Huge wins for our candidates in close primary elections

Tuesday was one of the busiest days of primary season, as voters in eight states cast their ballots to decide who will represent their parties in November. By and large it was a great night for Democrats, who saw a surge in voter turnout from an energized base. Significantly, a number of the very progressive grassroots candidates backed by Progressives Everywhere — several of them decided underdogs — came out on top in their races. The evening's results were yet another sign that people aren't just turning out to reject Republicans, but also to declare loud and clear that the time for spineless corporate Democrats (if there ever was one) has long since passed.



Progressives Everywhere candidates won five races and lost just one on Tuesday night. Here's a look at how things went down and which candidates have the momentum.



Last night's winners:



Abby Finkenauer (IA-01): The wunderkind 29-year-old state legislator running for Congress in Iowa's 1st district won a decisive victory, with 67% of the vote. She faces GOP Rep. Rod Blum in what is considered by some to be one of the districts most likely to flip in November. She is on our main slate of candidates.



Mikie Sherrill (NJ-11): A former Navy pilot and federal prosecutor, Sherrill won the Democratic nod for the now-open seat in Northern New Jersey. The primary drew record turnout, with more Democrats going to the polls than Republicans. Sherrill is on our main slate of candidates.



JD Scholten (IA-04): The former pro baseball player won a three-way race to take on neanderthal GOP Rep. Steve King, Congress's annual winner of the bigot triple crown for his odious racism, sexism, and homophobia. Scholten is an exciting young candidate who has a spot on our slate for immigration-focused races.



Cindy Axne (IA-03): Another Iowa candidate, Axne also won a three-way race. A former state government official and small business owner, she takes on David Young, a former chief of staff to confused Twitterer/Senator Charles Grassley and now one of the NRA's top lapdogs. Axne is on our slate of candidates taking on remorseless gun nuts.



Kathleen Williams (MT-AL): An underdog winner in the Democratic primary for Montana's lone Congressional district, Williams raised less money than her rivals but was bolder in her stances. She was defiant against the NRA in hunting-happy Montana and called for an assault weapons ban, a gutsy move that helped earn her the nomination. She will take on GOP Rep. Greg Gianforte, the guy who infamously assaulted a reporter during his special election campaign last year. Williams is also on our slate of candidates taking on remorseless gun nuts.



The one Progressives Everywhere candidate to fall short on Tuesday was Genevieve Jones-Wright, who was running an underdog campaign for District Attorney of San Diego.



Here are the other Progressives Everywhere candidates who have already received the Democratic nomination in their races:



Stacey Abrams (GA-Gov)

Lauren Underwood (IL-14)

Beto O’Rourke (TX-Sen)

Clarke Tucker (AR-1)

Zach Dickerson (OH-HD-42)

Jess King (PA-11)

Marc Friedenberg (PA-12)

Rachel Crooks (OH-HD-88)

DD Adams (NC-5)





A big special election in Wisconsin







This week on Progressives Everywhere, we have an interview with a dynamic young This week on Progressives Everywhere, we have an interview with a dynamic young congressional candidate in New York. But before we get to that, here’s a look at crucial upcoming special elections in Wisconsin. candidate in New York. But before we get to that, here’s a look at crucial upcoming special elections in Wisconsin.

This week on Progressives Everywhere, we have an interview with a dynamic young congressional candidate in New York. But before we get to that, here’s a look at crucial upcoming special elections in Wisconsin.



Despite the fact that he ran a presidential campaign that made Jeb! Bush look like an exciting insurgent and ended before anyone other than debate moderators knew his name, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has been one of the leading crusaders in the modern GOP’s holy war on humanity.

Despite the fact that Wisconsin’s elections have been rigged through heavy, illegal gerrymandering, Democrats have been picking up seats in the state all year, which scared Walker to the point that he wanted to suspend special elections for open seats until November. The courts shot that idea down, and the next special election in Wisconsin will be held on June 12, with two more pickup opportunities for Democrats there for the taking.

Caleb Frostman is the Democratic candidate for the 1st District of the State Senate. It’s a district Obama won twice that then swung to Trump, so Dems have a good chance here, especially with a good candidate.

Frostman is from a working family, went to public schools, and has worked helping small businesses grow as the Executive Director of the Door County Economic Development Corporation. His issues page focuses on expanding access to affordable healthcare, investing in education, and creating a fair tax system that undoes the damage of Walker’s tax cuts for the rich. You can read about his debate with the GOP candidate, as well as some of the local issues, at the Green Bay Press Gazette.



