Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to WOKF Daily with Me
Speaker 1: your Girl. Danielle Moody pre recording from the home Bunker
Speaker 1: as I am taking a much needed respite this week,
Speaker 1: but as always leaving you all with fresh content and
Speaker 1: interviews with people that we all need to know. Coming
Speaker 1: up on today's show is the co founder of Forward Majority,
Speaker 1: a political pack that is invested in building democratic power
Speaker 1: in the state legislatures. Vicky Houseman is the co founder
Speaker 1: of Forward Majority, and her and I get into a
Speaker 1: really thoughtful conversation and dare I say hopeful one about
Speaker 1: how we need not fear that all is lost, that
Speaker 1: there have been significant moves that have been made at
Speaker 1: the state legislatures. We're looking at Pennsylvania, we're looking at Michigan,
Speaker 1: and how her organization is looking forward to twenty thirty.
Speaker 1: Now I joke and say, I'm not quite sure we
Speaker 1: fucking get there, but hey, you know, give me the
Speaker 1: plan because critzy to think about it. But twenty thirty,
Speaker 1: which sounds sci fi ish because it sounds so far away,
Speaker 1: is only seven years off. So Vicki and I get
Speaker 1: into a conversation about what is going right in state legislatures,
Speaker 1: what states they are going to be focused on for
Speaker 1: their twenty thirty agenda, and where they think that Democrats
Speaker 1: need to be paying attention to as we enter into
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty four election cycle. And also I know
Speaker 1: that so many of you DM me, message me, comment
Speaker 1: under shows and ask what can I do? How can
Speaker 1: I get involved? I don't want to feel hopeless. And
Speaker 1: Foreign Majority is one of those organizations that you can
Speaker 1: consider volunteering for, that you can consider donating to because
Speaker 1: they are doing the work on the ground. I think
Speaker 1: that for too long Democrats have only been focused on
Speaker 1: the presidential races and on some high level congressional races.
Speaker 1: But we have ceded the localities to the Republican Party
Speaker 1: and look at what they have done right. States's rights
Speaker 1: is now all about denying women and people with uteruses, abortions,
Speaker 1: about denying trans people health care, about erasing black culture
Speaker 1: and bipock experiences. All of that is happening at the states,
Speaker 1: and the federal government is just sitting around with their
Speaker 1: hands in the air, like, oh, I don't know what
Speaker 1: to do. And so I think that today's conversation with
Speaker 1: Vicky is a really important one and it's one that
Speaker 1: helps us feel hopeful, like work is being done and
Speaker 1: that all is not lost, folks. I am very happy
Speaker 1: to welcome to OKF Daily for the first time Vicky Houseman,
Speaker 1: who is the co founder of Forward Majority, a PAC
Speaker 1: focused on protecting free and fair elections and securing a
Speaker 1: representative democracy by investing in a long term strategy to
Speaker 1: reclaim power in state legislatures. We're all about free and
Speaker 1: fair elections on this show. We're all about free and
Speaker 1: fair elections. I'd like to think in this country, but
Speaker 1: that is not really the case. So Vicky, tell me
Speaker 1: more about what it is that Ford Majority does and
Speaker 1: why you co founded it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, first of all, Danielle, thank you so much for
Speaker 3: having me on your show today. Really excited to be
Speaker 3: with you and speak of you about this critical work.
Speaker 3: So in terms of Ford Majority, our work is grounded
Speaker 3: in the simple fact that state legislatures are ground zero
Speaker 3: in the fight for demodocracy. They are foundational to free
Speaker 3: and fair elections and to representative government. And as you
Speaker 3: and I and many of your listeners may know, the
Speaker 3: challenge is that for the past fifty years until very recently,
Speaker 3: building power in state legislatures has at best been an afterthought,
Speaker 3: we're distant priority for democrats, while Republicans have patiently strategically
Speaker 3: invested to take over state houses across the country. And
Speaker 3: we've all seen and we've all lived with the results.
Speaker 3: What were once described as laboratories of democracies in the
Speaker 3: states have become incubators of autocracy, quite literally, innovating on
Speaker 3: tactics of gerrymandering, voter suppression, election subversion, partisan power grabs,
Speaker 3: instituting minority rule.
