26 Days to Election Day

A meditation on today’s quote from the Election Day Advent Calendar – radicals insert:

I have long since come to believe that people never mean half of what they say, and that it is best to disregard their talk
and judge only their actions.
Dorothy Day

I read this and immediately thought about politicians saying they are for something while voting against it.

Sarah Davis, running to hold onto her seat in the Texas legislature, comes to mind. She claims to believe in excellence in education, but voted for a bill that, in its original form, would have cut $10.5 billion-with-a-b from public education, and that ultimately resulted in a $5.4 billion cut that worked out to a roughly $500-per-child cut in classrooms across the state.

She claims to believe no one should come between a woman and her doctor in matters of reproductive health, but she votes against legislation that would make reproductive care accessible to the women at their provider of choice, Planned Parenthood, even though Planned Parenthood is often the only provider available to those women.

Voters in District 134 need to know that Sarah Davis has voted against public education and against women’s health more times than she has voted for them, despite what she may stay in flattering newspaper profiles and on candidate questionnaires.

The corollary to follow the money is follow the votes. And if you’re following Sarah Davis’s votes, and you care about women’s rights and children’s education, you should use your own to vote for Ann Johnson.