The Importance of Voter Registration in Light of New Legislation
With recent changes in voter and crime legislation, it has never been more critical to ensure your voice is heard. These new laws could significantly affect voter eligibility, access, and criminal justice policies, especially for marginalized communities. While these changes bring challenges, they also highlight the importance of proactive civic engagement.
One of the most powerful actions you can take in response to these shifts is to register to vote. Whether you are a first-time voter or need to update your registration, it’s essential to take advantage of online tools like the GeauxVote website. Registering online is quick, secure, and accessible, making it easier than ever to ensure your participation in the upcoming elections.
The landscape of voter eligibility is changing, and understanding these changes is crucial. By registering to vote online through GeauxVote, you can stay ahead of any new requirements or obstacles. The platform also provides valuable information on polling locations, sample ballots, and important election dates, ensuring you’re fully prepared to cast your vote.
The time to act is now. Don’t let legislative changes create barriers to your participation. By prioritizing voter registration, particularly through convenient online platforms like GeauxVote, we can ensure that every eligible voter has a voice. Your vote matters, and it’s up to each of us to make sure it’s counted.
We are honored to have two esteemed guest speakers:
Political Advisor and CEO of Bayard Management Group, who will provide insights on the broader political implications.
Policy Director of VOTE (Voice of The Experienced), who will share expertise on the legislation’s impact on our communities and actionable strategies for advocacy.
Notes
Casey Phillips: Yeah, it's a good Friday. And it's been a while since we connected in the work. Dr. Gilmore what's some fun things that you've been doing lately outside of the work? We'll start with that.
Dr. James Gilmore: I don't know much about One Rouge, by the way, first time ever hearing about One Rouge. I'm not sure if it's a nonpartisan organization or a nonprofit, but my biggest task is getting Mayor Broome reelected. Okay, so that's been the biggest work that I've been doing as well as my nonprofit organization that I started just a few years ago. We've been doing some great work as it relates to Early child care development and public policy advocacy as well as as working to help strengthen and help our senior citizens in East Baton Rouge Parish have homes and live a great quality of life. And so that's been exciting for me. And then again, my private business just still in politics helping the right people get elected and pushing for good accountability in our governmental systems.
Casey: Yeah, man. So we'll get all the way deep into the work, but what's the name of your nonprofit?
Dr. Gilmore: The Institute for Human Development.
Casey: Oh, that's you. I didn't know that. That's a part of your MO. You don't really put yourself out front. Is that the logo?
Dr. Gilmore: I never do that.
Casey: Is that the logo on your shirt?
Dr. Gilmore: Yes, it is. Yes, it is.
Casey: It's pretty. Yeah. It's pretty, man. Excellent. Everyone, welcome everybody. Welcome. Welcome. Happy Friday to everyone. Once again in the world wild and crazy week. Just gets weirder, including press conferences with frosted flakes and Oreos. Just never really gets, it just keeps getting weirder all the time, but there's also been a lot of joy in this last week. And there are good things that are happening too but as I said the fight continues nonetheless. So I'm going to turn it over to Tia. She has curated a powerful conversation today, so I'm not going to bring too much levity to the moment because it's some serious business that we're about to get into Tia, take it away, please.
Tia Fields: Sure. Good morning. Happy Friday One Rouge. I'm not going to take so much of the time and I'll allow my guest speakers to introduce themselves briefly. But the reason for this call today is that as we focus with One Rouge for system change, we do need to stay in realization. One of the major ways that we can impact by system changes through advocacy and making sure that we are in the know when it comes to voting, registration and rights and things of that nature. Okay. So today we have Dr. James Gilmore and Mr. Checo Yancy on the call. And I'm going to start with Mr. Checo, you have five minutes to tell the people who you are and what it is that you do. Sorry guys, I'm in transition.
Checo Yancy: Good morning everyone. My name is Checo Yancy as I stated earlier with Casey. I'm a former incarcerated person. I went to prison in 1983. I did 20 years and got out on parole and God willing, in September I'll be out 21 years. So I have made a commitment to myself and the community. And most of all to God that I would fight for people that's incarcerated, people that come home and we started an organization in Angola years ago in 1987 called the Angola Special Civics Project. We realized then that in order to get anything done, you had to elect good people to do good things. I've been out now 21 years, like I said and former state representative Pat Smith helped us years ago get our voting rights. And now formerly incarcerated people and you get out of prison. If you're on parole and after five years you've been out, you are eligible to go and register and go and exercise your right to vote. And right now, the climate that we're in right now, we all need to make sure that we go and vote because they are trying to they have tried. They are suppressing voter rights. Okay. When you look at what the Secretary of State with Nancy Landry did along with the governor they have actually put us back to 1850. I am I'll be 79. Like I said, I've seen the fifties, the sixties, the seventies, the eighties, and the nineties. And here we are in 2024. And we are still fighting for our civil rights and that's voting rights. So that's the short version. And as we get into it, we'll get into it later. Is that okay? Sure. And I'll ask any questions. I'm open for any questions that anyone want to answer. You can put them in the chat or you can ask me. Okay. Thank you for having me. First of all. Thank you.
Tia: Thank you for that. Mr. Yancy. Next we have Dr. James Gilmore. You have five minutes to tell the people who you are and what it is that you do in this hat.
Dr. Gilmore: Okay. Yeah, that's right. And I definitely won't spend five minutes. Thank you so much for inviting me to be a part of this call. In my personal life I discovered long ago that my, my purpose and mission was to engage in politics. And so what I do personally, as well as professionally with one of my businesses is I help elect great people to office, as well as hold great people and others accountable. We're doing what's necessary in our democratic system to take care of those that are least among us. I do have a personal agenda. My personal agenda is always to lift up the poor, the neglected and the minority, and I do that in whatever way possible when it relates to public policy and advocacy and holding officials accountable for doing that. I also manage my own consulting firm my PhD is in human resources I manage a human resources firm that works to organizations and companies manage their HR departments. And again, in my non profit organization it's basically a foundation that funds good programming in our community for young people through our senior citizens. And thank you so much for inviting me to be on, on, on this show this morning.
