We’ve decided to experiment with a podcast! Join Briana Bivens, Organization Coordinator; Broderick Flanagan, Co-Coordinator of the Housing initiative; and Jesse Houle (Local Political Coordinator) for our first episode. This was recorded in mid-January.

They discuss the 2018 local elections, A4E’s 2019 priorities, affordable housing and the A4E Housing initiative, and our 2019 Annual Conference.

If this is something you’d like to see us do more of, please let us know at contact@athensforeveryone.com. If you are interested in joining the A4E Board of Directors, you can apply here.

Athens for Everyone
February 8, 2019

Stacey Abrams
Dawn Johnson
Deborah Gonzalez
Jonathan Wallace
Josh McCall

Download and print our pocket guide to take to the polls!

Check out our voter guide here!

Gonzalez recognizes that many in her district are struggling. Despite a low unemployment rate, nearly 40 percent of Athenians are among the working poor. Gonzalez sees our need and continually speaks truth to power. She advocates for “a systemic approach to job creation at wages that will not only make people financially stable but also permit them to begin to build wealth.” She recognizes the dangers our environmental future faces and supports committing Georgia to 100 percent renewable energy by 2045. She advocates for strong steps toward ending mass incarceration, from marijuana legalization to ending money bail and mandatory minimum sentences.

During her first year as a legislator, Gonzalez didn’t sit in the background and watch while the majority continued to ignore our needs. She fought to protect our public schools, limit the scope of cash bail and defend immigrant communities while using her position to build public support for vital policies like Medicaid Expansion, driver’s licenses for undocumented folks and a $15/hour minimum wage.

Gonzalez didn’t get a chance to vote on many of these policies, due to the fact that Republican leadership won’t bring them to the floor. When she did vote, she stood with A4E 90 percent of the time. Notably, she voted:

YES to Senate Bill 407 for Cash Bail Reform
NO to House Bill 787 which would have diverted public funds to private schools
YES to House Bill 285 to restrict fracking
YES to House Bill 65 to expand medical marijuana

Click here for her complete 2018 Voting Record & A4E Questionnaire

Gonzalez has set a high bar for elected officials as a constant presence in the community: attending events hosted by community organizations, supporting local artists and listening to constituents wherever she can. She shows up for her district, and it’s crucial we show up for her with our votes, donations and volunteer support. Sign up to volunteer or make a donation directly to her campaign here.

We need allies like Gonzalez in our fight for the many and against the interests of the powerful few. We’ll vote for her with enthusiasm because she is working WITH us for a better future. Athens needs Stacey Abrams as our governor and Deborah Gonzalez in the State House to build a transformative majority that can make this state work for all of us.

Athens for Everyone
October 10, 2018

———————-
Read our endorsement of Stacey Abrams for Governor
Early voting begins October 15, 8am-5pm at the Board of Elections, 155 E Washington St.
Election Day is November 6.

Your last chance to register to vote is Tuesday, October 9. That’s coming up quickly! Already registered? It’s always a good idea to double check that you’re all set. Have you moved recently? Is your information accurate? Has your polling place changed? Have you been purged?

Is everything up to date? Contact your friends and family to make sure everyone is able to vote!

Got further questions? We’ve got you covered in our FAQs.

The A4E 2018 Voter Guide is coming soon. In the meantime, here are the 2018 state and federal candidates. Early voting starts October 15, and election day is Tuesday, November 6!

Your vote matters!

Please call your friends and family TODAY.

TELL THEM: Register to vote or check your voter registration!

Thanks for persisting,

Legislative Action Network
Athens for Everyone

P.S. If your LAN Alert just doesn’t feel the same without a call to your legislators — call them to make some noise about Brett Kavanaugh. His testimony proved he is not fit to serve on the Supreme Court.

You can also call the key Senate votes here: Senator Susan Collins at (202) 224-2523, Senator Lisa Murkowski at (202) 224-6665 and Senator Joe Manchin at (202) 224-3954.