Speaker 2: So we saw this back.
Speaker 3: In twenty sixteen when Donald Trump was elected, when all
Speaker 3: of us were you know, so many of us were
Speaker 3: having kind of a wake up call about how we
Speaker 3: approach politics, how we engage in democracy, and we saw
Speaker 3: that state legislatures create this unique opportunity to build power
Speaker 3: and this urgent need to build power. So we aggressively
Speaker 3: help democrats compete for power where they can have the
Speaker 3: biggest impact, where they can dislodge Republicans and state legislatures
Speaker 3: that affect national power and affect democracy nationally. So we've
Speaker 3: been making great progress. I'm really excited to get in
Speaker 3: some of the details with you, and much more work
Speaker 3: lies ahead as we all work to make a more
Speaker 3: perfect union.
Speaker 1: You know, it's it's really unfortunate. I think that Democrats
Speaker 1: have done such a poor job. You know. It's in
Speaker 1: the same way that they have neglected to really talk
Speaker 1: about the Supreme Court and engage people on the issues
Speaker 1: of the Supreme Court and on federal judges. It is
Speaker 1: the same thing that we find ourselves that Republicans, to
Speaker 1: your point, over the last fifty years, have spent time
Speaker 1: seeding ground, right, like literally planting seeds, planting seeds in
Speaker 1: the state legislature, building a pipeline, planting seeds in the
Speaker 1: federal court system, build building a pipeline. And we are
Speaker 1: now at a place and Vicky, you tell me if
Speaker 1: I'm wrong. We're playing catch up, and I wonder, you know, honestly,
Speaker 1: if we're so far behind, you know that we might
Speaker 1: not catch up. So what do you think about that? Like,
Speaker 1: are we just is it too far gone?
Speaker 2: H It is a great question.
Speaker 3: And when we got started in twenty sixteen, Democrats had
Speaker 3: the least amount of power in state legislatures across the
Speaker 3: country than any other point in time in modern history.
Speaker 3: So we have been digging out of a hole. There
Speaker 3: are no two ways about it. I want to share
Speaker 3: two things with you. One is, we're making great progress.
Speaker 3: So there are so many reasons to be incredibly concerned, upset,
Speaker 3: outraged about the state of democracy today, but there also
Speaker 3: were reasons for great hope and optimism. And I think
Speaker 3: a path we see back to back to power and
Speaker 3: a start for the democracy that we all want for
Speaker 3: the future. I point to the wins of twenty twenty two.
Speaker 3: Obviously Democrats outperformed all expectations. Obviously election deniers were defeated
Speaker 3: up and down the ballot and key places. But what
Speaker 3: we saw was, you know, we were able to win
Speaker 3: state legislative power in the Pennsylvania State House, in the
Speaker 3: Michigan State House and Senate, in the Minnesota State House
Speaker 3: and Senate, and in these states, I mean Michigan has
Speaker 3: a Democratic trifecta for the first time in forty years,
Speaker 3: and we have seen what that has meant for policy.
Speaker 3: I mean, we live in a tale of two countries
Speaker 3: right now. Depending on whether your legislator is Republican or Democratic.
Speaker 3: You live in Texas with a Republican legislature, you're literally
Speaker 3: living in the Handmaid's tale. You get pregnant as a
Speaker 3: result of rape or incest and you're forced to carry
Speaker 3: you know, the childhood terms. It's just insanity. And meanwhile,
Speaker 3: you live in Michigan and abortion rights have been protected
Speaker 3: in the constitution, voting rights are being expanded, gun violence
Speaker 3: and gun control measures.
Speaker 2: Are being passed.
Speaker 3: It's just a total dichotomy. So I think there's a
Speaker 3: reason for optimism. I can talk to you about how
Speaker 3: we think about the long term, but we'll leads hear
Speaker 3: what you think about your view on progress as well.
Speaker 1: You know, But I appreciate it because sometimes I get
Speaker 1: so stuck in the what hasn't been working that I
Speaker 1: rely on folks like yourself to remind me, way, way, wait, right,
Speaker 1: all is not lost, Like we have been making in roads.
