market, I guess!

California kept prison factories open. Inmates worked for pennies an hour as COVID-19 spread

On Elections, in America and Beyond

Himani: As the world anxiously awaits the results of the upcoming U.S. election, let’s take a look at a few other political situations around the world.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern wins historic reelection

Himani: Ardern has been widely praised for her handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and that played a big role in her successful re-election. In a world of populist (essentially) dictators winning landslides and becoming even more authoritarian, this is such a breath of fresh air. I can’t wait to see what she’ll do in her next term.

The remarkable power of African elections

Himani: This article was a sobering reminder that even when democracy is suppressed to the point of no longer being anything even close to democracy, elections still serve a purpose. I’ve thought about this a lot when I think about the work Alexey Navalny has done for years in Russia. As Americans grow increasingly jaded with our own electoral process, this would be a lesson we would do well to learn.

Less Than Two Weeks Out : Let’s Talk about the Issues

The Swamp that Trump Built

The Neo-Imperialist’s Burden

The Dystopian Police State the Trump Administration Wants

Lawyers say they can’t find the parents of 545 migrant children separated by Trump administration

What to Expect on November 3

We’re Living in the Shadows of a Bush v. Gore 2.0

Himani: I was in seventh grade when Bush v. Gore happened, and it literally disillusioned me on American democracy for the rest of my life. The 2016 election was absolutely devastating for me and others for so, so many reasons. And this. This is my absolute worst nightmare that I am very, very much afraid will be our reality.

How to Survive Election Night

Rachel: This isn’t political analysis, but my therapist also brought up this week how many of her clients are making or should make election night preparedness plans about how they’re going to spend the evening regardless of outcome and make sure they’re as well-resourced and cared for as possible. I think this is a great idea and would encourage it for you also! Are there folks you can be with, digitally if not in person? If you do want to get updates, what are sources you trust and share values with that you can get those updates from, and how can you turn off access to the other sources? Would it be a good idea (and possible) to take off work or other obligations the next day? Do you have plans for ways to get involved in making your communities healthier and safer through and beyond the election regardless of outcome? We’re here for you now, and will be on election day too.

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Extra! Extra! is on a biweekly schedule for the month of October. We’ll see you in two weeks! (Yes, after the election…)

Autostraddle’s Comprehensive 2020 LGBTQ Voting Guide: Lesbian, Bisexual, Queer, and Trans Candidates, Ballot Measures and More!

Your 2020 LGBTQ Voting Guide has arrived!

The election of 2018 ushered an unprecedented number of LGBT candidates into office. Voters in Oregon re-elected openly bisexual governor, Kate Brown, while voters in Arizona and Wisconsin both sent queer women to the Senate. Out candidates like Angie Craig and Sharice Davids helped the Democrats reclaim the majority in the House. But that “rainbow wave” hid a difficult truth: LGBTQ representation among elected officials remains paltry. According to the Victory Institute, there are only 843 openly elected LGBTQ officials nationwide. But LGBTQ people are stepping up in 2020 to ensure that our representatives really represent us.

Below you’ll find a comprehensive voting guide that lists (what we think are) all the LGBTQ women and non-binary folks  running for federal offices and seats in state legislatures. It also includes relevant statewide ballot measures — such as Nevada’s effort to remove its same-sex marriage ban from the state constitution. (If we’ve missed anyone, gently let us know in the comments and we’ll investigate. For example, we couldn’t find any trans men running for those offices this year, but we’d love to be wrong about that!)

This guide was written by Natalie Duggins, Heather Hogan and Carmen Phillips. In addition to the resources linked below, we consulted the Victory Institute’s Out for America database and Ballotopedia extensively in our research.

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VOTING GUIDE INDEX: Jump to Your State

[ AK ] [ AZ ] [ AR ] [ CA ] [ CO ] [ CT ] [ DE ] [ FL ] [ GA ] [ IL ] [ IN ] [ IA ] [ KS ] [ KY ] [ LA ] [ ME ] [ MA ] [ MI ] [ MN ] [ MS ] [ MO ] [ MT ] [ NE ] [ NV ] [ NH ] [ NJ ] [ NM ] [ NY ] [ NC ] [ OK ] [ OR ] [ PA ] [ RI ] [ SD ] [ TX ] [ UT ] [ VI ] [ VT ] [ WA ] [ WV ] [ WI ] [ WY ]

An * indicates an incumbent in the race

Alaska

Lyn Franks

Alaska State House, District 15

After narrowly losing this State House race in 2018, Lyn Franks is running again, still committed to making a difference in her community. At this pivotal time in Alaska’s history, Franks believes that she has the experience and integrity to deliver on behalf of the citizens of Muldoon.

If elected, Franks wants to ensure that state government is doing all it can to protect its citizens, their businesses and the Alaskan way of life, as we continue to grapple with the coronavirus. She notes that the pandemic has made abundantly clear the need for affordable health care for all, including free, widespread COVID-19 testing. In support of small business and enhanced unemployment benefits, Franks is prepared to put all options on the table to support the Alaskan recovery.

Also on Franks’ agenda is she gets to represent the 15th District in Juneau? Enshrining the Permanent Fund in the state constitution, fully funding all levels of public education and promoting community based public safety programs. If she wins, Franks will be the first openly LGBTQ state legislator in Alaska history.

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Arizona

Joan Greene

United States House of Representatives, Arizona District 5

While states, businesses and communities all come together to try and navigate their way through a pandemic, Joan Greene’s opponent in the AZ-05 race wasn’t interested. He voted against the Paycheck Protection Program that was supposed to help Arizona businesses survive the pandemic. He voted against the stimulus bill because the legislation included paid sick leave benefits for domestic partnerships.

It’s proof that no matter what — even in the midst of a pandemic that’s killed nearly 6,000 Arizonans — Andy Briggs will not put Arizona first. If elected, Joan Greene will.

Green is committed to providing all Arizonas with access to affordable, quality healthcare. She’s pledged to protect the social safety net and fight for fare wages. She wants a historic investment in American infrastructure to provide economic opportunities to Arizona families and start solving tomorrow’s problems today.

Bonus Ballot Information

+ Proposition 207 — Legalizes the recreational possession and use of marijuana.

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Arkansas

Tippi McCullough*

Arkansas State House, District 33

Miraculously, Tippi McCullough is running for reelection after winning in 2018 without a website, which she is doing again! McCullough was the only openly gay woman in the Arkansas State House last term, and is set to hold that title again as she is running unopposed. She currently serves in the House Revenue and Taxation Committee and the House Aging, Children and Youth, Legislative & Military Affairs Committee and her priorities include “raising the minimum wage; fighting for anti-discrimination policies; keeping after-school programs; ensuring access to quality, affordable healthcare; fighting climate change and protecting our environment; closing loopholes in ethics laws; fighting bathroom bills and other anti-LGBT proposals; and repealing Arkansas’s overly harsh eviction laws.”

Bonus Ballot Information

+ Issue 3 — Changes initiative process and legislative referral requirements.

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California

Georgette Gómez

United States House of Representatives, California District 53

In times of crisis, voters often turn to the leaders with the most experience, hoping their expertise can resolve those difficult situations. For progressives, that’s meant begrudgingly embracing moderate candidates who don’t fully embrace our vision of America. But in the CA-53, voters can get both in Georgette Gómez: an experienced and proven leader and a candidate committed to creating a progressive future for San Diego residents.

After a career in community organizing, Gómez joined the San Diego City Council in 2016 and, just two years later, was chosen to be its president…the first queer Latina to serve in that role. During the pandemic, she’s shown steady leadership: stopping evictions, supporting small businesses, expanding access to testing and securing protective equipment for first responders. As a member of Congress, Gómez has pledged to support Medicare for All, equal pay, action on the climate crisis and to protect Social Security and Medicare from privatization.

Toni Atkins*

California State Assembly, District 51

Toni Atkins has made history at every stage of her career: the first out lesbian Mayor of San Diego, the first out lesbian Speaker of the California Assembly and now the first out lesbian to serve as President pro tempore of the State Senate. As she’s climbed California’s political ladder, she’s lifted the LGBT community along with her: rewriting anti-discrimination laws to include “gender identity” and “gender expression,” ensuring trans Californians can make changes to official records, while maintaining their privacy, and collecting data to track the impact of COVID-19 on LGBT people.

As California grapples with the fallout from the ongoing pandemic and the effects of climate change, it’s paramount that Atkins’ steady leadership returns to Sacramento. She’s already hard at work to address the state’s budget shortfall while promising to avoid major service cuts and raising taxes on the middle class. She’s leading the Senate effort to produce robust climate legislation that addresses fires, floods and air quality.

Sabrina Cervantes*

California State Assembly, District 60

The pandemic has hit California hard: last month, the state’s unemployment rate was 11%, down slightly from August, but far above the 3.9% in September of last year. If the state is going to rebound from its current unemployment crisis, it needs leaders like Sabrina Cervantes to lead the way.

Since winning a seat in the State Assembly in 2016, Cervantes has been focused on small businesses and job creation. She led an effort to establish a new $100 million small businesses hiring tax credit program. She’s worked to ensure support for small businesses led by disabled veterans. If re-elected, Cervantes wants to secure investments in clean energy technology in order to create good-paying green jobs and expand access to college and job-training programs to prepare California’s workforce for the challenges of the new economy.

And if that wasn’t enough on Cervantes’ plate, she and her wife, Courtney, are new parents to triplets! Cervantes is the first out member of the legislature to give birth while in office.

Susan Talamantes Eggman

California State Senate, District 5

After graduating high school, Susan Talamantes Eggman followed the family tradition of military service by becoming a combat medic in the Army. While she’s years removed from her military service now, the lessons she learned as a medic inform the work she strives to do in the legislature. Since 2012, She’s worked to expand access to health care, to provide more resources for mental health care and to bring a new healthcare facility to the district to serve its veterans.

After eight years in the State Assembly, Eggman’s running for the State Senate to keep working on behalf of Central Valley families. She’ll continue her work on healthcare, ensuring that it’s accessible, even to those with pre-existing conditions, no matter what happens at the federal level. She’ll work to leverage the buying power of the 5th largest economy in the world to lower the cost of prescription drugs. Eggman will continue the work she started in the Assembly to protect the Central Valley’s environment through opposition to the Delta Tunnels.

Jackie Fielder

California State Senate, District 11

After graduating from Stanford, Jackie Fielder went east, joining her Indigenous community and its allies in the fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline. The experience was an awakening for Fielder, one that forced her to wonder, “what kind of economic system turns against its own people?” She returned to San Francisco determined to reshape the system. Her efforts paid off: she was instrumental in passing the Public Banking Act and co-founded the San Francisco Public Bank Coalition, with aspirations to bring the country’s first municipal bank to the Bay Area.

Now Fielder wants to put that ability to reimagine systems to work on behalf of the residents of the 11th District. She has an expansive platform but her top priorities include a Green New Deal for California, addressing homelessness and promoting Economic & Racial Justice. She’s ready to fight against the entrenched interests that tried to stop public banking, as she works to bring single-payer healthcare to the state.

“It’s not just about making things accessible or legalizing them, it’s about making them deeply, deeply affordable,” Fielder said.

Abigail Medina

California State Senate, District 23

Abigail Medina’s story is unlike any you’ve ever heard from a politician. She is the eldest daughter of working-class Mexican immigrants. As a child, she spent time in the foster care system and was in and out of public schools. As a young mother, she worked in California tomato fields to help feed her family. And then, just as her life appeared settled — with a seat on the San Bernardino City Unified School District board, a husband of 23 years and five children — she got divorced and came out to her religiously conservative family.But as she ventures to become the first out woman of color in the State Senate, Medina’s hard-fought journey powers her vision for the 23rd District.

Medina wants to be a voice for underserved and underrepresented communities, prioritizing affordable housing, quality education and environmental protections. She wants to build on the work she’s done on the school board by establishing quality universal preschool, investing in public education and increasing access to higher education.

Jackie Smith

California State Assembly, District 6

Jackie Smith is one of the thousands of women spurned to action by the results of the 2016 election. Her efforts to unseat the incumbent in 2018 fell just short, despite the best showing by a Democrat in the district in almost a decade. She returns this year for a rematch, determined to put her private sector experience to work for the voters of the 6th District.

As a member of the Assembly, Smith would prioritize the needs of the district’s most vulnerable. She wants to ensure that children have access to fully funded quality public schools, including universal preschool, and that at home, they have universal access to broadband and the necessary technology. Smith wants to ensure that the district’s seniors — one of the fastest growing populations in the 6th District — have access to health care, support services and affordable prescription drugs.

Bonus Ballot Information

+ Proposition 16 — Lifts ban on affirmative action.

+ Proposition 17 — Restores the right to vote to people convicted of felonies who are on parole.

+ Proposition 18 — Allows 17-year-olds who will be 18 at the time of the next general election to vote in primaries and special elections.

+ Proposition 20 — Rolls back sentencing reform.

+ Proposition 21 — Expands rent control.

+ Proposition 22 — Ends a mandate that gig economy workers be employees, bars their unionization.

+ Proposition 25 — Overturns a 2018 law that replaces cash bail with risk assessments for suspects awaiting trial.

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Colorado

Daneya Esgar*

Colorado State House, District 36

Two years ago in our candidate guide, we highlighted Daneya Esgar’s work on HB18-1046, a bill that’d make it easier for transgender Coloradoans to update and obtain their birth certificates. The bill passed the House, but died in the Senate, but Esgar persisted. After winning re-election, she returned to the House and resubmitted the legislation for consideration. This time, she was able to work with her colleagues in the Senate and secure the bill’s passage and the governor’s signature. Life is a little easier for trans Coloradoans becase Daneya Esgar doesn’t give up.

“Solving some of these issues takes time, takes people working together and it doesn’t happen overnight. But in these last five years, we’ve proven that we can get things done,” Esgar said.

If re-elected, Esgar will continue to put Pueblo first and continue to fight for Southern Colorado in the COVID-19 recovery. Based on her track record, you’d be wise not to doubt her.

Joann Ginal*

Colorado State Senate, District 14

Dr. Joann Ginal spent 25 years as a scientist specializing in reproductive endocrinology. She has eight years of experience representing Fort Collins and Larimer County in the Colorado Legislature. From 2012-218 she served as State Representative in District 52, and she’s spent the last two years as as a State Senator. In that role she serves as Chair of the Senate Local Government Committee and as a member of the Health and Human Services Committee. She boasts her professional history not only as a scientist, but also as a healthcare and pharmaceutical professional as bonafides that help her best serve the 14th District.

To that point, if re-elected to her office, Senator Ginal’s top priorities will be health care, public health, the environment, and the impact of COVID-19. She’s been a resident of Fort Collins for over 30 years.

Leslie Herod*

Colorado State House, District 8

In the wake of the popular uprisings around the extrajudicial killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, lots of people lost faith in the ability of politicians and government to make the radical shifts necessary to ensure that black lives actually do matter. Let Leslie Herod restore your faith about what’s possible.

Herod, who also chairs the state’s Black Democratic Legislative Caucus, drafted SB 20-217, an act to “enhance law enforcement integrity.” Herod worked across the aisle to produce a bipartisan bill that restricts the use of force by police officers, bans chokeholds, repeals the “fleeing felon” law and ending qualified immunity. A local advocate called it, “the largest single advancement of individual civil rights and liberties for Coloradans in a generation.”

For Herod, the bill’s passage is the start, not the end of the work on criminal justice reform. If re-elected, her plans include addressing mass incarceration, sentencing reform and juvenile justice.

Sonya Jaquez Lewis

Colorado State Senate, District 17

Sonya Jaquez Lewis was spurned to activism by a threat to her own home: the establishment of a fracking zone for oil and gas production. She rallied friends and neighbors and they petitioned the state regulatory agency, hired a lawyer and won a temporary moratorium to protect our land. But the problem wasn’t hers alone, it was an issue all across Boulder County…and one to which a permanent solution could be found in the Colorado legislature.

Since becoming a member of the Colorado State House, Lewis has worked to address those issues. She’s developed new regulations to govern the oil and gas industry, as well as the gun, pharmaceutical and pesticide industries. Additionally, as a licensed pharmacist, Lewis has vested interest in improving Colorado’s health care system. Work that started when she was the Medicaid Pharmacy Director for Colorado Access, continued in the State House as she worked to reduce the cost of prescription drugs and insurance premiums and will continue if she’s elected to the Senate.

Brianna Titone*

Colorado State House, District 27

Brianna Titone won her State House race in 2018 — the first political race of her career — by just 439 votes. But while the margin was small, the symbolism was big: Titone became the first transgender lawmaker in Colorado.