Tia: Sure. And you also have a little bit of dealing with agriculture as well, correct?
Dr. Gilmore: Yeah, I do have a farm. I love Southern University. That's where I got my political science degree from, but I love their Ag Center even more because I discovered years ago the need for us to grow our own food and to be able to provide food for others and even more so now that groceries are so expensive, and so I am into aquaculture growing catfish and using that as a means of growing fruits and vegetables.
Tia: Good information. I'm going to jump right into it and starting off with you, Dr. Gilmore, you said that one of your main purposes is to basically be a voice for those living in poverty. Those who are marginalized, can you talk a little bit about this last legislative session and what's going on and how voting rights are impacting those marginalized communities and the importance of voting.
Dr. Gilmore: In so many ways, as Brother Yancy said in so many ways, it appears as if we're going backwards. And here is why voting is important. And it's unfortunate that the way I look back at history those especially minorities. It's interesting how at times we stand in line to vote. And at times the voting booths are completely empty. The buildings are empty. And what this last election did in last November, when we ushered in a new governor and new legislators. At a very abysmal voting rate. Okay. What it has done is it has allowed those that are in power now from the governor's mansion to our state capitol in the legislature to create laws and bills that are totally against our democratic way of living and totally have a negative impact on the future of our country that and it's all because of, There's a fear because there are people that know that there's power in voting, and if we can dilute, if they can dilute power in voting, they can turn our democracy into a dictatorship where we have no power and no say as a people, and that's truly undemocratic. What my nonprofit does, as many other nonprofit and community organizations have done in the past is help people register to vote. Have helped people in the column voter registration drives there. They've been going on for decades. Okay. Ever since we were given the right to vote, it's been, we have cherished the opportunity to go out and register folks to vote. That's been under attack. Right now if you are a community based organization, or if you are an individual that wants to simply go out and help people get registered to vote, you could catch yourself in jail, breaking the law based on these new laws that have come through our legislature and signed by our new governor. When I say that right now you have to go register with the Secretary of State's office just to help people register to vote. Okay, so there's a there's so now you can't just take the voter registration forms and set up a booth or a table outside of Walmart and support our democracy and help people register to vote. If you haven't registered your organization with the Secretary of State and they have given the stamp of approval that you are an Official organization to register people to vote, you can catch yourself in breaking the law right now. And so it's very important that people know not only does that bill exist and it's passed, but it can have detrimental effects to people who all their lives have spent helping people get registered to vote and vote. And now. That can become a criminal act. That's disgusting. That, that, that law has passed in our community. And what's even more sad, and again, I believe in holding my friends and non friends accountable. Many of us weren't even aware that this bill was moving so fast with the legislature. And now the public needs to know, don't you just go out there and register folks to vote. Don't just go sign an absentee ballot. You could catch yourself in legal trouble.
Tia: Thank you for that. Speaking of having to make sure that you're registered to vote Mr. Yancy, so I know that Vote is a, is it a non profit organization, correct? C3 or C4?
Checo: Yes, we're a non profit. We're a C3 and C4 organization.
Tia: Okay, so can you walk us through what the process was for you all to register with the state in order to make sure that you guys have the eligibility to register voters?
Checo: The formerly incarcerated people, anyone that's been convicted of a crime on you when you come out of prison, you're five years on parole, or you finish your sentence completely, or you're eligible to go and register to vote. And we have done. We've been trying to do a great job. We got posters up in probation, parole, all 26 districts across the state. And that's what we do, making sure that our people understand that they now have the right to vote. I remember when I testified before the governmental affairs in the legislature that I had to pay my taxes. But I couldn't vote. So my thing was that hold up taxation without representation. And I asked the chairman, I said you know what, I'll change and I'll go for this. If you tell me I don't have to pay income taxes or state taxes, I'll give up my voting rights. And he said, Yeah, probably that's a good deal. And they actually passed it through. And I never will forget Senator Claytor, Dan Claytor on the floor on the Senate floor. I had begged him and followed him around the hall, you know how you lobby, okay, so when I said beg, that's what lobbying is when you're trying to get people to do something in the legislature. And he would never tell me how he would vote, but when he got on the floor, he stated that here's a man that's trying to vote, and when people come in my office and complain, the first thing I do, I check their voter registration. And if they're not registered to vote, then I just sit there and listen to them and say you nothing you can do to me because you have no power, you have no vote. So we're committed to making sure that formerly incarcerated people along with other people are registered voters. And as Dr. Gilbert just said I don't think people realize now just how detrimental Nancy Landry and Lil Jeff has really done. I don't think people realize that she got 11 bills passed in the legislature and all of them are voter suppression bill. Just a good example. Like we got a register. You got to register with the secretary of state to have a voter registration. When have you heard of that with the NAACP and urban league and all these other organizations over the years, we've never had to register. With the secretary of state, get them in our business. They have a voter registration draft. Now you have to do that. But the thing about it is we have to continue to fight. We have to continue to fight it. We don't fight. These people are actually trying to take away our voting rights. Guess what? You can't, you have to be, you have to be very careful now with absentee voting. You have to be very careful with it because looking at it now Act 302, that was And 3 17 and 7 12. Those are the acts this past you until we asked to make amendment. If your grandmother and your grandfather, you've been helping them for years with the absentee votes and everything, you would only able to be of help one person in your family. But they changed that when immediate family. That's how this thing has been come to suppress us in our voting rights, because they realized that when you get out and go vote, you can make changes. Look, Jeff says, Hey, I'm doing what the will of the people and guess what, ladies and gentlemen, he didn't get a half a million votes. He didn't get a half a million votes. And when I see that and I hear my people saying they had the Southern game that day. They had the LSU game that day. Bull. You have seven days. You have seven days of early voting. My thing, when I got my voting rights back, and this is very personal to me. So I get excited when I'm talking about this, I will beat you to the polls. I go and vote early every time. It's no problem because I don't know how I may be feeling that day of election day, but election day, I'm out trying to get others to go. So I've taken care of my business. So we have to understand that these voting rights and these new laws we haven't even talked about the crime session and stuff like this, but it's very important that everybody on this call understand. First of all, make sure you read and know the new law. Anybody that's on this call we can get with tear and we can send you the new law so you can familiarize yourself with this because guess what? As Dr. Gilmore said, you could go to jail if you'd make the wrong mistake. Because registering somebody now without registering with the Secretary of State or with the Registrar of Voters Office, guess what? You've committed a crime and you can go to jail.