The State Senate is now 18-14 in favor of Republicans, and a win here will bring us one step closer to restoring fairness to Wisconsin.

Ann Groves Lloyd is running for Democrats in the 42nd Assembly District. She is a local alderperson, serving the community already after spending her career working at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her family has deep roots in local politics, as her grandfather and great-uncle served in the state government as members of the storied Progressive Party. She’s focused on creating better jobs for her district, which has many people working in light industry and service jobs that don’t pay a living wage.

Click HERE to donate to Caleb Frostman and Ann Groves Lloyd on Progressives Everywhere’s ActBlue Page!



Fighting for better, more progressive Democrats





As much as New York is a reliable blue state during presidential and senatorial elections, it is far from being a progressive utopia. We’ve already focused on the problems created by Gov. Cuomo’s embrace of the breakaway IDC in the State Senate, but the problem also extends to many of the state’s national representatives. This week, we’re talking with one candidate who is looking to change the toxic status quo.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign for Congress had earned a little bit of coverage, but her press team couldn’t find any news outlet willing to premiere her new campaign ad. “They were like, ‘no, no, no,’ so I was like, alright, I’m just going to put it on Twitter,” the 28-year-old political organizer tells Progressives Everywhere. “Thankfully it turned out really well.”

That’s a bit of an understatement, as the ad went mega-viral on Twitter, helped out by admiring words from progressive MSNBC anchor Chris Hayes. The entire sequence of events was a pretty tidy summary for Ocasio-Cortez’s career and campaign, a grassroots effort that challenges entrenched powers that no one has dared face down over the last decade and a half.

A Bronx native of Puerto Rican descent, Ocasio-Cortez is running to represent New York’s 14th congressional district, and in doing so, challenging one of the most powerful Democrats in the city and country, Rep. Joe Crowley. She is unbowed by the inherent odds stacked against her; she was an organizer for Bernie Sanders, who was unafraid to take on entrenched Democratic interests. Crowley spent years helping to control who got on the ballot in New York, but once Ocasio-Cortez qualified, it was game on.

Ocasio-Cortez argues that the relatively conservative Democrat, who has designs on Speaker of the House should Democrats retake Congress, has focused on fundraising and his national donors to the exclusion of progressive policy. On the other hand, she is more focused on the needs of the community, as she made clear during her conversation with Progressives Everywhere. The New York Democratic Primary is on June 26th.

What inspired you to take on such a big challenge?

I was at Standing Rock two years ago, I was seeing what was happening on the ground. I was looking at corporations that were literally militarizing themselves against American citizens. And these companies, they give money to Democrats too. And the day that I left Standing Rock, I got a call from Brand New Congress, which is an organization trying to field non-career politicians in the 2018 midterm to get money out of politics, and they asked if I’d be willing to run. I was like, whoa. So I took a look at what was happening in our community.

We have a lot of these Democrats who are just laying as low as possible and hiding under the “D” next to their name, but they really aren’t doing the right thing. That’s our case here with Joe Crowley. He runs a profoundly corrupt local political machine, silences candidates of color, that silences women, that silences working class grassroots candidates in order to rezone New York City for luxury real estate interests. He hadn’t been challenged in 14 years.

The demographics of the area have changed dramatically. The community here was not being serviced for its needs. We have Rikers Island in the district, and we haven’t had a champion on criminal justice reform.

Click HERE to donate to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Progressives Everywhere’s ActBlue page for New York candidates!

Should you get the nomination, what issue is Rep. Crowley ignoring that you will focus on?

One of the things that he does is takes money from luxury real estate developers and basically translates it into increasing the cost of living in New York City to provide a profit margin for his donors. He does this on a local level and on a national level. One of the only pieces of legislation that he’s even past in the past couple of years involves foreign investment and regulation. The FIRPTA is essentially designed to pad the pockets of luxury developers.

[Note: Crowley’s bill allowed foreign investment in US real estate to jump from 5 to 10 percent without facing a special tax. Crowley received a huge spike in donations from the real estate industry right before introducing this legislation.]

Slowly but surely our affordable housing policies have been tweaked and redesigned in very unsexy and boring wings. But they ultimately result in deregulations for the wealthiest. The United States invests $200 billion dollars in housing every year, but you would never know it because a lot of that money goes to the wealthiest people through things like tax cuts, designed for people who can take advantage of them.