Speaker 1: And I think that Michigan is a really good example
Speaker 1: because you know, the kinds of policies that they have
Speaker 1: been passing, whether it be you know, gun reform, policy is,
Speaker 1: whether it is around abortion, whether it is you know,
Speaker 1: codifying you know, equity and dignity for LGBTQ plus people.
Speaker 1: They are doing right, the very opposite of what a
Speaker 1: DeSantis and an Abbot are doing with their Republican controlled legislatures.
Speaker 1: And so I do think that it's important to say no,
Speaker 1: these things are happening. And I think too because of
Speaker 1: this idea, the lie around states rights and why states
Speaker 1: should have rights and be able to not be dictated
Speaker 1: to by the federal government that has always been the
Speaker 1: Republican push, I think that more people are angry and
Speaker 1: recognize that they could run right. Like when you see
Speaker 1: some of the people that are up in this legislature,
Speaker 1: you're like, I become smarter. I think I could do
Speaker 1: this job right. Like, we've kind of removed they've removed themselves,
Speaker 1: but we've also removed them from a pedestal. But you know,
Speaker 1: talk to me about the ways that your organization is
Speaker 1: working to strengthen to use the places that you have named,
Speaker 1: like Michigan, like Pennsylvania as a blueprint for how we
Speaker 1: need to go state by state in order to win
Speaker 1: back power.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, great question.
Speaker 3: So you know, I think one of the biggest things
Speaker 3: we need to do is start aggressively competing and actually
Speaker 3: an addition in addition in Michigan, one of the states
Speaker 3: that I love to point to is Virginia, which has elections,
Speaker 3: big elections this November, but we're literally just competing and
Speaker 3: holding Republicans' feed to the fire in twenty seventeen, not
Speaker 3: even flipping the legislature led to the expansion of Medicaid
Speaker 3: to almost half a million low income families, like literally
Speaker 3: poor children getting health coverage. And so a big piece
Speaker 3: of our ethos is aggressively competing. Let us not just
Speaker 3: hold on to what we have. Let us not just
Speaker 3: go after the most incremental wins. Let's go after transformational power.
Speaker 3: And so we started off at the beginning of this decade,
Speaker 3: having been at the work for about four years and
Speaker 3: the run up to twenty twenty, saying, you know what,
Speaker 3: rather than just rinse and repeat and the definition of
Speaker 3: in sandy be doing the same thing over and over
Speaker 3: again expecting a different outcome, let us dream a different
Speaker 3: dream and think of a different strategy. And so we
Speaker 3: said we are going to build a ten year strategy
Speaker 3: focused on the year twenty thirty.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, Danielle, I see.
Speaker 3: You looking at me, maybe thinking why that's futuristic sci
Speaker 3: fi year.
Speaker 1: I'm alosto the same, Mickey. I don't know if we're
Speaker 1: making it there, but I like your optimism so well. Detail.
Speaker 3: Look, we need to be able to walk and chew
Speaker 3: them at the same time. And what I mean by
Speaker 3: that is we work at Ford majority one hundred percent
Speaker 3: on finding the sixty three votes that flipped the Pennsylvania
Speaker 3: House in twenty twenty two. We fight the fights are
Speaker 3: in front of us. We do it through a frame
Speaker 3: and an orientation that's focused on twenty thirty for this
Speaker 3: very reason. In twenty thirty, we have a once a
Speaker 3: decade opportunity to shift how power is distributed in America.
Speaker 3: That is through the redistricting process, when all of the
Speaker 3: congressional and all the state legislative districts are redrawn. It's
Speaker 3: literally seven years away. And so we've said we are
Speaker 3: going to fight the fights in front of us, but
Speaker 3: we are also going to invest in the districts that
Speaker 3: we expect to be the tipping points for power in
Speaker 3: twenty thirty. The lynchpins of Democratic majorities in six key states.
Speaker 3: The states will not surprise you, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Texas, Georgia,
Speaker 3: North Carolina, Virginia. We are laser focused on these one
Speaker 3: hundred districts, and we've built a strategy and started to
Speaker 3: build programs, one piece of which is a groundbreaking voter
Speaker 3: registration effort registering voters literally where there have been zero
Speaker 3: voter registration efforts on the ground, and starting to build
Speaker 3: for the fights ahead, including those that are going to
Speaker 3: be transformational for the future.
