Thread by @btwest

🧵:It's been almost a week since election day, and I feel it's important to reflect on the defeat of ballot proposal #1, #3 and #4 last week. It will have a significant negative impact on building democracy in NY state, and reflects a concerning state of Democratic politics.

Last Tuesday I was at the @JumaaneWilliams @bradlander @ShahanaFromBK @ReynosoBrooklyn party, after having just canvassed, trying to feel good about the future, but also had my head in my hands reflecting we were going to lose important chances to improve elections in NY.

Info: Ballot proposal #1 focused on changes to state’s redistricting process and ensured that prisons could not count inmates in the process, proposal #3 would have cleared path for same day voter registration, and proposal #4 would have made absentee voting easier for everyone

Advocates spent 4 years to get here. The Democratic Party, and leadership completely dropped the ball in embarrassing fashion. Democracy was on the ballot. It didn't have to be this way.

Any changes to the state’s constitution ultimately require voter approval after legislation passes two consecutive legislative sessions. I think that’s a good thing, but that means big structural change can take time and now we are back to zero.

Advocates knew this was coming, the State Democratic Party, was missing in action. Candidates tried to push social media posts in the last few days, but it was too little, too late. These reforms are commonplace in other states, and we will now have to wait years for change.

Democrats have proven to be more interested in maintaining power and propping up the ruling class, than actually following through with base building, bringing power to working people, and opening our democracy.

Meanwhile, Trump’s anti-democratic rhetoric, mixed with a long historical strategy of keeping more marginalized and working class communities away from the polls, have combined to form a brutally effective working strategy to help tip elections.

So, that means when the NY GOP and Conservative Party and a small number of organizers pushed a very vocal and well resourced “vote no” campaign, the cavalry was nowhere to be found. The right had tv ads, mailers and signs all over the state saying “Vote no!”.

While local races took the limelight and Democrats were more interested in intra-party warfare, the final step in enshrining incredibly important pro democracy reforms got left to the wind.

Conservatives can rile people up and bring folks to the polls in large numbers to attack teaching actual history in schools, and mask mandates. Dems have to step up with a message, not just make a message of why people should vote for them, but why they should be voting at all.

Instead, we have a Democratic party at the state level that cares more about courting Republicans to stop a socialist mayoral candidate in Buffalo, than making it easier to vote.

Instead, state legislators are more concerned with drawing their own political districts rather than support working class voters who have struggled to get to the polls due to onerous state law.

New York State Democrats deserve the lion’s share of the blame, but national organizing nonprofits in DC must acknowledge their role in this setback. Movement works exits on long timelines, and when I was in national conversations years ago, more could have been done.

When groups hoover up money and choose to not invest in the long term and deeply necessary pro-democracy organizing in states--in particular in communities of color where organizers are not only working incredibly hard but fighting to live--we all lose.

We don’t just weaken democracy for the whole country when this happen, we make it easy to lose elections, like we just did. We are cruising to another potential step backwards in bringing more people into our democracy, at a time when it is the weakest it’s been for a long time.

If Democrats want to claim to be a party of the people, they have to create a state where the people are organized and an engaged electorate. Until they prioritize this work, they can expect to have more people with their head in their hands on election day watching the returns.