Having been a political outsider for so long, Titone joined the state legislature committed to bringing more people into the process. She’s devoted herself to listening to the residents of the 27th district — even those that don’t agree with her — and using those conversations to set her agenda in Denver. Her constituents told her that education funding was their top issue so she’s focused on that: sponsoring legislation to provide universal preschool, child college savings accounts, various grant programs and stipends for nationally certified school professionals.

Titone’s re-election campaign has already turned ugly, as Take Back Colorado, a Republican PAC, has targetted her with a transphobic attack ad. But her people-focused legislative strategy has paid off, as supporters have answered Titone’s call to help her fight back, raising $11,000 for her campaign.

Bonus Ballot Information

+ Amendment 76 — Amends state constitution to say “only a citizen” of the U.S. who is 18 years old or older can vote in federal, state, and local elections.

+ Proposition 113 — Keeps Colorado in the Popular Vote Compact.

+ Proposition 115 — Prohibits abortion after 22 weeks.

+ Proposition 118 — Creates a Paid Family Medical Leave program.

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Connecticut

Alex Kasser*

Connecticut State Senate, Senate District 36

Alex Kasser is a Yale graduate and former corporate attorney running for re-election to the Connecticut State Senate. She is currently the vice-chair of the Judiciary Committee, vice-chair of the Transportation Committee, and co-chair of the Baking Committee. Kasser has fought to end voter suppression, ensure access to affordable healthcare and housing, and fully fund public education. She has been a staunch and vocal opponent of the Trump/McConnell agenda, calling them out by name for their destructive governance at every opportunity.

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Delaware

Sarah McBride

Delaware State Senate, District 6

Sarah McBride is currently the National Press Secretary at the Human Rights Campaign. In her past, before running for office,Sarah McBride worked for leading Democrats including former Delaware Governor Jack Markell, Attorney General Beau Biden, and the Obama White House. In 2013, McBride joined the Board of Directors of Equality Delaware, the statewide organization working to ensure equality for all LGBT Delawareans, and became a advocate and organizer for the Delaware’s landmark legislation, The Gender Identity Non-discrimination Bill, which was signed into law in June 2013.

Since that time, McBride has worked with state leaders to expand health care covered by Medicaid in Delaware and helped secure passage of legislation protecting vulnerable youth from child abuse (which passed in 2017). She has been active in community and LGBT advocacy for most of her life, and former Governor Markell awarded McBride with the Order of the First State, making her one of the youngest Delawareans to receive the state’s highest civilian honor.

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Florida

Kimberly Walker

United States House of Representatives, Florida District 12

Kimberly Walker is running for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in one of Florida’s four “pivot counties” — her district went for Obama twice and then voted for Trump in 2016. What’s particularly interesting about the 12th is that it’s full of veterans — like Walker herself, who served in the Army and Air Force and is currently a contractor with the Department of Defense — who are sharply divided on their support for Trump, especially after the Atlantic article this fall, which was corroborated by various other reputable newspapers, that claimed that Trump called Americans who die in wars are “losers” and “suckers.” Walker’s opponent, Michael Bilirakis, is a Trump man through and through. Walker and Bilirakis are divided along party lines pretty clearly. If she wins, she’ll be the first Black woman and first gay woman elected from her district.

Michelle Rayner

Florida State House, District 70

Michelle Rayner has a COVID pop-up on her website, the only state legislature candidate I saw making the pandemic such a strong priority; she has even added a COVID Resources tab to the navigation bar. Rayner has worked as an activist and aide in the Florida legislature for years, and is ready to step into a leadership role in the government. Her legislative priorities include equitable access to housing, clean air and water, education, employment and other basic essentials required for healthy, stable, thriving lives. If she wins, she will be the first Black queer woman elected to the Florida legislature.

Jennifer Webb*

Florida State House, District 69

After losing to incumbent Republican Kathleen Peters in 2016 by 14 points, Jennifer Webb turned around and ran against her again in 2018 and won. Florida’s District 69 is a big time swing district, and Webb’s victory was viewed as the beginning of the Trump repudiation in areas without major Republican strongholds. Webb serves on Florida’s Commerce Committee and lists her priorities as: preserving Florida’s drinking water and waterways, funding public schools and steering money away from charter schools and high stakes testing, funding healthcare (including mental healthcare) and protecting LGBTQ+ rights.

Bonus Ballot Information

+ Amendment 2 — Increases the state minimum wage to $15 by 2026.

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Georgia

Park Cannon*

Georgia State House, District 58

Park Cannon is, once again, running unopposed for re-election to the Georgia House of Representatives in District 58. Among Cannon’s platforms are increasing affordable housing, fully funding public schools, accessible healthcare, and LGBTQ equality. She is one of only three LGBTQ Representatives in Georgia’s House and a founding member of the Equality Caucus. When she spoke at the Democratic National Convention, her message was simply, powerfully: “We need to trust black women.”

Karla Drenner*

Georgia State House, District 85

When Karla Drenner was elected to the Georgia State House in 2000, she became the first openly gay member of the legislative body. After 20 years on the job, she ran unopposed in this year’s Democratic primary and is also running unopposed in the General Election. Her legislative priorities have always been education reform, environmental concerns, and access to resources, healthcare, and education particularly for the impoverished citizens of Dekalb County.

Kim Jackson

Georgia State Senate, District 41

If Kim Jackson is elected, she’ll be the first openly LGBT member of the Georgia Senate. She is an Episcopal priest who was born and raised in South Carolina and has been living in Georgia for a decade. The Georgia House commended her in 2018 for her “tireless efforts on behalf of the disenfranchised, disenchanted, and dispossessed.” Her priorities are ending voter suppression, criminal justice reform, affordable housing, access to healthcare, expanding mass transit, and raising the minimum wage.

Julie Jordan

Georgia State House, District 179

Julie Jordan ran for office for the first time in 2018 and is running again against Republican incumbent Don Hogan. After teaching public school for 30 years, Jordan now serves as Chairwoman of the Democratic Party of Glynn County. She also founded Women’s Voices of Glynn County after Trump was elected in 2016, and the majority of her campaign contributions come from women. Julie’s top three goals for her time in office are to: ensure that Glynn County is safe and vibrant, provide access to quality and affordable healthcare, protect and preserve the environment.

Renitta Shannon*

Georgia State House, District 84

Renitta Shannon won her seat in Georgia’s 84th State House District in a 2016 upset, then won again with no problem in 2018. Shannon came out as bisexual in 2017; that same year she was named one of the Most Valuable Legislators in The Nation’s 2017 Progressive Honor Roll. She’s a member of 9 to 5 Working Women Atlanta, the Fight for $15 campaign, and the National Organization for Women. She has also written for TIME Magazine and Cosmo since being elected.

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Illinois

Dani Brzozowski

United States House of Representatives, Illinois District 16

Dani Brozozowski is a first generation college graduate and self-described “Army brat” who moved with her family to LaSalle County in the late 1990s, when she was a teenager. She went to Purdue and lived in Chicago for nearly a decade before moving back to her home community roughly five years ago. She’s the current Chair of the LaSalle County Democratic Party.

Brozozowski’s platform includes eliminating private prisons and the for-profit prison industry, along with ending often-racist mandatory minimum sentencing laws. She also believes in legalizing marijuana and using it as a source of tax revenue. She supports not only restoring the Voting Rights Act, but also strengthening it. A fighter against climate change, Brozozowski would like to implement a corporate carbon tax, place a moratorium on offshore drilling as well as drilling on public lands, and invest in efficient public transportation.

Kelly Cassidy*

Illinois State House, District 14

Kelly Cassidy’s first job in Chicago was as legislative director for the Chicago office of the National Organization of Women, which not only provided Cassidy with an introduction to government — part of her role was helping women feel empowered to advocate with legislators — it set her down a 20 year path of fighting for women’s and LGBTQ communities (Cassidy is a lesbian, who live with her spouse Candace and their three sons on Chicago’s North Side). In 2011 she was elected to represent Illinois’ 14th District in the State House, a position for which she’s currently seeking re-election to her now 7th term in office.

In 2019, Cassidy was an advocate for the Reproductive Health Act, which repealed many restrictions on abortion, including the previous pan on partial-birth abortions. She also co-sponsored Illinois’ Fair Tax Amendment, which would create a graduated rate income tax in the state. She’s also been vocal in the call for the end of district gerrymandering as a means of voter suppression.

Maggie Trevor

Illinois State House, District 54

Democrat Maggie Trevor is a proud graduate of the Rolling Meadows public school system and has family roots in the area dating back to the 1930s. She attend the University of Chicago, earning a bachelor’s degree in Chemistry and a master’s and PhD in Political Science. She remained in academia until 1999. After that time, she has worked as a research and operations executive in the healthcare field, eventually moving back to Rolling Meadows to start her own firm.

Trevor, who was also the Democratic candidate for this same seat in 2018 before ultimately losing in the general election, prioritizes affordable health care and quality public education as most important in her platform — no doubt drawing from her own personal experience. She’s also in favor of reproductive rights protection, gun safety, LGBTQ rights, and a graduated income tax. A decades long bicycle commuter, she would also prioritize improving Illinois public transportation options and building infrastructure that is friendly to pedestrians and bicyclists.

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Indiana

Pat Hackett

United States House of Representatives, Indiana District 02

Pat Hackett is an attorney, small business owner (she’s a partner in her own law firm), and adjunct professor who lives with her wife Rita in South Bend. She supports the Affordable Care Act, including its removal of lifetime caps and the removal of exclusions for pre-existing conditions. She also supports universal healthcare coverage and eventual movement towards a Medicare for All system. As the country navigates the financial destruction associated with the COVID pandemic, Hackett believes that congress should compel the Treasury secretary to prevent manipulation, abuse, or otherwise conflict of interest that benefits large corporations with federal bailout money that should go towards small business and individuals.

Hackett is pro-labor and pro-unions, and would seek out legislation that protects workers’ ability to organize and negotiate for fair pay and safe work conditions. She also supports raising the federal minimum wage to $15.00 an hour. Hackett strongly agrees that the federal government must rejoin the Paris Climate Accord and agrees with the principles of the Green New Deal. Hackett supports the complete restoration of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

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Iowa

Liz Bennett*

Iowa State House, District 65
Liz Bennett was first elected to the Iowa House of Representatives in 2014, becoming the first out LGBT woman to serve in Iowa’s State Legislature. She’s now seeking out her third term. In the Iowa State House, Liz is a member of the Administration & Rules, Economic Growth, Judiciary and Ways & Means committees.

Bennett currently works in tech while simultaneously serving in office, which she believes gives her a unique perspective that focuses not only on the needs of the workforce, but also the necessity of supporting public education, creating green jobs, and fighting for increased minimum wage. In 2018, Bennett was honored as Capital City Pride’s Pride Woman of the Year. She’s also using her relative popularity to fundraise for other Democrats running for the State House, recognizing the importance of flipping a Republican majority in the Iowa State House.

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Kansas

Sharice Davids*

United States House of Representatives, Kansas District 3

When Sharice Davids launched her campaign for a seat on the United States House of Representatives in 2018, the Republican Party came at her with every bit of dogwhistling and outright racism we’ve come to expect from them, with local GOP official Michael Kalny saying on Facebook that she was “a radical socialist kick boxing lesbian Indian will be sent back packing to the reservation.” Kalny was forced to resign and Davids, who is a former MMA fighter, won her Congressional race. VCreek/AMG polling shows her as a 20-point favorite in this year’s race. Not only is she one of the only openly gay Congresswomen; she’s one of the first two Native American women to serve in Congress. Davids serves on the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and the Committee on Small Business, and she spent much of her first term focusing on education policy, environmental policy, healthcare, and securing resources for veterans.

Stephanie Byers

Kansas State House, District 86

If she’s elected, Stephanie Byers will be the first trans member of the Kansas State Legislature. Byers taught for 29 years in the Wichita Public School System and received the GLSEN-Kansas Educator of the Year and the GLSEN National Educator of the Year award during her tenure. She is a member of the Chickasaw Nation. Byers’ focus during her campaign has been on LGBTQ equality and ending discrimination, expanding Medicaid, and fully funding public education.

Susan Ruiz*

Kansas State House, District 23

Susan Ruiz, a second generation immigrant and first generation college graduate, was elected to office for the first time in 2018; like so many other women, she decided to run after Trump was elected. She became one of the first two LGBT state representatives in Kansas’ history. In her first term, Ruiz served on the Veterans & Military Committee, Social Services Budget Committee, and Children & Senior Services Committee. She’ll be facing off against Republican Jeff Shull and Libertarian Matthew Clark in the General Election.

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Kentucky

Bonus Ballot Information

+ Constitutional Amendment 1 — Adds Marsy’s Law to the state constitution.

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Louisiana

Bonus Ballot Information

+ Amendment 1 — States that there’s no right to abortion/abortion funding in the Louisiana Constitution.

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Maine

Lois Galgay Reckitt*

Maine State House, District 31

Lois Reckitt was elected to the Maine House of Representatives in 2016. She currently serves on the Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee and the Judiciary Committee. Prior to running for office, Reckitt spent 37 years as Executive Director of the Domestic Violence Resource Center in Cumberland County, Maine and was ultimately inducted into the Maine Women’s Hall of Fame for her work with victims of domestic violence. Her legislative focus has been on affordable health care, criminal justice reform and gender equality.

Laurie Osher

Maine State House, District 123

Laurie Osher spent 20 years as a soil/land use/carbon sequestration specialist and feels that her expertise has prepared her for the challenges facing Maine in the climate crisis. She is now a consultant for small businesses to become more energy efficient and reduce their carbon footprint. Osher is running against Republican Cameron Bowie, about whom I can find no information except that he graduated from college in 2019.

Sarah Pebworth*

Maine State House, District 133

Sarah Pebworth was elected to the Maine House of Representatives in 2018 and is seeking reelection in her district, where she also works as the Public Library Board President. After soundly defeating her Republican opponent during her first campaign, she is running unopposed in this year’s General Election.

Charlotte Warren*

Maine State House, District 84

Charlotte Warren currently serves as the House Chairperson for the Committee on Criminal Justice and Public Safety in the Maine House of Representatives, where she’s served since 2014. She’s also an adjunct professor for University of New England Graduate School of Social Work. During her time as a public servent she’s fought for fully funded public schools, access to health care, a higher minimum wage, a sustainable environment, and a small business-friendly economy. She’s running against Republican Scott Taylor, whose main complaint at the moment is that Maine should have ignored the science on COVID and opened up sooner and allowed “people to use their own judgment.”

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Maryland

Mia Mason

United States House of Representatives, Maryland District 1

Mia Mason had a distinguished career in the U.S. Navy, serving two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, until a routine medical screening revealed that she was trans. She was subsequently discharged but, when President Obama announced that trans people could serve in the military, she fought to find a way back into service. About a year later, though, a new president enacted a ban on transgender service. Knowing first-hand about politics’ ability to upend lives — sometimes for better, other times for worst — Mason charted a new course: advocating for the families of Maryland’s 1st District in the U.S. House of Representatives.

To ensure that no one else goes through what she did, Mason is unwavering of her support of the Equality Act. But her platform extends beyond LGBT issues: she wants to protect Maryland’s air and water — particularly Chesapeake Bay — and invest in a green economy. She also wants to protect the livelihoods of the district’s agriculture community by creating a “Farmers’ Bill of Rights,” extending broadband internet access, battling the growth of agribusiness and ensuring a living wage.

If elected, Mason would be the first transgender person ever elected to Congress.

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Massachusetts

Jo Comerford*

Massachusetts State Senate, Hampshire, Franklin, Worcester District

In Jo Comerford’s first term as State Senator, she got busy! Serving as the Senate Chair of the Joint Committee on Public Health, the Vice Chair on the Joint Committee on Higher Education, and a member on the Joint Committees on: Cannabis Policy, Mental Health, Substance Abuse and Recovery. She also served on the Senate Committees on Global Warming and Climatee Change. In March 2020, Comerford, already recognized for her leadership skills, was tapped to lead the Senate COVID-19 Working Group and in June 2020 she was also asked to serve on the Senate Working Group on Racial Justice. Her platform includes: quality public education and free public higher education, affordable health care (including single payer health care), paid family medical leave, and the creation of renewable energy polices that address the climate crisis. Jo’s wife, Ann, is a public school teacher. The couple has two children, both of whom are in the Northampton Public Schools.