Speaker 2: And if we don't do that, what are we left with?
Speaker 3: We are left with every single election feeling like an
Speaker 3: existential crisis, quite literally being an existential crisis where we
Speaker 3: can hold on to what we've got at best by
Speaker 3: the skin of our teeth, but we never have enough
Speaker 3: power to make change. And I'm tired of it, to.
Speaker 1: Be honest, Look, I feel you because there is a
Speaker 1: level of exhaustion. And this is what happens is that
Speaker 1: people become so exhausted that they tune out right, that
Speaker 1: they go back to being what I refer to on
Speaker 1: this show political ostriches, burying their heads in the sand
Speaker 1: and just waiting for somebody else to fix it. And
Speaker 1: I think that, you know, I want to get into
Speaker 1: the states that you've chosen, and you know, just for
Speaker 1: the audience, why those are the states, why they are
Speaker 1: these one hundred districts, because I do have you know,
Speaker 1: one of my thoughts has been around you know, what
Speaker 1: we have seen take place in a space like Georgia,
Speaker 1: where Democrats had long abandoned Georgia until Stacy Abrams and
Speaker 1: a bunch of localized you know, electoral organizations built infrastructure
Speaker 1: from the ground up that guess what, the D Triple
Speaker 1: C and the DNC and the D s c s
Speaker 1: weren't providing them right, but they did for themselves. And
Speaker 1: because of that, Georgia turned blew not once but twice, right.
Speaker 1: And so I wonder, you know, one, walk us through
Speaker 1: your selection of these states and why, and then do
Speaker 1: you think just as a larger party, we have been
Speaker 1: seeding too much ground in southern areas assuming that they're
Speaker 1: just going to be Republican forever.
Speaker 3: Yeah, great questions. Stacy Abrams also got her start in
Speaker 3: the state legislature.
Speaker 2: By the way, this is the bench for the future.
Speaker 3: And in terms of the states that we selected, so
Speaker 3: one of the things that we've really prioritized as an
Speaker 3: organization is bringing top talent people who never thought about
Speaker 3: our work on state legislative races before, where we've tried
Speaker 3: to create a model for them to engage in this work.
Speaker 3: And so one of those folks is my colleague Ethan Roder,
Speaker 3: who's run our data operation, who built Obama's date operations campaigns,
Speaker 3: and when we started the decade, we said, we want to,
Speaker 3: in the words of Wayne Gretzky, not skate where the
Speaker 3: puck was, but skate where the puck is going. We
Speaker 3: worked where the future is and we asked him to
Speaker 3: identify the key states that are going to be most
Speaker 3: competitive in twenty thirty. We're state legislative power. We're literally
Speaker 3: having the ability to control the redistricting process, having the
Speaker 3: ability to control elections will make the biggest difference in democracy,
Speaker 3: not for the twenty twenties, but for the twenty thirties, right,
Speaker 3: And so we identified these states as being the most
Speaker 3: competitive where there's going to.
Speaker 2: Be a path to flipping the state legislature.
Speaker 3: Some of those legislatures we've already flipped, and we need
Speaker 3: to hold on to Pennsylvania, Michigan, others were on the
Speaker 3: cusp of Arizona has been the State House in Arizona
Speaker 3: has been in Republican hands.
Speaker 2: Get this since nineteen sixty six LBJ.
Speaker 3: Was in the White House. I mean, it's just like
Speaker 3: a different era entirely. And in the past election cycles,
Speaker 3: Democrats have come within three thousand votes of flipping that chamber.
Speaker 1: Why do you think that is a yeah in Arizona,
Speaker 1: and in particular, why do you think that is Is
Speaker 1: it immigrate like Republicans say, Oh, it's immigration in the
Speaker 1: blabblah blah bah blah, But what is it? Is it
Speaker 1: the demographic shift.
Speaker 2: There's so much dynamism in Arizona.