Tia: As it relates to voter drive, voter registration drives I've heard talk about you have to be registered at least 30 days or you need to notify the Secretary of State at least 30 days ahead of time. Could either one of you talk a little bit more about that process if you have the knowledge on it?
Dr. Gilmore: Yeah. So basically, you could find this information on the Louisiana Secretary of State's website. So again, unfortunately, you have to do your research nowadays to know how to register folks to vote. And basically, you have to create a form, you have to complete a form. You can do it in person, or you can at the Baton Rouge office, or you can go online. It's the Voter Registration Drive contact form. The Voter Registration Drive contact form. You have to fill out a form, submit it to the Secretary of State's office, Okay. And this is, and they will reply back designating you as being quote unquote certified or approved to do your voter registration drive. Also, as you stated, it must be done 30 days ahead of time. So we decided to get up and anytime we want to go register folks to vote in this democracy, it doesn't exist anymore in Louisiana. If you ain't sent your application in to the Secretary of State 30 days ahead of time. Us getting around the table and saying, let's go register folks to vote without having that submitted 30 days ahead of time, you could be committing a criminal act. And then let me say this. If there is any loophole, if there is any opportunity to not deter us from registering folks to vote, the best thing to do is to register people to vote electronically. Anyone conducting fully electronic drives that use only the Secretary of State's voter portal at geauxvote.com to register voters. Will not be required to register their drop. So if you do decide, or if you don't meet that 30 day deadline to submit your application and get approved, you better be registered people to vote via the Secretary of State's website electronically with your iPad or computer, because if you register folks to vote via your computer, On the geauxvote.com, that's GEAUXvote.com website, then none of this applies to you. But if you do the paper registration, you better get registered with the Secretary of State's office and you better be within the 30 day requirement period.
Tia: So I've heard the talks of this and along with some other bills. That has now become acts of voter suppression. I told you guys a little bit earlier in the call, one of the main focuses of One Rouge is to focus around the nine drivers of poverty. In you guys' opinion, how is it that these new acts are going to directly affect the marginalized communities that have the least amount of voter turnouts.
Dr. Gilmore: Oh me. If you don't mind, brother Yancy. I know this is one you probably want to hear too, sir. What happens is, when we don't have the ability to vote, because our vote is suppressed, okay, bad people get elected. I've been doing this for 30 or 40 years. It doesn't require my Ph.D. or a dissertation or a study to tell you, over history in my lifetime. When minorities and the oppressed or underprivileged don't vote, bad people get elected who make laws to oppress them. to hurt their job opportunities, to hurt their economic growth opportunities, to take away their access to quality health care, to take away their access to good housing, to take care of their access to good quality air and clean water. When marginalized or underrepresented or disadvantaged people don't vote, bad people get elected who do things to hurt them. Marginalized poor people, margin and minority people, and based on what we see now happening, they get elected and they tear apart our democracy. We are losing our American freedom that we all thought we had for a lifetime based on bad people. Now being elected and legislators across this country, we are absolutely losing our freedom in America.
Checo: You took the words out of my mouth. Losing our freedom. Now, I don't know whether people realize it, but in the House of Representatives in the state of Louisiana, there are 105 state representatives. We only have 29 Democrats now. We only have 29 Democrats now. On the Senate side, we only have 11 out of the 39. Guess what? You can talk all day long and cry all day long and guess what? You have no power because You can't get anything done. And guess what? We got three more years and six months of this stuff. I almost said something else but Hey, if we don't pay attention to what's going on and like right now, everybody's excited about the national election with Kamala Harris and Walz with the vice president and all this stuff. But guess what? If we're not registered. And then we have problems getting registered. Guess what's going to happen as Dr. Gilmore said, bad people are going to get an office, bad people are going to get an office. And when you down at the legislature this year, here, I sat there almost every day in the committees and everything, and guess what those people did exactly what they wanted to do. They passed bad laws, and they did voter suppression, and they did it openly, and nothing you can do about it. Because guess what? As Dr. Gilmore said, we didn't go out and we didn't go vote. The turnout across the state here in Louisiana was less than 40%. Less than 40 percent if you go on the Secretary of State's website and you look at every election and you break it down, and that's what we do. And when people say hold up, you're a formerly incarcerated person. What you doing looking at all of that? But we're trying to educate ourselves and try to help other folks do better than I did. People may never forgive me for my crime, but God has. But that doesn't stop me from doing the research and passing on valuable information to others so people will understand that you need to make sure you go vote. Because if you don't, anybody can get in office. I'm very passionate about this. We're looking at attacks across our country and across this state right now that you're getting the Supreme Court that's attacking black judges and kicking them off. You're looking at stuff that's happening now because guess what? They can do exactly what they wanted to do. And guess what? If we don't get out and register, if we don't go vote, and on this phone here, the GeauxVote app, you can register as Dr. Gilmore said, you can do that because if people asking me now, can I register? I said you lost your form and I'll go over the registers with you. I'm not having a voter registration. I'm letting this person fill it out, but we can't do that with everyone. So we suggest as Dr. Gilmore said, electronic register. That audit number on our driver's license is the key to everything. So make sure that you pass this information on. I saw somebody put in the chat how to go to the website and really do it. And they have Secretary Landry has put a list together, a packet together. That we share with organizations such as the Urban League, such as the sorority groups, the fraternity groups, just regular groups that've been doing voter registration for years. For years now.. Now you have to register with the secretary of state as Dr. Gilmore said, you could end up being a convicted person.