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Michigan

Jody LaMacchia

Michigan State House, District 46

Jody LaMacchia grew up in a small town just outside of Lansing, and then attended Central Michigan University, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology. She also earned a master’s degree in clinical psychology at Roosevelt University in Chicago. LaMacchia decided to run for the Michigan State House after growing tired of the toxicity and ineffectiveness of the legislature. If elected, she sees herself as a person who will be able to bridge divides across political parties as she works towards quality healthcare, fair wage jobs, paid family leave, and schools safe from gun violence. LaMacchia has a wife, Samantha, a teenage son, two dogs, Alfredo and Lolli, and a cat, Boo Boo.

Laurie Pohutsky*

Michigan State House, District 19

Laurie Pohutsky grew up in Redford, where her mother is a nurse and her father was a Teamster who later worked for the city of Dearborn Heights in several positions. Pohutsky graduated from Michigan State University in 2010 and like many college graduates in the last 15 years, struggled to find any meaningful employment after graduation. Feeling frustrated about the economy, student debt and obtaining a living wage — Pohutsky decided to run for the Michigan State House. She’s currently seeking her second term in office, during her first term she served on the Natural Resources and Outdoor Recreation and Health Policy committees. Pohutsky resides in Livonia with her rescue pets.

Renee Richer

Michigan State House, District 108

In Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, Renee Richer’s family has farmed in Gladstone for five generations. Renee went on to work her way through graduate school, earning a PhD in biology from Harvard before returning back to the UP. Today, Richer lives across from her parents on the family farm with her daughter and partner, in an 1888 farmhouse that she operates as a bed and breakfast.

Richer is another Michigan candidate who is running for office based on their ability as a Democrat to work with Republicans in the legislature. Richer will focus on protecting Michigan’s clean waters from corporate waste, especially important to the way of life in UP. She’ll also work to repeal the Senior Pension Tax laws, ensure access to quality (and affordable) medical care in rural communities, make public education a priority — with an eye towards fairness in rural districts. Richer pledged to take no corporate campaign money from PACs during her campaign.

Bonus Ballot Information

+ Proposal 2 — Requires a search warrant to access personal electronic data.

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Minnesota

Angie Craig*

United States House of Representatives, Minnesota District 02

Angie Craig was first elected to the House of Representatives as a part of 2018’s Blue Wave that took back the House from Republicans. In the last two years, Craig has introduced over 25 pieces of legislation, two of which — including the Payment Integrity Information Act and a bill that extends the Payment Protection Program (PPP) by five weeks — have been signed into law. She also co-sponsored more than 500 bills, hosted 21 town halls across all six counties of her district, and personally met with over 10,000 Minnesotans!

Perhaps most interesting about Craig is that she believes that time in politics shouldn’t be a lifetime career and that politicians shouldn’t get richer on the backs of their constituents. Her bill, the HUMBLE Act, would permanently ban members of Congress from serving as lobbyists or owning individual stock. Craig lives in Minnesota with her wife, Cheryl. The couple has raised four sons.

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Mississippi

Bonus Ballot Information

+ Ballot Measure 1 (Initiative 65 and Alternative 65A) — Legalizes medical marijuana.

+ Ballot Measure 3 — Asks voters to approve or reject a new state flag design that does not include the confederate battle flag but that must include the words “In God We Trust.”

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Missouri

Kathy Ellis

United States House of Representatives, Missouri District 8

Kathy Ellis lost to incumbent Republican Congressman Jason Smith in a landslide in 2018, unsurprising considering her district is in the dark red deep south part of Missouri. But she’s back at it in 2020! Since her 2018 defeat, she’s done dozens of town halls in 30 counties to discuss the topic that matters most to the people in District 8 — income inequality. Trump won District 8 with 76% of the vote in 2016, but polling has him pretty even with Biden there at this point. Only time will tell if that will make any difference for Ellis. In the meantime, she’s running on a platform of accessible healthcare, a New Deal for rural Americans, strong unions, and reproductive justice.

Ashley Bland Manlove*

Missouri State House, District 26

Ashley Manlove is currently the only openly gay member of the Missouri General Assembly, where she is running for reelection in District 26. She’s been an activist and active participant in democracy since her childhood when she began participating in door-to-door voter drives. After being elected in 2018, she served on the Budget Committee and the Financial Institutions Committee. Her priorities have included working to “reform the criminal justice system, expand voter rights, improve education in the district’s urban core with an eye on trauma-informed supportive services, and promote job development.”

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Montana

Kim Abbott*

Montana State House, District 83

Kim Abbott, the co-director of the Montana Human Rights Network, is seeking reelection running on the platform that garnered her victory in her previous two campaigns: economic justice, gender equity, public education, and environmental stewardship. She’s a strong supporter of the Healthy Montana Kids program and Medicaid expansion. Abbott is running against Republican Darin Gaub, whose top Google search result is a letter he wrote to the editor of the Independent Record calling climate change “propaganda.”

Andrea Olsen*

Montana State House, District 100

This is Andrea Olsen’s fourth time running for the Montana State House; she’s been serving since she first won election in 2014. Olsen has been endorsed by the Montana Federation of Public Employees, AFL-CIO, Montana Conservation Voters, and Carol’s List. Olsen’s current platform includes investing in education, affordable housing, and preserving Montana’s public lands.

Bonus Ballot Information

+ LR-130 — Removes local government authority to regulate firearms, including concealed carry.

+ CI-118 — Authorizes the legislature or a citizen initiative to create a legal age for purchasing and possessing marijuana.

+ I-190 — Legalizes marijuana for people over 21.

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Nebraska

Bonus Ballot Information

+ Amendment 1 — Repeals language allowing slavery or involuntary servitude as a criminal punishment.

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Nevada

Cecelia González

Nevada State Assembly, District 16

Cecelia González is a Thai-Mexican American, daughter of immigrants, and native Nevadan who was raised by her single mother. González was directly impacted by the criminal justice system at an early age, when her biological father became incarcerated when Cecelia was two years old. As a result, the inhumanity of the prison industrial complex has been a core part of González’s lifelong activism. She has been an active member of the Mass Liberation Project housed under the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada (PLAN). This fall, González began a doctoral program in Multicultural Education at the University of Nevada Las Vegas . Her research focuses on the school-to-prison-pipeline, women in prisons, and violence against women.

As a member of the Nevada Assembly, González will organize around protections against interpersonal and domestic violence, women’s health, criminal justice reform, education, and raising the minimum wage.

Melanie Scheible*

Nevada State Senate, District 9

Melanie Scheible is a graduate of Nevada public schools before recieving her B.A. in Public Policy from Stanford University and a JD from Columbia Law School. Scheible is a former prosecutor for the Clark County District Attorney and also once on the Steering Committee for the Human Rights Campaign. Her priorities include funding public education, increasing access to affordable healthcare, gun control and job creation. In particular, Scheible fights to enforce universal background checks and supports banning bump-stocks, the gun attachment that was used in the tragic Las Vegas mass shooting that took place on October 1, 2017.

Pat Spearman*

Nevada State Senate, District 1

Dr. Patricia Spearman was the first out LGBTQ+ member (and first out lesbian) of the Nevada State Senate. An Army veteran, in the state Senate, has worked to make sure the Nevada Department of Veterans Services has the resources they need to provide vets with support. Dr. Spearman earned her doctorate in Business Administration with an emphasis on Renewable Energy, serves on Nevada’s New Energy Industry Task Force. In the state Senate, she has worked to cut back energy costs, expand the solar energy economy, establish annual goals for clean energy savings, and bring cost-effective efficiency programs to Nevada. As Chair of the Senate Health Committee, she co-sponsored a bill that expanded reproductive health freedom in Nevada for the first time in 17 years. During her time in office, she also helped convince the state Assembly to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment — making Nevada the first state in four decades to adopt the amendment, which has still not been enacted on a national level.

Sarah Peters*

Nevada State Assembly, District 24

Sarah Peters is an environmental engineer originally ran for office in 2018 (and won) because she believes that climate change and environmental issues rare defining challenge of our time. More specifically, she believes that we need more scientists in elected office to make a lasting progressive difference. As a project manager at McGinnis and Associates Environmental, Peters worked with the Yerington Paiute Tribe, fighting to hold BP accountable for the cleanup of poisoned groundwater and soil from the Anaconda mine Superfund site.

Peters also believes in raising the minimum wage, strengthening small business, and using marijuana funding to directly increase education funding. She is supportive of public charter schools, but strongly opposed to public tax dollars funding private and religious schools. She believes in the implementation of universal background checks, banning civilian ownership of military-style weapons, and banning bump stocks. Peters would like to create an Affordable Housing Infrastructure Bank that would pay incentives for building affordable housing by a taxing luxury home construction.

Peters came out as bisexual at 16, and lives with her husband (a Marine vet) and their three children.

Dallas Harris*

Nevada State Senate, District 11

Dallas Harris was first appointed to the Nevada Senate in 2018, and in that time she has served as Vice Chair of the Judiciary Committee and member of the Education Committee and Natural Resources Committee. Born and raised in Las Vegas, Harris received two bachelor’s degrees from the University of Nevada, Last Vegas (computer science and psychology). She received her master’s in public policy from Claremont University in California and her law degree from The George Washington University Law School in Washington, DC. Harris supports raising Nevada’s Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS), using marijuana tax revenue towards education, and wants to better support those Nevadans who are unhoused or homeless. In her free time, Harris plays Tennis and has a 2nd degree blackbelt in Tae Kwon Do.

Bonus Ballot Information

+ Question 2 — Recognizes marriages of couples regardless of gender.

+ Question 4 — Adds Nevada’s 2002 declaration of voters’ rights to the state constitution.

+ Question 6 — Requires utility companies to acquire 50 percent of electricity from renewable resources.

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New Hampshire

Lisa Bunker*

New Hampshire State House, Rockingham 18

Add Lisa Bunker to the list of women who never thought of running for office until Trump was elected, and who won a seat in her state legislature in 2018. Her platform this time around is almost identical to the one she ran on in the midterms — defeating voter suppression; equal protections for all minorities; closing the opportunity gap with job growth, affordable housing, and better public education; and sustainable stewardship for the environment and public safety net.

Gerri Cannon*

New Hampshire State House, District Strafford 18

Gerri Cannon is a former truck driver and independent lobbyist who became the first openly trans person elected to the New Hampshire State House. During her first term, she focused on education, healthcare accessibility, and the protection of minority rights. She also served on the Health, Human Services and Elderly Affairs Committee. She is also a member of the New Hampshire Conference of UCC Churches, Open and Affirming Concerns Committee.

Rebecca Perkins Kwoka

New Hampshire State Senate, District 21

Rebecca Kwoka is running for office for the first time this year. Her focus has been on protection against discrimination for minorities, a sustainable economy for small businesses, affordable housing, and addressing the climate crisis. She’s been endorsed by over a dozen progressive organizations including Planned Parenthood, Emily’s List, LPac and the Sierra Club.

Sue Mullen*

New Hampshire State House, District 7

Sue Mullen was elected to the New Hampshire State Legislature in 2018, becoming the first Democrat to be elected in her district since 1934. Slate ran a profile on her called Red State, Blue Wave. She currently serves on the Education Committee. Mullen worked as a public school teacher and counselor for 39 years, prior to running for office. In addition to her work on public education, Mullen has continued her advocacy for LGBTQ equality. In a post-victory interview in the Midterms, she said, “I think it’s ironic that I’ve just been elected to the same body that I was fearful might in fact renege on my civil union, which is now a marriage.”

Linda Tanner*

New Hampshire State House, District 9

Linda Tanner was elected to the New Hampshire House of Representatives in 2016. She currently serves on the Education Committee. During her first two terms she has worked to advance all the Democratic Caucus priorities, including trying to raise minimum wage, fund public education, protect waterways and wetlands, provide better family medical leave, and ending incarceration for the mentally ill.

Joyce Weston*

New Hampshire State House, District 8

Joyce Weston was elected to the New Hampshire House of Representatives in 2018 and currently serves on the Commerce and Consumer Affairs Committee. In her first term, the NRA rated her 0%, which is always a good sign, and one of her most talked about sponsored bills was one that repealed a state law that allowed public schools to force children to recite the Lord’s Prayer. Weston was an activist and champion of progressive values for decades before running for office.

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New Jersey

Bonus Ballot Information

+ Public Question 1 — Legalizes the recreational possession and use of marijuana.

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New Mexico

Carrie Hamblen

New Mexico State Senate, District 38

Originally from El Paso, Texas, Carrie Hamblen has lived in Las Cruses since 1992. Hamblen is the CEO/President of the Las Cruces Green Chamber of Commerce, an organization which focuses on creating support for local businesses and creating more awareness about sustainable communities. She believes those same skills will transfer well to the New Mexico State Senate, where the state is already moving in a direction to be less dependent on coal, but also must be sensitive to those jobs that are being displaced by providing free job training and placement in our new renewable economy. If elected, she would also work with the South Central Regional Transit District to increase routes and ridership that will benefit the region. Hamblen also believes that as Roe V. Wade continues to have renewed national attention, it is crucial that New Mexico redo local laws to stop penalizing women who choose to terminate a pregnancy.

Hamblen was Chair of the Southern New Mexico PRIDE organization for 6 years. She enjoys working on the 1948 home she shares with her wife (and has recently remodeled their kitchen, both bathrooms, and pantry!).

Liz Stefanics*

New Mexico State Senate, District 39

Liz Stefanics is currently serving her second term in New Mexico’s State Senate. She originally held the position from 1993-96. Voters returned her to the State Senate in 2016. She now seeks a third term in office.

As State Senator, Stefanics lists her priorities as: bringing affordable and accessible healthcare to rural New Mexico (including more primary care physicians and preemptive care opportunities); creating new and sustainable jobs that can put New Mexicans back to work while diversifying the economy; creating quality education and training in public schools; protecting the water and land of New Mexico, including increasing renewable energy for the state.

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New York

Tracy Mitrano

United States House of Representatives, New York District 23

Tracy Mitrano is facing off, again, against Republican incumbent Tom Reed in the general election for a seat in the U.S. Congress. Reed has one of the highest “Trump Scores” in the United States — he sides with Trump 90% of the time. Public Policy Polling has Reed with a 7-point lead with two weeks left until the election, but Mitrano’s messaging, especially around healthcare, has some people thinking she might pull off the upset. She’s been endorsed by Chuck Schumer, Kristen Gillibrand, New York Lt. Governor Kathy Hochul, and New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli. Mitrano is ready to tackle climate change and face off against the NRA.

Deborah Glick*

New York State Assembly, District 66

Glick was the first openly gay member of the New York State legislature and has worked tirelessly in her career for reproductive justice and LGBTQ rights. While Glick is responsible for legislation requiring the MTA to make 100 key stations fully accessible (something that has not yet been accomplished), she drew criticism from disability advocates in 2014 for not fully supporting their work to amend legislation that would allow some disabled New Yorkers to live in their own homes instead of nursing facilities through a program known as the Community First Choice Option. The legislation ultimately did pass. Glick has served as the chair of the Assembly Committee on Ethics and Guidance, and the chair of the Task Force on People with Disabilities. Glick has also been a strong supporter and advocate for tenants’ rights.

Gail Tosh

New York State Assembly, District 120

Gail Tosh is, once again, challenging Republican incumbent Will Barclay for the 120th Assembly District seat in New York. She was the first person to challenge him in a decade when she ran against him in 2018, and now she’s back at it. Tosh is a public educator and chicken farmer who is using her campaign to speak out for criminal justice reform; access to healthcare, education, and essential services; and closing the wealth gap.

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North Carolina

Jenna Wadsworth

State Commissioner of Agriculture

Jenna Wadsworth was still a college student when she won her first political race. At just 21, she became the youngest woman to ever hold elected office in North Carolina. Now, a decade late, she’s striving to make history again: Wadsworth wants to become the first out LGBTQ person to hold statewide office and the youngest out statewide elected official in the country.

Wadsworth has built her career combining the lessons she learned on her grandparents’ Johnston County farm — which she still tends today with her father — and the innovations she learned as a student at the North Carolina School of Science and Math and NC State University and you see that reflected in her platform. She wants to expand our definitions of farming, agricultural innovation, in tandem with our land grant institutions, and expand rural broadband so that farmers can compete in the global marketplaces. Also, she’s committed to supporting immigrant farmworkers — many of whom have bore the brunt of COVID — and legalizing hemp and cannabis.

After a TikTok video of hers went viral, Wadsworth has been the subject of a host of rape and death threats. But to Wadsworth, the backlash is an acknowledgement that her opponent is vulnerable and that her candidacy represents a threat to the monied interests controlling state agriculture.

Vernetta Alston*

North Carolina State House, District 29

For years, Vernetta Alston has been fighting the tough fights on behalf of people who are often forgotten by our political system. Straight out of law school, she began work as a staff attorney to support the implementation of the Racial Justice Act. Her work on the Innocence Inquiry Commission secured Henry McCollum — then the longest serving inmate on death row — his release.

