In the last few years, California’s political landscape has set itself apart from national trends. Together, we’ve increased spending on education, innovated the way funding works for K-12 public education, ended deep cuts to critical services, and begun reforming the justice system to provide second chances instead of lifelong disenfranchisement.
This November will be no different. While voters in many states will focus on defensive battles to protect against hate and fear, the California electorate will have new opportunities to unify and vote for policies that expand justice and equity for communities most in need.
This shift in California is due in large part to the integrated voter engagement of California Calls and our allies. Together we are working to transform the electorate so that it represents the full diversity of the population of California. This shift will help us move beyond incremental changes to win bold, structural reforms.
Now, California Calls and our strategic partners are taking on our most ambitious goal yet – achieving a strategic change in the composition of the California electorate by organizing and turning out 1 million new and infrequent voters over the next 2 years. These voters – voters of color, low-income and working class, immigrants, young voters – will continue to assert and expand their power at the ballot box, and push back against the stronghold that big corporations and the wealthiest 1% exert on elections in our state.
California Calls can't do this on our own. It will take the 31 grassroots organizations that make up our alliance mobilizing thousands of community leaders. It will take our allies joining us in strategic battles and our funders sustaining their support. And it will take our donors' generosity for a vision transforming California into the state they've always believed possible.
Mobilizing 1 Million Strong in 2016 and Beyond
“Will voters turnout in November 2016?”
That is the question on our minds after a record low voter turnout in 2014 and recent polls predicting that the country’s largest voting blocs will stay home on Election Day.
California Calls’ answer to the question is a resounding “yes” – and we have a plan to make it happen in 2016 and beyond.
We are leading an effort to engage and turnout 1 million voters by 2018. At the end of last year, California Calls, Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), Asian Pacific Environment Network (APEN), Mobilize the Immigrant Vote (MIV), and PICO California launched the Million Voters Project.
Joining forces with 40 local affiliates and labor allies, the Million Voters Project will advance the transformation of the California electorate so that it reflects the population of the state. Together, participants will launch a series of voter engagement programs to engage, build a relationship with, and turn out 1 million new and infrequent voters in November 2018.
The first step will be to mobilize 800,000 voters in 2016. This first turnout goal will provide over 10% of the votes which could be a decisive margin in many ballot measures that will provide stepping stones to bigger reforms in 2018.
Communities represented by the new California Majority face similar struggles, but are often pitted against each other for a shrinking cut of the pie. But when they vote together, these communities can win the types of policies that prioritize their mutual needs –like a higher minimum wage, investment in schools that need funding most, and passing reforms to Prop 13 that secure billions of dollars for their neighborhoods.
California Calls has worked year round since 2009 to build trusted relationships with voters across the state. By connecting voters to the issues that they care about, California Calls has been able to increase voter turnout in these communities by 8-15%.
Mobilizing 1 million new and occasional voters to the polls in 2018 is a major step toward a California electorate that has the ability to take bold policy moves. Click here to find out more about the path for California in 2016 and beyond.
Building Black Power and Infrastructure
Since the Voting Rights Act of 1965 passed, African American voters have been a powerful and consistent electoral force. For California, home to the fifth largest black population in the nation, this has translated as a powerful progressive political base central to passing policies that address community needs and electing policy makers who will advocate for people over corporations.
And yet, there are tremendous challenges that persist in black communities. While African Americans represent only 6% of the state population, they are over-represented in prisons and jails where they represent nearly a third of of inmates. African Americans also disproportionately suffer the pervasive effects of discrimination and the growing economic inequality with a 29% poverty rate in California. Out of these challenges and others (like state sanctioned violence by police), new movements have emerged, breathing new life into multi-racial alliances African Americans have led for decades.
Unfortunately, consistent African American voters are aging, and their children and grandchildren are voting at significantly lower rates. A new opportunity and need to engage African American voters has emerged.
For years, California Calls has engaged and motivated African American voters to the polls across the state – relying on trusted community organizations and grassroots leaders as messengers.
To expand this voter engagement into new communities, build capacity for new grassroots groups and support emerging movement building in black communities, California Calls is launching the African American Civic Engagement Project.
The African American Civic Engagement Project is a two-year capacity building program that will utilize California Calls’ extensive experience. Based on a landscape scan of over 80 black organizations in the state and dozens of interviews, California Calls will identify a cohort of 10 organizations with the interest and capacity to add integrated voter engagement as an ongoing dimension of their power building strategy. The program will include:
- Investment in civic engagement infrastructure and on-going support and training to deepen their power and capacity
- Multiple rounds of civic engagement programs to engage, build relationships with, and increase turnout of black voters
- Collective planning, problem-solving and strategizing
- Organizational Development training and coaching
The African American Civic Engagement Project is just one way California Calls is focusing on mobilizing the emerging electorate to the polls in 2016 and beyond. It is a key component of the 1 Million Voters Project to help create a new progressive pole and moving our state toward a brighter future for everyone.
California Calls is a growing alliance of 31 grassroots, community-based organizations spanning urban, rural and suburban counties across the state. We engage, educate and motivate new and infrequent voters among young people, from communities of color, and from poor and working class neighborhoods to make California’s electorate reflect our state’s diverse population. Through our bottom-up approach, we are organizing voters most impacted by budget cuts and deteriorating public services in support of systemic, progressive solutions to our state’s fiscal crisis. Working together, and including those who are often left out of policy decisions, we believe we can reclaim the California Dream of equality, opportunity and prosperity for all Californians.
The strategy of California Calls has always been about engaging communities to make California a better place for everyone who lives here. We are uniting our voices into a statewide alliance of neighborhood-based community organizations with the power to put forward and implement progressive policy solutions that will achieve our four strategic goals:
FUND PUBLIC SERVICES: Guarantee secure, sufficient and stable funding for public services that will benefit all Californians, particularly those who need it the most—poor, working class, and middle class communities of color.
GOOD GOVERNMENT: Improve the effectiveness of our government so that it meets the needs of our communities.
FAIR TAXES: Reform the tax system for greater equity where everyone pays what they can afford to pay, and not more or less.
ECONOMIC GROWTH: Invest in our future and encourage the development of good paying jobs that give back to our communities.
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