Dr. Gilmore: And absolutely. And let's not forget about what you mentioned about absentee with these new laws. Okay. Back in the day when you helped folks absentee vote, who may be disabled, or who may have never voted before, or who may need to absentee vote. You know what I mean? For whatever reason right now. If the witness, if the person that signs as a witness to the absentee ballot isn't a family member. That vote gets thrown out. That vote doesn't matter. And guess what? You can only witness one family member. Now. So if you trying to go and make sure your elderly aunties, two or three aunties, or your mama and your daddy and your grandmother absentee vote, you can only witness for one of them. And it's required you to be a family member. The days of Dr. Gilmore going and helping a senior family member vote with the ballot, it gets thrown out, and I could be committing a crime now. As well as that the registration form has always been complicated, okay, especially for folks who may be, have literacy challenges, that's why we have Drives to Help people. Where now, if there is one thing missing off of that, on that form, you didn't sign on the right page, you didn't put the date on there, they now have the right to throw that vote out.
Checo: Or your mom's maiden name.
Dr. Gilmore: Or your mom's maiden name. Y'all, this is ridiculous that we have people elected in our legislature who don't want us to vote, who don't care about what happens to our democracy. And we better realize this today.
Checo: Let me say this right quick. We as farm incarcerated people, we just did a big thing and Alexander, when we called it waking up the sleeping giant, wake up the sleeping giant. And it was about getting folks registered because we were trying to get stuff done before August 1st, getting people, making sure that people understood how their voting rights is being eroded and just right in front of your eyes, this is 2024. Not 1965. We just celebrated, what, 59 years of the day of the Voting Rights Act and all these things. But guess what? Here we are, 2024, and guess what? It is being done right in front of our eyes. And again, like Dr. Gilmore said, and so many on this call understand, when you don't go vote, because of last, of the November election, and we allowed Lil Jeff to get in the office, Guess what? We got three, four years and six months of this that we're going to have to deal with and maneuver. Because the other thing that Dr. Gilmore didn't say is, if I pick up 10 applications and I registered at the Secretary of State's office and I get those 10 forms I don't use, but four of them, guess what else I have to do? I have to bring the other six back.
Tia: And what happens if you don't?
Checo: I can go back to jail.
Dr. Gilmore: And we do that all the time. Yeah. We may go pick up a hundred form to go out and register 75 people, but we might put those other forms somewhere in the house or in the office for the future. Okay. Gossip is you lose them. You could be committing a criminal act. So with the increase in reliance on online voter registration how are like the technological disparities affecting voter registration for low income families, right?
Tia: I hear you guys saying that a loophole to the paper registration and voter registration drives us to have individuals fill it out online. But what if there is a situation where you're in a rural area where there is really no broadband and or people do not have smartphones to where they can access this online voter registration? Can you guys talk a little bit about that or if there's any organizations supporting technology being sent out for voting registration?
Dr. Gilmore: Number one, that's the trouble we're in right now, because as you all know, Louisiana is a rural parish. As a city as New Orleans, Shreveport, and Baton Rouge, as we are New Orleans, Louisiana's majority are rural parish. And unfortunately, even though, we had a great governor, John Bell Edwards, that was really working hard to get broadband access to all of our rural areas, but we're not there yet. Registering people to vote online. Who don't have the internet or who don't have broadband or who don't can't afford a laptop is another in this Louisiana now has become voter suppression. Now what my nonprofit just did last week, but thankfully we can afford it is we bought 10 additional tablets and I invested in three of these AT& T air pods air type of pods where I can bring them around wherever I go and plug them in and I'll have the internet. Okay. And so that's going to be our new method of register people to vote. To be honest with you, I'm trying, I'm training my team to let's go virtual for all voter registration and let's make it mobile. But let's bring these 10 tablets with us and let's bring this. This AT& T my internet with us and let's let people do it online. That's the only immediate solution I can think of being that we're three to four months from a big election. So that's what we're doing. But again, for areas that don't, people who don't have access to the internet, that's it. Now it's a new form of voter suppression for the answer.
Checo: Yeah. You and I, we're on the same track now. People wouldn't realize this, but as formerly incarcerated people, our organization has invested in each of our chapters, we're buying 20 laptops that do the voter registration and for the internet, the air thing, I'm not tech savvy and all that, but maybe speaking it wrong, but we, as in formerly incarcerated people, guess what we realized the importance of voting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we're investing because we can help our people because we can do it electronically on the iPad on the phone and get the Internet because I don't know whether you read the paper a couple of days ago, also in the legislature, they were so slick and everything. That some of the legislatures now are making money on broadband and all these things so they're going to press you suppress you one way, but make a profit another way. We have to pay close attention to what's going on in our state, because we're in a, we're really in a bad spot right now, and everyone on this call I would. Teach people the new way of electronic voting and those days of the paper ballot and everything you could really get yourself in real trouble. I go all over the state in this region, Laplace, places like that across the river in Iberville, Paris, and we've been registering folks. Those that's dead. Now, when I go to probation and parole and I am registering someone to helping them, I'm doing it on my phone or either on our laptop or either on the iPad because I realized it's after August 1st and guess what? I'm already on parole. I can go back to jail for helping someone to register to vote, which is crazy.