Speaker 3: It has one of the fastest growing populations in terms
Speaker 3: of in migration, in terms of job growth, despite the
Speaker 3: one hundred and fifteen degree days they seem to have
Speaker 3: every day of the summer. So there's a lot of
Speaker 3: just dynamism change. And by our expectation, it is of
Speaker 3: the fifty states in the nation, the one that is
Speaker 3: moving fastest to becoming a more blue state, closely followed
Speaker 3: by Texas. And so to your question on southern states,
Speaker 3: I think the rust belt, right the Midwest, the heartland
Speaker 3: has been kind of a core piece of the blue
Speaker 3: wall for a long time, and I think it has been,
Speaker 3: you know, part of our success as we think about
Speaker 3: the election of President Biden, as we think about winds
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2: But the future is in the sun Belt. It is
Speaker 2: where the population has growing.
Speaker 3: Fastest, is where electoral power will continue to migrate. Congressional
Speaker 3: seats and electoral college votes are distributed based on population.
Speaker 3: That is why Texas looms so large. It has forty
Speaker 3: congressional seats forty electoral college votes. So flipping Texas making
Speaker 3: Texas competitive. It's not going to be blue anytime soon,
Speaker 3: but purple would be a thunderclap for the entire nation.
Speaker 3: And that power building, durable power begins in the state house,
Speaker 3: begins where the rules of the game are set. In
Speaker 3: every decade, we see that the Texas State House becomes competitive.
Speaker 3: On the back end of the decade, the gerrymander simply
Speaker 3: cannot hold. There's too much population growth and change, particularly
Speaker 3: in the suburbs where we need to win. That gerrymander decays,
Speaker 3: and Democrats have not been prepared to capture that opportunity.
Speaker 3: So we want to change that.
Speaker 1: You know, it's I like the visual of gerrymandering decaying.
Speaker 1: It can't disintegrate fast enough. But I also think about
Speaker 1: the fact that while jerrymandering is the Republican's political tool,
Speaker 1: like it is what they use in order to suppress
Speaker 1: the vote. And so when we think about the state legislature,
Speaker 1: you're also thinking about the candidates, right, because you have
Speaker 1: to think about the people that are going to provide
Speaker 1: a sense of hopefulness, a sense of passion, a sense
Speaker 1: of intrigue to want to get people to jump all
Speaker 1: of the hurdles that they have to jump. And so
Speaker 1: in thinking about what in your as you're creating these
Speaker 1: models for victory, what is the secret sauce? What a
Speaker 1: what a what are we? What are we going after
Speaker 1: to try and then make the blueprints and make the
Speaker 1: status quo for gaining political power.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So the hard truth that I would share with
Speaker 3: you is I think that the candidates, the inspirational leaders,
Speaker 3: are a huge, huge component of success. But given jerrymannerd
Speaker 3: maps and or just the way in which Democrats have
Speaker 3: geographically sorted themselves in states, it's often not enough to
Speaker 3: have a great set of candidates to get to a majority.
Speaker 3: So one thing that we've identified is a huge voter
Speaker 3: registration gap in the heart of the state legislative battleground.
Speaker 3: It's really interesting because you know, voter registration has been
Speaker 3: is one of the most important tools in a democracy, right,
Speaker 3: expanding the electorate and ensuring folks can have access to
Speaker 3: the franchise. But it also has been an incredibly important
Speaker 3: tool to help Democrats win. Just as you said in Georgia,
Speaker 3: what we've seen and you know, if you'd asked me
Speaker 3: two years ago, if you take a state like Arizona again,
Speaker 3: you know, are Democrats doing everything they can to register
Speaker 3: voters in Arizona? I would have said absolutely, I bet
Speaker 3: they are. You know why why wouldn't they be? And
Speaker 3: the reality is Democrats are doing everything they can to
Speaker 3: register voters in big cities and on college campuses where
Speaker 3: the work is efficient. This is incredibly important work. It's
Speaker 3: incredibly important to winning any election we want to in
Speaker 3: a state like Arizona. But it doesn't touch the suburbs.
Speaker 2: It doesn't touch the suburbs because.
Speaker 3: They're fifty percent Republican. They're less dense, they're harder to navigate.
