I work with the Bexar County Democratic Party, and we are working to make Texas a safe place to be a Democrat.
I had always avoided Texas in my job searches, but as offshoreing foreclosed opportunities in other parts of the country for an ageing engineer, I found myself accepting a job offer in Texas.
And much to my surprise I found that this is NOT the mean spirited Red State one might envision considering Texas’s reputation in other parts of the county. I find strong here in San Antonio the remains of the educational infrastructure from the NASA years, and the echos of Anne Richards.
Texas has its Republicans and some of them are very unpleasant and very vocal, and they are privatizing and liquidating the commonweal as fast as they can, but they are actually in the minority. Rather Texans mostly just go about their business and try to get along. They love to eat, they love to drink. They love to party. There is a sense that the populous avoids politics as much as possible out of a sense of self-preservation.
Many business owners are Republicans. Texas is an at-will employment state where a person can be legally fired for having a Democratic bumper sticker, or any other reason, or no reason at all. Many of the jobs are tied to extractive industries like big Oil. People will give you the shirt off their back, but many don’t go on record as being Democrats by registering to vote in primaries, and while many are just apathetic, many are avoidant because they must walk on carefully on eggshells. Even those registered to vote come out in low percentages. (38% in the last midterm).
Now I understand all that. ALEC and the Koch allies are strong here. I was rifted from my employer CCS shortly after I ignored a company email asking for donations from employees to the Romney campaign. So I know that being a Democrat can have its costs in Texas, but I just do not see things getting better for the people, the country, and the Earth as a whole, if the population tacitly consents to be cowed into political submission, too busy to ask things like why is there not more money for the public schools from the oil leases of Texas Public lands, and what is the Lands Commissioner doing. It just gives the Oligarchs bad habits.
The sociopathic wanton destruction the quality of the air, land, and water we see in the name “capitalism”, “market efficiency”, and “comparative advantage” (Selfishness and Greed) is going to be an extinction level event of WE do not stop them.
So we are not taking this lying down. In 2012 we worked, blockwalked and worked the polls during 10 days of early voting, and election day, and we won most of the local offices in Bexar County that were on the ballot.
Now we have to do it again in a non-presidential year.
We must break through and let people know that there is an election happening, and that who is Governor, and Land Commissioner, and Ag Commissioner, and Appellate Judge, and District Judge and Justice of the Peace matters to them!
The BCDP has brought Democrats from all over the County together. championed resolutions against Chained CPI, and helped pass a San Antonio City Ordinance against LGBT discrimination in terms of Employment.
We have gotten San Antonio Community Collage, Northwest Vista Community Collage and UTSA designated Early Voting Sites. (Early Voting may be done at any Early Voting Site in Bexar County starting October 20 and ending Oct 31.)
The BCDP has trained and is fielding over 500 Democratic Election Judges to make sure that the Voter ID law, (which only requires the voter's name to be substantially similar to the ID) is correctly applied and people's right to vote is not unfairly abridged.
We are here. If you are a Democrat we are here for you. Fighting to bring Texas to a more Compassionate, Fair and Functional State.
Go to Bexardemocrats.org to see what we are doing.
Come help us.
We can use all the help we can get to GOTV, and make Texas no longer the State of Apathy.
Update:
If your signs are being defaced or removed, if you are being intimidated or need help voting as a Democrat give me a call at
864-906-0151 (yes this is not a Texas number, but I am here in San Antonio.)
and we will figure out what to do depending on your circumstances.