Following his release, Alston shifted her focus from fighting the system from outside to remaking the system from within. She joined the Durham City Council in 2017 and continued her advocacy for those usually overlooked. She’s secured living wages to all City employees and supported diversion programs for our justice-involved and those facing eviction. And, in the wake of a crisis at McDougald Terrace, Alston supported the largest bond for affordable housing in North Carolina history.

Appointed to the House earlier this year, Alston hopes to bring the same empathetic leadership that she showcased in Durham to Raleigh. Among her legislative priorities: pursuing clean energy reform, fully funding public schoosl, investing in our state’s workers and rebuilding our unemployment insurance benefit system.

Deb Butler*

North Carolina State House, District 18

When Deb Butler came to work at the State House on September 11, 2019 she knew something was awry: Democrats had been told that the morning session would be a pro-forma, with no votes being taken, but nearly every member of the House Republican caucus was seated. In short order, the Republican House Speaker moved to override the governor’s veto of the state’s budget — which had been held up over a disagreement on Medicaid expansion and increased teacher pay — and Butler jumped to her feet, incensed.

“You shall not do this to democracy in North Carolina, Mr. Speaker,” she yelled. The Speaker instructed her to yield the floor but Butler stood firm, “I will not yield! I will not yield, Mr. Speaker! You shall not usurp the process, Mr. Speaker. How dare you subject this body to trickery, deceptive practices, hijacking the process?”

While the viral video of the incident gave Butler a national profile, her work in the legislature has been focused on returning North Carolina to its roots as a progressive beacon in the South. She’s committed to fully funding public education, rebuilding North Carolina’s infrastructure and cultivating a culture that welcomes new business to the state.

Allison Dahle*

North Carolina State House, District 11

This year, as North Carolinians vie to participate in the electoral process, they’ll have some new tools at their disposal. They’ll be able to request an absentee ballot online. They’ll be able to track their absentee ballot from the time that the ballot leaves their county elections’ office to the time it’s accepted. They can walk into their local polling place knowing that they’re fully staffed by trained (and paid!) poll workers who are wearing personal protective equipment. Credit for the state’s quick adaptation to the new reality created by COVID-19 goes to Allison Dahle.

Dahle’s work on the Bipartisan Elections Act is just another example of her looking out for North Carolinians. In her first term in the House, she worked with advocates to create a missing person alert system focused on veterans dealing with PTSD and pushed for the state to require paid breaks for workers. As she looks toward her second term, Dahle hopes to overcome Republican opposition and finally expand Medicaid. She wants to end gerrymandering and create an Independent Redistricting Commission to do the work of drawing district maps.

Marcia Morey *

North Carolina State House, District 30

In the 18 years before joining the state legislature, Marcia Morey was a district court judge. She witnessed “many incidents of injustice and misuse of police power” but was limited, in her role as a judge, to enact any real systemic change.

But since leaving the bench, that has been the focus of Morey’s career. As a member of the House, Morey has advocated for an end to cash bail, pushed require that any person in jail for misdemeanor charges have a right to a first appearance and supported the Second Chance Act to help restart lives of those who have been incarcerated. If re-elected, Morey would like to bring some of the reform solutions proposed by Campaign Zero to North Carolina. She’ll have greater influence on criminal justice reform this year, as part of the governor’s Task Force for Racial Equity in Criminal Justice.

Marcia Morgan*

North Carolina State House, District 19

In 2018, Marcia Morgan engaged in a hard fought campaign against an incumbent Republican legislator and lost narrowly. But in the years since, the General Assembly has redrawn her southeastern North Carolina district and the aforementioned incumbent has been forced to compete in a neighboring district. With an open seat available, Marcia Morgan returns to finish the fight she started two years ago.

Morgan’s resolve to address the challenges facing the 19th district has only intensified. The retired Army colonel has identified four areas of focus: environment, education, economy and equality. She wants to see North Carolina step up its protection of the state’s waterways — especially demanding accountability from industrial and agricultural polluters — and ensure that the coastline remains free of offshore drilling rigs. As a legislator, she would support the Medicaid expansion and increases in teacher pay. Above all, though, she’s fervent about being a people-centered public servant, prioritizing their health and safety above all else.

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Oklahoma

Chelsey Branham*

Oklahoma State House, District 83

Chelsey Branham is a Native Chickasaw and, before being elected in 2018, was the Director of the Social and Economic Justice at the Oklahoma City YWCA. She became the first and only LGBTQ member of the Oklahoma House of Representatives when she was elected in the Midterms in 2018. Her legislative priorities are education, criminal justice reform, accessible healthcare, and rebuilding Oklahoma’s economy.

Allison Ikley-Freeman*

Oklahoma State Senate, District 37

Allison Ikley-Freeman’s rise to the Oklahoma State Senate was improbable; after all, Democrats make up just 28 percent of the registered voters in the district. But Ikley-Freeman found a way: winning a special election in 2017. Confident that her work on behalf of the 37th district would appeal to people of all political persuasions, Ikley-Freeman noted, “It is about the community, not the party.”

If re-elected to the Senate, Ikley-Freeman pledges to continue to work to achieve greater access to mental health care for Oklahomans and improve the quality of the state’s public schools. She’s focused two issues that are especially important in the wake of the pandemic: restoring the state’s Daycare Assistance Program and improving the efficacy of state and local housing authorities.

But the path back to the State Senate will be a difficult. Ikley-Freeman is working to help her district through the pandemic and campaigning for re-election while convalescing from a serious automobile accident.

Mauree Turner

Oklahoma State House, District 88

Next month, Mauree Turner looks poised to make history — becoming the state’s first Muslim and the first black queer lawmaker — but this was never the plan; as she told Huffington Post, “I’m Black, Muslim, femme, queer, born and raised in Oklahoma — politics was the last thing in my crosshairs.” But sometimes you pick the moment and other times, the moment picks you.

Growing up, Turner was estranged from her father who was incarcerated. Reconnecting with him while they were in college compelled her to change her plans and focus on a new career path. They committed themselves to criminal justice reform, working on behalf of the CAIR Oklahoma and the ACLU’s Campaign for Smart Justice. If elected, Turner would focus on reducing incarceration rates and dismantling a prison systems more interested in retribution than rehabilitation. Additionally, Turner advocates for boosting teacher pay and school funding, raising the minimum wage, expanding access to health care and increasing inclusivity.

Bonus Ballot Information

+ State Question 805 — Prohibits using a person’s past non-violent felony convictions to impose a greater sentence for other non-violent felony convictions.

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Oregon

Tina Kotek*

Oregon State House, District 44

Representing North Portland, Tina Kotek is a graduate of the University of Oregon. Kotek began her public service career as a policy advocate for Oregon Food Bank, working to eliminate hunger for every Oregonian. She went on to serve as the policy director for Children First for Oregon before being elected to the Oregon House of Representatives in 2006.

During her time in the house, Kotek has championed a redesign of the state’s welfare program, led the fight to establish statewide nutrition standards for food sold in schools, and helped to pass legislation that ended discrimination based on sexual orientation. In 2013, Kotek became the first out lesbian Speaker of any state House in the nation.

In recent years, Kotek has lead the Portland House in passing earned sick leave, strengthening retirement security and making racial profiling illegal. She has also fought to pass Oregon’s landmark Clean Fuels legislation.

Today, Tina and her wife, Aimee, have a Yorkie, Rudy.

Kate Lieber

Portland State Senate, District 14

Kate Lieber has lived in Oregon for 24 years, now in Portland, with her wife (Lieber identifies as a lesbian) and her two children. As a breast cancer survivor, she believes that access to affordable, quality health care is critical and is fiercely protective of a woman’s right to reproductive rights and justice. Lieber currently works as a Portland Community College instructor, and is a strong believer in high-quality public school education. As a former Deputy District Attorney, she believes in the need to focus on practical ways of addressing the underlying causes of high incarceration rates — such as untreated mental health problems, drug and alcohol addiction, homelessness institutionalized racism.

Karin Power*

Oregon State House, District 41

Having now served for four years and two terms, Karin Power also goes by Oregon’s youngest mom-legislator. Power was first elected to Milwaukie City Council in 2014 and to the Oregon Legislature in 2016. She now seeks her third term in office.

As the youngest parent in the Oregon legislature, Power led efforts to modernize laws for working families, including championing new pregnancy protections in 2019, and expanding breastfeeding laws so all new parents have the right to feed their babies. She also voted yes to pass the nation’s most inclusive statewide paid family and medical leave insurance program. Power and her wife have a preschool age child and two dogs.

In 2019, Power led the passage of legislation to phase out old diesel truck engines in the Portland Metro area. That same year, also pushed for more than six hours for climate action legislation to make our Oregon communities more resilient to wildfire and safeguard the state’s drinking water.

Bonus Ballot Information

+ Measure 109 — Legalizes psilocybin mushrooms for Oregon Psilocybin Services Program under the Oregon Health Authority.

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Pennsylvania

Jessica Benham

Pennsylvania State House, District 36

Everything about Jessica Benham’s run for State House has been unexpected. When she announced her run last year, Bensham expected to run against the incumbent conservative Democrat. But then, the incumbent announced he wouldn’t seek re-election; instead, his handpicked successor would run against Benham in the Democratic primary. The campaign was messy — the would-be successor’s campaign was derailed by a series of offensive Facebook posts — but, in the end, Benham was victorious.

Now facing a Republican challenger, Benham is focused in getting her message out to HD-36 voters. If elected, she’s pledged to bring immediate relief to Pennsylvanians struggling through the pandemic while also working on a plan to ensure long term recovery. She wants to ensure continued affordable access to healthcare and treatment programs for those suffering from addiction. And as longtime disability advocate, Benham wants to work to get rid of the barriers to accessibility that exist in Pennsylvania.

Janelle Crossley

Pennsylvania State House, District 199

Before she retired from the industry, Janelle Crossley spent 25 years working in health care facility management. As COVID stretches the resources of hospitals and nursing homes, Crossley’s experience could prove vital in creating a state government more responsive to the needs of those on the pandemic’s frontlines. Where the federal government has faltered, Crossley is ready to do the hard work to rebuilding Pennsylvania’s economy. To that end, Crossley wants to prioritize investments in in education — Pennsylvania covers just 38% of school costs — and training, transportation infrastructure, and health care.

Crossley wants to give the 199th district a representative that is committed to leadership, equity and justice. Her platform prioritizes an end to political gerrymandering and open primaries for Pennsylvania elections. She wants her past advocacy work — with TransAdvocacy PA and advocating for the passage of criminal justice reform — to guide her work in the legislature. She wants to work to institute bans on employment discrimination and “conversion therapy.”

Crossley is the first trans woman to run for state office in Pennsylvania.

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Rhode Island

Rebecca Kislak*

Rhode Island House, District 4

Just a few months into Rhode Island’s experience with the pandemic, Rebecca Kislak starting noticing some troubling trends: despite only making up 15% of the state’s residents, Latinx folks made up 45% of early COVID-19 cases. She issued an early call to do something. She pushed for tracking case data by by race and ethnicity and ensuring that testing was widely available and accessible to those communities. She advocated for hazard pay for frontline workers and pushed to ensure low-wage employees were prioritized in doling out federal support.

But Kislak also saw a role for herself and her colleagues in the legislature: they needed to fully fund community-led Health Equity Zones and codify the Affordable Care Act into state law. In short, Kislak set her re-election agenda: increasing access to affordable healthcare and also funding access to safe, affordable housing and nutritional foods for all communities.

Tiara Mack

Rhode Island State Senate, District 6

It’s not clear that Tiara Mack wanted to be an elected official…throughout and after her college career at Brown, Mack existed and thrived in the activist space. But while lobbying on behalf of the Reproductive Privacy Act — a bill that codified the right to choose into Rhode Island law — Mack realized that her own senator was anti-choice (and anti-gay). She realized that she didn’t want to be represented by someone who didn’t share her ideals and, at the moment, Mack’s interest in running for the State Senate was born.

She ran against that senator back in September and to contrast with the bible quoting, 15-year veteran legislator, Mack came to the race as her fully authentic self: a proud, Black, queer woman with a black and queer liberation at the center of her campaign. While he stood with the health insurance companies, Mack vowed to fight for affordable healthcare. While he protected his corrupt political allies, Mack advocated for more more sunlight and elections policies that promote increased participation.

Mack won the contest by nearly 20 points and, in November, will likely be minted as Rhode Island’s first Black, LGBTQ state senator.

Deb Ruggiero*

Rhode Island House, District 74

Deb Ruggiero was first elected to the Rhode Island House of Representatives in 2008…and she remains one of the most popular incumbents in the legislature because of her independent streak and her commitment to transparency. Ruggiero’s been a leader in advocating on issues like Climate Change and broadband internet access.

Ruggiero’s running for re-election to ensure that Rhode Island has steady leadership as it navigates through this recovery. Her roles as the Chair of the House Committee on Small Business and the House Finance Subcommittee on the Environment and Transportation will be crucial moving forward.

“It won’t be easy,” Ruggiero told constituents when she annouced her re-election campaign. “But we will find innovative ways to get through this together. I am committed to representing our communities.”

Bonus Ballot Information

+ Rhode Island Question 1 — Removes “Providence Plantations” from the official state name.

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South Dakota

Louise Snodgrass

South Dakota State House, District 7

Earlier this year, the South Dakota legislature advanced a series of bills that drew Louise Snodgrass’ ire. They include one bill that restricted health care for transgender youth, another that forced school counselors and social workers to disclose a student’s gender dysphoria and another that recriminalized same-sex marriage. Snodgrass and her community in Brookings rallied again against the legislation but their representatives weren’t being responsive. Hoping to be the person who could amplify the voices of her community in the House, Snodgrass decided to run for office.

In the wake of a pandemic that’s hit farmers and small businesses especially hard, Snodgrass’ experience — which includes managing Good Roots Farm and Gardens and the Brookings Farmers Market — seems particularly suited for advancing South Dakota’s recovery. If elected, Snodgass wants to utilize their relationship building skills to find common ground on issues like conservation, higher education and agriculture. But, above all, they want to create an accessible, inclusive and transparent government.

If elected, Snodgrass would become the first first openly genderqueer member of the South Dakota legislature.

Bonus Ballot Information

+ Initiated Measure 26 — Legalizes medical marijuana.

+ Constitutional Amendment A — Legalizes recreational marijuana.

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Texas

Gina Ortiz Jones

United States House of Representatives, Texas District 23

Less that half a percentage point — 0.41% to be exact — was the difference between Gina Ortiz Jones and her incumbent opponent when she ran for Congress in 2018. She fell just short of being elected to represent her hometown; the result was one of the closest House races in the country. Determined to make sure that the TX-23 has the representation it deserves, Jones is back, this time without an incumbent to fight, determined to turn the district blue.

Like so many Congressional races, the TX-23 might hinge on the issue of health care. Jones is committed to protecting and expanding the Affordable Care Act, in hopes that the program might become more accessible for the 5 million Texans who lack health insurance.

While Jones was, no doubt, subject to some homophobia during her run in 2018, the subtly of it is gone in 2020. Her opponent’s Republican allies have launched a series of anti-gay attacks and are encouraging other outside groups to do the same. Stooping to homophobic attacks only reveals how formidable Jones is as a candidate and how impotent the Republican campaign against her is.

Madeline Eden

Texas State House, District 17

Madeline “Made” Eden’s never needed a political office to make change in her community. From the time she started learning how to code at age 6, Eden has used her expertise to help countless open-source software initiatives and non-profit organizations maximize their potential. She currently works full-time developing information management systems for progressive political candidates and social impact organizations and somehow finds time to run a non-profit, Register2Vote, that helped register more than 150,000 Texans in 2018. But there’s only so much change that one can make from outside the system so now Eden’s set her sights on a seat in the Texas legislature.

If elected, Eden’s legislative priorities would include: increasing access to quality healthcare, eliminating “school choice” vouchers and investing in public education at all levels and providing universal broadband internet access. She’s especially passionate about creating a more representative democracy in Texas, through ending gerrymandering and voter suppression.

If elected, Eden would be the first openly transgender member of the Texas legislature.

Jessica Gonzalez*

Texas State House, District 104

After pulling off a decisive upset of an incumbent Democrat in her 2018 primary, Jessica González runs this year without opposition. In her first two years in the legislature, González has been active, penning legislation related to criminal justice reform, voting and health care. She’s advocated for the Medicaid expansion, school finance reform, fought against discrimination and protected Texans from human trafficking.