Things like expanding the Low Income Housing Tax Credit. Things like permanently funding the Low Income Housing Trust in the United States. We have federal programs in place. NYHCA used to be the crown jewel of affordable housing in the United States. And you look at what happened this past winter, where people living in NYHCA didn’t have hot water. Some of them didn’t even have heat. That’s not because NYHSA doesn’t work, that’s because the federal government has slowly been defunding HUD.

We’ve basically been rolling back and shutting down all of our most progressive housing policy in the US. And it’s terrible because we know that these things work. We know that affordable housing works, we know that low-income housing works and we also know that we don’t have to live in a world of four-year wait lists for people to afford the cities that they live in.

This is very much on money in politics problem. The industries in particular that have completely captured our government and especially the Democratic Party are Wall Street, real estate, big pharma, healthcare. People talk about what quote-unquote Republican industries are and we think of the NRA, we think of fossil fuel corporations, things like that. But the real companies that are eroding our democracy are private equity and real estate. They by far contribute the largest amount of money to compromise both parties, but especially Democrats and Joe Crowley.

Click HERE to donate to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Progressives Everywhere’s ActBlue page for New York candidates!

Crowley is the chairman of the Queens Democratic Party and has a very formidable machine behind him — The Intercept article about your race laid that out. How do you beat that?

Joe Crowley has not been challenged in 14 years. So when we first started, everybody said there’s no way. He is way too powerful. But as the chairman of the Democratic Party, he has failed. Because as the chairman, he has not been expanding the electorate. He hasn’t been a good steward for the Democratic Party in Queens County. He’s brought in a lot of money, but when you go to an average Democratic Club in Queens, the average age nowadays is about 90. That’s not to be ageist, but there is no diversity in age. So even though he is chairman of the party and he is able to command a lot of automatic endorsements out of fear, that’s just money.

We’ve been doing a really, really good job as organizers. That’s what I am at heart. I’m an organizer. I’m not a big money kind of girl. I was born very working class. My mom cleaned houses and drove school buses. I knew that if I was going to compete in this race, I couldn’t do it on big money. What I could do is out-organize him and so that’s been our main strategy. We have been inspiring and expanding the electorate. This is one of the lowest turnout districts in the United States.

And honestly, if you’re chairman of the Democratic Party and you have presided over the total lowest voter turnout in America, maybe you do deserve to lose your job. Because your one job is to strengthen the Democratic Party and it’s completely languished under your 20-year tenure.

New York has a lot of problems with Democrats who don’t act like Democrats, but instead protect vested interests.

Crowley just endorsed an IDC member while claiming to be a real Democrat himself. We know that for him the only thing that matters is money. And it’s not to dismiss the need for a basic amount of funds to run a campaign. But really when you look at his tenure, when you look at his record, he endorsed the anti women’s rights candidate and put him over the top of Marie Newman in Illinois.

In the places where he actually has the juice, he doesn’t use it for the advancement of social, economic or racial justice. Everything else is just a press release. So with the IDC you have folks that are still taking all of this corporate money and have historically sanitized some of the most progressive legislation in America. Now they’re pretending to have dissolved the IDC, but they still have those corporate interests at heart. He’s kind of like a federal IDC member, he’s not as progressive as he says.

Click HERE to donate to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Progressives Everywhere’s ActBlue page for New York candidates!

Protect kids in Texas — and everywhere else





Even during an era in which the velocity of breaking atrocities and outrages has numbed the senses, the latest dispatches from the ongoing nightmare at the southern border stick out as particularly devastating tragedies. Last month, it became more clear than ever to the general public that there is a fully authorized, government-sanctioned Gestapo terrorizing Latin Americans in Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Florida and other states where refugees and hopeful immigrants tend to arrive and live.

First, there is the story of the missing children. It emerged that the Office of Refugee Resettlement has lost track of nearly 1500 young immigrant children who it placed into some kind of foster care — and that’s just during a three month period in 2017. The number of small children left to fend for themselves in this strange and scary country is probably far higher.



Now, the definition of "lost" has been debated, because often these children are placed in homes with family members who are also here illegally, and thus don't want to answer the phone. But it is undeniably a sad situation nonetheless. And sadly, this is a problem that has bipartisan roots. The Obama administration, faced with a skyrocketing number of refugees, relaxed the foster parent standards, thus placing some children into very dangerous situations. As much as Obama did for immigrant children — DACA should a prime achievement — his administration also failed in a number of ways.



