We stand with our undocumented peers

August 30, 2017

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Nation’s largest network of youth-led grassroots organizing groups denounces any efforts to end DACA program

Groups take action to support undocumented peers and commit to holding electeds accountable in 2017 and 2018

Washington, DC – The Alliance for Youth Action, the largest network of youth-led grassroots organizing groups in the country, released the following statement on reports that Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) is in imminent risk:

“DACA beneficiaries are our neighbors, family, friends, and members of our community. We’ve grown up with and fought for social justice alongside them. Now they are under attack and we unequivocally have their backs. They represent the best of America, and an assault on them is an affront to our values and ideals as Americans.

Any step towards ending the DACA program is unacceptable and reflects a larger White Nationalist agenda that is the opposite of everything we stand for as a generation. As the largest network of youth-led organizations working to build young people’s political power, we are committed to fighting for the undocumented members of our generation.

Our network is, and always has been more than statements. We are taking action in our communities to ensure that the DACAmented young people are here to stay. Some examples include:

In Texas, MOVE San Antonio joined as a co-plaintiff against their state-based “Show Me Your Papers” legislation, SB4. Under SB4, university campus police are required to inquire about the citizenship status of detained students and notify ICE, endangering thousands of young people. The combination of both SB4 and removal of DACA places too many in the San Antonio community at risk and MOVE is organizing to ensure their community both knows their rights, and is pushing back.
In Florida, Engage Miami is following the lead of groups like the Florida Immigrant Coalition and United We Dream to call on Representative Diaz Balart and Senator Rubio to stand up and defend DACA. From showing up at mobilizations to incorporating actions and asks in their campus work across Miami colleges, Engage Miami is committed to serving as a committed partner to defend DACA.
In Ohio, the Ohio Student Association is building program to mobilize students across Ohio campuses to show support for DACAmented students and push their representatives across both political parties to support undocumented young people.
In Illinois, Chicago Votes is standing in solidarity with their trusted partners, Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) and Asian Americans Advancing Justice, to ensure our communities know their rights and are loved during these trying times. They are committed to adding capacity to their partner’s efforts to defend DACA through a variety of tactics including direct actions, press conferences, and elected official engagement.

This Administration is no friend to our generation and we condemn any action taken that puts DACAmented young people at risk of deportation. We also call on Members of Congress to pass the bi-partisan DREAM Act of 2017 that ensures that undocumented young people in our communities can live without fear.

Young people are watching the actions of electeds and candidates in both political parties in this moment – and will hold them accountable at the ballot box.”

The Alliance for Youth Action is currently building 2018 youth electoral engagement plans with partners in more than 20 states. Members of the network have led the charge for, and won, on a series of issues including Automatic Voter Registration in Oregon, community owned clean energy in Boulder, CO, same sex marriage in Washington, and more.

Affiliates of the Alliance for Youth Action include Chicago Votes, Engage Miami, Forward Montana, MOVE San Antonio, New Era Colorado, Ohio Student Association, Oregon Bus Project, and Washington Bus. The Alliance for Youth Action is a nationwide network of organizations building political power of young people, and the premier youth vote vehicle in the United States.

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New Automatic Voter Registration + Millennial Voter Report

You already know how much the Alliance loves automatic voter registration (aka AVR, fyi).

Ever since the Oregon Bus Project (now Next Up) started working on Automatic Voter Registration (aka AVR, fyi) back in 2009 – and especially since they led a coalition to pass it in 2015 – we’ve been crowing about how huge it is. We got even louder about it this year, when Chicago Votes and Providence Student Union helped win even more expansive AVR reforms in Illinois and Rhode Island. But some people just don’t believe it unless they read it in a fancy report.

So we got fancy, and got to reporting.

Today, we’re joining with our friends at the Center for American Progress and Generation Progress to publish “Millennial Voters Win With Automatic Voter Registration,” a new analysis of the impact of automatic voter registration on young people and people of color in the Oregon 2016 election.

Check it OUT: Millennials Win with Automatic Voter Registration

And after you read that, find out how to spread the campaign to your community: Automatic Voter Registration Activist Toolkit

Last night’s UK elections show the USA how to help youth rise up at the ballot.

