Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Teachers Don't Turnout To Vote? They Did This Time!

Reposted From Yesterday

Harvey Kronberg rehashes the primary and points out that teachers vote made a difference in a couple of races, Political fallout from primary elections.

Everyone always said teachers don't vote, well they did this time:
The education community proved that if you push too far, they can produce enough votes in some traditionally low turnout GOP primaries and bite back.
And teacher's and those that agree with them voting makes for a very interesting upcoming special session and November election:
As we go into the special session, there are a lot of nervous legislators. On paper, the November election should be irrelevant. But apparently, quite a few traditional primary voters skipped last week's election so they could sign petitions for Carole Strayhorn or Kinky Friedman. Those folks may well be sick of incumbents in general. So, despite the redistricting effort to disenfranchise November voters, there is no telling what might happen in more than 50 contested races next fall.
The Texas Federation of Texas is continuing the fight into the runoffs, Do you and other educators have the respect and influence you deserve at the capitol?
As previously reported, TFT members scored big wins in the March 7 primary election. Volunteer members reached about 35,000 primary voters by mail in targeted legislative elections.

The wins, listed below, add to the gains our Educator-to-Voter campaign achieved with the recent special elections of Donna Howard of Austin and Ana Hernandez of Houston. The nine March 7 winners in our targeted races included:

Diane Patrick of Arlington (defeating Kent Grusendorf)

Charlie Geren of Fort Worth Delwin Jones of Lubbock
Dora Olivo of Fort Bend County Garnet Coleman of Houston
Juan Escobar of Kingsville Norma Chavez of El Paso
Tommy Merritt of Longview Pat Haggerty of El Paso

If you are a TFT/AFT member and you are willing to send 20 postcards by mail to voters in the April 11 primary runoff elections and the November general election, click here.

If you already participate in the project, please forward this message to your fellow AFT members or immediate family using the "Tell a Friend" link below.
Help them out if you can and make a legislator nervous.




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