Vote early and physically turn your ballot into the Santa Cruz County Elections Department.
That was the message on the night of Saturday, September 19 at the Voting Rights In America Town Hall. Hosted by the Romero Institute, roughly 100 people filled the 418 Project’s small theater room to see a panel of local politicians and activists discuss and answer questions about voting rights in Trump’s America.
“You can never underestimate what Trump and his people will do,” said Constitutional lawyer and Romero Institute co-founder, Danny Sheehan. “These are authoritarian thugs and it’s going to get worse and worse as we approach the election.”
Along with Sheehan, the panel consisted of Housing Santa Cruz County Executive Director and President of the local chapter of the NAACP, Elaine Johnson; Former Mayor of Watsonville and current member of the Cabrillo College Board of Trustees, Paco Estrada; along with Santa Cruz mayoral candidates Ryan Coonerty and Ami Chen Mills.
The panelists were asked a series of questions regarding voting on national and local levels, how racism plays a factor in voting rights due to gerrymandering and voter I.D. laws like the SAVE Act, and what people can do to ensure fair elections to fighting encroaching fascist policies.
Before the questions began, musician and Director of Special Projects at the Romero Institute, Daniel Nelson, played an original song and introduced environmental activist Julia Butterfly Hill. Known for the two years she spent living in a 1,000-year-old California redwood marked for demolition, Hill spoke about the need to work with people instead of against them.
“What’s going to take for us to turn the tide is to rethink how we’re going to approach the challenges that we’re facing and people with different views,” she said. “Because the people in power that are out to destroy the planet, destroy working-class jobs, destroy diversity and equity, are counting on the fact that we stay divided.”
She also emphasized a point that has been at the core of her message for the past 30 years.
“To care is an act of courage,” Hill said. “It’s statistically impossible to have no impact and make no difference because nothing happens in a vacuum. Every word, every action, has an impact. So it’s not ‘can one of us make a difference?’ It’s ‘each and every one of us does make a difference.’”
Johnson, who grew up in New York’s Bronx borough, says she knows people in her hometown who still do not vote to this day because of a lack of faith in the system.
“As a New Yorker I’m always transparent and for African American people it’s very, very hard and it’s very, very draining,” she said but added she still looks to hope. “But I think of my father who taught me early on, ‘I don’t have to like you but I have to love you.’ At the end of the day we still come together, break bread, and say ‘Okay, how are we going to move the needle together.’”
Estrada agreed with Johnson and said he often feels “like a hostage in this country.” He said his message was for people–particularly white Americans–to have the courage to stand up and do the right thing.
“I see how scared you are to see the federal government be disabled so fast,” he said. “To me, it’s just another day. I was during the Reagan Administration. I remember Pete Wilson. I remember ‘Three strikes and you’re out.’ People of color have been on survival mode for a minute.”
He said two of the most important things citizens can do is to hold public officials and private corporations accountable and to listen to people who are different from themselves.
“Give people of color more opportunities,” he said. “Continue to trust us and our continual self-determination. We are worthy of the challenge. We’re worthy of governing. We can deliver and really make a difference.”
Mills agreed with Estrada about having the courage to stand up, whether the acts are big or small. An investigative journalist by trade, Mills also told the audience to pay attention to the details.
“We need to be watching out for the money,” she said, adding that many politicians in both parties are taking contributions from Big Oil, Big Tech, and more. She pointed to examples like Zohran Mamdani’s win for New York City mayor, and said progressive wins are not only possible, but necessary.
“We need to support them,” she said. “The people who are not taking big money, running grassroots campaigns and speaking out against money in the Democratic Party. They’re very hopeful to me.”
For Coonerty, the idea that one person can make a difference is not only alive and well, but there are historical and current examples proving it. He pointed to Stacey Abrams’ voting rights campaign and the fact that the 19th Amendment–which gave women the right to vote–was only passed by one vote.
“Find candidates you love,” he said, adding people often only vote out the candidates they hate. “Find people you love, that you believe in, and vote for them.”
Sheehan laid out a four point plan the people should demand their congressional representatives do: pass a statute that specifically states every American citizen above the age of 18 has the right to vote, specifically pass a law banning partisan gerrymandering, and put in the law that any gerrymandering that has an adverse effect on the voting power of people of color be illegal regardless of motive.
He explained that in an opinion by Supreme Court Justice Roberts, the federal courts only have jurisdiction over the 14th and 15th Amendments when it comes to gerrymandering. Meaning, they can only rule on it if the redrawing of districts was proven to be racially motivated, which is often hard to prove.
“And we’ve got to mount a Constitutional amendment that declares corporations are not people,” he said to a large applause.
After the panelists spoke, representatives from the grassroots activist group, Indivisible Santa Cruz County, spoke about the next No Kings protest they are organizing at 10am on October 17th. Unlike previous actions, this one will focus on early voting and a rally at the County Courthouse on Ocean Street.
The event ended with a dance party in the next room hosted by community arts and events coordinator, Heart Tribe Presents, and featured Afrobeat rapper Phreeborn and electronic DJ Random Rab. Party people piled into the 418 Project’s large room as psychedelic lights and imagery swirled across the walls.
It seemed an unlikely ending to a town hall meeting of this nature, but the reasoning was simple, clear and needed.
“It’s important not to burn out as we work day and night making the world a better place,” explained Nelson.
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