Dear Pennies & Pens,
So for whatever reason, local elections are not as widely publicized as presidential elections which is why most people don’t vote in local elections. Furthermore, people don’t seem to understand how truly important it is to vote in local elections.
Local elections affect you in your everyday life. Local elections include your mayor, city council, Governor, Senators, House of Representatives, etc. And each of these aspects of our government are actually the ones we should be paying attention to.
For example, I live in Texas and our Governor decided to end the Federal Unemployment Benefits Program about 2 months earlier than the federal deadline. This really hurt unemployed people like me because I was dependent on that income and haven’t been able to find a job.
I literally had to resort to driving for UberEats which has become a total waste of time and money. Uber doesn’t cover your gas and so I spend way too much money on gas just to go out and make my deliveries. Then the money that I make for said deliveries is a total joke. So I feel extremely stuck.
Anyway, back to voting, I truly believe that your vote is your voice. And when you don’t vote, you don’t exercise your right to speak up about what is happening with our government. People see not not voting as a form of protest but it isn’t.
Unless you’re going to immigrate to another country or establish yourself as a sovereign person living within the US, you have to follow the laws of the United States Government. So why wouldn’t you vote to help choose the people who will run the US government? Don’t you know that the people who run the government are the ones who set the laws?
The people who set the laws are the ones who decide what is and what isn’t okay. So if you truly want things to change then you should vote. You can’t sit around and complain about this or that when you haven’t voted.
Once again the reason why it is so important to vote in local elections is because local laws affect your daily life. Things like when the trash gets collected, mask mandates, parking or speeding fines, sales tax, income tax, etc. are all set by the local government.
The federal government is the least involved in your life. Like the President is just one person who is a part of the national government. There’s still the Senate & House of Representatives. Remember there’s the Executive branch (President), Legislative branch (Senate & House of Representatives) and the Judicial branch (Supreme Court).
And locally, it’s pretty much the same. There’s the Governor (the State version of the National President), and note the Governor is also the Executive branch within the state government and there’s also a legislative branch and judicial branch within the state government. Basically, state governments do mimic the national government as far as how the powers are split.
However, the state government can do things differently than the national government. Prime example was the pandemic unemployment benefits. Several states besides Texas decided to end the program prior to the national deadline. It was of course a political move, states trying to undermine Biden. Yet the unemployment rate in Texas remains at 6% which is over 14,000 people.
To wrap this up, I wanted to blog about this because I want to use my platform to bring forth change. Things must change but to do that, more people need to vote. I had to write this post because when I went to vote on Tuesday, I was the only one there. That scared me because Governor Greg Abbott is up for reelection next year in 2022 although it’ll be 2024 before we can get rid of Cruz (Texas Senator) and 2027 for Cornyn (also a Texas Senator).
Lastly, there’s a woman running for Attorney General of Texas. Her name is Rochelle Garza. She seems really dope, Pennies & Pens. I love this post that she wrote on Medium.com. In her post, Rochelle talks about all the new voter suppression laws the Republicans are enacting to try and maintain power. She shares how these new laws penalize Black & Latino voters and keep us out of the political system. It’s truly an insightful read. Be sure to check it out and support Rochelle’s campaign.
One last thing, I will be back with more activist and political content in the future. I’ve decided to move in a different direction and blog more about serious issues. I’ll still do light & fun content but de la Pen…All Pen Everything is just that. All Pen Everything.
And there it is. de la Pen…All Pen Everything. With us, keeping it real never goes wrong.
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