Since the pandemic hit, González has been out on the frontlines, ensuring that her community has access to COVID testing and PPE. If she’s re-elected, González will, no doubt, continue to serve the interests of her constituents in the 104th District as best she can, but the real opportunity will come if Texas voters restore Democrats to the majority in the House.

Mary Gonzalez*

Texas State House, District 75

Last year, when the five queer women in the Texas House banded together to form the legislature’s first LGBTQ caucus, the founders chose Mary González — the only openly pansexual elected official in the country — as their chair. It made sense…not just because she’s the longest serving LGBT member of the House but because the El Paso native has a proven track record of getting stuff done.

“It’s been an honor to represent our community and our home for the last seven years. And in this time period, we’ve been able to work on things that have mattered to us the most: public education, agriculture, infrastructure,” González reminded voters when she announced her re-election.

But there’s still more work to do. In the wake of the pandemic, González is focused on the rural communities in her district that are most susceptible to coronavirus. She’s urged state officials to establish mobile testing centers and to develop communication strategies for hard to reach communities. And when she returns back to Austin in January — she’s running unopposed in the 75th district — González is determined to make the Medicaid expansion the legislature’s top issue.

Celia Israel *

Texas State House, District 50

How good is Celia Israel’s record as a representative for District 50? So good that, according to the Austin-Statesman, even her Republican opponent couldn’t object to it. Her work on to improve voter access and election security and working to establish whistleblower protections earn universal approval.

But Israel’s most impressive accomplishment may be her stewardship of the House Democratic Campaign Committee. The gains from the 2018 election have Texas Democrats hopeful that they can retake the House…which would be a gamechanger in advance of the 2021 redistricting process. Israel and House leaders are using a promise of “Affordable Health Care for Every Texan” to drive Democratic messaging. To help candidates in pursuit of a Blue Majority, Israel and the HDCC have delivered record-breaking fundraising hauls.

Ann Johnson

Texas State House, District 34

In 2010, Ann Johnson appeared before the Texas Supreme Court, challenging a law that condemned child prostitutes as criminals, not as victims. She won that fight and, in the process, rewrote laws on human trafficking in Texas and across the nation. She continued her work in the Harris County DA’s office, establishing a section focused exclusively on human trafficking. Now a lawyer in the private sector, she continues to work on these issues, urging leaders not to target sex workers. But now Johnson’s prepared to get off the sidelines and into the House, where she can affect change from within.

Johnson is running against a self-described “moderate,” who district residents describe as the “Susan Collins of Texas.” But while her opponent waffles about which side of the fence to be on, Johnson is firm in her convictions: she wants to expand Medicaid and ensure that all residents have unfettered access to the COVID-19 vaccine. She wants to invest in public education, restoring the $5.3 billion lost to cuts over the last decade. And so she never has to see another El Paso or Sutherland Springs, Johnson is a staunch advocate for common sense gun reform.

If Texas Democrats are to have any chance at winning the House, Ann Johnson’s race is a must win.

Julie Johnson*

Texas State House, District 115

Julie Johnson is part of the new class of female legislators who took our collective outrage after the 2016 election and turned it into action. After building a career in Dallas as an attorney, she decided to challenge a vulnerable Republican in 2018. She won decisively and has spent the last two years working hard on behalf of the resides of the 115th District. She’s championed responsible spending, criminal justice reform and women’s health during her first term.

Johnson was voted freshman legislator of the year by both the LGBTQ Caucus and Texas Monthly for her work on killing an anti-gay House bill. Johnson used legislative procedure to stop consideration of HB-3172 — known as the “Save Chick-fil-A” bill to Republicans and “Bathroom Bill 2.0” to LGBTQ advocates — and ultimately doom it to failure. It was a big win for LGBTQ Texans and, though Johnson is quick to give the credit to the entire caucus, it was her savy politicking that led the way.

Eliz Markowitz

Texas State House, District 28

Elizabeth “Eliz” Markowitz’s November race is a rematch. After the 28th district’s representative resigned, a special election was called that, ultimately, pitted Markowitz against a Republican who loaned himself $1.5M for his campaign. Markowitz didn’t win that race but she has another shot to turn HD-28 blue in a couple of weeks.

As an educator herself, Markowitz is committed to creating a public education system that provides high-quality education to all Texans, regardless of race or zip code. She wants to restore the $5M+ cut from the education budget by the Republican legislature and revamp the school financing system that’s failed too many Texas children. She wants charter schools to be held to the same standards as public schools while ensuring those standards don’t include ineffective standardized tests. Markowitz also wants to invest in Texas teachers and student support staff, providing them with higher salaries and better benefits.

Stephanie Phillips

Texas State House, District 73

Stephanie Phillips is a teacher by trade and like so many of the educators who decide to run for public office, ensuring a quality education for her constituents is a top priority. She wants to move away from standarized testing and, instead, trust teachers and administrators to assess the progress of their students. Philips wants an increase in per pupil spending and a pledges to fight against proposals that divert public funds to charter or private school. She supports legislation to restore the state’s support for public education to 50% of the total cost, rather that relying heavily on local property taxpayers.

Philips is especially passionate about replacing her Republican opponent due to his unwillingness to take a stand to preserve the Hill Country’s environment. She wants to pen legislation that would allow county governments to implement common sense land use rules. Phillips favors creating a set of standards to govern the aggregate mining that is threatening the Hill Country’s natural beauty or infecting the air and water with pollution.

Erin Zwiener*

Texas State House, District 45

When Erin Zwiener questioned her then-representative on Facebook about his stance on a controversial immigration measure, things got tense and, ultimately, he called her a troll and blocked her. His response was enough to draw her into the HD-45 race — though not against her then-representative, who opted to run for Congress — and, despite the district’s conservative leanings, Zwiener pulled off the unlikely victory.

After just her first term in the House, Zwiener is already being described as “the most savvy freshman and potential future leader of the House Democrats. The conservationist, by trade, Zwiener’s focused on environmental issues, passing legislation to protect groundwater, reduce night-sky light pollution and mitigate flooding. She wants to continue that work if she’s re-elected, establishing a public routing process for oil and gas pipelines. Zwiener also worked last session to pass a historic $11.6 billion public school finance bill that increased teacher pay while cutting property taxes, but wants to do more to increase state support of public education in a second term.

To win re-election, Zwiener will face a familiar foe: the then-representative that called her a troll? His wife is Zwiener’s Republican opponent this fall.

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Utah

Bonus Ballot Information

+ Constitutional Amendment A — Makes language in the state constitution gender-neutral.

+ Constitutional Amendment C — Repeals language allowing slavery or involuntary servitude as a criminal punishment.

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US Virgin Islands

Janelle Sarauw*

United States Virgin Islands Senate, St. Thomas/St. John

Tourism is the economic engine for the US Virgin Islands but between the impact from tropical storms in the Carribean, which have damaged the islands’ infrastructure, and the pandemic, which has kept tourists away, the island’s financial situation is bleak. That’s why the territory’s budget is the top priority on Janelle Sarauw’s list, should she be re-elected to a third term in the Senate. She wants to ensure that progress is made on previously funded disaster-related projects. That progress will create jobs, generate tax and, ultimately, tourism revenue to help USVI recover.

“The pandemic has forced us to re-evaluate, re-organize, re-calibrate, re-think how we operate. Without warning, our economy has shifted from a fickle tourism market to an industrial one – and so preparing a skilled labor force is also vital to a strong and stable economy,” Sarauw said.

Whatever moves Sarauw makes in a potential third term, they’ll be done with the utmost transparency. Once a month, she conducts an online town hall with her constituents, listening to their concerns and helping them with their problems. She also issues detailed quarterly reports and is the only Senator who publishes a financial report.

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Vermont

Kathleen James*

Vermont State House, District 4

First elected in November 2018, Kathleen James is a Democrat who serves on the Vermont House Education Committee. On that committee over the last two years, James has been a part of decision making on a variety of important education topics — including literacy, universal pre-K, and the aging infrastructure of school buildings. In March 2019, James was also appointed to serve as legislative advisory to the New England Board of Higher Education.

James also serves on the leadership of the Vermont Legislative Climate Solutions Caucus and in 2019 won the Vermont Conservation Voter’s Rising Star Award.

When not serving in the legislature, James is the editor of Skiing History, a bimonthly magazine about the history of the sport. She lives with her wife, Alexandra. The couple has two daughters.

Becca Balint*

Vermont State Senate, District 17

Vermont Senate Majority Leader Becca Balint believes in pragmatic optimism and direct action. A former public school teacher, community college instructor, and camp director — Balint revived her BA from Smith College, her MA in Education from Harvard and her MA in History from UMASS Amherst. In her second term in office, Balint was made Vice Chair of the Education Committee, along with becoming Senate Majority Leader. In her third term was re-elected Majority Leader. She now seeks her fourth term in office.

During her recent time in the Vermont Senate, Balint shepherded earned sick time legislation (paid leave legislation), new first time homeboy down payment assistance programs, and also increased accessibility to voting with same-day voter registration and automatic voter registration at the DMV. Most recently, she also believes in the necessity of criminal justice reform and serves on the Fair and Impartial Policing Committee.

She lives with her wife and their two children.

Taylor Small

Vermont State House, Chittenden 6-7 District

Taylor Small is looking to become Vermont’s first out trans lawmaker. She currently serves as the Director of the Health & Wellness program at Pride Center of Vermont, where she works closely with the Vermont Department of Health to navigate health disparities specific to the LGBTQ+ community. Small describes one of her greatest passions as is increasing access to care for marginalized community members through educational outreach and evidence-based interventions. If elected, she’ll advocate for affordable health care, setting a livable minimum wage, and increasing access to housing and home ownership. She would like to create a statewide plan to divest from and ban fossil fuels. She is also supporting a plan to Defund the Vermont State Police by 30% and removing police from schools.

Previously, Small served on the Board of Directors for Outright Vermont, a statewide non-profit for LGBTQ+ youth and their families. She lives with her partner and their dog, and performs as a drag persona, Nikki Champagne.

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Washington

Beth Doglio

United States House of Representatives, Washington District 10

Beth Doglio is a State Representative, community organizer, climate leader, and candidate for the House of Representatives in Washington’s 10th District. Serving in the legislature since 2017, Beth is one of Washington’s foremost leaders on the environment, housing, gun safety, and issues facing working families. She’s also a member of the state legislature’s LGBTQ Caucus.

After graduating from Indiana University, Beth moved to Washington state in 1987, serving as a community organizer. She served as the founding Executive Director of Washington Conservation Voters (WCV), one of the state’s most prominent environmental organizations. She also spent time working at NARAL (the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League).

In addition to her role in the state legislature, Beth has worked at Climate Solutions since 2007 working to pass federal, state and local climate policy and serving as the director of the Power Past Coal campaign since its inception – making her an sorely needed expert in developing a clean energy economy.

Kirsten Harris-Talley

Washington State House, District 37 (Position 2)

For 51 days, Kirsten Harris-Talley served as a member of the Seattle City Council, appointed to fill a vacancy left by the newly appointed mayor. The activist used her short time as a public official to focus the priorities that had guided her work for years. She secured a $436,470 budget line to fund four new positions in the City’s Human Services Department, which handles homelessness programs. As she approached the end of her tenure, Harris-Talley was urged to run for public office again but the moment was never right…until now.

As the representative for the 37th District, Harris-Talley pledges to pursue an ambitious and positive agenda. Harris-Talley plans to guide Washington towards a full economic recovery and away from the state’s current regressive model of taxation. In addition, she supports fully funded public education, a Green New Deal, universal childcare, Housing for All and a total reimagining of criminal justice reform.

Laurie Jinkins*

Washington State House, District 27a

First elected to the State House of Representatives in 2010, Laurie Jinkins is Washington state’s first woman and first lesbian Speaker of the House.

Jinkins started her career in the state Attorney General’s Office litigating child abuse and neglect cases and went on to serve as an Assistant Secretary of Health at the State Department of Health. She has spent the last 25 years of her career working in public health. As such, leading in the time of COVID has become of the utmost importance to her, recognizing that the physical health of Washington’s citizens is fundamentally tied to the economic bounce back of the state. As protests against police brutality gained groundswell over the summer,  Jinkins, in her capacity as Speaker, also made making sure that the voices of our Black Members Caucus were (and are) leading the way on police accountability measures.

Laurie lives with Laura (married for 31 or 6 years depending on how you count!) and their son.

Sherae Lascelles

Washington State House, District 43 (Position 2)

When Sherae Lascelles’ opponent in the State House race first took over the seat, Lascelles was just seven years old. Around the same time, Lascelles began to learn the power of activism: the third grader gave her Red Vines to a hungry student who had been sent out of class for “[acting] out of turn.” The simple act of kindness was met by condemnation from a teacher.

“I didn’t even know why I felt like I had to do that, but I just didn’t understand the punishment and I didn’t understand how she was being treated and it didn’t make any sense so I put it upon myself to do something about it,” Lascelles said.

Standing up for those who have been cast aside and doing something about the injustices she’s witnessed have been the hallmark of Lascelles’ career. She founded two non-profits, People of Color Sex Worker Outreach Program and Green Light Project, and now looks to continue her advocacy as a member of the House. Her campaign promises to put people over profit, emphasize equity and accessibility and focus on mutual aid and community care.

Nicole Macri*

Washington State House, District 43

Nicole Macri, who represents parts of Seattle, was first elected to the Washington House of Representatives in 2016. She serves as Vice Chair of the Healthcare and Wellness Committee and is a member of the Finance and Appropriations Committees. She’s also a member of the LGBTQ Caucus.

Marci has more than 20 years of experience championing progressive causes such as affordable housing, homelessness, human services, and mental health. She has been at the forefront of the Housing First movement — based on the idea of offering people a place to live and surround them with the support they need to keep that home rather than believing only some people are “deserving” of housing based on capitalist means — and is a nationally recognized leader in practical and effective strategies that end the homelessness of people living with serious disabilities.

Bonus Ballot Information

+ Referendum 90 — Enacts Senate Bill 5395 requiring public schools to provide comprehensive sexual health education for all students.

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West Virginia

Amanda Estep-Burton*

West Virginia State House, District 36

Amanda Estep-Burton was elected to the West Virginia House of Delegates in 2018; she is currently the minority chair for the Banking and Insurance Committee. She began her own banking career as a teller and is currently the Vice Chair of Merchant Services. Her main priority is funding public schools. She’s been endorsed by the local Chamber of Commerce, the West Virginia Nurse’s Association, and the West Virginia Education Association.

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Wisconsin

Marisabel Cabrera*

Wisconsin State Assembly, District 9

Born and raised in Milwaukee’s Southside, Democrat Marisabel Cabrera first won this race in 2018 and is now seeking a second term of office in Wisconsin’s State Assembly.

In the last two years, Cabrera has served on 6 committees, authored 10 bills, and co-sponsored over a 100 more. She prioritized ensuring affordable and high-quality healthcare, strengthening Wisconsin public schools, environmental protections, and supporting small business. Cabrera also prioritizes immigration reform and was recently appointed Vice Chair of the National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators 2020 Immigration Task Force. She believes that Wisconsin needs a better, more efficient immigration system and demands stronger resources from the federal government. She also wants to protect Milwaukee’s public water, air, and land from privatization efforts.

Jessica Katzenmeyer

Wisconsin State Assembly, District 15

Jessica Katzenmeyer is an activist and ride share driver, with years of experience as a labor leader (including three years as secretary of Teamsters Local 344 Political and Legislative Committee). Focusing her platform on healthcare, Katzenmeyer is running for Wisconsin State Assembly because she believes that workers and families should not have to risk a lifetime of debt for life-saving hospital visits and medicine.

Last year, Katzenmeyer spent a week in the hospital after her home burned down. The experience left her facing an $80K bill, and she decided to run for office to help change the broken system so that it can become about people over profits.

Within the last year Katzenmeyer completed trainings with both Emily’s List, focused on women candidates and the Victory Fund, focused on LGBT candidates. She is the second transgender person to ever run for Wisconsin State Assembly and the first to run in her district.

Bonus Ballot Information

+ Marsy’s Law Crime Victims Rights Amendment — Adds Marsy’s Law to the state constitution.

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Wyoming

Sara Burlingame*

Wyoming State House, District 44

Sara Burlingame was elected to the Wyoming House of Representatives in 2018; she currently serves on the Judiciary Committee and the Joint Judiciary Committee. Burlingame is also the Executive Director at Wyoming Equality. The Casper Star Tribune said, after her first term, that she’d built a reputation as “an effective coalition-builder and has already developed strong relationships on both sides of the aisle.” However, she has also been a relentless and outspoken critic of the Trump administration, criticizing his policies from the perspective of a “feminist Mormon housewife.”

