Texas League Fellows Spring 2012 Class

The Texas League is excited to welcome our new Spring 2012 Fellows Class.  After a comprehensive application  and interview process, we’ve selected 18 new Fellows from across the state of Texas representing cities of Austin, College Station, Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio. These Fellows will spend five months engaged in hands-on leadership development activities tailored to empower progressive-minded young people to become advocates and activists in their communities. The Fellows Program features a training curriculum developed by Harvard scholar Marshall Ganz on such organizing areas as public narrative,  self development, leadership, campaign strategy, new media organizing, and data management.  The Texas League Fellows Program is an integral component of the Texas League affiliate. The inaugural Fall 2011 Fellows class has already hit the ground building organizing teams and campaigns for the upcoming 2012 Election cycle and beyond!

By Christina Sanders (Texas State Director). Originally published on 99Problems.org.

This year has been a very emotional year for young people, people of color and the poor in Texas. Even though I was not alive during the era of Jim Crow laws that sought to segregate and suppress the electoral impact of African Americans, somehow I feel like I am in the midst of a Jim Crow fight today. The 82^nd Session of the Texas Legislature proved brutal to the confidence that many voting rights groups and advocates have in our state lawmakers. During that session, state house and senate representatives voted to approve a Voter ID bill that offered so many restrictions that one might assume Mr. Jimmy Crow wrote it himself.

This photo ID law was deemed “emergency” legislation by Texas Gov. Rick Perry. Someone please call 911 because that emergency  Voter ID bill could flip the script on Texas voters by no longer allowing voters to use a voter registration card to cast a ballot – leaving more than a half million registered voters shot and voiceless.

According to the bill (SB-14), voters would need a valid photo identification card issued by the Department of Motor Vehicles. That identification cannot have been expired more than 60 days – yes, even if the picture is the same and you are the exact same person. In addition to a valid unexpired photo ID, Texans can show a military ID, VISA or passport. Oh yeah, or concealed handgun license. Not for those that may have a concealed handgun but those with “papers” for their concealed handguns.

Well, Jim Crow’s nephew, James thought that he and his ugly grandpa were going to get away with the newly passed laws to cut voters out of the 2012 elections, but the attorney general had an intermission for that horror film. Guess who’s playing Freddie? Eric Holder, who put a stop to the clearance of the Texas Emergency mission to disenfranchise voters by charging state officials up and requesting more information in an effort to ensure the law isn’t discriminatory.

The state has not been able to prove that the new law would not discriminate against voters and has not been able to start putting thing in place to be able to fully implement Texas’ proposed Voter ID law. I don’t get it! I mean, what is so serious that you have to lie and steal to prevent other Americans from voting?

Today, Attorney General Eric Holder will be at The University of Texas in Austin and will be addressing the Voter ID laws. Many groups want to be careful about saying things that might offend or offset Mr. Holder. The students, along with myself, that have to pay stupid high tuition for college yet are graduating without jobs are interested in equal and protected access to the ballot.

We hope that Holder will stand up and step up the fight against any type of voter suppression. Jim Crow never met Holder, but he works for Barack Obama, who is married to Michelle and we hope that the, “oh hell nalls” in so many words are used to protect the voice of Texas’ voters.

Let’s fight, Let’s win!

DEAN ROHRER / HC

By Judith Browne Dianis (co-director of Advancement Project) and Christina Sanders (Texas State Director of the League of Young Voters). Originally published in the Houston Chronicle. 

Nnete from 97.9 KBXX

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW

Christina with Greater Houston Partnership President and CEO, Jeff Moseley

On November 8th, we will have the opportunity to elect the leaders who will lead our city for the next two years. The Texas League was onsite at the Greater Houston Partnership’s Houston Young Professionals Endeavor (HYPE) Meet the Candidates event on October 25 at the Downtown Aquarium. Young professionals were able to mix, mingle and learn about the candidates and where they stand on the issues. The Texas League team checked attendees voter registration status, informed them of their nearest polling location, handed out sample ballots, and shared opportunities about how young people can become engaged. The event was non-partisan. 