Speaker 3: The work doesn't translate. You might actually register Republicans and
Speaker 3: you know, boost their advantage. But the challenge is, if
Speaker 3: you want to flip the Arizona House, if you want
Speaker 3: to undo what has been their advantage in the state
Speaker 3: legislature since nineteen sixty six, we need to be registering
Speaker 3: voters in these suburban districts. There's no two ways about it.
Speaker 3: So what we did last year was we identified one
Speaker 3: point five million unregistered Democrats and the most important districts
Speaker 3: and brought that.
Speaker 1: Is so many, that is so many people, It's so many.
Speaker 3: And we designed a program that uses data analytics to
Speaker 3: actually go to specific doors, go to specific strip malls,
Speaker 3: coffee shops and register Democrats without registering Republicans. And with
Speaker 3: this we are able to help raise the floor on
Speaker 3: democratic performance. We're able to help these great candidates who
Speaker 3: are inspirational leaders and should have the gabbles, should have
Speaker 3: governing power, We're able to help them perform in these
Speaker 3: races that are tough but winnable. So that's a big
Speaker 3: piece of you know, one of the programs that we've
Speaker 3: designed and are rolling out now and see as a
Speaker 3: potential path to helping to build and hold on to
Speaker 3: these legislatures now through twenty thirty.
Speaker 2: But it's also democratic votes to vote for Joe Biden,
Speaker 2: who vote for.
Speaker 3: US Senate candidates, congressional candidates. So there's a layer cake
Speaker 3: of value here.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that that's extraordinary. I mean, that
Speaker 1: is a tool and just the fact that my god,
Speaker 1: one point five million people not registered to vote that
Speaker 1: are unregistered democrats. I mean we're talking, you know, to
Speaker 1: your point earlier about elections that were decided in the
Speaker 1: hundreds in some places, in the one hundreds of votes, right,
Speaker 1: and to think that they are just people that have
Speaker 1: still not been included, are or welcomed, right pulled into
Speaker 1: the electoral processes crazy. My last question for you, Vicky
Speaker 1: is that you know, the WOKF audience is an activated,
Speaker 1: passionate audience who is always looking for ways to get involved,
Speaker 1: to get involved in their state, to be able to contribute.
Speaker 1: And so please tell us how folks can connect, get involved,
Speaker 1: volunteer and get to work.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, well, we would love your listeners to get involved.
Speaker 3: I think one of the reasons that state legislators have
Speaker 3: become these incubators of autocracy is because they fly in darkness.
Speaker 3: It's a huge amount of power and nobody pays attention.
Speaker 3: No one knows who their state legislator is, so literally
Speaker 3: where you live, starting to pay attention, starting to actually
Speaker 3: reach out and be in touch with who represents you
Speaker 3: and your legislature and understand the issues at stake is
Speaker 3: like a core piece of the fabric of our democracy
Speaker 3: and how this works in terms of our work. So
Speaker 3: you know, one of the biggest things you can do
Speaker 3: right now is help support the voter registration effort we're
Speaker 3: building on our website, Forward majority dot org. We would
Speaker 3: welcome any contributions that folks want to make for folks
Speaker 3: who want to knockdoors, write postcards.
Speaker 2: We work with some great partners.
Speaker 3: Sister District is one of them who organizes volunteers to
Speaker 3: go to competitive districts and help candidates knockdors and as
Speaker 3: we get deeper into the cycle, that type of activism
Speaker 3: and activity is essential.
Speaker 2: Again.
Speaker 3: While state legislatures are like higher on the radar these days,
Speaker 3: unfortunately post the fall of Row, I do think that
Speaker 3: in a presidential election, these candidates will need all the
Speaker 3: help they can get.
Speaker 1: Well, I appreciate you so much for making the time
Speaker 1: to join wilk F. I appreciate the work that Forward
Speaker 1: Majority is doing in any way that we can continue
Speaker 1: to be of service on wokay if we will be.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Danielle.
Speaker 1: That is it for me today, dear friends on wokay.
Speaker 1: As always, power to the people and to all the people. Power,
Speaker 1: get woke and stay woke as fuck.