What’s your strategy for reaching conservative voters?
It’s not so much about partisanship, it’s about principle. Instead of looking at candidates through a partisan lens, we look at who is saying, “If we get power, we’re going to do living wages, health care, voting rights.”
I believe, as Dr. King and many others did, that there is this constituency out there that isn’t so much driven by labels. They are trying to survive in the midst of all of this opulence and greed, and all they want is a fair shot. All they want is a basic living wage, paid family leave and health care. Poverty is killing over 800 people a day. It does not kill them based on their party.
How do you feel about President Biden’s record on poverty so far?
President Biden and Kamala Harris said, if we get elected, we’ll do voting rights and living wages. But the Congress failed, the Senate failed. His own party failed. If it had not been for eight (Democratic lawmakers’ votes) on living wages, and two Democrats on voting rights, today, 52 million people would have a minimum wage of $15 an hour, rather than $7.25, and we would have restored the Voting Rights Act.
I still believe the administration should not have done one vote and quit. Every session, there ought to be a vote on living wages and voting rights until we get it. Where is the deal for poor and low-wage folks?
What would you like to hear from the president heading into the election?
I would like to see him bring a group of poor and low-wage voters who look like America, some key religious leaders and economists to the White House for a summit with him and the vice president. We will not get a living wage, paid family leave and health care until we put a face on it and show America who is being damaged. And we will not get it as long as we keep allowing folks to marginalize the issues of poverty and voting rights as minority issues. We must approach them as being fundamental American issues and a failure of our constitutional promises of equal protection under the law and promoting the general welfare. We want to hear that the more than 120 million low-wealth people in this country are not forgotten.
You’ve said what’s at stake is more than the poor, it’s our democracy.
If you want a functioning democracy, it can’t be an impoverished democracy. An impoverished democracy opens the door for the kind of hate and demagoguery we see coming out of the mouth of Trump, and not just Trump — his ideals are still running rampant through state houses and through Congress. When we march on these state capitals and in D.C., and when we push folks to the polls, we are not the insurrection, we are the resurrection. The worst thing we can do in a democracy is to be silent on the things that really matter.
What role does faith play in this?
We’re doing this as a matter of faith. All of the prophets lambasted society when they passed legislation that robbed the poor of their rights. Jesus started his ministry declaring good news to the poor, particularly those made poor by economic exploitation. Every major faith tradition calls us to challenge society and how we treat the poor and the least of these. We can’t allow religious nationalism, which is a form of heresy, to have the loudest and last say. As people of faith, this has to be our moment.
This article originally appeared here.
SponsoredWhat’s your strategy for reaching conservative voters?
It’s not so much about partisanship, it’s about principle. Instead of looking at candidates through a partisan lens, we look at who is saying, “If we get power, we’re going to do living wages, health care, voting rights.”
I believe, as Dr. King and many others did, that there is this constituency out there that isn’t so much driven by labels. They are trying to survive in the midst of all of this opulence and greed, and all they want is a fair shot. All they want is a basic living wage, paid family leave and health care. Poverty is killing over 800 people a day. It does not kill them based on their party.
How do you feel about President Biden’s record on poverty so far?
President Biden and Kamala Harris said, if we get elected, we’ll do voting rights and living wages. But the Congress failed, the Senate failed. His own party failed. If it had not been for eight (Democratic lawmakers’ votes) on living wages, and two Democrats on voting rights, today, 52 million people would have a minimum wage of $15 an hour, rather than $7.25, and we would have restored the Voting Rights Act.
I still believe the administration should not have done one vote and quit. Every session, there ought to be a vote on living wages and voting rights until we get it. Where is the deal for poor and low-wage folks?