Because we’re ridiculous democracy nerds, we spent last night glued to Twitter watching the returns come in for the UK general election. The tl;dr is that the progressive Labour Party overperformed almost everyone’s expectations, driven in huge part by young people turning up.

Early returns showed that young Britons turned out at 72% – up from 43% two years ago. That’s mind blowing.

Young people voted for Labour by 2:1 over Conservatives, and that’s how Labour surged.

Both at home and abroad, we’re seeing the power of the youth vote, and learning how to unlock it. If you want to win, you need inspired young people. And if you want young people, you need to speak to our needs. (And obviously do a metric ton of peer-to-peer engagement in the field).

To turn out masses of young people, run on economic and racial justice. Labour ran on free college tuition, increased funding for schools, fighting racism and Islamaphobia, protecting renters and helping working people afford to buy homes, giving workers a share in corporate profits, protecting and expanding universal healthcare, and taxing the very wealthiest. Oh, and voting rights for 16-year-olds.

The lack of engagement on economic justice with our generation in the US – a generation that is still working to recover post Recession – led to the creation of our Broke AF campaign. A lot of we’re fighting for matches the platform that inspired young people to turn out in record numbers:

Free college tuition and no student debt
Guaranteed affordable housing
Workers owning a stake in corporate profits

And allying with youth of color led organizations centering racial justice issues from policing to immigration reform allows for a more robust set of demands that truly centers the needs of our generation. When you run on those things, you win. Period. Get it. It’s the truth, y’all.

Plus, Labour also ran more women and people of color for office than they ever had before (and more than any other party).

While we’re not Britain, there are epic lessons to be learned – especially as our generation is engaging now both in the streets AND in the voting booth. To inspire America’s most diverse generation, you also need more than representation. You need to be serious and unapologetic about racial justice. Ending mass incarceration. Ending police brutality. Embracing immigrants. True justice.

Real, true economic justice + racial justice + candidate diversity is how you get young people inspired and turning out. And that’s how you win.

Tell your friends.

Hundreds turn out for first ever Youth Organizing Summit

Hundreds of young organizers convened in Washington D.C. in late April to build progressive power, strengthen our movement, and plan for 2017 & 2018.

In April, we brought our *literally* hundreds of young organizers from all ends of the country to Washington, D.C. for the first ever Youth Organizing Summit. It. Was. Huge. Together, we debriefed 2016 and made plans for building progressive power in 2017 & 2018.

Our friends at Advocates for Youth, CJRC, FCCP, NAKASEC, NextGen Climate, Planned Parenthood Action Fund, Roosevelt Institute, URGE, Vote Mob, Youth Engagement Fund, and Young People For helped us plan the Summit and convene a force of driven, young people ready to take on this nation.

Participants attended workshops on electoral organizing, leadership development, tech tools, running women for office, tools for resistance, issue organizing, reproductive rights, immigrant justice, and the list goes on. Our keynote speaker, Amber J. Phillips, began the summit by empowering attendees to keep fighting for our people and building the movement.

“We will only win when we remember that those who have been pushed to the margins are brought back to the center and the front.”
– Amber J. Phillips

Amber Phillips at Youth Organizing Summit

“It was so nice to have a cross-movement summit where I could hear from and learn from folks who are dedicating their time to movements which differ from but are absolutely intersectional to mine.”
– Youth Organizing Summit Attendee

The Youth Organizing Summit by the numbers:

632 young, grassroots organizers
109 allied organizations
56% young people of color
35% LGBTQ identified
40 states
26 skills building & issue workshops
12 unconference sessions
11 core partners
1.5 days of power building
1 incredible summit!

The Summit wrapped up with a fiery keynote by Representative Pramila Jayapal where she told attendees, “If you provide the space for leadership to emerge, young people will lead.” And that is exactly what we intend on doing. Since the Summit’s conclusion, we have been connecting with organizations in attendance to build this movement and lead the nation while young people at the forefront. We, at the Alliance for Youth Action, are rallying this young, vibrant, and progressive energy to push for voting rights, strengthen our democracy, create a better economy, and fight injustice in our communities. This is our movement–join us today.

