A UH alumna is utilizing campus support to attract new voters for the upcoming election.
Liana Lopez, the lead campus organizer for ReEnergize the Vote Campaign, is helping to secure their goal of 32,000 new voters from students across the U.S.
Lopez is confident that UH will produce the largest numbers of new student voters.
“The campaign kicks off (with) UH, Houston Community College System, Rice University and Texas Southern University over these next few weeks,” Lopez said. “Two of the three Houston campaign organizers are UH alumni and they brag that Cougars will come in with the highest numbers of all the colleges.”
As an organizer, Lopez realizes and is aiming to make the most of the flooding numbers of new eligible voters.
“In 2008, young people turned out to vote in record numbers. More than 22 million 18-to-29 year olds cast ballots on Election Day 2008, proving to be a significant political force in our country,” Lopez said. “At 44 million strong, our generation represents one-fifth of the electorate both nationally and in Texas. We are poised to become the largest and most influential bloc in the country.”
They have set their sight on working with UH, but first they will need to gain permission from school officials. They have a meeting with the dean of students this week on campus.
“ReEnergize The Vote offers direct experience in the democratic process through internships, community service and volunteer opportunities to perform campaign duties that look good on resumes,” Lopez said.
These initiatives will help the numbers, which they are counting on in order to produce more registered student voters than their counterparts at the University of Texas.
“When we mentioned to our coalition partners both here and at UT that we were specifically targeting their campuses, some friendly rivalry and talks of a competition grew from the conversation,” Lopez said. “As far as internally, let’s just say there may be some mild banter and wagers between the Houston and Austin natives.”
I'm looking forward to seeing Ms. Lopez register lots of people of color so that they can throw out the entrenched white supremacists in the State of Texas Legislature (goodbye Senator John Whitmire) City of Houston (goodbye Annise Parker) who firmly have their foot on the neck of minorities.
Maybe if the newly registered people of color student voters took a look around their U of H campus they would see that no matter what color / gender Renu Khator is, she serves the white corporate system (you think they gave her a $75,000 raise because she helped out the food service workers and janitors, who are almost exclusively African American and Latino? NOT. Most they still get poverty wages according to the U.S. government standards ). Funny how white students are a minority at U of H but you can't get a degree in Mexican American or African American studies. You might think a student body that has a MAJORITY of non-white students would actually offer a degree in Mexican American and African American studies.
Hmmm …. it's only 400+ years of white supremacy in the USA … about time for a change ….
Timjo62 – You write like a labor union organizer using the standard narrative given to you by the labor union president.
Just cut and paste content right out of the labor union manual.
Whether the narrative came from a union manual or not, I have to say that I rather enjoy weekends, overtime pay, not having to work as a child and many many more rights in the workplace that are too many to name. Unions are only necessary so long as discrimination, un-fair bargaining practices and inhumane treatment of workers exist.