Her comments from the Bernie Sanders rally, in case you missed them!
I’m really excited to be here. It is incredibly humbling to be up here on this stage. Last time we saw Bernie, across the street, I was waaayyy up in the rafters with my husband and toddler, behind Bernie, looking down on the top of his head. I was breastfeeding my toddler, something I know is genuinely appreciated at a Bernie rally. I know my son Lincoln is really excited to be here today. He likes to talk about Bernie whenever we see or hear about him on the news and was out canvassing with me last weekend.
Welcome to Alliant Energy Center, a Dane County facility. I’m running for reelection to my third term on the County Board. And I could not be more excited to be on the ballot April 5 with Senator Bernie Sanders.
I got involved in local politics through grassroots activism around housing justice. I remember one of the first organizing meeting I attended was to add fair housing protections for recipients of Section 8 rent assistance. When I was a young child, decades earlier, my family lived in a section 8 rent assisted project. The rent assistance provided the support my young parents needed to afford housing for their new family, while they finished college, worked, and saved to buy their first home. During that same time as my parents were finding that stability and climbing the economic ladder, President Reagan was slashing federal budgets to make sure that other families would never have that opportunity. In 1978, the HUD Low Income/ Moderate Budget was about $97B (in 2016 dollars), and by 1983, the budget was only $21.7 — about a 77% cut. A 77% cut in federal housing programs to support low income and working class folks.
While Reagan– and others in federal and state government– were doing their best to destroy government programs to support working families, then Mayor Bernie Sanders went the opposite direction. In Burlington, under Bernie’s leadership, they invested in community land trusts and adopted the first inclusionary zoning policies in the U.S. You see, Bernie gets it. Even though federal and state governments were going a different direction, local governments can provide an alternative. They can show an alternative vision. One in which we understand that our security and stability is tied to each other. And that we are not living in a fair or just society when housing is just a commodity to make developers and investors rich.
Earlier this month, it was reported that there were 1297 homeless school children in the Madison Metropolitan School District. 1297 kids. In this City, where we’re seeing giant apartment buildings go up one after another, we should have zero homeless school children. Those children and their parents deserve better. They should be busy learning, playing, and making friends — not worried about where they’re going to lay their head down that night. And, that 1297 does not count all the kids whose parents are about to be homeless because they can’t afford the rent.
Do you know that in Madison, about half of our school children receive free or reduced lunch because they are low income? According to the Race to Equity report, in Dane County, 5 % of White children receive free and reduced lunch, and 75% of African-American Children. A 15-1 disparity. Bernie is committed to ending the embarrassment that is childhood poverty in the U.S. Bernie gets it.
Right now we have homeless veterans on the street. Many of them have income and/or a rent assistance voucher. But they can’t get a landlord to rent to them. Bernie is not only committed to keeping our country out of war, but has been extremely committed to taking care of veterans when they come home. Bernie gets it.
In the Madison area, you need $14.73 an hour to be able to afford rent for a one-bedroom apartment. You need to make $17.85 to afford a 2BR. If you’re making minimum wage, you need to work two full-time jobs to afford a 1BR unit. That is absurd. And it is wrong. And, this why we must increase the minimum wage to $15/hr. Bernie understands this. He has walked the picket lines with us. He has made raising the minimum wage to $15/hr a central issue of his campaign. Bernie gets it.
In Wisconsin, local governments don’t have the power to increase the minimum wage. In fact, the Republican-controlled Wisconsin legislature is doing everything in their power to prevent local governments from doing much of anything to help people and their sustainability. What we have done, though, is use the power we do have to ensure living wages for those who work for and contract with the county. Last year I, along with several other progressive county supervisors, introduced legislation to raise our living wage — which applies to county workers and services purchased with county funding — from $11.66 to $15 an hour. Isn’t it time that all workers in this building and on this campus earned a living wage that would enable them to afford a 1 BR apartment? Is that too much to ask?
There are other reasons why people are homeless and can’t access housing that meets their needs. Court records. Credit reports. Records of evictions. Arrest and conviction records.
In Dane County, we are essentially the worst county, in the worst state when it comes to racial disparities in arrests and incarcerations of African-Americans. And a little over a year ago today a Madison police officer shot and killed an unarmed 19 year old bi-racial man, Tony Terrell Robinson. We are heartbroken over this. And we are angry. And Bernie is angry, too. Bernie gets it.
Recently, there was a proposal to build a new jail. $12M was budgeted for planning and land acquisition for what would have been the largest public works project in Dane County history — at the cost of about $150M dollars. We didn’t build that new jail, however, and instead embarked on a process of community engagement and recommendations for reforming our criminal justice system. Why did this happen? The $12M planning appropriation passed as part of the budget– with the only opposition being myself and about nine other supervisors. You know why it happened? Because of grassroots organizing, because of civil disobedience, because of courageous young people of color — Black, Latino, Native American, Asian– standing up and speaking truth to power. Activists showed up to meeting after meeting of County committees. They told their stories. They made us listen. They marched to the City-County building. They engaged in civil disobedience — they blocked entries to the jail. They worked with white allies and church groups and educated the community. They did research, they met with elected officials, they helped draft a resolution for criminal justice reform. Thank you to the Young Gifted and Black Coalition for their leadership and courage.
Stopping the new jail was a great victory, but it does not change the problems we have right now with racial disparities in criminal justice. It doesn’t change the fact that we, and communities across America continue the criminalization of poverty and homelessness and the criminalization of mental illness and addiction. It doesn’t change the fact that if you’re gay or transgender, you are much more likely to be in the juvenile justice system or criminal justice system. It doesn’t change the fact that if you are transgender and on probation, you are prohibited from expressing your self-identified gender. I know of a transgender woman who has identified as a woman for decades and she can’t be herself because of the correctional policies in this state. That is wrong. Bernie supports police reform to ensure fairness in police interactions, particularly for transgender women of color who are unfairly targeted. Bernie supports expanding the Civil Rights Act to protect LGBT folks from discrimination. Bernie gets it.
We also have many people locked up or locked out of homes right now because of the racist war on drugs. Did you know that recently a Nixon advisor actually admitted that the war on drugs was created to target black people? Well, some of us think that is a pretty terrible thing. Senator Sanders is one of them. In fact, he has introduced legislation to end the federal prohibition on marijuana. Bernie has been fighting racial injustice throughout his life. He understands that our system is broken when Wall Street banksters who destroyed our economy don’t even get criminally charged while other people are rotting in jail for smoking a joint. Bernie gets it.
Our government is broken.
But, we can change things. The amazing grassroots response to Bernie’s campaign is proof of our collective power. Public opinion is changing. Organizing and direct action is working. In the fight for criminal justice reform, in the fight to save our planet, in the fight for $15/hr and a Union, in the fight for LGBT equality, and the fight to save our public education system. But we must come together.
I’m a proud union member — NOLSW — UAW 2320 — and I’m wearing a union shirt today because I believe it is the essence of what Bernie’s campaign is about– he said it is basically his religion. WE ARE ONE. And, that is what this movement is about. People power. People disrupting the artificial, the corrupting influence of corporate power on this democracy.
Thank you for listening to me today. Thank you for being a part of this campaign. Please contribute — whether it’s knocking on doors, making a donation, phone banking — please help Bernie win big in Wisconsin and win big in the important races ahead. We can do this. Solidarity!
And now I’d like to welcome Our Nation for Youth Arts and Healing, better known as On Fyah!