FACT SHEET: Automatic Voter Registration Transforms Oregon Youth Registration & Turnout Rates

By Henry Kraemer | June, 2017

Fact Sheet: Automatic Voter Registration Transforms Oregon Youth Registration & Turnout.

Also dramatically increases registration rates in communities of color.

After a half-decade of leadership and advocacy from the Bus Project (an affiliate of the Alliance for Youth Action) alongside a coalition of advocates, Oregon passed automatic voter registration in 2015. It became operational in 2016, automatically registering eligible citizens to vote, and update their registration addresses thru DMV records.

Since implementation of automatic voter registration, Oregon has seen rare growth in youth voter turnout – a full 7 percentage points higher in 2016 than 2012. Simultaneously, the state has also seen dramatic increases in registration rates in communities of color – rising by 26 percentage points between December 2015 and January 2017, the largest growth in the nation.

Based on this success, the Alliance for Youth Action has launched the Democracy Done Right campaign to empower other youth led organizations to win automatic voter registration reforms in states around the country – with the goal of replicating Oregon’s extraordinary youth turnout success in every state (previously assisting Alaska in their successful ballot measure, and currently supporting active bills in Illinois and Rhode Island).

Voter Registration is a Major Barrier to Youth Turnout

Approximately half of the turnout gap between voters age 18-to-29 and voters age 30+ is due to registration.
- In the 2012 general election, 45% of eligible voters cast ballots versus a 66% eligible turnout rate of voters over age-30, a difference of 21 percentage points. The gap in registered voter turnout between older and younger voters in 2012 was just 11 percentage points – 78% for youth and 89% for older voters.
- In 2014, “not being registered” was the most common reason cited by 18-29-year-old non-voters for why they did not vote. In all, 55 percent of black youth, 45 percent of Latino youth, and 61 percent of white youth said this was the reason they did not cast ballots in the 2014 election.
According to a July 2012 CIRCLE poll of young voters, only 13% of young voters held accurate understandings about their state’s voter registration deadline – meaning a shocking 87% did not know their state’s deadline or were misinformed.
Americans 18-to-29 change addresses at nearly 2.5 times the annual rate of Americans 30-and-over. Since under the current structure voters must re-register to vote every time they move, this means young people are disproportionately more likely to lose their registered voter status — often without even realizing it.

After Implementing Automatic Voter Registration, Oregon Saw Huge Spikes in Youth Turnout, and Registration Rates for People of Color

Nearly Half a Million Oregonians Directly Benefited from automatic voter registration in its first year (15% of Oregon’s voting age population).
- 225,796 voters registered for the general election through the program.
- 264,551 voters received automatic address updates, ensuring Oregon’s all-mail ballots reached them at their current residences.
Over 40% of automatic voter registrants were under-30, despite being only 20% of the overall adult population – nearly 100,000 new automatic registrants were young.
- Between the 2012 and 2016 general elections, the number of registered Oregon voters age 18-to-29 increased by more than 100,000. During the same period, the overall eligible population of that cohort grew by barely over 12,000 people.
- After adopting automatic voter registration in January 2016 Oregon achieved 50% eligible voter turnout for all adults-under-30 in the 2016 general election – 7 percentage points higher than the 43% rate for Oregon youth in 2012.
  - A seven percentage point increase in turnout is an unusually high boost following the implementation of a single voting reform – in the November 2012 presidential election all other major voting convenience reforms combined were correlated with a 7 percentage point increase in voter turnout of eligible adults.
  - The 2016 and 2012 electoral environments were extraordinarily similar – no presence of active presidential campaigns in the state, nor any competitive gubernatorial or senatorial statewide elections.
- Additionally, Oregon saw the largest increase in registration rates among communities of color in the nation in 2016.
  - According to exploratory analysis done by Blue Labs, in December 2015, Oregon’s registration rate for people of color was 53%, ranking 31st in the US.
  - By January 2017, that registration rate climbed to 79%, the second highest in the nation. Over half of eligible but unregistered people of color were added to the rolls after the implementation of automatic voter registration in Oregon – the most significant improvement of any state in the union (the Blue Labs analysis focused exclusively on registration rates, and did not measure turnout).

