Victories in the Capitol.

Unique to our efforts is the sustainability of our training. Rather than helicoptering in with a one-time training and resulting lobby day, we support our young changemakers throughout the legislative process from start to finish, and we continue our training and support for them beyond the legislative session. Our goal is that a young person see halls of power as accessible and inclusive to them, because we believe that when a young person begins to see themselves in these spaces, that is when radical change can happen for our State. 

Their success speaks for itself. We have given over 140 testimonies at the Capitol. 67% of which are from young women of color. We’ve converted 34 bills into State law, and passed 3 city resolutions. Since the launch of our Changemaker program, we have trained over 500 young women on majority-minority high school and college campuses and we’ve continued our support and opportunities for activism with them and mobilized over 300 young advocates to our Deeds Lobby Days at the Capitol.

This legislative session has been one of the worst we have ever seen.

Amidst a pandemic, and a winter storm that left many Texans without power, heat and water, our work shifted to protect against the anti-voter, anti-trans, anti-abortion agenda of our State. When our representatives had every option to decentralize the legislative process and include voices from every corner of TX through virtual testimony–they chose to be anti-Democratic. Taking advantage of COVID (rather than trying to help our state rebound from it), the Governor, Lt. Governor and Speaker created almost insurmountable hurdles for people to speak out against their agenda of hate. Only invited speakers were allowed to testify

Despite these challenges, our #Changemakers showed up time and time again to demand that their voices be heard. From unfurling banners in the rotunda, to protesting outside the Capitol, to bombarding committees with written and recorded testimony, to incessantly tagging legislators in social media posts, Deeds’ advocates were FIERCE and a FORCE!

We are honored to be part of a collective effort of like-minded organizations and lawmakers from across the state who were relentless in their demand to be heard. Because of the unity of our efforts and the courage of lawmakers who stood up for us, some really horrible bills were blocked, like SB 29, which targeted our trans youth and SB 7, the racist voter suppression bill. This legislative session, we count our victories in the over 20 bad bills we were able to stop.