Tia: Speaking of this disenfranchisement and crime I want to not really shift gears from voting, but I want to talk about how the crime legislation is targeting impoverished communities and contributing to the cycle of disenfranchisement of political power.
Dr. Gilmore: Yeah. And we could probably be here for hours talking about both voter suppression as well as these laws. But I'm going to focus on the two. The children aspect of what's what I'm worried about what came out of session, because again, in my work being over governor John Bell Edwards Children's Cabinet, and in my calling to empower young people and youth to be civically engaged in their community and become productive happy citizens. When I was over the governor's Children's Cabinet. One of the big endeavors that we took on under John Bell was trying to address the suspension and expulsion rate that is tremendously high in our state and disproportionately high for black children, as well as black girls, and at that time we were working on interventions and policies to help. Drive down the suspension and expulsion rate because we were of the philosophy that children who aren't in school for whatever reason, they can't learn and putting them out doesn't help them learn. And out of this past session at three 37 states that students in grade six through 12 suspended a third time within the same school year for any offense. Other than dress code or tardiness is automatically recommended for expulsion, automatic. The law says it. This isn't giving school districts the flexibility to implement the policy as they deem best with their school district or a teacher or principal or vice principal of discipline, saying, hey, look. James, this is your second time or third time in my office. This is the time I'm going to suspend you or I'm going to send you to this intervention or your mother has to come on campus. This is saying automatically recommended for expulsion. So if I, and now with the new law that's banning cell phones in schools, okay, Children now who are accustomed to having their cell phones on them 24 hours a day, there's an automatic ban now. Do you realize how many kids may get in trouble for sneaking and pulling out their cell phone or for talking in class or for things that, again, a teacher or a disciplinary leader has the discretion of how to discipline them that now? Automatic recommended for expulsion. That means we're putting you out the third time.
Checo: Then you got the 10 Commandments on the wall now. What about the 10 Commandments on the wall, but you're going to put the children out, but we're going to put the 10 Commandments on the wall. Wow. Wow. All I can say is wow right now, because just think we want the 10 Commandments on the wall, but we want to put children out of school.
Tia: Yeah, this is, this political climate that we're currently in has been one of a, one heck of a rollercoaster ride, huh?
Dr. Gilmore: And then, and there's one more. There's act 400. Again, now, don't let anyone confuse what I'm saying. I believe in discipline in schools. I believe teachers should have classes where they're not disturbed by behavior, but I don't think that every child Okay. Should be given three strikes and you're recommended for expulsion automatically. I think that's up to the principal and the teachers and the learning environment to make that determination, not about the law at 400. Focus is primarily on disruptive students and teacher rights. It states, teacher shall have disruptive students removed from their classroom. After removing a student three times, a parent teacher conference is required. For that kid to come back to class. Okay, required again. Now I'm not here promoting that kid should disrupt class, but I know that sometimes Billy may need a good fourth or fifth time before he gets his behavior right. But now you're saying it no matter what, if I put you out three times, you cannot come back into my classroom. I believe that's something that the school or the school district should handle, not a law, because what happens is this is going to drive even more minority students dealing with mental health issues. Okay. Out of the classroom and into the streets because they won't be in school anymore because basically we have a three strikes a year out rule in our classroom.
Checo: What Dr. Gilmore just explained is the pipeline of prison. So whether you realize it or not, the juvenile facilities and everything is the pipeline to prison. So what is a child going to do if you get kicked out of school and now you're roaming the streets? What is little Billy gonna do? What is little Mary gonna do now? You're gonna get into stuff you should not get into. So when we talk about the pipeline of prison, Dr. Gilmore just explained it perfectly. And if we don't understand this, ladies and gentlemen, yeah, this is a good webinar. Yes, we learn and stuff, but we got to inform other folks. We got to tell other folks about what's going on in our community. I'm looking at folks on here that I know very well, and they do a great job. But guess what? We got to preach this every Sunday. We got to teach this in our universities and our grade schools, all of this. And guess what? We may have to do some public service announcement on the radio to let our families know really what's going on. Because Dr. Gilmore and I, we work very closely when I'm in the legislature, when he was working for Bell Edwards and everything. Look at this, a formerly incarcerated person. And there are other former incarcerated persons on this video right now. We're working hard to be good people. But we got, when you don't go out and vote, you get people that's worse, that's going to hurt our communities because we haven't even talked about Project 2025. We even got that far yet, so if you're going to let Donald Duck get back in, Donald Duck say, I'm going to the park because I ain't never going nowhere.
Tia: Okay. So before we go too far, Mr. Yancy, before we go too far, I do want to acknowledge some of the comments that's in the chat. Mr. Sesay with LORI, he has a comment and a question. So listen to it and answer it as you guys see fit. He says, I truly appreciate you speaking your truth to power, speaking truth to power. How can we social justice movement? How can we social justice movement builders build and strengthen our collective efforts to push back against the destructive policies that tend to criminalize black and brown communities for many times we have been competing instead of collaborating. I think his question is how can the grassroots organizations and those who are in the social justice movement starting now, even before elections happen, how can we be in collaboration and push back against some of the these laws that have been put in place?
Checo: Gilmore, I'll let you go first. I get excited.