Cathy Connolly*

Wyoming State House, District 13

Cathy Connolly has been District 13’s representative since 2009, when she was elected the first openly gay member of the Wyoming State Legislature. In addition to her legislative work, Connolly is a professor at University of Wyoming where she teaches Women’s Studies. During her time in office, she’s been an advocate for LGBTQ equality, seeking especially to protect gay and trans youth. She’s also focused on economic and environmental stewardship, accessible healthcare, and increasing the minimum wage. She’s one of the few state legislators to introduce a COVID plan on her website.

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Foolish Child #83: Election Anxiety

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AS Politics Survey: LGBTQ Health Care & Amy Coney Barrett’s Impacts

As we head into the 2020 election, our contributing data brain, Himani Gupta, is analyzing data from past Autostraddle surveys to find out what issues are most important to our community and what is currently at stake.

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In this week’s Senate confirmation hearings, Amy Coney Barrett’s reticence to talk about her positions made it pretty clear how much damage she plans to do once she gets to the Supreme Court. Among the many disturbing things we know about Barrett’s political views, her stances on several health care issues are going to inflict a lot of harm on a lot of people.

Autostraddle’s Politics Survey, launched in December 2019, asked about a number of topics related to health care, namely: religious freedoms, reproductive rights and the affordability of care. At the end of July, I followed up with some of the original survey respondents to see if anything changed in terms of how they thought about the affordability issues in the wake of the pandemic.

We’re going to look at just how important these issues are to our community and discuss what’s at stake with Barrett’s impending nomination to the Supreme Court.

Who Took the Politics Survey

Before we turn to those results, we need to start by understanding who took the Politics Survey and who participated in the follow up.

The Politics Survey was available for anyone to take on Autostraddle’s website between December 3, 2019 and January 10, 2020. Over 4,400 people started the survey and just over two thirds made it to the mandatory questions on gender identity and sexual orientation. The analysis is restricted to queer people who identified as women, non-binary and/or trans, which gives us our sample of 2,834 respondents.

At the end of July, I reached out to the 994 Politics Survey respondents who said they were open to being contacted for follow up. Between July 26 and August 16, 662 people completed the Follow Up Survey. This divides our original sample into two subsamples: people who took the Follow Up Survey and people who didn’t.

For the most part, the Follow Up Survey respondents are a similarly diverse group of people compared to those who didn’t take the Follow Up Survey. A slightly greater proportion of trans women and non-binary women took the Follow Up Survey. The gender identities and sexual orientations of respondents to both surveys are shown below.

While the two subsamples are similar in terms of race/ethnicity, disability status and age, they differ on education. As shown in the figure below, more of the Follow Up Survey respondents earned a bachelor’s degree as their highest degree.

Another key difference is that fewer people living outside the U.S. participated in the Follow Up Survey. As a result, more of the Follow Up Survey respondents are registered to vote in the U.S. Once we account for this difference, the two subsamples are similar in terms of what region they live in. They also live in similar types of places, generally. (Note that the U.S. Census uses “urbanized clusters” and “urbanized areas” in its data collection, which are very different from how most people think about urban and suburban.) In terms of income, there is some variation, even after accounting for the differences in the proportions of non-U.S. residents.

There are, of course, unmeasurable differences between the type of person who would complete a second political survey and the type of person who wouldn’t. That being said, the Follow Up Survey provides important insight into shifts within our community.

“Anyone Who Would Discriminate ‘Based on Their Religious Beliefs’ Should Not be in Health Care.”

Far too often religion becomes the justification for mistreatment in health care, particularly when it comes to LGBTQ+ friendly and, especially, trans-inclusive care and reproductive rights. Based on a poll conducted by The Economist/YouGov in October 2019, Americans are conflicted in their views on a government regulation allowing medical providers to deny services because of their religious beliefs. Those divisions are largely along partisan lines with 81% of liberals opposing such a measure compared to 55% of conservatives supporting it.

Autostraddle Politics Survey respondents were in resounding opposition. Going beyond that question, several people further emphasized in free text comments that providers who have religious qualms about providing services should not be working in health care.

The figure below compares the results from the Politics Survey to the Economist/YouGov poll.

While the topic of religious freedoms in health care specifically didn’t come up in the confirmation hearings, Barrett’s views on religious freedom more broadly are well established. Earlier this week, writers for the Washington Post laid out Barrett’s disturbing history of supporting “preferential treatment” for religious expression. It’s likely, based on her record, that if a case on religious freedoms in health care were to make its way to the Supreme Court, she would rule in favor of those who are denying health care.

It’s also very possible that a case on this exact issue will make its way to the Supreme Court soon. In May 2019, the Trump administration created “conscience” protections that would prevent health care institutions from accessing federal funds if they took disciplinary actions against health care workers who denied services because of their religious beliefs. A few months later, in November of that year, a federal judge struck down the rule.

Anti-Trans Discrimination In Health Care Was Already A Big Problem. And Then the Trump Administration Intervened.

The Politics Survey asked respondents if they had been denied health care because of their gender identity or presentation. Among the overall sample, 5% of respondents said they had been denied services and 8% said they were unsure if that had happened to them.

But those overall numbers mask a deeper story. The figure below shows the stark differences in responses to the question on denial of services by the gender identity of the survey respondent. 50% of our trans women respondents had either been denied services because of their gender identity or presentation or had an ambiguous experience along those lines. About a third of our non-binary respondents shared that experience as well.

In addition to the responses shown above, several people shared other negative experiences in free-text comments, such as being discriminated against in other ways, traumatized and mistreated by trans-incompetent health care providers. Others mentioned putting off health care to avoid mistreatment and discrimination.

In an effort to address some of these issues, in 2016 the Obama administration implemented anti-discrimination protections on the basis of gender identity. In June of this year the Trump administration eliminated those protections. Mere days later, the Supreme Court issued its landmark ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County. In the majority opinion, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that discrimination against trans people qualifies as “discrimination on the basis of sex.” Although that case was dealing with employment protections in the Civil Rights Act specifically, the same logic applies to a whole swathe of other legislation, including the Affordable Care Act. In fact, in August, a federal judge struck down the Trump administration’s attempt to end trans health care protections, citing the Bostock decision.

It seems almost inevitable that trans health care protections will find themselves before the Supreme Court sooner or later. And while Barrett’s views on the rights of trans people did not come up in the confirmation hearings, her use of the term “sexual preference” when asked about LGBTQ+ protections speaks volumes about how she views the community as a whole. Though she later apologized for using the term, her ties to a law firm that has fought to legalize discrimination against LGBTQ+ people have also been reported this week.

Reproductive Rights Have Been Steadily Eroded for Decades.

Even before Barrett was nominated, the alarms were sounding that Roe v. Wade would be effectively gutted by a Supreme Court with a conservative-majority. In many ways, it already has been. Abortion is such a hot button issue that any law that gets passed, whether at the state or even a long-shot attempt in Congress, inevitably will make its way to the courts and, often, up to the Supreme Court. That small handful of people wields an incredible amount of power when it comes to reproductive rights.

Barrett’s views on abortion are clear. She has a long history of explicitly opposing the right to choose. Yet, when directly confronted on the issue during the Senate confirmation hearings, she, unsurprisingly, punted, claiming she would not be going in with an “agenda.” I’m not sure how someone who sponsored a “right to life” ad in 2006 can claim to not have an agenda on this topic.

Respondents to Autostraddle’s Politics Survey could not be farther from Barrett in their views. There was near unanimous support for abortion with almost 90% supporting that basic right to choose in all circumstances and another 10% wanting it to be “legal with limitations.” That was, more or less, consistent no matter how I sliced the data. In contrast, a Monmouth University poll from June 2019 found that while nearly two-thirds of American adults want abortion to be legal in some capacity, only 29% fully support it in all circumstances. The figure below compares these results.

The High Cost Of Health Care Hits Our Community Particularly Hard.

Alongside these battles over what medically-necessary services are legally permissible is the fight over the prohibitively high cost of health care. A well-established problem nationally, this is another aspect of the health care system that especially harms our community. The Politics Survey asked whether respondents to indicate whether they or someone in their household had forgone needed services because of they could not afford them. Results from the Politics Survey are compared to a Monmouth poll conducted May 2019 in the figure below. Note that all results discussed in this section exclude Politics Survey respondents who live outside the U.S. because of the policy-specific nature of this issue.

Once again, the overall numbers hide a deeper story. The Monmouth University poll found substantial differences in the response to this question by income, which is unsurprising given that cost is the underlying issue. A similar pattern was observed among Politics Survey respondents, as well. This comparison is shown in the graphic below.

A direct consequence of these disparities in access to care by income level is disparities in access to care by other demographic characteristics that are correlated with income, including gender identity, race/ethnicity and disability status. So while the rate of forgoing health care because of the cost among our community as a whole is 63%, among trans women and non-binary people that rate is 70% and 73% respectively, among Black and Latinx people it’s around 70% and among people living with disabilities it is a galling 78%. Health care is just one more arena where some of the most marginalized members of our community face the dual threats of identity-based discrimination and poverty.

The Growing Appeal of Medicare for All

Several policy ideas have been floated in the last few years to address the high cost of health care. A single public plan like “Medicare for All” has gained substantial traction on the left and dominated much of the conversation during the Democratic primaries. Among Politics Survey respondents, over 80% wanted to move towards a universal public system either immediately or eventually. The American public, of course, is much more divided. The figure below compares responses from the Politics Survey to a Monmouth University poll conducted in August 2019.

Support for a single payer was substantially higher among Politics Survey Respondents than U.S. adults, regardless of income. But, nonetheless, a greater proportion of our lower income respondents wanted to move towards a universal public system at some point than our higher income respondents: 88% of respondents with an annual income below $30,000 compared to 78% of respondents with an income above $100,000. There wasn’t much variation in support for Medicare for All by gender identity, race/ethnicity or disability.

I was curious to see if the pandemic led to any shifts in how people viewed Medicare for All, so this same question was asked on the Follow Up Survey. Among the people who took the Follow Up Survey, support for moving to Medicare for All at some point stayed about the same. The urgency, however, changed. In the Politics Survey (conducted December 2019 – January 2020), 70% of Follow Up Survey respondents said they wanted to get rid of all private insurance compared with 14% who preferred an opt-in with eventual transition to single payer. By the time of the Follow Up (conducted July – August 2020), that had shifted to 77% and 9%. The change is modest but not statistically significant.

The Supreme Court Could Affect Single Payer Health Care in Many Ways

One of the drawbacks of a single payer public health plan is that, depending on who’s in power, it might not cover politically divisive but medically necessary procedures like hormone therapy, gender reassignment surgery or other trans-inclusive care, contraceptives or abortions. If recent history is any model, it’s fair to assume that even if Democrats managed to pass a plan like Medicare for All that covered all of these things (more on that in a minute), private companies would start suing left and right and the matter would make its way to the Supreme Court. Conservatives on the Court have already proven that they will side with religious freedoms at the expense of contraceptive care, as we saw in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby. All evidence suggests they would act exactly the same way if there were a single payer law with a mandate for covering trans-inclusive care or abortions. And we know Barrett will fall even farther to the right on this than the conservatives currently on the Bench.

In addition to legal scrutiny over what could be covered in such plan, a single payer plan will very likely find itself in court for mandating health coverage, the way the Affordable Care Act has on multiple occasions. Here again, history is instructive of what the future may hold. In 2012, the ACA was narrowly saved with Roberts writing the majority opinion. As a legal scholar explained in a recent interview with The New Yorker, a key issue in that case and the one that will be heard by the Court the week after the election is whether requiring people to purchase health insurance is “an unconstitutional act of coercion.” In the 2012 case, Roberts ruled that the ACA, specifically, was not because of the fines imposed on people who did not purchase health insurance (which Roberts viewed as a “tax” and therefore under the purview of Congress). After Republicans did away with the fines in 2017, the latest challenge to the ACA argues that the current form of the ACA is now coercive.

Many are concerned that Barrett’s hasty nomination to the Court will be the end of the ACA once and for all (a Republican dream and Trump campaign promise). In the hearings, Barrett, of course, punted on the issue, but she has previously criticized Roberts’ 2012 opinion that saved the ACA.

It’s hard not to imagine that all of this would replay itself in one form or another if a public, single payer plan were to somehow become the law. Once again, the Supreme Court has tremendous power in determining the shape of health care in this country.

Biden, of course, does not support single payer, though Harris did during the primary. As the pandemic has worn on, Biden’s moved closer and closer towards it. In July, a “unity task force” between the Biden and Sanders campaigns put forward a plan to expand health care access substantially. While not single payer, the plan will lower the qualifying age for Medicare and includes a government-run public health insurance option. That public option would be available to anyone but would automatically enroll low-income people who lose their jobs. Again, what a conservative court will do with such a law remains to be seen.

Is Everything Doomed?

Barrett will be confirmed before the election. Republicans are bending every rule and norm to make that happen. We will have a 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court in a matter of weeks. Roberts’ seemingly liberal sleight of hand votes that have, bit by bit, undermined policies that enshrine basic rights will no longer put off the inevitable. So where do we go from here?

The only say we have over who’s on the Supreme Court is through who we vote into office in the Senate and the Presidency. For his part, Biden continues to dodge questions about court-packing, which leaves us with something to hope for. Last week, Natalie covered the close Senate races; If you have the money or the time, donate to and volunteer to campaign for those races. And after the election, the phones need to start ringing.

Biden Addresses LGBTQ Protections while Trump Aggressively Meanders in Dueling Town Halls

There was supposed to be a debate last night. Two candidates, on opposite ends of the stage, entertaining questions from a select group of “undecided voters” in a town hall format. It’s a format meant to humanize the politician… to allow them to develop a rapport with an average citizen or to show sympathy when the moment warrants it. Usually, it’s the highlight of the presidential debates. But, as it has throughout this year, COVID came along and upset everyone’s plans.

The Commission on Presidential Debates tried to salvage the debate, proposing that the second debate be held virtually, but Donald Trump’s campaign rejected that outright. With no compromise to be had among the parties — and with increasing controversy developing around the debate’s chosen moderator — the commission cancelled the second debate and set on preparations for the final debate on Oct. 22.

With an opening in his calendar, Biden immediately agreed to a 90-minute town hall with ABC News, moderated by George Stephanopoulos. The network hosted a similar town hall for the president in September. Then, in the eleventh hour, NBC News announced they’d be hosting a town hall with Trump — similar to one held for Biden a week ago — at the exact same time as the former vice president’s event on ABC.

So now, instead of one town hall, where audiences would get to hear from both candidates and where the candidates would get to critique each other live, voters had to choose between the dueling town halls. Or, you could just wait and let me watch them for you.

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ABC: The Vice President and the People

The town hall is a format in which Joe Biden should shine. The tragedies that have defined his life — the deaths of his wife and young daughter in an car accident, his younger son’s addiction and the loss of his elder son to cancer — have molded him into a fundamentally empathetic person and the town hall format really allows a candidate to showcase that ability. That said, the format is also less structured, with no firm time limits. Less disciplined candidates, which Biden certainly is, can tend to meander… and sometimes stumble into troubling statements.

To his credit, Biden didn’t stumble too much last night. If anything, his town hall felt like a microcosm of what his presidency might be like: good, but not great… boring at times… both grounded and constrained by his 40+ years of experience in Washington…and rooted in a fundamental decency that sometimes disappoints. A few moments in Biden’s town hall stood out: outside of two town halls, hosted by LGBT groups during the Democratic primary, LGBT issues have gone largely unremarked upon during the campaign. Considering the way our community and trans folks, in particular, have been harmed by the current administration, it’s a startling omission. But last night, with ordinary voters taking over the questioning, Joe Biden got two questions about issues impacting our community.

The first question, from Philadephia Democrat Nathan Osburn, spoke to an issue that’s at the forefront of the minds of a lot of LGBT folks lately: the Supreme Court. After taking comfort in the Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock — which formally extended discrimination protections to LGBT employees — our community has been dealt one blow after another. First, the death of equality champion, Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Then the nomination of her successor, Amy Coney Barrett, a judge with a record of support for anti-LGBT causes, followed by the statements from Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito blasting the Court’s decision in Obergerfell. Osburn’s question spoke to that fear.

Asked what he would say to LGBTQ Americans and others who are worried "about erosions of their rights," former VP Biden says "I think there's great reason to be concerned for the LGBTQ community, something I fought very hard for." https://t.co/JEyTOkB6qk #BidenTownHall pic.twitter.com/BnZ8XSOJSA

— ABC News (@ABC) October 16, 2020

“What do you think about ideas from people like Pete Buttigieg and others to put in place safeguards that will help ensure more long-term balance and stability?” Osburn asked. “And what do you say to LGBTQ Americans and others who are very worried right now about erosions of their rights and our democracy as a whole?”