And it's only getting worse. Far worse. Under Attorney General Jeff Sessions, ICE, the aforementioned Gestapo, has been separating children from their parents and then processing them as orphans, ripping vulnerable refugee families apart as soon as they arrive in the United States, a country once seen as a welcoming beacon of hope.

Via Washington Post:

“The type of devastation that we’re talking about … where a separated mother doesn’t know where her child is for four days, that’s entirely common right now in this administration,” Laura St. John, the legal director of The Florence Project, told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes. “Children and parents who are separated sometimes don’t have any way to communicate with each other for days, for weeks — I’ve seen months where a parent had no idea where their child was after the U.S. government took their child away.” St. John noted her group also was seeing increasingly younger children being taken into custody by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, as opposed to the migrant teenagers who had previously crossed the border themselves. “Just last week we saw a 53-week-old infant in court without a parent,” St. John told Hayes. “What we’re seeing now is that, because the government is separating the children from the parents, the government is actually rendering these children as unaccompanied minors and bringing them to the shelters.”

So, where do we go from here? While the Trump Administration controls ICE and Homeland Security, Congress can and should have oversight of the executive branch. Unfortunately, the GOP has surrendered all pretense of checking the power of the Trump cabal, so we have to work to kick them out in November. Let’s focus on a few prime committees and candidates, starting with the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security.



Rep. Ken Buck, the awful far-right vice chair of the committee, is in line to succeed the retiring Raul Labrador, who just so happened to lose his primary election for Idaho governor earlier this month. Buck represents Colorado’s fourth district, and he has an excellent opponent in Karen McCormick, who we’ve already endorsed here at Progressives Everywhere as part of our focus on ousting NRA-backed politicians. Yep, Buck is also an NRA puppet, which goes to show just how awful he is. McCormick is a compassionate veterinarian and community leader who has already called for an investigation into the missing children — something Buck will never do in any serious way.



Click HERE to donate to our slate of candidates focused on immigration issues



Steve King may be the most racist and noxious lawmaker in the House — or, at the very least, the most vocal about his malicious neanderthal beliefs. He’s long coasted to victory in Iowa’s rural fourth district, but he’s got some serious potential opponents this time around. The primary election is on June 5th, but there’s one challenger that really stands out.

J.D. Scholten has been out-raising King for the past several FEC cycles, even as he espouses a full-throated progressivism that we’ve long been told doesn’t play in rural midwestern districts. He was featured in The Intercept earlier this year slamming King’s immigration policy, and would represent as drastic a change as is possible in modern America.

Then there is Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), the chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security Committee. He’s a border wall supporter, is in favor of sending the National Guard to police the crossing, and supports prosecuting parents — and thus stripping their kids away from them. Running against him is Mike Siegel, an assistant city attorney from Austin who offers an entirely new perspective on just about every single issue. His stance on immigration is no exception.



The other awful border story involves a local version of ICE, the Texas Department of Public Safety. Over the past few years, it has been turned into a militarized terror agency, haunting majority Latino towns and making life hell for everyone there. They police every corner of every street — both through on-the-ground officers and endless cameras — and make it so that people are literally afraid to drive to work. They can’t even go to Little League baseball games without being harassed.

The DPS buildup began as a way for then-Governor Rick Perry to look tough on the border ahead of a run for re-election. It’s now become a permanent police state.

From the Texas Observer:



“Hidalgo and Starr counties are now among the most profiled and surveilled communities in America, with residents forced to adjust to life under the persistent watch of aerostat surveillance balloons, observation towers, National Guard listening posts, drones, DPS surveillance cameras, DPS spy planes and a barrage of intrusive police stops."

And this isn’t just impacting the people in those counties. It’s hurting all Texans. Again, from the Observer:



“Lawmakers slashed Medicaid funding by $2 billion and declined to fully fund the state’s child-welfare system, which has been in crisis for years. In the decade since the surge began, the state’s portion of funding for public education has dropped from 48 to 38 percent. But the Republican majority gave DPS another $800 million for border security.”



The obvious move is to take on the lawmakers enabling this horrible state of affairs. But it’s not so simple.

Rep. Phil King, who chairs the committee, has enabled bigotry and mass harrassment for years (and is also an anti-choice, corporate ALEC and NRA stooge who doesn’t even want laws that require people to lock up their guns, even in the wake of the Santa Fe high school massacre). Once again, Rep. Phil King is running unopposed for re-election.