Dr. Gilmore: So here's what needs to happen first. I'm a political science major. I've been doing this since I was a student worker for the previous governor when I was 16 years old. And so politics comes natural to me because it's my college. But other folks who may be engineers, architects, teachers, or whatever you may be in life, politics might not be your thing. So waking up every day, reading the paper and things like that, and knowing what's on legislation, that might not be your thing. What the best thing that I think that grassroots organizations can do is start connecting with those people who believe that politics is a waste, that they can't trust government. They can't trust people. The best thing I think that we could do is wake those people up. Individuals are, but the answer and I do this every day of our life and we'll probably be putting our grave doing this. It's the people who don't wake up every day, who understands how politics impact them. We need to do a better at teaching. Governor Blanco when I work with her. We were talking about solutions to poverty. The first thing she told me when we were planning the Solution to Poverty conversation and conference was, Jane, I don't need social workers, and teachers, and people like us at the table discussing poverty. We do that every day. Go out there and get those bankers, those finance investors Those conservative Republicans bring them to the table and let's have a conversation about reducing poverty because the people that we talk to every day already know that we have poverty. What we have to do as community based organizations is not just have these conversations in our circles, but we start, we got to start getting folks who think that politics don't matter and it won't no matter. We got to start waking them up to understand it does. Okay, that just because you want a nice house on the hill that can be gone with the wrong governor or mayor, just because that you might be in the hood, and you feel as if you are hopeless and helpless. It could get worse for you and others if you don't engage in politics. I have people in my network that don't know who their legislators are. that represent them in district. Why? Because they call me to help resolve their issues. And I normally say who's your state rep? Or who's your city council person? And they most, 50 percent of the time, they reply back, I don't know, or they send me the wrong person. I say, who's your legislator? They may send me their mayor's name. I say, who's your council member? They may send me their state senator's name. We have to also let our people know Who's at the Capitol who's supposed to be working on their behalf so that we can hold that person accountable and that person can come back and keep us posted. I should not have to read the advocate to find out some of these things that are going on. My legislators should have been talking to me a long time ago. And that's what I believe is that we got to start connecting with people who believe politics and government don't matter because we know it matters. That's why we're here today. But it's a whole lot of folks out there that don't believe it or have given up on the system. And we need them to get back involved in this system.
Tia: Thank you for that. I want to call on Dr. Tillman Bester. Can you lean in on this conversation a little bit? I see you're active in the chat. You have anything that you want to add? C. T.
Dr. Alfreda Tillman Bester: You know that I do. Good morning. Everybody. I listen. I just text Checo and Dr. Gilmore invited them on perspective on Monday so we can continue this conversation. I listen, the thing that we have to do is to help people make the connection between their quality of life and voting. It's not, we can talk about this among ourselves, but when we are in the community, when we are at our churches, we have to be a part of social justice ministries at our churches. We have to every opportunity in courage, young people, ask them if they're registered to vote and also. We have to teach them to get some, to put some skin in the game. So yeah, they're making it difficult for us to vote for us to register, but listen, so what? They've always made it difficult for us. And so go down to the registrar's office and register to vote instead of worrying, about, get about jumping through all of these stupid hoops. Let's just grab some people, take them to the registrar's office, let them register on site, let them check that app, that application, make sure that it is, last time I've checked, it wasn't illegal for me to grab up a bunch of people and put them in my truck and drive them down to the registrar's office. There are ways around this. There have always been ways around this. As a practicing attorney, I get frustrated in our courts all the time. But then I look back and I look at what Constance Baker Motley and Thurgood Marshall and all of those attorneys who came before me had to go through. And then I just. Adjust my attitude and find a way around the nonsense. But the main thing that we have to do is to get people to buy in. Everybody has a part to play in this social bargain in this democracy. And the part of it is, let me tell you something. I've done this for a really long time as the attorney for the Louisiana NAACP. The one thing I would not do is participate in voter registration. You know why? Because if I had to go get them to register them to vote, I also would have to go get them on election day and take them to the polls. People need skin in the game and they need to understand again, that their quality of life. Is directly impacted by the quality of the people who are elected to make public policy that makes their lives worse. What makes their lives better and I'll stop there Tia because I can go on and on about this, but yeah,
Checo: I'd like to say this says something very important. If you download the GeauxVote app, it tells you everything that's going on. Even I'm like Dr. Gilmore. People will tell me I'll ask them, who's your state representative? They say Bill Cassidy. That's in the Fed. People, but guess what? You can learn. You can learn on this GeauxVote app. Because when it pulls up, guess what? It tells you it gives you all the information. It tells you who your school board member is. It tells you who everything is. And you have to, you have to get involved and you have to learn in our organization. What we just did is up in Shreveport when people tell me, I've had people tell me to my face, man, my vote don't count. They're gonna do what they want to do. The best example that I have right now, the very best example right now, this recent Whitehorn won by one vote. He had to win three times, ladies and gentlemen, to win. They had a recount. Each one of them got three votes. He's still won by one vote. You know what our organization did along with others. We went up to Shreveport and we canvassed, we knocked on doors. And I'll be doggone if he didn't win by over 4,000 votes. That's a teachable moment that when people tell you, a vote don't count. You have to educate people. You have to have little things that you can tell them. To me, that was my best example that I can go to.
Alfreda: I'm sorry. I didn't mean to cut you off but the thing was the persistence, right? No matter what they told Colonel Whitehorn, he kept going back. He was like, you're not going to just take my stuff. I'm going to, I'm coming back. I'm going to keep on and keep on. But we have to also do that with our people. We have to make them understand that they can they are part of this bargain and that they can't sit back and wait for us to vote. They have to get out and vote as well. Don't tell me that it's homecoming. I don't care. You had seven days, seven during early voting, you could have voted absentee. It has to be a priority for people because we show up every time at the polls and the vast, listen, when I talked about 63.7 percent of the people not people in Louisiana registered voters did not go to vote in October and Jeff Landry became the governor and he thinks he has some sort of a mandate with 18 percent of the vote. He does because the 67, the 63.7 percent of people that did not vote. Voting for him. Just saying. Didn't mean to take the time to just but guess what?