How Automatic Voter Registration Works in Oregon

As of 2016, Oregon automatically registers voters exclusively through the Department of Motor Vehicles, whose driver license, learners permit, and identification card applications require all information necessary to determine eligibility to vote.
When an Oregonian provides their name, address, birth date, and verification of citizenship (most commonly United States birth certificates and United States passports) to the Department of Motor Vehicles, the agency securely forwards the information to the Elections Division of the Secretary of State.
Applicants who provide other proofs of residence are not passed through to the Secretary of State, nor are individuals with protected records due to safety risks.
All DMV address updates are also sent to the Department of Elections, who verifies the new information against the current records in the state voter file, and updates the voter address if it appears more up-to-date than the voter registration record.
Newly registered and updated voters get a postcard saying 1) they have been registered to vote through automatic voter registration, 2) they can opt-out by signing and mailing back the postcard, and 3) to vote in the state’s closed partisan primary, they need to register with a political party by returning the postcard.
New automatic registrants are allowed 21 days to return the postcard. Voters who do not return the card are added to the voter registration list as nonaffiliated voters.

Fact Sheet in PDF (includes citations)

Announcing Youth Organizing Summit Keynotes

The Youth Organizing Summit is just a few days away, and it is gonna be lit. What was originally an just an awesome idea has now turned into an incredible space with 570 attendees representing 68 organizations and 39 states. Over 50% of attendees are people of color and experts agree that 100% are sooooo dope.

With this colossally cool crew assembled, we’re thrilled to announce our two keynote speakers who promise to pump them up: Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal and the incredible Amber J. Phillips of Black Joy Mixtape and Advocates for Youth!

Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal represents Washington’s 7th District, which encompasses most of Seattle, and surrounding areas.

Her focus is on ensuring income equality; access to education, from early learning to higher education, including debt-free college; expanding Social Security and Medicare; protecting our environment for our next generation; and ensuring immigrant, civil and human rights for all.

The first Indian-American woman in the House of Representatives, Jayapal has spent the last twenty years working internationally and domestically as a leading national advocate for women’s, immigrant, civil, and human rights.

She came to the United States by herself at the age of 16 to attend college at Georgetown University and later received her MBA from Northwestern University. She has worked in a number of industries in both the public and private sector.

Amber J. Phillips is a social justice organizer, writer, podcaster, and digital strategist working to advance the rights of all Black people and people of color in general. Amber’s writings on Black women at the intersections of politics, pop culture, and the media have been published on Huffington Post, For Harriet, and Rewire. Combining her electoral organizing background with social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram as a launching pad to shift culture and conversations, Amber has been featured as a leading voice on Black feminism on The Breakfast Club, ESSENCE, the Young, Black and Fabulous, and as a regular contributing panelist on Roland Martin’s NewsOne Now.

In addition to being the Senior Manager of Youth Leadership and Mobilization at Advocates for Youth, Amber is the Co-Director/Founder of the digital marketing firm BLACK that uses culture to elevate Black progressive power in politics and media. Amber also co-hosts and produces the Black Joy Mixtape, a weekly podcast that breaks down the trending stories in news, politics, and pop culture while centering Black women and our communities. Overall, Amber is living her best life being petty, Black, and feminist AF as an Ohioan living currently living in Washington, D.C.

Whew! So much fire. Can’t wait to watch these women get next level up on the main stage.

The Alliance for Youth Action is Here.

Bigger, bolder and more ready to pump up the voices of young people than ever.

We have spent the better part of a decade making moves behind the scenes.

Pushing the envelope on voting rights. Changing the balance of power in our communities. Transforming the face of leadership across our states. A select few knew of us, and called us “the Bus Federation” after the buses we’d drive around to organize people. (Get it?)

Many many more people knew the names, and celebrated the work, of the local organizations that made up our federation. We have proudly worked backstage, amplifying and supporting and investing in local works in targeted corners of the country.