Biden, in a moment that was clear-eyed although not very comforting, answered, “I think there’s great reason to be concerned… I think there’s great reason to be concerned for the LGBT community, something I fought very hard for, for a long time to make sure there’s equality across the board.”

Biden was pressed by George Stephanopoulos on whether he’d support expanding the Supreme Court but was reluctant to take the bait. Instead, he wanted to keep the focus on the push by the White House and Senate Republicans to rush Barrett through the nomination process. If Republicans handle the nomination poorly — and given that yesterday’s Judiciary Committee vote was done in violation of Committee rules, that’s a pretty safe bet — Biden seems open to considering all options.

“It depends on how this turns out. Not how he wins, but how it’s handled,” Biden stressed. “I don’t know anybody who’s gone on the floor that’s been a controversial justice in terms of making fundamentally or altering the makeup of the court that’s gone through in a day kind of thing.”

Later in the town hall, Mieke Haeck, a mother of two daughters, one who is trans, from State College, asked the former vice president about how he’d undo some of the harm that the Trump administration has done to trans people. She asked, “How will you, as president, reverse this dangerous and discriminatory agenda and ensure that the lives and rights of LGBTQ people are protected under US law?”

Asked by a mother of a transgender child about what he will do to protect LGBTQ rights, former VP Biden says: "I will flat out just change the law." https://t.co/JEyTOkB6qk #BidenTownHall pic.twitter.com/fxg7AhKwHG

— ABC News (@ABC) October 16, 2020

This time, Biden was both clear-eyed and comforting: “I will flat out just change the law. Eliminate those executive orders.”

As he wont to do, Biden rambled in response to the question moving almost nonsensically from one LGBT topic to the next, but I found some real heart in his answer. He spoke as clearly as I’ve ever heard him about trans identity being innate: he said no kid would choose to be transgender, knowing how difficult it’d make their lives. He noted the epidemic of violence against trans women of color (though, admittedly, he understated the numbers).

“There is no reason to suggest that there should be any right denied your daughter,” he told Haeck before pointing out that his son, Beau, had gotten protections based on gender identity and expression added to Delaware’s anti-discrimination laws. Biden noted that his son’s efforts were inspired by a trans woman who worked in his office while Attorney General. That woman was Sarah McBride, and next month she’ll likely become the highest-ranking elected trans person in the United States.

As president, @JoeBiden will change the lives of trans Americans by protecting our rights and upholding our dignity. He will center the experiences of trans women of color, repeal discriminatory Trump executive orders, and change the law.

That’s my president.

— Sarah McBride (@SarahEMcBride) October 16, 2020

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NBC: Trump Town Hall

Donald Trump’s town hall was also a microcosm of his current and potential future presidency: evasive, unfocused, prone to embracing conspiracy theories and with a profound disdain for strong women. As with Biden’s NBC town hall last week, Trump’s started with a set of question from the forum’s moderator… in this case, Savannah Guthrie. Interviews with this president are especially difficult because: 1. he has an aversion to facts and 2. he responds in such a vituperative way that it’s just easier to concede the point. To her credit, Guthrie refused to back down.

She pushed him repeatedly to reveal when the last time he tested negative for COVID — prior to his positive test — a question the president could not answer with any certainty. She recoiled at the suggestion that the president had caught the coronavirus not from the trip to Cleveland with White House advisor, Hope Hicks, who tested positive or at the Rose Garden super-spreader event… but at an event with Gold Star families a day later. When he tried to take credit for saving 2 million people from dying from coronavirus, Guthrie challenged him. She also pushed him to denounce white supremacy and QAnon, a fringe conspiracy that’s gaining traction within the rightwing, including likely members of Congress.

“Let’s waste the whole show,” Trump responded when Guthrie pushed him to denounce QAnon. “You start off with white supremacy. I denounce it. You start off with something else. Let’s go. Keep asking me these questions.”

Trump doesn’t mind town halls, in part because he feeds off the energy of the crowd. They’re not as engaging for him as his super-spreader political rallies, of course, but still, they give him that adrenaline fix that comes from appearing before a live studio audience. But, for the Trump campaign, the difficulty becomes directing that adrenaline in a way that benefits them politically. Despite being down double digits in the polls, Trump hardly used any of his town hall answers to offer any direct criticism of Joe Biden. He couldn’t pivot from questions about COVID, healthcare and pre-existing conditions, passing an emergency relief package or taxes to attacking Biden, even when his questioner left him an opening.

Instead, he was nonsensical about a host of issues: claiming there was a difference between DACA and Dreamers or claiming that he’s done more for African-Americans than any president since Abraham Lincoln or claiming that a COVID vaccine is just around the corner. He never accepted fault for anything, including his own tax returns; instead, blaming his flaws on Nancy Pelosi, the IRS, on Senate Democrats being mean to Brett Kavanaugh or the Obama administration.

It was, in short, a microcosm of his presidency. If you’ve been paying attention for the last four years, you didn’t miss a thing.

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The third second and final presidential debate will be held on Thursday, Oct. 22 at 9PM from Nashville, TN. It will be moderated by NBC News’ White House correspondent, Kristen Welker.

AS Politics Survey: Where Our Readers Stand On Criminal Justice Reform

As we head into the 2020 election, our contributing data brain, Himani Gupta, is analyzing data from past Autostraddle surveys to find out what issues are most important to our community and what is currently at stake.

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America’s criminal justice system was racist from its inception, but the issue only garners mainstream attention after high profile, tragic murders of Black people at the hands of law enforcement. This summer was one of those moments, with a resurgence of support for the Black Lives Matter movement in the wake of George Floyd’s brutal murder.

Back in December 2019, Autostraddle conducted its first ever politics survey. As I began working the data, the world started changing at an accelerating rate. But many of the key questions at the core of that survey remained: where does this community stand on pressing criminal justice issues including bail, incarceration and police brutality?

We’ll explore those questions using data from the Politics Survey and more recent data from Autostraddle’s 2020 Reader Survey.

Who Took the Surveys?

To make sense of our survey results, we first need to take a look at who took the two surveys!

Both surveys were available online through posts on Autostraddle’s website. The Politics Survey was open from December 3, 2019 through January 10, 2020. Over 4,400 people started the survey and about two-thirds made it to the mandatory questions on gender identity and sexual orientation. The Reader Survey was open July 7 through July 15. Nearly 3,400 people started the survey and over 90% made it to those same mandatory identity questions.

The analysis samples are restricted to LGBTQ+ people who identify as women, non-binary and/or trans living in the U.S. (The criminal justice questions on the Reader Survey were only asked of people who live in the U.S. so both samples were restricted to U.S. residents.) This gives us our final samples of 2,409 people on the Politics Survey and 1,950 people on the Reader Survey.

These are what the stats-y among us call “convenience samples” because anyone online could opt to take the surveys, so there’s self-selection bias. This limits how much we can use these results to make general statements about the political views of LGBTQ+ people who identify as women, non-binary, and/or trans.

The figure below shows the gender identities and sexual orientations of our two samples. We got comparable mixes of respondents of different gender identities both times, though fewer trans women responded to the Reader Survey than the Politics Survey. Respondents are also fairly similar based on their sexual orientations¹, although the reader survey had more respondents who identified as lesbian/gay as a whole.

The two samples are similar on some demographic characteristics but share some noticeable differences. The figure below compares the demographic characteristics of our two samples and also provides data on the U.S. adult population (from the Census and CDC) and LGBTQ+ adults in the U.S. (from the Williams Institute) for reference. Respondents to the Politics and Reader Surveys were similar in their racial/ethnic makeup and in the types of places they live in. (Note that the Census uses “urbanized clusters” and “urbanized areas” for reporting, which are substantially different than how most people define urban and suburban.) The Reader Survey had fewer respondents with disabilities than the Politics Survey. Reader Survey respondents were also slightly older and generally had higher levels of educational attainment. The biggest difference is in terms of household income: respondents to the Reader Survey had substantially lower household incomes than respondents to the Politics Survey, even before the pandemic hit.

In addition to these measured differences, the two samples are, by definition, going to be different because of self-selection. It’s very likely that a different type of person might be motivated to take a survey dedicated to political issues in the U.S. (and a fairly long survey, at that) than the type of person who will take a more general reader survey.

Despite all these caveats, there’s still a lot we can learn from these data about our community’s perspectives on criminal justice reform and how that has shifted in the wake of this summer’s BLM protests.

Much of Our Community Was Already Supporting Progressive Stances on Criminal Justice Issues

The Politics Survey asked questions that touched on several aspects of the criminal justice system. The questions were taken from a study by the Center for American Progress (CAP) Action Fund conducted in July 2019 and polls conducted by the Associated Press and NORC at the University of Chicago (AP-NORC) in September 2019 and NPR/PBS News Hour/Marist (NPR/PBS/Marist) in July 2019.

View of the System as a Whole

Two questions taken from the CAP study asked respondents whether they agreed or disagreed with the overarching value propositions that guide the U.S.’s criminal justice system currently: criminalizing behavior and investing in law enforcement. The figure below compares responses from the Politics Survey to the data released about registered U.S. voters. Politics Survey respondents were nearly unanimous in rejecting the positions that guide the U.S.’s criminal justice system, agreeing that “the U.S. relies too much on criminalizing behavior” and disagreeing that spending more money on police, prosecutors and prisons will make communities safer. This stands in contrast to registered voters nationally who were more divided on these two questions.

Substantial Support for Legalizing Marijuana

There’s been a national surge in support for legalizing marijuana in the last several years, with states steadily moving towards passing this policy. The figure below shows how Politics Survey respondents viewed the issue, compared with U.S. adults. Politics Survey respondents largely supported legalizing marijuana. A generally popular issue, at the time of the NPR/PBS/Marist poll, just under two-thirds of U.S. adults also supported the policy; this has largely held constant since last year.

Near Consensus that Bail Creates a Double Standard

Nearly all Politics Survey respondents felt the bail system created “two standards of justice;” this position also had significant support nationally. Bail reform was a big topic at the time, as New York state (most notably) was considering a massive change to its bail system that would eliminate bail for most arrests. (That reform passed and went into effect on January 1 of this year, but in April the state legislature and governor walked it back, a pattern we’ve seen play out a few times, now.) The figure below shows responses from the Politics Survey compared with U.S. voters.

Multiple Perspectives on Incarceration

Politics Survey respondents overwhelmingly rejected the current guiding principles of the criminal justice system and the bail system and think marijuana should be legalized. On incarceration, though, our respondents are more conflicted. The figure below shows their responses to two questions on incarceration. There’s still strong support for reducing incarceration rates and that level of support is higher than the U.S. overall, but there’s a greater mix in Politics Survey respondents’ views on the issue compared to the ones discussed earlier.

Several respondents shared their thoughts in free-text comments on the question specific to those with mental health disabilities or substance abuse problems. A few common themes emerged among those who did not agree with the statement. First, respondents’ position depended on the crime with many saying that violent crimes such as murder and rape warranted incarceration. Second, several felt it was important to clarify that no one should be incarcerated for their mental health or substance abuse problems. Third, many expressed that proper treatment should be provided in the situations where incarceration is warranted.

The view that some crimes do justify arrest and incarceration also appeared in the free-text responses of people who agreed with the statement that people with mental health disabilities or substance abuse problems shouldn’t be incarcerated. Many who agreed with the statement called for increased investment in communities, social services and rehabilitation to addressed the underlying problems currently leading to arrest and incarceration. Several people decried private prisons while others went further and called for full abolition.

Near Consensus that Police Violence is a Problem

Back in December, a large majority (over 80%) of Autostraddle Politics Survey respondents already believed that police violence against the public was an extremely or very serious problem, compared to just over a third of U.S. adults as a whole. This is shown in the figure below.

This isn’t entirely surprising because 29% of Autostraddle Politics Survey respondents said they were worried about being the victim of police brutality and another 8% were unsure (not shown). In contrast, when Quinnipiac University asked registered voters this question in April 2018, only 21% shared those worries while 79% definitively said they were not worried. But, awareness of the issue of police violence among Autostraddle Politics Survey respondents also went beyond personal experiences: there was a near consensus that police are more likely to use deadly force against a Black person. And while that statement is a fact and not an opinion, just over half of U.S. adults actually believed it last September (this June that was up to 61%).

What’s Shifted in Our Community on Criminal Justice Reform

Given the substantial support progressive criminal justice reform issues already had back in December, there were only small pockets of our community that might have shifted their views on these particular questions in light of everything that happened this summer. The Reader Survey asked fewer questions about criminal justice reform. Two were repeated from the Politics Survey. The CAP Survey doesn’t have new results available, but the AP-NORC poll was conducted again more recently in June. A third question was added from a Yahoo News/YouGov poll conducted at the end of May.

Support for Reducing Arrest and Incarceration was the Same on the Reader Survey

Interestingly, there was no change in the proportion of Autostraddle Respondents who agreed that reducing arrest and incarceration rates would make communities safe. We did not ask the question about people with mental health disabilities or substance abuse issues a second time, and there is no new data on U.S. registered voters from the CAP survey. Neither survey asked about prison abolition so we also don’t know how much traction that position has within our community. On the Reader Survey, many people explained their thoughts on this question in free text comments, and the same themes from the Politics Survey emerged.

Police Brutality was Viewed as a More Serious Issue among Reader Survey Respondents

Police brutality was under a spotlight this summer after the murder of George Floyd was followed by video after video of police officers’ violent treatment of Black people and unwarranted responses to protesters. We wanted to see if this changed how our community views police violence. Results from the Reader Survey are shown in the figure below. The proportion who view police violence against the public as an extremely or very serious problem did increase by eleven percentage points between the Politics Survey and the Reader Survey, which is comparable to the shift we see among U.S. Adults nationally. But, as mentioned before, the Politics and Reader Survey samples are clearly different, so it’s hard to know if that shift is indicative of changes in our community’s views on police violence against the public or because different people were asked this question. The truth is probably a little bit of both.

Finally, the Reader Survey asked about defunding police and an overwhelming majority of respondents favored defunding. In free-text comments, many people went further and wanted to see full abolition. While in stark contrast to the U.S. nationally, this position doesn’t come entirely as a surprise based on the other perspectives on criminal justice issues shared in the Autostraddle Reader Survey, and the overwhelming support for progressive criminal justice positions observed on the Autostraddle Politics Survey.

Summing Up: How Our Community Compares to the U.S. Nationally

Clearly, there are substantial differences between where our community stands on these issues compared to the U.S. overall. That was strikingly true in December 2019/January 2020 and it remained true in July 2020. But as we saw earlier, our community is strikingly different from the U.S. population. Our group is quite a bit younger, quite a bit more educated, quite a bit less affluent, quite a bit whiter, quite a bit less likely to live in a rural area and quite a bit more likely to vote Democrat. While it’s true that younger, less affluent people who live in urban areas and vote for Democratic candidates are more likely to look at the criminal justice system from a progressive reform or abolition lens, even when accounting for those characteristics, our respondents were still in favor of substantive criminal justice reform at much higher rates than their counterparts nationally. (Also, on the flip side, white people, nationally, generally view progress criminal justice reform propositions less favorably than Black or Latinx people.)

With Such Overwhelming Consensus on These Issues, Any Differences within Our Community are Largely Undetectable

At this point, some of you may wonder whether there were any meaningful differences within our community. Are trans women and non-binary people, for instance, more likely to be in near- unanimous consensus on these issues compared to cis women? What about people who identify as lesbian or gay versus those who identify as bisexual, pansexual or sexually fluid versus those who identify as queer; or people who identify as asexual or on the ace spectrum compared to those who don’t? Race and ability have to factor into all of this as well, right? Certainly, these are questions I had.

I looked at all of this, and more, and the tl;dr is there was no indication of differences based on the identity characteristics of our respondents.² There was some evidence to suggest some differences by age, with people aged 45 or older being more likely to take a middling position (for example, “neither agree nor disagree” or the issue is a “moderately serious” problem) than younger respondents. However, while the differences were substantively meaningful – for instance 66% of Reader Survey respondents aged 45 or older agreed on the question on reducing incarceration and arrest rates to keep communities safe, compared to 88% of Reader Survey respondents under the age of 29, and the same was true on the Politics Survey –  the differences were not statistically significant due to the relatively small number of people on our surveys in the 45 and older age group. So there’s some suggestive evidence that something might be going on by age, which aligns with what we know to be true nationally as well.

