It’s been six weeks since another consequential election and in spite of a national fixation on federal races, state legislatures continue to be the most important locus of both forward progress and anti-democratic backsliding. In this session, we’ll gather in the aftermath of the election to regroup and strategize about how state leaders can build a democracy that works for all of us while blocking the rise of authoritarianism in state houses.
What does it mean for our democracy when nearly 90% of all state legislators are paid less than their state’s median household income and fewer than 2 percent hold working-class jobs? Or when nearly 8 in 10 of our nation’s 7,383 state lawmakers are white, though people of color represent roughly 40% of adults in the US? From our nation’s founding, state legislatures have been exclusive institutions designed to uphold the interests of the wealthy and well-connected elite. If we are to build an irresistible future, we also need to level the playing field in state legislatures, where the rules of the game are currently rigged in favor of corporate interests and far-right extremists. In this workshop, participants will reimagine state legislatures as the People’s House—democratic institutions designed to center community voices and power.
As Audre Lorde famously noted, “There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.” We cannot talk about the threats to reproductive rights, for example, without connecting to other issues like democracy, economic justice, and rural issues. Learn and actively create with community partners, state legislators, and other communications experts how to build cross-issue communications strategies that work in your community.