But today America faces unprecedented challenges.

We need to do unprecedented work – bigger, broader, more ambitious. We need to shine a beacon, so any group of young people organizing for progressive change anywhere in the country knows that somebody has their back with resources and support.

That somebody is the Alliance for Youth Action. That’s us.

We’ve been preparing for this a long time. Our network has brought automatic voter registration to America. We’ve defeated huge corporations to fight climate change after being outspent 11-to-1. We’ve helped win the country’s first $15 minimum wage. We helped ensure protections for LGBTQ people in some of the nation’s most conservative places. We have wrung police accountability measures from entrenched city governments. We founded National Voter Registration Day and the American Voter Guide. We have helped over 350,000 young people register to vote.

With this experience, we are ready to take it fully national.

The fundamentals of our mission haven’t changed – we’re still building a locally led movement of young people, by young people, for all people. We believe our historically huge and diverse Millennial generation holds the power to transform American democracy. We’re now going to do more to release that potential.

In 2017-18, our network will grow affiliates and youth organizing partnerships in 25 states, to mobilize masses of young people in every competitive statewide election. We will create a national tide for automatic voter registration, vote-your-way reforms, and voting rights for the formerly incarcerated with our Democracy Done Right campaign. We will shift the national economic conversation toward one where working people have power and profit in their jobs, housing, and educations through our Broke AF campaign. We will train hundreds of leaders, and register hundreds of thousands of voters.

An effort this big needs a new name, and a new identity. It needs to be big, and loud – so local youth organizing can finally get the attention it deserves (and so local youth organizers know where to turn for help).

Thus, the Alliance for Youth Action is born. We can’t wait to grow with you.

P.S.

Check out the rest of our spiffy new website. Find out about our affiliates & partners. And if you’re feeling really inspired, throw us a few bucks to fund the huge work ahead of us.

Our New Partnership Structure

by Sarah Audelo, Executive Director

Across the country, there’s an explosion of young folks trying to figure out how to engage their communities. Our freed-up staff capacity will allow us to meet this moment and the clear wave of interest and enthusiasm for civic engagement. A new partnership model, in addition to our traditional Affiliate structure, gives us the flexibility we need in this moment to work with a variety of kinds of folks — all-volunteer operations working in communities or on-campus, youth projects of intergenerational organizations, or new efforts that aim to become ongoing youth-focused organizations.

While we expect to maintain flexibility, the basic outlines of the partnership model are clear: we provide basic technical assistance and capacity building, support fundraising, connect these organizations into larger networks of organizing and peer support around the country, and serve as a champion and validator for their work.

We have long been committed to steady, sustainable growth. For several years, we’ve been asked by funders and partners when we would be able to support more organizations. This moment called for a rethinking of our approach and a willingness to work with more efforts, even ones that are potentially short-lived.

Given the explosion of interest on the ground, we concluded that we could either play it safe, stand back, waiting and watching to see which groups succeed and which fail. Or we could seize this moment, support these new efforts, push our own model, and potentially drive a major wave of success.

Interested in joining the network or suggesting we get in-touch with some folks you know? Check out our Local Organizing page for details.

The New Executive Director

We’re thrilled to be bringing on a brand new Executive Director, Sarah Audelo, who many of you already know from her work in national activist and youth organizing spaces. She’s smart, she’s driven, she gets it done.

Who is she? Here’s a snapshot bio: A Latina who grew up in California’s central valley, Sarah served as a teacher in Texas’s Rio Grande Valley, worked as a policy advocate in Washington DC, and ran youth vote for Hillary Clinton in Brooklyn. She can talk policy with the wonks, walk turf with the hacks, pitch reporters with the flacks, and get real with anyone. We’re lucky to have her!

The Nation covers Alliance voting rights advocacy

The Nation’s Ari Berman covers two Alliance affiliates’ work protecting and expanding the right to vote, from the Oregon Bus Project’s successful half-decade campaign to bring automatic voter registration to the United States, to MOVE San Antonio’s battle to get voters on the rolls in Texas.

Check out the whole article at The Nation.