Want to get these alerts in your inbox? Sign up here.

The possibility of that future is what’s at stake in this election. Stacey Abrams is committed to taking real steps toward making this state work for all of us, not just the wealthy and privileged. She combines her knowledge and deeply moral values with the personal experience of enduring class inequality, patriarchy and anti-Black systemic racism.

Abrams’ platform has plans to address Georgia’s intertwined crises of inequality, education, healthcare, mass incarceration and housing.

Stacey Abrams supports the Medicaid Expansion hundreds of thousands of Georgians so badly need. Republican leadership in the state is still rejecting the federal money (funded by Georgians through federal taxes) that would cover 90 percent of this expansion. The additional economic activity from bringing back this money would more than cover the remaining costs while making sure rural hospitals stay open and nurses keep their jobs. We’d also like to see a plan like Medicare for All in Georgia that goes further to ensure access to physical, dental, mental and reproductive healthcare without premiums, deductibles or insurance companies, but Medicaid Expansion is a first step that would change thousands of Athenian lives for the better.

To combat our state’s devastating gap between the few with great wealth and the many who struggle to get by, Abrams proposes a state-level Earned-Income Tax Credit that would put more money in most Georgians’ pockets. She also advocates for the right to form a union and negotiate collectively, a jobs plan that would put people to work at good wages in the transition to renewable energy, an expansion of apprenticeship programs, improved access to child care and early learning, paid sick leave for workers, protections from wage theft and “a living wage in every county.” All these policies would make a real difference in diminishing our state’s inequality, and her Republican opponent, Brian Kemp, supports none of them. That said, when so many Georgians go to bed fretting over how they’re going to choose whether to pay for their kids’ clothes, their rent, their dental care or their healthcare premium, the scale of the problem requires even more thorough solutions. In Athens, where we have a below-average unemployment rate (4%) and rampant poverty (35%) due to grossly suppressed wages, we urgently need a $15/hour minimum wage and a massive expansion of good public jobs doing socially useful work like taking care of each other and rebuilding our infrastructure.

Abrams recognizes that our racist system of mass incarceration is ruining people’s lives and wasting money that could be used to build a less rigged economy. She has a particularly strong policy proposal to abolish money bail. We see this need clearly in Athens, where at any given time about 75 percent of people caged at the Athens-Clarke County jail are awaiting trial and have not been convicted of a crime. She also supports decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana. This meaningful (albeit timid) step moves us in the direction of ending the War on Drugs that continues to ravage communities of color.

On education, Abrams advocates for ensuring that our public schools have the resources needed to serve Georgia’s children, with a more robust and equitable K-12 funding formula, greater investments in early learning and more need-based aid for higher education. Athenians would also benefit from her explicit commitment to tuition-free technical college, so that cost wouldn’t be an obstacle to learning critical skills at Athens Tech. Her proposals for wraparound services, child mental-health services and community involvement would support local efforts toward a community schools model. Her education policies point toward a reversal of the neglect and threats our public schools, students and teachers have faced under Republican leadership.

Abrams will combat our state’s dramatic deficit of democracy that, through gerrymandering, voter suppression and a rigged campaign finance system, allows corporations and the wealthy to engineer legislative majorities despite being a small portion of our state’s population. Abrams’ organizing efforts to register voters and her advocacy for expanded early voting, secure voting machines and easier voter registration demonstrate a needed focus on protecting voting rights. While we will continue to urge Abrams to support an independent redistricting commission, she is clear that as governor she would veto Republican proposals for contorted district maps. This ability to enforce fair districts, which would break the stranglehold that Republicans have on the legislature, is absolutely critical to Georgians’ hope of winning a transformative majority in the coming years. It’s a key reason Abrams’ victory on November 6 is especially important and worth fighting for.

