Advocacy 101
Hispanic Heritage event at UTEP, September 2021: "Older and Newer Styles of Community Organizing"
After Kathleen Staudt briefly summarized her book on IAF/Industrial Areas Foundation organizing in Texas cities including El Paso, Hope for Justice and Power... (UNT Press 2018), the following panelists presented issues and strategies on their organizations:
*Josh Simmons, Sunrise El Paso
*Johnny Ruffier, DSA-UTEP chapter
*Jean-Carlo Tirado, Justicia Fronteriza PAC
*Aaron Waggoner, El Paso Alliance for Just Schools
LOCAL GOVERNMENT ADVOCACY 101: A Toolkit
Registration to vote and actual voting in ALL the elections: this is a core and fundamental right and commitment made by most people living in a democracy. Democracy can and should operate better: fairly with equal opportunity and without big donors exercising far more influence than others. Almost 500,000 El Pasoans are REGISTERED to vote (check epcountyvotes.com), but for various reasons, more than half do not vote, thus missing the chance to influence decisions that affect our lives.
However, El Pasoans can enjoy MANY ways to participate in local governments in between elections, not only as voters but also--and especially--as participants in non-government organizations (NGOs) such as the Community First Coalition and its ~25 member organizations! Remember always that there is POWER IN NUMBERS. Notice that we pluralize the word government above because there are various layers of decision-makers and opportunities to use our individual and community voices. See two sections on local governments and on non-government organizations.
USING VOICES in LOCAL GOVERNMENTS
All public meetings must have their agendas posted; you can find them on line at their websites. After two weeks of early voting, elections are held in November for city and county representatives, except for school board trustees who are elected in May. NOTE that on property tax bills, the school district uses the largest amount of your tax, followed by the city, then county, and other smaller taxing entities. Local governments form boards and commissions on special topics to voice concerns between government bureaucracy and council/commission voters. In the city alone, over sixty (yes 60!) board members and commissioners provide more voices as they consider publicly posted agendas in regular meetings. See the list: http://legacy.elpasotexas.gov/muni_clerk/list1.asp
*City government: engaging with your representative (or all eight) of the nonpartisan city council representatives and the mayor through contacting them via phone calls, email, snail mail, meetings, and three minutes of testimony at council (broadcast live on video!) in person or by calls. Find your representative's name and email at https://elpasotexas.gov/government. Most have informative newsletters to which you can sign on.
*County government: engaging with your representative (or all four) of the partisan county commissioners and the County Judge (like an elected presiding representative). Here too, you can contact them via phone calls, email, snail mail, meetings, and three minutes of testimony at County Commissioners' Court (broadcast live on video) or by calls. Find your commissioner's name at https://epcounty.com/search.htm?q=who+is+my+commissioner. Because these elections are partisan, voters choose their party's nominee in the primary election. If no candidates receive a majority, there is a run-off election, at least five weeks after the primary.
*School Districts. El Paso County is home to nine Independent School Districts, each of which has seven nonpartisan elected trustees. You can find information about the district, the boards and their agendas, and the trustees at the ISD websites. El Paso's three biggest school districts are El Paso, Socorro, and Ysleta (episd.org; sisd.net; yisd.net) and their trustees are elected in geographic districts rather than on an at-large basis.
NON-GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS (NGOs)
Rather than listing the many NGOs, we call your attention to the different and mostly issue-oriented nonpartisan groups that form part of the Community First Coalition (CFC). Their websites and Facebook pages are listed in this website. NGOs are INDEPENDENT of government and thus able to exercise their freedom of speech better than groups affiliated with government agencies and/or dependent on donors who seek to protect their monetary interests.
Besides those groups, El Paso is home to approximately eighty (yes, 80!) Neighborhood Associations (NAs). Read about these in https://www.elpasotexas.gov/community-and-human-development/neighborhood-services/neighborhood-associations/ . In those groups, residents can discuss and advocate for their geographic interests and take a position to protect or advocate for their area at city or county boards and commissions. NA presidents' voices carry weight!
Residents have so many ways to to use--always worth repeating, their POWER IN NUMBERS! People can protest, demonstrate, and/or march to celebrate or to call attention to problems and to spread awareness before proposing concrete solutions. So many well-documented historical examples exist from the feminist, Chicano/a, union, and anti-war movements to Black Lives Matter, immigrant and civil rights movements generally. Earth Days and Teach Ins provide political education and other tools people use to push for change. Who can forget the exuberance of Pride parades, the Women's March, and the Cesar Chavez/United Farm Workers events? These organized movements provide pressure for other NGOs to use to pass better laws and reform policies that affect us all from equal opportunity legal tools to make change.
Of course, political movements take time! All too often we hear people say "Why bother? Nothing changes." But changes DO occur, and we want to illustrate some of the Community First Coalition (CFC) strategies for changes in El Paso. Several of us analyzed, wrote, and made public presentations about how wealthy, mostly Anglo men used their campaign donations to push changes to benefit their interests and acquire subsidies and breaks in their property taxes. Read Who Rules El Paso? Private Gain, Public Policy, and the Community Interest (2020). (See Resources in this website.) Examples:
*Historic Preservation in the Mission Valley corridor, South El Paso and Duranguito. In a synergy between former State Senator Rodríguez's Task Force, activists and lawyers called attention to the rich cultural heritage of our region and the need to cherish and protect these assets. They celebrated treasured sites, delayed the boondoggle that yet another developer-designed sports arena would pose to neighborhood Duranguito near downtown, and worked with County Commissioner #2 Stout to acquire national and state historic designations for areas and thus economic incentives to improve buildings (not gentrify them!) while preserving their character.
*Caps on Political Campaign Contributions. By documenting obscenely high campaign contributions from accurate and public sources, exceeding $30,000 to past mayoral candidates and city council majorities, CFC moved discussion into the multiple and routine media coverage and to larger numbers of people--so much so that many more people became aware of the "pay-to-play" system and wanted to end or reduce it, opening up the electoral process for MULTIPLE people to support candidates in smaller amounts and/or to run for office themselves.
--a CFC organizational member Justicia Fronteriza PAC circulated petitions for ballot initiatives in 2022, one of which involves a $1,000 cap individual campaign contributions, and a second, for publicly financed campaigns. With enough petition signatures, city council representatives must PUBLICLY state their position and vote on this issue, including those who reap enormous benefits of more than $100,000 totals for running their campaigns.
--At public campaign forums, candidates are frequently asked questions about their big donors. Voters can now use candidates’ responses as one among many criteria for decisions on whom they will vote for.
Advocates typically push for WINNABLE goals. Sometimes they win; sometimes they do not; other times, advocates acquire a partial victory, such as the new local redistricting maps adopted in 2022.
Check the websites and Facebook pages of CFC’s coalition members to learn about goals achieved and ongoing work they are involved with.