What all of this tells us is that while there are differing perspectives in our community on the criminal justice system, the drivers of those differences don’t seem to be identity factors, by and large.

Beliefs in Action

The Reader Survey asked if respondents supported the Black Lives Matter movement and a near unanimous 98% said they did. This support did manifest in concrete actions related to race and racial equity. Some of the actions taken by Reader Survey respondents are shown in the figure below, with national comparisons from a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center in June 2020.

In a follow up question, nearly 85% of Reader Survey respondents who hadn’t attended a protest or rally said they didn’t because of concerns about spreading or contracting COVID-19; 15% indicated that accessibility was an issue as well (respondents could select more than one answer for this question).

Our community wants to see real, meaningful change when it comes to the criminal justice system. The upcoming U.S. elections are an opportunity towards building that. So much of what happens with the criminal justice system is in the hands of local and state governments. We’ve seen this play out time and again this year, from the bail reform effort in New York to Minneapolis City Council’s attempt to dismantle the police department to Austin’s reduction of the police budget. Many of the policies discussed here are decided by lower level, elected public officials and others are directly on the ballot. Check out this guide from “What’s on the ballot?” for information on district attorney races and state supreme court seats as well as ballot measures on drug policy, policing and more.

Voting — at all levels — is an important first step towards turning these beliefs into policy. Honestly, no one has said this better than these strippers from Atlanta:

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¹Sexual orientation was asked differently on the two surveys. On the Politics Survey, respondents were asked to select the sexual orientation they most strongly identified with from the following list: lesbian, queer, bisexual, pansexual, sexually fluid, asexual (or similar), gay, straight or other; they were then asked to select any other sexual or romantic orientations they identified with (same options as before plus: homoromantic, panromantic, biromantic, aromantic and heteroromantic). On the Reader Survey, respondents were first asked if they identified as asexual or on the asexual spectrum. Then, all respondents were asked to pick the term that best described their sexual / romantic orientation from the following list: lesbian, queer, bisexual, pansexual, sexually fluid, gay, straight, not sure or other. To align these, the Politics Survey data was recoded as follows: anyone who identified as asexual or aromantic on either of the two questions (or indicated an asexual adjacent orientation such as demisexual or graysexual in the free text) is considered part of the “Ace spectrum” group. For those who indicated they are asexual on the first question, their responses to the second question were analyzed to see if they could be recoded as any of the other sexual orientations. If they selected more than one or if they only indicated asexual/aromantic then they were included in the “other” category.
² For the stats people: The results were not statistically significant by and large. There were nine different measures. Looking at the overall results, there’s no way there would be variation by demographic on the questions about bail, criminalizing behavior to make communities safe, spending more money on the criminal justice system to make communities safe or police use of deadly force against Black versus white people. This leaves us with five measures where there could be differences. However, because so few people selected “disagree” or “oppose,” most of the tests failed to calculate properly due to low sample. Basically, there just isn’t enough variation in the data to indicate statistically significant differences. On income, one measure was significant, but I didn’t count that since the others were either not significant or were inconclusive (in an attempt to acknowledge multiple hypothesis testing issues). Sexual orientation did turn up significant differences when I excluded the “other” orientations category, but they were qualitatively meaningless and more likely artifacts of the large sample size than true differences (the largest difference was 8 percentage points). The one exception to this (age) is discussed in the text.

Extra! Extra!: Where to Start, Trump’s Tax Avoidance or COVID Superspreading?

We’re back! A friend of mine observed recently that it feels like the news cycle has gotten even shorter. It certainly feels that way! I honestly forgot about some of these things that happened two weeks ago in the wake of the White House superspreader event scandal (which Natalie covered in her intro to the VP debate recap). This week’s Extra! Extra! gives an update on the latest scandals from Trumpland, some reflections on what happened in Minneapolis this summer, another setback in the fight for Indigenous rights and sovereignty and news on some of the growing conflicts in the Western world.

The News from Trumpland

Trump’s 2016 Campaign Listed Millions of Black Voters It Wanted to Stop From Voting, Leak Reveals

Natalie: We knew there was a voter suppression effort, aided by the Russians, that targeted black voters… but this sophistication of this effort, by the Trump campaign and the Republican Party, is just so deeply offensive. What’s particularly galling about this to me is that the campaign had a list of people who were skeptical about Hillary Clinton’s candidacy and instead of doing the work to persuade those voters, the campaign thought voter suppression was the better option.

The President’s Taxes: Long Concealed Records Show Trump’s Chronic Losses and Years of Tax Avoidance

Himani: Two weeks is a strangely long time and also not. Honestly, as I was putting this news round up together, I had realized that I had forgotten that The New York Times released this searing expose about Trump’s taxes. Since that happened, we had the shocking fiasco of the first presidential debate and then, of course, the White House turned into ground zero for the latest Coronavirus outbreak in the US. A lot has happened.

But this news from the Time is pretty monumental. I’ll be honest, I haven’t had the time to read the whole thing (this tl;dr is pretty helpful though). Yes, there was the much reported news that lasted a day that Trump paid $750 in federal income taxes in 2017. Yes, that is appalling, truly. But what got lost in the headlines is the fact that he actually paid more in taxes to other countries because of his business ventures there: “In 2017, the president’s $750 contribution to the operations of the U.S. government was dwarfed by the $15,598 he or his companies paid in Panama, the $145,400 in India and the $156,824 in the Philippines.” That being said, there was no new information regarding Trump’s entanglements in Russia.

The most damning part though, in my opinion, is the glaring conflict of interests. We all kind of sort of knew that this was happening. But Trump is in deep, deep amounts of debt. And that debt makes his use of the presidency as a forum for trying to save his businesses all the more corrupt. As the Times reports:

“His properties have become bazaars for collecting money directly from lobbyists, foreign officials and others seeking face time, access or favor… At the Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla., a flood of new members starting in 2015 allowed him to pocket an additional $5 million a year from the business. In 2017, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association paid at least $397,602 to the Washington hotel, where the group held at least one event during its four-day World Summit in Defense of Persecuted Christians…. When he took office, Mr. Trump said he would pursue no new foreign deals as president. Even so, in his first two years in the White House, his revenue from abroad totaled $73 million. And while much of that money was from his golf properties in Scotland and Ireland, some came from licensing deals in countries with authoritarian-leaning leaders or thorny geopolitics — for example, $3 million from the Philippines, $2.3 million from India and $1 million from Turkey.

Natalie: You’re forgiven for forgetting this story momentarily, Himani, because the Trump administration is just a perpetual shitshow… and as soon as your grappling with one unfathomable misstep, another one is announced and we’re forced to grapple with that. It messes with your sense of time.

I think, as egregious as that $750 income tax payment is — hell, I’m mad right now just typing it out — the real story is the point you’ve seized on, Himani: how much debt is the president in and to whom does he owe that money? And, as he seeks reelection, that becomes a national security question because, if he’s susceptible to blackmail from whomever owns his debt. What if a hostile government purchases his debt? How does that impact the decisions that he might make? We endanger ourselves by putting a man carrying this much debt back in the Oval Office.

More broadly: we have (had?) a set of political norms in this country… things that we’ve been doing for as long as anyone can remember for reasons that most of us have forgotten…but, if anything, I hope the last four years — and this story in particular — crystallize why those norms exist and why they should be codified so that a candidate isn’t allowed to willingfully disregard them again.

Everyone in the White House cluster who has reportedly tested positive for the coronavirus

Natalie: There are people working in the White House — in the People’s House — who have COVID or know they have been exposed to it and are doing nothing to protect the people around them. They believe, in spite of the evidence and the 210,000+ Americans we’ve lost, that they are immune from the science. And if that wasn’t enough to be angry about, there’s still so much we don’t know: when was the president’s last negative test? Why did the vice president just abruptly cancel his campaign trip to return to Washington? The president is CLEARLY unwell, why hasn’t the cabinet moved to invoke the 25th Amendment? Where in the world is Bill Barr?

We are in the midst of a true constitutional crisis, we have no idea who’s in charge of the country right now…and yet concern over that will continue to be painted as an extension of the campaign…a purely political concern.

A Closer Look at What Happened in Minneapolis

Born with two strikes: How systemic racism shaped Floyd’s life and hobbled his ambition

The Store That Called the Cops on George Floyd

Himani: I spend a lot of time thinking about the racial hierarchies that exist in America and especially about the anti-Black racism that runs rampant in Asian communities. These two articles need to be read together. The first is a deep exploration of the many layers of racism (and its bedfellow poverty) that eclipsed George Floyd’s life long before he was murdered. The second dives into the story of the Palestinian-owned corner store where a clerk made the fateful 911 call that led to Floyd’s death. The inescapable pull of anti-Black racism and poverty reverberates strongly through the biographical piece on Floyd from the Washington Post. The impossible, untenable positions that non-Black minorities are cornered into emerges in the coverage from Slate.

Ultimately, the thing I can’t let go of, that reading these two pieces in succession makes crystal clear is that while both the Floyd family and the Abumayyaleh family have both, undeniably, experienced racism in this country, the extent to which racism can completely curtail a person’s life is worlds apart.

How a Pledge to Dismantle the Minneapolis Police Collapsed

Rachel: We’re seeing iterations of the way that seeming momentum around racial justice over the summer of uprising was in some cases a self-serving bid to avoid criticism until they felt the moment had passed (for instance, COPS is notoriously starting filming back up after previously indicating they’d end the show). There’s certainly some of that happening in Minneapolis as well, but I think there are also complex legislative realities and realities of power at work. Several councilmembers quoted in the NYT piece above seem to be claiming a certain level of defensive naivete – “Councilor Andrew Johnson, one of the nine members who supported the pledge in June, said in an interview that he meant the words “in spirit,” not by the letter. Another councilor, Phillipe Cunningham, said that the language in the pledge was “up for interpretation” — implying essentially that they couldn’t possibly have known “defund the police” meant “defund the police.” What seems truer, as someone living here, is that many of those councilmembers either had enough commitment to the cause for one meeting but not the commitment to fight for it through months of bureaucratic roadblocks and public criticism (so, the commitment and long-term planning of organizers), and/or that they were ready to wait out public opinion, hoping that if they demurred long enough, the pressure to make real change would lessen.

What’s happening here is interesting to me because it’s a revealing one about how (especially Dem) established political structures can sometimes find it convenient for us to conceive of power – first, that their job is to use their power with respect to affect and sentiment (“I meant the words in spirit,” “I hear you,”) not material change, and second, that their hands are tied by the loudest public sentiment (“people are confused by this idea;” “a plurality no longer supports defunding the police,”) so they can’t act. The latter idea, of course, isn’t applied consistently; when a plurality wanted the four MPD cops arrested and charged, or a majority of the US wants Medicare for All, for instance. I’m reminded of the online outrage over elected representatives essentially tweeting to call their constituents to organize around an issue, as if they themselves aren’t the ones with the structural power to address it – this tweet being perhaps the prime example. Especially with the audience being a generation who grew up watching power struggles between Dems and the GOP with regard to whether or not one party would be able to totally gridlock the other from passing legislation, the posture of many blue pols right now seems to be to express public regret that they are just unfortunately powerless to do anything, and that they’re really at the mercy of citizens (by this logic, it’s also our fault when we suffer from systemic harm, not theirs). It’s a pretty gnarly piece of rhetoric! Speaking, again, from Minneapolis, it’s also helpful to know that all these decisions are being made (or allowed to die in committee) while ongoing protests continue in the city as they have for months, and police continue to raid encampments every weekend, exactly as the city promised they would not do. As a local tweet that I can no longer find expressed, the city has decided they’d rather just put up plywood over every building downtown against protests every single weekend than try changing anything.

And Elsewhere: The Movement to Defund Grows

Chicago Lawmakers Push To Build Team Of Emergency Responders Who Aren’t Police

Rachel: As someone who believes deeply in abolition I’m extremely familiar with the snarky gotcha of “so what happens when you need to call 911?” And while many people have done great work answering that, it also isn’t detrimental to the project of abolition to acknowledge that there are crises and times when someone is in danger, and it’s necessary for healthy communities to have resources to call on urgently when that happens. It’s always so wonderful to have even more examples of how new systems can provide that without causing harm! New Haven is also working on a program like the one above in Chicago; similar ones are already functioning elsewhere, like the CAHOOTS program in Oregon and STAR in Denver.

They’re Getting Bolder Because They are Hardly Ever Held to Account

A Pro-Trump Militant Group Has Recruited Thousands of Police, Soldiers, and Veterans

Internal document shows Trump officials were told to make comments sympathetic to Kyle Rittenhouse

Natalie: Of course they were.

The Frighteningly Sophisticated Plot to Kidnap Gretchen Whitmer

Natalie: This is absolutely horrifying… I’m grateful that the plan was thwarted and the men behind this plot have been arrested. And we should, rightfully, call out the president and his allies for their propensity to fan the flames of hate against duly elected public servants. That said, I hope that as we move forward we also stop to think about what a chilling effect this incident or, worse, the attack on the family of U.S. District Judge Esther Salas have on women and their interest in being public servants.

Reveling in Conspiracy Theories Is So Much More Fun than Dealing with the Actual Issues

QAnon believers say they want to stop sex-trafficking. Sex-trafficking survivors say the movement is ‘infuriating.’

Rachel: One of the many insidious things about violent right-wing ideology is how often it co-opts aggressively unimpeachable ideals, albeit in very fatuous versions that never go beyond a slogan. Although it is very dumb, the GOP’s basic riff on “we must protect Americans and their freedoms from the evildoers who wish to harm it!” that it’s adapted to fit various foreign powers, gay people, antifa, the list goes on, is very effective. Many of us also remember the persistent “think of the children” layer of homophobic organizing in the 90s and early 2000s, conveniently invisibilizing, you know, LGBT children. Given this context, it isn’t surprising that QAnon has latched onto the ‘save imaginary children from sex trafficking’ organizing principle; it allows its followers to cast themselves in the roles of Benson & Stabler every time they log on, a heady power trip. And as is always the case with these self-serving and fanatic campaigns, it has no relationship to reality and is seriously harming the actual people who are impacted by the real-life counterpart to QAnon’s imaginary stories.

The EPA Just Reversed This Summer’s Landmark Tribal Sovereignty Ruling

EPA Grants Oklahoma Control Over Tribal Lands

Rachel: Jesus, this is just so awful – I don’t have words.

Natalie: It really is…and while Tribes will no doubt, head to court to try and challenge the ruling, using McGirt as their basis for argument (the Chief Justice predicted the majority ruling would lead to cases like this in his dissent). But it’s also worth noting that the governor of Oklahoma was permitted to ask for control over tribal lands because of a little known stipulation tucked into the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act.

We need to elect a new president and a new senate to undo that provision.

Himani: Natalie, you’ve raised this point before and, once again, it applies: what are Supreme Court rulings worth when the people charged with enforcing them brazenly do not care to follow the law?

The State of Voting in America

Himani: Are you registered? Are you sure? Do you know whether you can vote by mail and if so how?

Postal Service workers quietly resist DeJoy’s changes with eye on election

Himani: It should not come down to individuals ignoring directives from their supervisors or working off the clock to save this election. But this is where we are at.

How photo ID laws and provisional ballots target the most marginalized Southerners

Subject of Project Veritas voter fraud story says he was offered bribe

Discrimination, Strife and Conflict in Other Parts of the Western World

Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict draws in fighters from Mideast

Himani: An armed conflict is escalating in the Caucasus with at least 400 people killed and drawing in other parts of the region. For the context on what’s going on, I recommend this article from The Guardian. It really does feel like the whole world is in flames right now.

The promise and peril of the EU’s new asylum plan

Macron outlines new law to prevent Islamic ‘separatism’ in France

Himani: This is such a thorny issue. My gut reaction is that there’s a lot of Islamophobia — which France has an incredibly long history of — that’s led to this point. I mean, as per The Guardian article: “The measures include placing mosques under greater control and requiring that imams are trained and certified in France.” Do they have the same requirement on Catholic churches? At the same time, back in April I wrote in this column about an expose on how Saudia Arabia is using money (mostly) and power to shape the practice of Islam worldwide. I stand by my gut reaction re: Islamophobia because I think there’s a lot of questions we need to be asking about the economic and political influence of organized religion around the world. Ultimately, this feels like just one more instance of holding Islam to a different, unfair standard under the ruse of “counter-terrorism.”

Memo reveals ‘shocking’ police misuse of COVID-19 database, say rights groups

‘It breaks my heart’: Uighurs wrongfully held at Guantánamo plead to be with families

Himani: This article is just heartbreaking. It shows how so many fucked up things in the world intertwine and carry forward across decades.

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