Checo: You're absolutely right. I'd like for everybody on this call to make a commitment to themselves. There's different organizations and sometimes we disagree with people. I don't like the way that your organization, you should be doing this and you should be doing this. Can I get everyone on this call right now to look a mandate for themselves to make a commitment that they will tell at least 10 new people about this conversation you had today and that you can get together with tear or whoever Dr. Gilmore myself we got our information attorney bets or whoever And get together and we can sit down and come to a consensus that this is one thing that we all can work on as a team. And team just means together, everyone achieves the mission. We are on a mission right now to make sure that our people get registered, to make sure they go and vote. I'm like Attorney Bester. I got to beg you to register. And then I got to call you and then I may have to take you to the poll. That's crazy. Why do we have to do this? Can I get people on this call today? One Rouge. You guys have put this together. I see Tristan on here and people that I know. Can we get together and make a commitment to each other that we will go out now and pick up 10 new people and tell them about how important this is what we learned today.
Tia: I can make that commitment. For those of you guys who. Thank you. Dr. Gilmore, can you guys drop your contact information in the chat? Cause we're coming up on time and I hate to end the conversation early, but before we do, I do want to jump into our community announcement. You can come off mute Dauda. You had something you wanted to add.
Dauda Sesay: Yeah, thank you. I just wanted to express again, thanks publicly to our speakers and for speaking through to power. Yes. To the question, definitely. And I'm not just making my own commitment, but I'm putting this commitment as well on behalf of the Louisiana Organization for Refugees and Immigrants that we are committed to do a voter sensitization, voters outreach, and voters registrations. And through the initiative that we'll launch is leverage our voices. Our vote for empowerment, which is love. Vote is love. Vote is love. That's the way you show love to your countries and especially with Dr. Alfreda Tillman quote, which is the quality of your life directly connected to the quality of people we put in office. Let listen to that quote and let think about it for a moment and see what is happening right now. Because the way we're venting right now in this is completely impacted by the quality of the people we put in the office that get us to where we are today. Definitely is let's strategize and come up with a way that we can continue to engage and especially the youth, because I always say this the youth, they love to be cool. How can we make civic engagement and voting cool as well, so that they know that this is part of it? And our goal is to say that, how can we make sure, yes, you can go and tailgate? If there is a game going on during election and still go and vote. So those are the things to using while you see now we are incorporating and soccer tournament and sports tournament, which we definitely will be launching this recently, which is the basketball for you as well. How can we do a voting day as a tailgate to knowing that? Yes. During the time to vote, we can have fun, we can engage, but we can use those fun as well as a pipeline to get people to the polls. Still will not deter you from doing that. And most importantly definitely we've been a partner with votes and we can continue to partner with that and power coalitions. Let's put all our differences on the side and network collectively, because we've seen the policy that we implement here in Louisiana. It is being implemented in other states as well. That's copycat we say. That means they're talking to each other. The same thing applies to us. Let's start talking to each other and let's hold them accountable as well. The only power we have is vote and the vote is one and that is equality. That is the only one that you rich, you're black, you're poor, you're brown, you only have one vote. So let's make the best of that. So that's all for today, but all, we're always open to partner with any organization and how all the voices can come on the table so that we can And we gain back the power that belongs to the people.
Tia: I appreciate you all so much. Before we jump into our community announcements, if you guys would like to leave a reaction, if you found this information useful just send me a thumbs up just so that I can know. I know this is probably normally outside of the normal cadence. We don't really normally talk politics per se on one Rouge, but in my role I understand the importance of civil and engagement in order to disrupt these systems of systemic oppression. If you found this conversation useful, drop something in the chat, send me a thumbs up. And at this moment, I will open up the floor to anyone who has community announcements and community events.
Checo: I have one announcement right quick. All the information we talked about. I put the website up today voiceoftheexperienced.org. You can go to our website and what we do a layout of how incarcerated people get their voting rights back along with what the new laws are and everything. So we try to be very informative. Go to the website, check it out. And first of all, Tia. Thank you. Thank One Rouge for inviting us. And Dr. Gilmore, it is so good to see you again, and guess what? We're still doing the same thing, man. It's unbelievable. Thank you, Tia.
Casey: Tia, I wanted to jump in just for a quick second. First of all, thank you, Mr. Yancy, for your perspective, and Dr. Gilmore, for yours. I want to lift up to everyone speaking of weird laws that are passed, and that most people don't know about. On January 1st of this year, the Corporate Transparency Act went into effect. And this is something that people are not aware of. I would Oh, yeah. Hello. Okay, cool. You're into it. And so. You've seen a rise in entrepreneurship after COVID, right? And I think that specifically, if you look at the numbers from the SBA, the rise in DBE entrepreneurship. And so I think the federal government's been up to some trickery. And if you do not file, as a reporting company, basically with your transparency, they now say that if you own an LLC, you have to basically file and they're using it as an anti terrorism under the guise of anti terrorism. But if you do not file by January 1st, 2025, they could take your LLC away from you, and you could also be fined up to a thousand dollars. For day per day. So if anybody would like to look up the Corporate Transparency Act, luckily, my registered agent in Delaware was kind enough to reach out to me and let me know about this. But when you look at systems working exactly as they are designed to do, this one is an important one. So for all you hustlers on the side, whether it's a mom and pop. Or as your actual, like primary means of of income please look up the Corporate Transparency Act. Now there are handfuls of exemptions for this, but of course they benefit the biggest companies in the world and not necessarily towards the little people. So I just wanted to make sure and just lift it up. I did it. It took about. Three to five minutes to finish the registration. It is not complicated, and you do not need to pay $199 to your registered agent to use their platform to do it. You can go directly to the website on the governor, on the dot gov. So if anybody has any questions or they'd like more information, feel free to reach out to me and I'm happy to pass along what I learned.
