Thread by @ElizabethHira

1/ THRILLED to share my 1st @BrennanCenter
report, out TODAY! It looks at HR1/S1 through an equity lens. What’s that mean?? America was formed by WE the People – yet for too long we deliberately excluded people based on sex, skin color & economic status. brennancenter.org/our-work/resea…

2/We feel those effects today – in disenfranchisement laws, voter ID laws hurting women & trans voters, & in voter purges w/ race impacts. We need to let people vote (louder for the folks in back, TY @staceyabrams!), but the system isn’t fixed until we address who can RUN, too!

3/Current campaign finance laws do NOT give everyone a fair shot to run for office & rep the needs of the people. We know what it means when donors don’t support you because you don’t seem “electable.” 2018: big donors gave Black women candidates barely 1/3 what they gave other♀️

4/ We can use #ForThePeopleAct to CHANGE the money-in-politics status quo. If you don't keep campaign finance changes in HR1, you’re saying you think it’s OK to keep a system that makes it much harder for women, people of color, & women of color esp. to have a shot at competing.

5/Protect HR1's campaign finance changes & you're saying that working-and-middle class people should get a seat at the table. That in America, it shouldn't be that only millionaires supported by rich friends can afford to run. (Their priorities are different than everyday folks.)

6/ Protect HR1's campaign finance reform & stand w/ working moms running for office. B/c currently a man can use his campaign funds to rent a tuxedo, but if a woman wants to use her funds to pay a babysitter, she needs special permission from the FEC. Say clearly what's at stake.

7/Diversifying who runs doesn’t matter JUST for its own sake. It matters b/c who gets a seat at the table dictates whose priorities get lifted up. Today's Congress, the MOST diverse ever, is... 77% white & 73% male. Of 1994 Senators in history, 58 are women. FIVE women of color.

8/ How many Senators in history have been people of color? 1.6%. And UNDER 5% of members in the last Congress reported ever working a blue collar job. (Yes
@Nick_Carnes_!) 10 people have given birth while serving in Congress. Ever.

9/With "representation" like that, connect the dots & you quickly see why we don’t have simple basics we all agree we need as a society, like affordable childcare & paid family leave, like a system where being poor doesn’t condemn you to death if you get sick.

10/Maybe we could change the current standard, where your bonus for getting fired is losing your healthcare. Maybe we could end child hunger. MAYBE we could even get politicians to try to stop the planet from being on fire instead of fighting over insipid culture wars. #OKBoomer

11/ If real people get a real seat at the table – if we let people VOTE, and we let people RUN, then the actual issues that matter to WE THE PEOPLE can finally be front and center.

12/ With the #ForThePeopleAct, we have an unprecedented opportunity to repair some of our historic harms, to FIX the infrastructure of democracy so that everyone can participate, as voters & as leaders. THIS is our best chance to have America’s leaders actually REFLECT America!!

13/ This paper shows painful history. (Did you know the 14th Amdt. was interpreted to specifically exclude Native Americans? That CA once banned AMERICAN-BORN Asians from voting? That AZ ran a 1960s program for *officials* to intimidate Latino voters with citizenship challenges?)

14/ But history is not destiny. We can begin to undo historic, structurally created harms w/ the concrete policy fixes packaged in #ForThePeopleAct. It'll advance equity in our political system while dismantling many longstanding inequities in access TO and outcomes OF democracy.

15/ In this, and so many ways, #ForThePeopleAct is transformational.

16/ Every piece of the #ForThePeopleAct matters – voting, campaign finance reform, ethics – all of it. It's there for a reason & we must fight for a strong bill, as large as it is, because there is SO much to fix in America. The revelation of HR1 is that so much IS FIXABLE.

17/The bill IS alive & there IS a path forward. Folks who oppose it want you to be despairing, to give up. Because you doing nothing is the ONLY way they can win. Ongoing negotiations show our pressure on Congress keeps HR1 alive! You are being heard! STAY loud for a strong bill!

18/I hope this report arms you w/knowledge about what's wrong and just how #ForThePeopleAct would fix it. But I hope, after 8 months of careful, meticulous, loving work w/ BRILLIANT @JuliaBoland9 & @julia_kirsch1, we’ve created a piece that gives you hope for a brighter future.

19/ Let’s pass #ForThePeopleAct to bring in that future.

20/ Because right now, with a vote in the Senate NEXT WEEK, #ForThePeopleAct be like …

(Inspired by you @JoyAnnReid 'cause you stay out here spreading our people's joy and optimism everywhere!!) 😎💪🏾🇺🇸❤️

Unfortunately I can no longer advocate for #ForThePeopleAct because @Lessig just tweeted this WHOLE thread including a rowdy Caribbean dance song and now I am dead from laughing.