Also running unopposed for re-election is DeWayne Burns, a Republican on the committee who is equally as grating and noxious. We need to do better, and that starts by showing candidates that they will have support even in tough races.



Here’s where we start: Several Republicans do have challengers, however long their odds may seem based on their districts and fundraising disparities. A little money can go a long way in local races, especially in more rural markets, and even a somewhat tight race can push an extremist candidate towards more moderate positions.



Click HERE to donate to our slate of candidates focused on immigration issues



GOP Rep. Justin Holland is being challenged by Democrat Laura Gunn in HD 33, while Republican Rep. Will Metcalf faces off against Democrat Mike Midler in HD 16. Midler has a particularly interesting resume; a Marine who served in Vietnam, he spent his career as a history teacher, with a stop at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and his campaign literature cites the progressive visions of our Founding Fathers to rebuke the “Make America Great Again” crowd. You can donate at his... rudimentary campaign site.



Meanwhile, ultra-conservative Matt Schaeffer, who chairs the Texas Freedom Caucus, and brags about immigrant apprehension at the top of his campaign website, is being challenged by an unlikely leader in East Texas, a rabbi named Neal Katz. While he’s running as an independent as a nod to the politics of the region, Katz is a popular and progressive voice there, with support from businesses, community groups and even some church leaders. He’s not on ActBlue, since he’s an independent, so you can donate at his site.



Oh, and remember the Texas stooge who blamed doors for school shootings? Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is also an avid fan of destroying the lives of Latin communities, so once again, we'll be supporting his opponent, Mike Collier, as a rational and pragmatic alternative.



Protect kids in Texas — and everywhere else





It happened. Again. This time in Texas, where eight students and two teachers were murdered by a lone gunman at Santa Fe High School. Thirteen others were injured by the shooter, a disturbed 17-year-old student who had a shotgun and a pistol. The massacre marked the 22nd school shooting of 2018, a spree of pointless and tragic murder that has become a sick routine.



A country has no greater responsibility than protecting and nurturing its children. In America, students are now going to school expecting the worst. In an interview seen around the world, a 17-year-old Santa Fe student named Paige Curry bluntly told a TV reporter that, because “it’s happening everywhere,” she just “kind of felt like eventually it was going to happen here, too.”

Who can blame her? Especially in Texas. It’s an open carry state, which means people can openly possess guns just about anywhere. And instead of rethinking that barbaric law and working hard to protect children, Texas lawmakers are… blaming doors?

Yes, in a quote heard round the country, Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick said that high schools have too many entrances, which he thinks allow shooters to bypass security guards at schools (as if armed security guards at schools isn’t dystopian enough). He wants to redesign 8000 campuses in Texas, making them slaughterhouses and horrible fire hazards, instead of taking action on guns.



If you check out his website, you’ll understand that this wasn’t just a bone-headed comment; he’s absolutely obsessed with the proliferation of personal weapons of mass destruction. He touts his “A” rating from the NRA and offers a long list of insane gun bills that he either authored or sponsored, including laws that eliminated the educational requirements to renew gun licenses. He also continually fought to allow the concealed carriage of guns on college campuses.

Patrick is insane — and up for re-election this year. His Democratic opponent is a moderate businessman named Mike Collier, who comes recommended by the Dallas Morning News and other outlets. We don’t normally actively financially support former Republicans, but he switched parties back in 2011, when the GOP was hijacked by the Tea Party and went to the far right, so give him credit for that. Plus, he supports public education, asking the wealthy to pay their fair share of taxes (no small thing in Texas), labor unions (again, no small thing in Texas), and a living wage.

Most significantly for us at the moment, in a tweetstorm on Friday, Collier called for emergency action to prevent more mass shootings, including new sensible gun laws. In Texas, that’s enough to earn our endorsement, especially given his opponent.



Click HERE to donate to the Texas candidates and the rest of our slate of candidates via Progressives Everywhere's ActBlue page

Beto O’Rourke, the dynamic El Paso congressman running for Senate, was even more active on Twitter in the wake of the shooting. Unlike his cowardly opponent, Senator Ted Cruz, O’Rourke openly called for major reform, including stopping the sale of new assault-style weapons and the banning of high capacity magazines. This is incredibly bold coming from a candidate trying to get elected statewide in Texas, which makes us even more excited about his insurgent candidacy — and glad that we’ve been helping raise money for his campaign for months.