Dr. Gilmore: I wanna say a couple closing words because I have to go into debate prep. Someone posted in the chat, do you have to register every time you do a voter registration drive? The argument of these Republicans was that we were going to the secretary, going to get voter registration forms and that we weren't turning them back in. And they thought we were committing some type of fraud when I say we people in this work, not just to me, the way it works is when you fill out your voter registration drive contact form, you're going to request a number of forms. So if you request 100 forms, you can have five drives. And use all 100, or you can have one drive and use all 100, you won't you within 30 days, you have to turn in the voter registration form that were completed, as well as those that didn't get filled out. So if you only filled out 25. You have to turn in those 25 plus the blank 75 forms if you got 100 forms. If you don't turn in the 75 blank forms, you could be breaking the law. And you can't get any more forms. So in other words, it's not necessarily based on the number of events you have. It's the number of paper forms you request from the Secretary of State's office. Oh, and I forgot to mention, you can't make copies. So like we would say run to the copy and make 20 more copies because we got 20 more people here that need to be registered. You can't make copies. So we better invest in online voter registration.
Checo: Thank you again for inviting me and I hope we said something today that just got people excited. Get people excited again. I'll be 79 this year. I've seen the fifties, the sixties, the seventies, eighties and nineties. Why are we going back? Dr. Gilmore, thank you for what you do. And Hey, like you said Hey man, I'm trying to get back to society, but again, I'd like everybody on this call again to thank you Tia for putting this together. Thank you Casey for inviting us. And thank you for having me, but I hope something comes out of this, because this is my heart. I love doing this. This is about our people and trying to help people. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Tia: Thank you guys for joining the call, Miss Lewis.
Sheila Lewis: Yes good morning all thank you, Mr. Yancy for the invite to join this webinar. I do plan to attend subsequent webinars. This is valuable information. I would like to hear a little bit more about early voting. Because I think the time has come that we focus on early voting. So there'll be no excuses as to why we don't make it to the polls. But what I'd like to see is a coordinated effort. From organizations to provide transportation for those who might say I didn't have arrived to the polls. I don't know what that would look like. Dr. James. I don't know what that would look like, Mr. Checo, but I know that we each day of the early voting weeks, there ought to be a Uber or some Ubers or a charter bus where communities will know, okay, we're going to be in your community on Monday, or we're going to be Tuesday, where you will know when these transportation methods are going to be in your community. So people know when they can have a ride to the polls. So I just want to say, we got to focus on early voting a little bit more And we must make sure in order to mobilize our people that we have provided transportation for them. Tia, you've been a good host, and I hope to hear you again. So again, valuable information. And I think we're on to something with what all we heard today. And Ms. Tillman, good job. You and I have worked together on committees in the past. And so I'd be calling the three speakers today. To engage my church in a conversation about registration and mobilization. Have a good day all that's on the call.
Tia: Thank you so much.
Checo: I will beat you to the polls. I will beat you to the polls. That's the early vote now. I will beat you to the polls. Thank you very much.
Dr. Gilmore: I like what Brother Checo just said Ms. Tia, one takeaway, another takeaway from this fantastic call may be for One Rouge or the Power Coalition or others on this call who have the capacity to put together an early voting tool kit. And that can be posted online or shared with individuals, so that people around the community because from the consultant and campaign manager for people side, we spent we're putting together an early voting strategy for our candidate. How do we get people to go vote for our candidate. I think that Ms. Lewis just said maybe we can put together a toolkit for how communities can organize around early voting and how to put together an early voting strategy for your community. And I like brother Yancy's theme for it could be, “I'm gonna beat you to the polls”. And I know Reverend Anderson is on the call. So maybe we can help put together a how to organize around early voting tool kit to get it out to non profits and faith based groups, so they know how to activate their vans, they know, how to communicate early voting data. I know Power Coalition puts out a lot of early voting date material, maybe local communities can put that out, where to vote. With my candidates for office, we put out a list of early voting sites in EBR Parish, so maybe we can put together an early voting toolkit that can be used in community statewide that they can just tailor to their community as a takeaway from this call.
Alfreda: I just wanted to say out loud. I put it in the chat, but in every election power coalition provides opportunities for people to get to the polls including Uber's for people, for individual people, there are churches that allow their vans to to ride people and listen. I go, I have one elderly friend who's in the nursing home and every election I go pick her up and make sure that she gets to the, during early voting. It's just so easy. Y'all we don't have to make this more complicated or give people credence for their stupidity. We just need to make sure that we are available to help people who need to get to the polls. Power Coalition for equity and justice has opportunities for people to get to the polls via Uber and otherwise.
Tia: Thank you for that information. That was something that I did not know. And I appreciate you guys staying for an extended amount of time. I just want to make sure that you guys do know that in person quarterly meetings for our coalitions will be next week starting on Tuesday with education to career at the River Center parish library. From 12 to 1 Tuesday. Wednesday, the 21st, we'll have our cafe coalition meeting. And then that following Thursday, we will have our transportation mobility coalition. And for those of you guys who've never been to an in person meeting or on the calls outside of meeting on Fridays. This is where the work is done. This is where we strategize and figure out plans and take action. To be a disruptor to these systems. I implore you guys all to come in, meet with us next week, have lunch with us. And I look forward to speaking with you guys all next week. Happy Friday.
Checo: Go get out the vote, put it on TikTok, put it on Instagram, whatever you got to put it on. Get out the vote. Thank you, Tia. Thank you, Dr. Gilmore.
Casey: Excellent call. Thank y'all, everyone. Y'all have a wonderful Friday. Have a great weekend and everyone stay safe and we will see you about back next week. Hey, Tia, what's the topic next week? Where are we at?
Tia: We are going to be talking about it's going to be CAFE based. We're reaching out to culinary institutes for them to lean in on the opportunities for those who are interested in.
Casey: Oh, I don't know. She put mute on at the end to give you a cliffhanger, everyone. She's not going to let you know.
Tia: No, look, my computer is glitchy and I'm going to blame it on Mercury. It's over here doing this thing.
Casey: Yeah, absolutely. We know that it's not Ann's fault. So I said, there you go. I said that the retrograde is real. All right. Everyone, we'll see you next Friday. And it's been a peaceful and productive week next week.
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