A4E’s endorsements reflect a commitment to transforming our community and society. We’ll do all we can to mobilize our 1,387 members to canvass, phonebank and raise hell to elect Stacey Abrams. Her candidacy is an unprecedented opportunity to dismantle the elite networks that have held Georgians hostage for all 230 years of our state’s history. Neither Stacey nor any other candidate is going to ride in on a horse and save us. But if Georgians can get her into the governor’s office, we will make space for our community organizing to thrive and we can win policy to start building a state that works for all of us. Athenians have quickly won victories on local policy, in the special elections of 2017 and a local progressive majority this May. Now we have the opportunity to elect Georgia’s best governor and work for that transformation alongside people across this state. Stacey Abrams can be the governor who stems the tide of centuries of rule by the few. We must all be the force that gets her there.

Athens for Everyone
October 1, 2018

—–

Early voting begins October 15, 8am-5pm at the Board of Elections, 155 E Washington St. Make sure you’re registered to vote by checking on this website.

Election Day is November 6.

The True Right to Work

A federal job guarantee at a fair wage, with equivalent replacement income for those unable to work, is one of only a few policy ideas capable of virtually eradicating poverty in our wealthy society. Not only that: it would provide an income beyond just scraping by, enabling the freedom that comes with real economic security.

In the US, economic injustice is racial injustice. By offering a job paying $20/hour with benefits to anyone who wants one, a federal job guarantee would interrupt the economic exclusion faced by so many Black Athenians experiencing generational poverty and oppressed by systemic racism. It would mean that all the precarious, exploited, low-wage workers of Athens could demand a big raise and better treatment or simply leave to go do useful work of social benefit through the job guarantee. And the replacement income for those unable to work would vastly outpace today’s patchwork system of social assistance.

Winning in District 10

With support for the federal job guarantee coming in various forms from Senators Bernie Sanders, Kirsten Gillibrand, Cory Booker and Jeff Merkley, the Democratic Party is making moves toward a commitment to transformative change at the scale of the problems we face. It’s not going to happen tomorrow. House district 10 is very difficult for any non-Republican; Trump is president; and plenty of Democrats are still unwilling to challenge an economic system designed for the benefit of the wealthy and large corporations at the expense of the rest of us. But it’s a plan. The horrors of the last couple years have blown the doors off the narrow range of what was considered politically possible, and we need to provide an inspiring politics of uplift or else our country and community will be crafted even more in the image of Trump, the Republican leadership and their wealthy and corporate donors.

In order to win we must propose a future worth getting involved for, despite all the obstacles our society and our lives place in the way of political participation. To make winning worthwhile, we’ve got to have a concrete plan that will enable us to deliver on that future.

A New Social Bill of Rights

Winfield’s proposals for a new social rights agenda do so beyond the job guarantee, as well. He proposes a “Super Medicare for All” health care system that covers everyone living in the United States with no premiums or deductibles and includes vision, dental, mental and the full range of reproductive health services—including abortion—finally establishing health care as a human right in our society. He argues for guaranteed free access to early learning and child care for all, as part of a suite of transformative feminist policies that would work to undo the disproportionate burden of unpaid labor and financial precarity that women face. And he wants to take strong action to fight climate change by building the new green energy infrastructure we need and enacting a carbon fee-and-dividend system to switch away from fossil fuels as quickly as possible.

Richard’s opponent, Chalis Montgomery, also supports several policies that would make very significant improvements in the lives of Athenians, including expanding Medicare to cover all Americans and raising the minimum wage to $15/hour. She would be a valuable addition to the House of Representatives and a likely yes vote on some of the best legislation likely to come forward in the coming years.

The third candidate, Tabitha Johnson-Green, seems to have good intentions and her politics seem generally progressive, but her platform and public positions lack the substance and detail of Winfield’s and Montgomery’s.

We wish Winfield’s bold campaign would push beyond the liberation from economic insecurity toward a society that ultimately begins to separate our value from our wage labor and that it would articulate a more thorough and substantive critique of the U.S. military and foreign policy he would help to guide from Congress.