Dig deep enough — or even just take a cursory glance — and you’ll find a plethora of insane lawmakers in Texas. They’ve become comfortable and complacent, unbothered in many places by more than cursory Democratic opposition, and so the Texas GOP has been able to slide to the extreme right on issues like guns. One of the most unhinged, dangerous Republicans in the state legislature is Jonathan Stickland, who represents district 92 in suburban Fort Worth.

This guy is so far right, he thinks Lt. Gov. Patrick is too moderate. He’s pushed for state constitutional amendments that would make carrying firearms an absolute right, which would, in turn, eliminate the state’s (already laughable) gun license requirements. He’s also a terrible person who has voted against employment discrimination laws and advocated for anti-trans bathroom bills, so rest assured we’re not targeting an otherwise productive and responsible government official.

Stickland’s opponent is a businessman and education advocate named Steve Riddell. Yes, another white guy, but one who wants to invest in alternative energy, create a more humane immigration system, and yes, focus on gun control measures. He’d be a far better (and more sane) member of the legislature, so he has our support.

You’ll notice we haven’t touched on Governor Greg Abbott, who is also up for re-election this year. He’s a bad person who has terrible beliefs on gun laws. He just doesn’t have a definite Democratic opponent yet, as the two candidates — Lupe Valdez and Andrew White — will square off in a runoff election on Tuesday. We like Valdez’s positions on many issues, but figure with just two days before the election, it’s better to add the winner and not ask you to invest money in a candidate that may not be able to use it. Check ProgressivesEverywhere.org on Wednesday to see who won!



Click HERE to donate to the Texas candidates and the rest of our slate of candidates via Progressives Everywhere's ActBlue page

Let's turn New York blue. Like, actually blue.

Alessandra Biaggi is taking on IDC leader Jeff Klein.

is taking on IDC leader Jeff Klein. Jessica Ramos is taking on Jose Peralta

is taking on Jose Peralta Cynthia Nixon is taking on Andrew Cuomohttp://rachelmay.org/

is taking on Andrew Cuomohttp://rachelmay.org/ Zellnor Myrie is taking on Jesse Hamilton

is taking on Jesse Hamilton John Mannion is running for the seat held by retiring John DeFrancisco

is running for the seat held by retiring John DeFrancisco Robert Jackson is challenging Marisol Alcantara

is challenging Marisol Alcantara Rachel May is taking on David Valesky

Support Oklahoma's Teachers on Strike and Running for Office!

When Cyndi Ralston retired after more than three decades as a public school teacher, she could have never imagined that just a few years later, she would be at the center of national headlines and the public figurehead of a major political rebellion. And yet there she was, driving across the state of Oklahoma this past Tuesday, giving interviews and plotting out her nascent campaign for state legislature, fitting in strategy and press in the few hours she wasn’t marching on the state Capitol with her many fellow striking teachers.

After returning to the classroom to help combat Oklahoma’s desperate teacher shortage in 2017, Ralston decided that she also had to help fix the cause of the state’s awful education woes. So on Friday, she filed to run to represent Oklahoma’s 12th house district, officially commencing a race that has already earned national press coverage as a symbol of the political struggle in roiling red states. It is a microcosm of 2018: Ralston is running against a Republican state representative named Kevin McDugle, who drew outrage with a vicious anti-teacher Facebook rant. Ralston had been planning to run for months and was carefully preparing her campaign when that rant went viral, springing her into action ahead of schedule.

“He just was going off on how the students were watching us and we were being a bad example and yada yada yada,” Ralston recalls, still annoyed by McDugle’s diatribe. “And I was like, you're right sir, they are watching us and we're teaching them what freedom looks like, that we can petition our government, that we have the right to be here and peacefully protest.”



Ralston is one of many Oklahoman teachers who has decided to step up and run for office as a Democrat, as the teacher’s strike becomes even more political. They’re campaigning explicitly against the trickle-down economics of that have bankrupted the state government, and fighting to increase the paltry education budget that the legislature just passed. Ralston, who has become a figurehead for the movement, spoke to Progressives Everywhere twice this week, with a follow-up conversation focused on the teacher union’s internal disagreement over a recent call to end the strike.



Click HERE to donate to Oklahoma Teachers via Progressives Everywhere's ActBlue page for Oklahoma Teachers!



You returned to the classroom because Oklahoma passed a law allowing retired teachers to come back and keep their retirement. But the teacher shortage has had other consequences, right?

