The Electorette

Essayist and memoirist Leta McCollough Seletzky discusses her father-daughter memoir, "The Kneeling Man: My Father's Life as a Black Spy Who Witnessed the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.," which tells the story behind the famous photograph of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. on the balcony of Memphis's Lorraine Motel. In the photo, there is a man kneeling over Dr. King holding a towel to Dr. King's fatal gunshot. That man was Marrell "Mac" McCollough, an undercover officer for the Memphis Police Department, and Leta's father.

Leta McCollough Seletzky is a National Endowment for the Arts 2022 Creative Writing Fellow whose work has been featured in The Atlantic; The New York Times; O, The Oprah Magazine; The Washington Post; and elsewhere. Her essay "The Man in the Picture," published in O, The Oprah Magazine, was selected as a Notable Essay in BEST AMERICAN ESSAYS 2019.

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Christine Senteno, the Cofounder and Executive Director of Advance the Electorate, discusses the importance of the Biden administration's visible support for unions, turning out the vote for Latino, Black, and unmarried women constituencies, and the importance of lived experience in political representation.

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Daria Dawson, the Political Director of America Votes, an organization that serves as the coordination hub of the progressive organizing community, discusses energizing voters for the upcoming political cycle by building a culture of strong civic participation, voter engagement and education.

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26 million American adults do not have ID—ID they need to get housing, medical care, a bank account, and other life-saving services. Following the 2016 election, Kat Calvin, the founder of Spread the Vote and Co-Founder and CEO of the Project ID Action Fund, set out to do something about it. Kat joins The Electorette to discuss her new book, American Identity in Crisis: Notes from an Accidental Activist, where she chronicles her journey as an activist and organizer, and walks us through the failures and successes during the earliest days of the organization, and her tireless efforts to help people get the ID they need to live full lives.

Kat Calvin is the Founder and Executive Director of Spread The Vote + Project ID and the Co-Founder and CEO of the Project ID Action Fund. A lawyer, activist, and social entrepreneur, Kat has built a national organization that has helped more than 11,000 people obtain the IDs they need for jobs, housing, and life and that also allows them to go to the polls. Spread The Vote registers 92% of their eligible clients, taking them from 0 to 40% voter turnout through their voter education program. Through their Vote By Mail in Jail program, they have a 71.4% turnout rate of incarcerated voters.

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Women's Equality Day is observed on August 26th in the United States, and commemorates the 1920 adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Virginia Kase Solomón, the CEO of the League of Women Voters and a lifetime champion of civil rights and social justice, joins The Electorette to discuss the history of the women's suffrage movement, the passage of the 19th Amendment, and Women's Equality Day—which they've coined Women's Inequality Day to bring attention to the work that still needs to be done in the fight for equality. Solomón discusses the ways in which narratives around the Women's Suffrage Movement have been romanticized, and suggests ways to discuss this part of our history moving forward. We talk about Affirmative Action, and how the recent Supreme Court decision to end race-conscious admissions will ultimately affect all marginalized groups, including women. Lastly, we discuss the upcoming election cycle, and the importance of full participation, because as Solomón puts it, "We are voting for our lives."

Virginia Kase Solomón is the CEO of the League of Women Voters and a lifetime champion of civil rights and social justice. Since 2018, she has led the 102-year-old organization through a period of rapid transformation and growth focused on building power by engaging in advocacy, legislation, expanded litigation, and organizing efforts to ensure voting rights for all.

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Alejandra Montoya-Boyer, the Director of Policy at Prosperity Now, talks about how we can create long-term economic equity through legislative policy like an expansion of the Child Tax Credit, and a broader investment in Baby Bonds. We also talk about the impact of IRS tax policy, which currently targets much of its enforcement power to the lowest-income families, as auditing the poor is relatively easy and inexpensive compared to auditing the rich; tweaking the tax code so that the distribution of enforcement power isn't aligned in favor of the wealthiest Americans would greatly reduce the wealth gap.

Alejandra Montoya-Boyer is the Director of Policy at Prosperity Now where she oversees the development and implementation of federal, state, and local policy that seeks to improve economic opportunity for BIPOC and low-income families and communities.

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Katie Kalvoda of AAPI Victory Alliance discusses what authentic political engagement with the AAPI community looks like as the 2024 election cycle heats up. Hint: It begins with representation. Katie also discusses the nuances of misinformation and disinformation, and the ways in which it divides the AAPI community. Lastly, we discuss the impact of gun violence on the AAPI community.

Katie Kalvoda is the founder and CEO of G3 Ventures, a family office specializing in innovative philanthropy, impact investments and community advocacy. She chaired the inaugural National Impact Investment Conference for Campden Conferences in September 2018. Katie is a trustee of the Kalvoda Family Foundation, a Board Member of the Sisters of St. Joseph Healthcare Foundation and a member of the California Health Facilities Financing Authority as an appointee of Anthony Rendon, Speaker of the CA Assembly.

Katie launched the Asian Americans Rising Action Fund as an advocacy organization for progressive values in the AAPI community. Katie is a graduate of University of California, Berkeley.

AAPI Victory Alliance recently announced that Katie Kalvoda has been elected Board Chair for the organization.

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In their groundbreaking new book MOVING THE NEEDLE: What Tight Labor Markets Do for the Poor, Katherine S. Newman and Elisabeth S. Jacobs explore what happens when jobs are plentiful and workers are hard to come by, showing how very low unemployment boosts wages at the bottom, improves benefits, lengthens job ladders, and pulls the unemployed into a booming job market.

MOVING THE NEEDLE: What Tight Labor Markets Do for the Poor

Katherine Newman is a sociologist and academic leader who has worked at UC Berkeley, Columbia, Harvard, Princeton, Johns Hopkins and the University of Massachusetts. She is the author of 15 books on aspects of inequality, poverty, inner city society, the working poor, upskilling and social mobility (upward and downward), school violence. Her books have won the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, the Sidney Hilman Prize, and honorable mention for the C Wright Mills Award. She is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the recipient of awards for public scholarship from both the American Sociological Association and the American Anthropological Association. 

Elisabeth Jacobs is a Harvard-trained sociologist with two decades of experience at the intersection of scholarly research and public policy. Early in her career, she served as a policy advisor for the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions under Senator Edward M. Kennedy, and for the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress. Prior to joining the Urban Institute, Jacobs helped build the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, and served as a fellow at the Brookings Institution. At Urban, Jacobs co-founded and leads WorkRise, a research-to-action network for jobs, workers, and mobility. She is the author of myriad reports and briefs on aspects of inequality, poverty, and economic mobility, with an emphasis on translating high-quality scholarship into accessible, actionable insights for policymakers, practitioners, and other changemakers seeking to improve the lives of all Americans. 

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Julie Kohler is a writer, an activist, and host of the podcast, White Picket Fence, and she joins Electorette to explore motherhood as a political force. We discuss the ways in which political narratives that center motherhood can use or manipulative the image of motherhood to advance political agendas. We also discuss the ways in which conservatives have increasingly injected violence into political messaging while pairing it with images of motherhood.

White Picket Fence Podcast

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Author, Jennifer Wright, discusses her riveting new pop history book, MADAME RESTELL: The Life, Death, and Resurrection of Old New York's Most Fabulous, Fearless, and Infamous Abortionist. Madam Restell, overlooked feminist hero, was an immigrant living in New York City in the mid 1800s, who rose to fame (or infamy, depending on who's asking) to become the most well-known abortionist in New York, and a self-made millionaire.

MADAME RESTELL: The Life, Death, and Resurrection of Old New York's Most Fabulous, Fearless, and Infamous Abortionist

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