That said, this election is a rare opportunity to fight for ideas that would fundamentally restructure the systems of economic, racial and gender exclusion that keep Athens so unequal. This isn’t about one candidate, and your vote on May 22 won’t change this town overnight. But it will help to build an alternative that can grow into the new common sense of our society. Once we’ve enacted a federal job guarantee with wages for all types of labor and virtually eliminated economic insecurity, we’ll wonder why we didn’t do it long before, perhaps when FDR proposed it in 1944, when Dr. King did in 1967, when Coretta Scott King made it the cornerstone of the full employment coalition she formed and championed for years or when feminists in the 1970s demanded wages for housework. Let’s continue the unfinished work of these social movements and finally make devastating economic insecurity and poverty a thing of the past.

Just as with our previous victories on Social Security, Medicare and the minimum wage, those on top who want it all will try to take it away from us.

But they won’t.

Vote for Richard Winfield and transformative change on May 22. Give Athens a shot at a future without poverty.

Athens for Everyone
May 14, 2018

Early voting continues May 14-18, 8am-5pm at the Board of Elections, 155 E Washington St. and the ACC Public Library, 2025 Baxter St.

Election Day is May 22. Check out our voter guide!

Read Winfield’s A4E questionnaire here.
Visit Winfield’s website.

There are so many candidates in so many races this year that we had to make some difficult choices on the presentation of this guide. One potential area of confusion is the order of presentation. We are focusing on the local non-partisan races, not the Democratic primary. Therefore we will present the mayor’s race first on our guide, even though it will not appear first in the voting booth.  Examine the sample ballots here before you vote.

Print this pocket version of our guide to take with you to the polls!
A4E GUÍA DE VOTANTES en ESPAÑOL 

Links to Full Endorsements

Kelly Girtz for Mayor
Patrick Davenport for Commission District 1
Melissa Link for Commission District 3
Tim Denson for Commission District 5
Ovita Thornton for Commission District 9
Imani Scott-Blackwell for Board of Education District 5
LaKeisha Gantt for Board of Education District 7
Tawana Mattox for Board of Education District 9
Richard Winfield for US House District 10

Notes and Disclaimers

We recommended selecting the Democratic ballot, but the majority of our guide covers non-partisan races that are present on every party’s ballot. We did not cover the Republican primary at all, due to space and volunteer time limitations.

Not everyone can vote in every race on this guide. Any race in which a district number is listed is restricted to people living in a certain geographic area. All voters in Athens can vote for any race that does not have a district number listed. To find your districts, check this map: athensforeveryone.com/maps

One last note: you will see that some candidates have checkmarks next to their names while others have the same checkmark but also have a seal. The candidates with the seal are fully endorsed and supported by Athens for Everyone. We recommend voting for every candidate with a checkmark next to their name, but we have not spent time or resources in supporting those without the seal (and they may not have been as fully vetted).

Like to Learn More about the Democratic Party Questions?

Learn about bump stocks
Learn about Medicaid expansion
Learn about independent redistricting
Learn about investing in mass transit

Ovita Thornton has 35-plus years of public service to the Athens community, a strong platform advocating for all Athenians and a proven track record of progressive politics on the CCSD Board of Education. Athens for Everyone is proud to endorse her for ACC District 9 Commissioner.

The deep connections throughout the Athens community that Ovita has spent decades fostering, combined with her commitment to fundamental change to the structures and policies that keep Athens unequal and unjust, make her uniquely capable of bringing together disparate parts of our community in a unified movement for transformation. On the Commission, she’ll be a conduit for Athenians who have long been alienated from political power to be connected to, and involved in, decision-making. Critically, she’ll make sure that this connection isn’t just symbolic, but turns into urgently needed policy change. Black Athenians deserve both representation and action, and no one is better positioned than Ovita to deliver on both counts.

Her work in the school system — as a mentor, as a Board of Education member, and as an advocate for those navigating complex and imposing systems — is only one way in which she has worked to address inequality. Her focus on addressing the racist application of our criminal justice system through proposals like record expungement, bail reform and marijuana decriminalization shows the kind of tangible response to systems of oppression that we believe is needed on the Commission. Likewise, her stance that low-income housing developments need built-in social services if they are to help their residents succeed demonstrates her keen understanding of the immediate and varied needs of Athens’ residents.