Maybe halfway through my career they started allowing “alternatively certified” teachers. The difference in that is that alternatively certified teacher has to have a degree and they have to complete courses like child development and classroom management. Now they have “emergency certified teachers,” and they don't have to have any training whatsoever. They have to have a degree, but no training and education. So they're throwing his people, bless them, into the classroom with no child development, no training on classroom management, no training on how to effectively teach.



I commend the people for trying to step into gaps that have been created because of the lack of funding for schools for the past 10 years. But, that's not fair to them or the kids. We have several classrooms in Oklahoma that are still not filled with anyone at all and they've been served by substitutes all year long, just different people in and out, always a different person in the room. So nobody's making plans. There's no continuity for the kids.

How did this happen?

In 2004, they cut income tax. They lowered the top income tax level down to where a lot of Oklahomans are paying the same tax rate of 5%. It's kind of absurd that Russell Westbrook, as much as we love him, is paying the same tax rate as I am.

They also lowered the gross production tax on oil companies from 7% to 2% percent [on the first three years of a new well]. And they never raised it back with when the 2008 recession hit. They said, if we give the businesses a break and we give corporations a break, that's going to trickle down and more jobs and blah blah blah. Well, it didn't work. It ended up costing major amounts of revenue. And then now that the economy's turned back around, they haven't changed anything.



They passed an education funding bill and raised teacher salaries right before the deadline, but it fell short, which led to the strike, right?

So they passed the bill that raises teacher salaries. But what we had asked for was $200 million to be put in general education. That just brings us back up to the 2008 level of funding. They play games, play games, and then they did pass it — but they gave us $50 million for the general fund.

The raise was nice and we thank them for it after 10 years without a raise. But we cared about the funding and we asked for $200 million because we have not had new textbooks in 10 years. They had allowed them to open the textbook fund, which has never happened before, and opened it up to allow them to use it for general funds to pay for teachers. We have ripped apart, duct-taped books. And we only have 25 reading books per grade level at my school.

The teachers have done an amazing job being creative. We have the kids have rotate from teacher to teacher. One teacher teaches all reading because we only have 25 books. One teacher teaches language and spelling. One teacher teaches math. That starts at first grade and developmentally, children should not be going to three different classrooms during the day. High school kids struggle with that. We're having six and seven-year-olds do it.

Over 70% of Oklahomans approve of the strike, which is incredible.

People are figuring it out from listening to us. They’re also watching the process which they haven't done before and they're tired of it. They want the money in education. That's it. They understand that that's one of the most important things for future and their own children and grandchildren.

It's been amazing to see the kids up there and learning and watching and being in the gallery and going and talking to legislators and realizing these are people. They're not any different than you, they're elected to represent you and you can go and speak to them about what you feel and what you would like them to do. It's been amazing. And yet, McDugle didn't think that we're doing such a great job leading and teaching our students.

The head of the Oklahoma Education Association has called for an end to the strike. Where do you stand on that?

Teachers were very frustrated when OEA had a media event on Thursday evening saying that the walkout was over. They felt like the OEA wasn’t speaking for the collective group. A lot of teachers want to drop their memberships but I’ve asked them not to do that and to actually join the OEA, but call for the resignation of the president of the association. If we lose membership, we will lose our bargaining power. That is extremely important to keep in a Right to Work state. We are continuing our pressure on the Republican legislators that have not allowed the bill that repeals the capital gains tax exemption and another amendment to a bill that just got written Friday by Republican leadership that allows the legislature to pull from already appropriated funds (like teacher retirement) if the revenue brought in that year won’t fully fund their budget for the year.

There have been several years recently that due to tax cuts and restructuring of our tax codes, on top of not having oil and gas companies pay their fair share, that this very thing has happened. This will only compound the problems we are having in our state, not solve them. We are still holding them accountable by sending delegations of teachers from every school district that we can to the Capitol with parents and community leaders every day until the end of the session. We are watching the live feeds of committees and checking votes every day then calling them about their votes immediately.

Ralston's son Josh Martin is also running for office, in OK's 80th House District. With so many great candidates rising to the occasion, Progressives Everywhere has set up a fund specifically for teachers running for office in Oklahoma.



Click HERE to donate to Oklahoma Teachers via Progressives Everywhere's ActBlue page for Oklahoma Teachers!

Take on the religious right hypocrites!



Over the last 50 years, the Religious Right has hijacked Christianity in America, turning the pulpit intended to preach love and charity into a platform for hate speech and punishing capitalist propaganda. Huckster preachers like Jerry Falwell and organizations like Focus on the Family have weaponized faith and its intimate place in people’s psyche to create generations of soldiers in a war on women, LGBTQ Americans, racial minorities, and anyone who cannot afford massive donations to their ministries.

