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Georgia’s Schools Need Our Help

Republican state legislators have taken to the airwaves claiming they finally got around to fully funding public education. But these legislators would benefit from going back to school themselves, to study their own legislative record. Since 2003, when Sonny Perdue (R) took office, they have cut $9.2 billion from our public schools. It will take years for our schools to recover from these losses.

My children grew up in DeKalb county, starting school in 2005, and are now preparing to graduate. Parents and kids of this generation can tell you how budget cuts have impacted their day-to-day lives. Kids have been forced to ride on school buses standing in the aisles because there aren’t enough seats. Classroom trailers have proliferated behind school buildings. Track and football fields are unusable due to lack of maintenance. And during the Great Recession of 2008, teachers were required to take unpaid furlough days.

Now, in 2018, Republicans are patting themselves on the back because for once, in a year when they are all up for re-election, they didn’t gut the education budget. Fran Millar has focused his campaign on education. Take a minute to let that sink in. A Republican state senator who, as chair of Education and Higher Education Committees many years, voted for $9.2 billion in education cuts is now trying to get re-elected to fix a system he helped break.

I’m sorry, but we aren’t that easily fooled.

At the same time that $167 million in austerity cuts were restored to the 2019 budget, legislators also redirected $100 million in taxpayer dollars from public schools to private school scholarships and an additional $18 million to for-profit charter schools. There’s no denying that transferring tax funds to private and for-profit schools is intentional slaughter of our public school system.

I’m fighting to win in Georgia State Senate District 40 because I believe the American Dream starts with high quality public education from pre-K to college. While Republicans quibble over whether teachers carry guns or teach evolution, I’m going to fight for universal pre-K so that every child can attend pre-K at their neighborhood school, for increased teacher pay to attract and keep the best teachers, and to lower the cost of technical school and college so that all Georgians can get a debt-free and high quality education that prepares them for the jobs of the future.

It takes a village to raise a child, they say, and it’ll take your support for me to get back in the General Assembly fighting for safe, free, quality public schools. Help me flip Georgia State Senate District 40 so we can invest in a more prosperous future for all of our children.

—Sally

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Fran Millar Doesn’t Want YOU to Vote

Have you heard about the effort to purge more than half a million registered voters from voting lists? The reason? The voters haven’t voted in three years.

Let’s call this what it is: partisan and racist voter suppression, and a violation of every Georgia citizen’s rights.

But purging the voter rolls is only a small part of the GOP effort to limit voting. Just this year Senate Bill 363 tried to reduce poll hours, end Sunday voting, and limit Saturday voting. All designed to reduce the voice of minority voters in DeKalb and Atlanta.

These antics aren’t new. Only a couple of years ago, Fran Millar was quoted in national media saying how he didn’t want black voters to show up at the polls.

I’m not exaggerating when I say that almost every day I have to explain to my children what politics and government used to be like, and why the behavior of our politicians and would-be leaders is unacceptable.

We must resist and reject the GOP’s efforts to normalize prejudice and oppression in Georgia. We must enshrine the values of equality, integrity, justice, and economic dignity that had started to take hold in our state. We must go back to the days when we expanded Medicaid, lowered class sizes, reduced college costs, and removed a racist state flag. We were never perfect, but we certainly were better than this.

We can increase early voting hours and locations, including weekend voting. We can get rid of racially motivated voter ID laws and registration purges. We can fix our districts so all voters have an equal voice in choosing our representatives.

We can do this together. We must take back our state from extremists. We must protect our democracy.

Will you join us? Give today. Volunteer. Vote Tuesday and vote in November!

—Sally

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Primary Election Night Speech – Say “No More” to Far Right Fran

Are you ready to tell the Gold Dome that big change is coming?

I’m ready too.  I’ll tell you why.

Our community is diverse and thrives on embracing diversity. And yet, our legislators put forward legislation that threatens immigrants and makes it harder for minorities to vote.

Our community values the freedom to live our lives without discrimination. And yet, our State Senate voted to legalize discrimination against LGBTQ families who foster and adopt children in Georgia.

We cherish our children. And yet, our legislators have made it clear that they consider the murder of our children an acceptable sacrifice for their freedom to carry AR-15s — weapons of war — into schools, bars, churches, and businesses.

How has our leadership become so out-of-touch with humanity? Why do they ignore our voices when we say we want change?

Extreme partisan gerrymandering has pushed our democracy into dysfunction.

We need to take redistricting out of the hands of the legislature and into the hands of a non-partisan commission. We need to restore integrity to our elections by demanding a paper trail of our votes and making voting easier, not harder, for working people.

We must address our country’s wealth inequality by ensuring affordable housing and childcare, jobs that pay a living wage, and debt-free higher education that can be paid for with a minimum wage job.

Every single K – 12 school needs the resources to provide a safe, quality education no matter the neighborhood it serves.

We need to expand Medicaid to include more families, and create a public option buy-in that allows anyone to purchase government healthcare when the cost of their private policy jeopardizes their financial well-being.

We need to end the War on Drugs, decriminalize marijuana, and stop the gravy train for for-profit prisons by rolling back mass incarceration.

We need leaders who will call out systemic racism, and work to address inequalities.

We need leaders who will say that Black Lives Matter!

Mine is not the only candidacy seeking to repair the extraordinary damage that Sen. Fran Millar and other pro-Trump politicians are causing. Candidates all over the state have stepped up to win this fight.

Why? Because we refuse to let our leaders drag our laws back in time to the pre-civil rights era. We don’t all come from the same backgrounds or share the same challenges. We don’t all start life on the same playing field. If elected to represent you in the Georgia Senate, I promise you this:

I will work for you. I will ask hard questions to keep the promise of equality and progress that our people value. I will demand that your representatives treat you with respect, and address your fears.

Above all else, I will stand up and fight systemic oppression – including the lack of action in the face of the massacre of our schoolchildren. I will not stand for miscarriages of justice, where poor citizens are treated like the enemy. I will fight the denial of basic rights, like those of our citizens to vote. I will not accept the inattention and lack of compassion for the needs of women, children, and the elderly.

Together, we can achieve healthcare for all. We can raise the minimum wage. We can end the War on Drugs. We can provide affordable education. We can prevent school shootings.

We say “no more” to the far-right and to Fran Millar. We say it’s time for a change. We are ready to help Fran Millar box up his office at the Capitol.

We have some work ahead of us. If you can, make a donation and/or sign up to volunteer today to help us hit the ground running.

—Sally

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