Ovita knows her town and her community. As a result, she knows that crafting policies to transform Athens will take constant collaboration between the people and their government. She believes in listening and community-informed solutions, so she’ll bring the voice of the people she has served for years to City Hall and amplify it on the Commission in a more public way than ever, pushing for the concrete changes outlined in her platform and responses to A4E’s Questionnaire. Crucially, that platform demonstrates a clear focus on community building, criminal justice reform, affordable housing, expanding quality childcare, investing in public transit and combating discrimination.

Ovita’s opponent, Tommy Valentine, should be commended for his bold progressive platform. We appreciate his advocacy for many issues critical to Athens’ future, including fare-free bus service, living wage jobs, a permanent Civil Rights Committee, and marijuana decriminalization. Tommy will undoubtedly continue to be an important part of progress in Athens, whether or not he wins on May 22. But it’s Ovita’s long time engagement with the residents of District 9, coupled with her strong platform, that presents the best opportunity to build the movement for transformative change in Athens. This will be a community that works for all of us, not just the wealthy and powerful, and electing Ovita to the Commission will help us get there.

You can learn more about Ovita on our website and support her directly by visiting hers.

Athens for Everyone
April 23, 2018

Kelly’s main opponent in this race, Commissioner Harry Sims, has put decades of work into the Athens community, especially the Black community that has been systematically held down by economic exclusion, mass incarceration and discrimination. As a school teacher, he helped educate our community’s youth, and countless former students regard him as a critical mentor as they’ve made their way in the world. His work for various charities and at East Friendship Baptist Church also show his commitment to making Athens better. Unfortunately, as a commissioner and mayoral candidate Sims has not supported the concrete policy changes needed to address Athens’ unacceptable poverty rate and racialized inequality. The third candidate, Richie Knight, is a strong supporter of anti-discrimination efforts but lacks Commissioner Girtz’ deep knowledge of policy and clear commitment to progressive solutions to our community’s problems.

Kelly’s years of experience in the public school system give him a ground-level understanding of the obstacles that stand in the way of Black and Latinx success in Athens. His three terms as a commissioner have given him hands-on experience guiding our local government and shaping policy. But he’s also spent time in family environments, as a parent; as a service-industry worker; and in state prisons, as an educator. This breadth of experience is a huge point in his favor, but it wouldn’t mean anything if his politics weren’t good.

Kelly has specific ideas for addressing inequality, like a SPLOST program to support affordable housing rather than relying on developers to do the right thing or the market to stop chasing dollars. He wants to improve the county’s minority contracting policy, expand youth employment through local government (the Great Promises Partnership) and help mid-career workers find a way out of low-wage employment into something better. He doesn’t believe that people are poor because they lack the will to become rich, and his policies show it.

Kelly stands with Athens for Everyone on key elements of our platform, like fare-free public transit for all, marijuana decriminalization and expanding affordable quality child care. These aren’t empty promises. He has well-thought-out, step-by-step plans to achieve these goals, in keeping with his emphasis on transparency, because he knows government can’t function properly unless it operates in the sunshine. While we would sometimes like to see Kelly stand more unequivocally on the side of popular mobilizations and transformative policies, even when it’s hard or unpopular, his commitment to doing what’s right for this town and its people is clear and his knowledge of governance and the challenges facing Athens is very impressive. He’s the best of the candidates to be a mayor who works with a new commission and a hopeful community to turn Athens in the direction of justice for all of us. Let’s elect Kelly Girtz, alongside a progressive commission, and then let’s keep building an engaged, energized movement that holds them to their promises and drives toward change with the urgency our community deserves.

You can learn more about Kelly on our website and support him directly by visiting his.

Athens for Everyone
April 19, 2018

Early voting starts April 30.
Election Day is May 22.