Thanks to Donald Trump, they have more power than ever before — but as we are seeing, our energy and determination is already starting to change that. Just look at how we beat Roy Moore, the pedophile Bible-thumper who everyone thought would be the next senator from Alabama!

We’re taking aim at some of the most intolerant “Christian” lawmakers, who are really false prophets. They may be tweeting Bible verses on Easter, but they’re preaching hate and afflicting the powerless, so it’s time they’re taught a lesson.



Click HERE to donate to Progressives Everywhere VS the Religious Right!

Ryan Watts vs Rep. Mark Walker (R-NC)





Rep. Mark Walker, of North Carolina’s 6th congressional district, is the head of the influential Republican Study Committee. What do they study? How to make life hell for anyone that’s not a god-fearing straight white man born into wealth.

He’s a former Baptist minister who went to Congress to do things like call his female colleagues “eye candy,” support any and all anti-LGBTQ laws, fight against Obamacare, pick fights with Bruce Springsteen, joke about starting wars with Mexico, and even try to take support away from baby ducklings.

Running against him is Ryan Watts, a young Democrat who would provide a breath of fresh air and new energy to stodgy old Washington. He’s already a senior management consultant and runs leadership seminars for groups like Boys & Girls Club, and is focused on economic development, not discriminating against anyone who doesn’t belong to a country club.

His issues page talks about protecting women in the workplace, equal pay for equal work, and guaranteeing a woman’s right to choose, all of which stand in stark contrast to Walker, to say the least. He’s also for a Medicare public option and gun control, making him a mainstream progressive.



Click HERE to donate to Progressives Everywhere VS the Religious Right!

Renee Hoagenson vs Vicky Hartzler (R-MO)

Rep. Vicky Hartzler, of Missouri’s 4th district, was called “the most anti-gay candidate in the country” when she first ran for office, and during her tenure in Washington she has lived up to that billing. And it’s not just the LGBTQ community that she has worked to punish. Not by far.



Hartzler boasts a perfect score from the National Association of Awful Monsters, for taking up every vile far-right position possible over the last decade. She’s a birther, anti-gay marriage, voted against the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, voted in favor of cutting food stamps, supports Trump’s “Muslim Ban,” pushed hard to have transgender soldiers banned from the military (she actually equated them to Putin, North Korea and ISIS) and voted against hate crime legislation. She is literally the worst.

Running against her is Renee Hoagenson, a single mother and businesswoman who is pushed toward a progressive platform by her Catholicism. OK, so her website isn’t much to look at, but her positions are firmly in our wheelhouse. She believes in Medicare for All, forcing pharmaceutical companies to pay their fair share in combating the opioid crisis they helped start, and ending partisan redistricting. And this passage, from her website’s section about family values, really speaks to the difference in both the candidates in this race, and the larger cultural conflict still raging in America.

“To reverse the decline of family values we must first create more good-paying jobs and increase wages for the thousands of Missourians whose wage increases have been outpaced by inflation,” she writes. “When our parents can afford to spend more time with their children they will have the time to help rebuild the moral foundation of our country.”



Click HERE to donate to Progressives Everywhere VS the Religious Right!

Lauren Underwood vs. Randy Hultgren (R-IL)





All you need to know about Randy Hultgren, the congressman from Illinois’ 14th district, is that he said in 2010 that he believes in Intelligent Design. That should enough to disqualify him for national office. It’s insane, but what’s crazier is that he has also been recognized for his work promoting science and STEM education. So what are we to make of this guy?



Well, whatever his stance on the evolution might be, he’s clearly a regressive vote on just about every other issue. He’s an Evangelical Christian who believes God guided him through his initial race for Congress, and presumably, thinks the big man upstairs told him to oppose green energy policies, work against a woman’s right to choose and stem cell research, vote against reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act, and fight to dismantle Obamacare. He chairs the National Prayer Breakfast, but after finishing his omelet, goes to work to make life miserable for just about everyone.



His opponent is Lauren Underwood, a nurse and Obama administration alum who we have already profiled here at Progressives Everywhere. The 31-year-old teaches nurses in a Georgetown online course and works full-time for a Medicaid plan in Chicago, helping low-income families get the medical treatment they need. Plus, she was born with a heart condition, so any attempt to undo Obamacare is not just political to her — it’s personal.