Another Win!

The other day someone commented about being proactive and I replied to run for office!

Well somebody did that and won! And that was in the red state of Tennessee.

Olivia Hill is first openly transgender person elected to Metro Nashville Council
Nashville Tennessean
By Evan Mealins and Molly Davis
September 15, 2023

Olivia Hill is the first openly transgender person ever elected to Nashville's Metro Council. She's also the first transgender woman elected in Tennessee history, according to LGBTQ+ Victory Fund.

Hill secured one of the Council's five at-large seats in Thursday's runoff election with 12.9% of the vote. She joins a historic number of women elected to the Council. All five at-large members will be women, as well as 17 district councilmembers. That adds up to 22 women — a majority of the 40-member council.

"I want to say that I am elated," Hill told The Tennessean after the historic win.

"For every trans kid in the state of Tennessee that has felt discomfort or that they didn't belong..." Hill said. "We are valid. We are who we say we are. And we are going to move forward."

So what do you do if you want to run for office. I am sure that for most of you have never even thought of doing and wouldn’t know how to begin… well I only vaguely know how.

First I recommend joining the party! It seems an obvious step.

Next step, contact Emily’s List. Who? What?

Their website simple says,

What We Do
We elect Democratic pro-choice women to office.

 

Simple, right? And they are very pro-trans! When I took their training class they were begging me to run for office.

When I was in grad school for my MSW they offered for free the Nancy A. Humphreys Institute for Political Social Work class,

Now in its 28th year, the Campaign School for Social Workers has a strong network of over 2,600 alumni from across the country and world, many of whom have gone to serve as elected officials, leaders, advocates, and organizers.

The Campaign School is held annually at the UConn School of Social Work in Hartford, Connecticut. Schools and NASW Chapters across the country have also brought the Campaign to their communities.

It was excellent!!!!

They teach you from square one how to form and manage a political campaign.
Even if you don’t run like me, I learned a lot of how you can help a candidate

Step 2 Attend, Connecticut Lobbying Conference given by Gallo & Robinson a lobbyist. OMG a lobbyist! Why would I want to attend training at a lobbyist?

First of all not all lobbyist are evil! I am friends with a couple of lobbyists, one from Planned Parenthood and the other Gallo & Robinson. Yup the ones who give the training.

Gallo & Robinson, LLC. provides non-profits, health care professions, unions and civil rights advocacy groups with a voice in the CT General Assembly that is extremely knowledgeable, backed by years of experience and good relationships with leaders in both parties and at all areas of the Connecticut Government. Gallo & Robinson LLC also helps to build and foster strong grassroots advocacy networks for clients ensuring that decision makers hear from constituents who care about the clients’ issues.

Yeah, they are not lobbyists for large corporations but rather non-profits and unions. Check out their lobbying training “The 42nd Annual Connecticut Lobbying Conference, Thursday, October 26th, 2023” I attended it twice and I learned a lot from the workshop. Here is a tip…

You know those form emails you get to send to you representatives change the “Subject” line. Many legislators sort their emails by the “Subject” line so he may have a thousand emails that start with “Please vote on this important subject” the legislator is by law prohibited from deleting emails so they get moved sight unseen to a dead file.

So if you change the subject line it doesn’t end up in the sort pile, and if you can some of the wording to the form email like at the begin the email with a personal story you will get your email read.

If you run for office you don’t do it out of the blue, get help. The party will help you, Emily’s List will help you, and workshops like that giving by the lobbyist will help you. Just Do It!