Volunteers making calls

This month, we  kicked off our Lifelong Voters 2011 Campaign!  Every weekend in October, we’ll are block walking and phone banking to increase turnout of young voters in the upcoming November 8th local election in Houston. This is a larger effort to turn these voters into “lifelong voters”.  Research shows that voters who participate in two off-year elections are more likely to remain engaged in politics for the rest of their lives. Our mission is to energize these volunteers right now, and to keep them motivated through 2012 and beyond.  To volunteer or support the campaign, please call 281-849-VOTE or email texas@youngvoter.org.

Check out some of our pictures from the campaign’s volunteer training and first phone/social media bank.

Texas League Fellows Class 2011

In July, the Texas League of Young Voters Education Fund began it’s first series of trainings for the inaugural class of the Texas League Fellows!

The Texas League Fellows is a five-month leadership tract specifically tailored to empower progressive-minded young people to become community advocates and activists. Over the course of the program, Fellows will engage in a series of trainings focused on self-development, leadership training, strategy, online organizing, data management, and running successful campaigns. Fellows will also have the opportunity to meet and dialogue with local community and civic leaders, and will design and run their own civic engagement campaigns.

Nnete from 97.9 the Box

HOUSTON, TEXAS, September 8, 2011 — Today, the NAACP Legal Defense & Education Fund, Inc. and the League of Young Voters Education Fund issued a joint letter urging the Attorney General to reject Texas’s proposed photo identification law. The organizations argue that Texas has not met its burden under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of showing either that this proposed voting change will not be harmful to minority voters, or that its adoption was free of discriminatory purpose.

“As our letter explains, Texas’s proposed photo ID measure, which does not permit the use of a government-issued student identification card as an acceptable form of identification at the polls, would disfranchise students who only possess student identification,” said Christina Sanders, State Director for the Texas League of Young Voters Education Fund.

This is especially true for many African-American students at Prairie View A&M University, a historically black university located in Waller County, who have been the target of multiple efforts to deny their votes over the years. The League of Young Voters Education Fund collected statements from dozens of students at Prairie View confirming that the proposed photo ID law will disfranchise them.

It is noteworthy that these new burdens have been imposed against the backdrop of an unfortunate history of discouraging student voting at Prairie View A&M. For more than three decades, Waller County has repeatedly sought to prevent students at Prairie View A&M from participating in the electoral process. Litigation from the late 1970s—including a decision from the Supreme Court —barred Waller County’s efforts to block Prairie View A&M students from voting in local elections. Nonetheless, in the 1990s and 2000s, local officials indicted students, or threatened them with prosecution, for voting in such elections.

“Students have a right to vote where they attend school,” Sanders said. “We are urging the Department of Justice to stand in the gap to protect their voting rights. We cannot afford to ignore this real threat to their voting rights—a threat to their access to the ballot is a threat to everyone’s access to the ballot.”

Although Texas’s purported rationale for the photo ID Law is to prevent fraud, there is absolutely no record of voter fraud with respect to in-person voting in Texas.

“It’s a lie. It’s not true. It does not exist,” said Royal Masset, former Political Director of the Republican Party of Texas.

The Department of Justice has until Sept. 23, 2011 to object to the law if it decides that it is discriminatory and disenfranchises voters.

“In balancing the non-existent harm of in-person voter fraud against the measurable and identifiable record of actual disfranchisement of qualified voters, the coalition believes that the Department should err on the side of permitting qualified voters access to the polls,” Sanders said.

About the League of Young Voters Education Fund: The League of Young Voters Education Fund empowers young people to participate in the democratic process and create progressive political change on the local, state and national level – with a focus on non-college youth and youth from low-income communities and communities of color. The League makes political engagement relevant by meeting young people where they are, working on issues that affect their lives, and providing them with tools, training and support to become serious catalysts for change in their communities. The League has field operations in the following states: California, Maine, Ohio, Texas and Wisconsin.