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See Heidi’s appearances in the local and national press.<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ admin_label=”Media Clips”]<\/p>\n
Community Organizer Heidi Sloan Announces Candidacy for TX-25<\/a><\/p>\n “I want to push into this idea that electoral politics can be a platform for organizing.”<\/p>\n It\u2019s the Demand of the People That Creates Real Change<\/a><\/p>\n “We are running a campaign for people in this district to have a voice. We are running for people to make their demands heard. And I think that is really the biggest distinction: that I wouldn\u2019t be doing electoral politics if I didn\u2019t think it was important. But electoral politics without community organizing, without issue-based organizing and a platform that empowers people, is electoral politics that will keep us exactly where we have been.”<\/p>\n Socialist Farmer Heidi Sloan Calls Out Her Multi-Millionaire GOP Opponent<\/a><\/p>\n Roger Williams is the millionaire Republican who owns used car dealerships that he inherited from his father. He never comes to the district unless it\u2019s for closed door fundraisers, and I got receipts man – he is Wells Fargo, he is Goldman-Sachs, he is developers and mortgage insurance companies, that is his entire list of supporters. And we know that we can go out into this district which includes Austin but which also includes a substantial amount of rural areas, and we can say to folks, Why are your rural hospitals closing? Why are your schools falling apart? Why don\u2019t your wages keep pace with your cost of living, even as your quality of life is going down? And when they aren\u2019t sure of the answer, we can point to the people who are backing Roger Williams and using him as a puppet to get done what industry and what billionaires and what the owning class wants to get done every day. That is a message that resonates, because we are here to be class conscious, and it resonates across the working class in District 25. <\/p>\n I’m a socialist farmer running to unseat a millionaire used car salesman Republican. AMA!<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cHey y’all, my name is Heidi Sloan, and I’m a candidate for US Congress in Texas’s 25th District. I’ve spent the last 7 years farming at a nonprofit housing community for the chronically homeless, and before that I taught toddlers with disabilities in public schools.\u201d<\/p>\n Heidi Sloan & Jim Keady<\/a><\/p>\n “For me, it is that organizing, it is standing with people who are directly affected by the policies and by the movement that has potential to change our lives.”<\/p>\n Down-Ballot Fights with Jessica Cisneros, Stephen Smith, and Heidi Sloan<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cWe can actually solve for those [problems] by solving for human dignity and human rights as a whole and…we don’t have to say it’s a trade off. We can say that when we center folks who have been on the front lines, folks who have been most impacted by the social and economic system, life looks better for all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n The 14 Progressives Who Could Be the Next AOC<\/a><\/p>\n Sloan has an interesting history as an organizer. She works at Community First Village of Mobile Loaves and Fishes where she \u201ccreated the farming program that both feeds residents and provides employment.\u201d She was a key activist in Austin DSA\u2019s fight to win paid sick leave in the city of Austin.<\/p>\n 3P Endorses Heidi Sloan for Congress in TX-25<\/a><\/p>\n Sloan is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and is running on key progressive agenda items like Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, and social housing. She has also endorsed the People\u2019s Policy Project slate of family benefits, which includes paid parental leave, free child care and pre-k, free school lunches, and a monthly cash benefit paid to every family with children.<\/p>\n Democrat Candidates Look to Suburbs for Support<\/a><\/p>\n A public school teacher for children with disabilities, Sloan said her mother\u2019s struggles with mental health were unmet by the medical system in our country. Working with Community First! Village to provide affordable housing and support for individuals coming out of chronic homelessness, Sloan said she supports Medicare for All, a Green New Deal and the rights of working people.<\/p>\n I\u2019m Heidi Sloan, a Dem Socialist farmer running for US House TX-25 to build the labor movement and win for the working class. AMA!<\/a><\/p>\n “We know what we need most here in Texas: better wages and safer working conditions, decent housing, justice system reform, a thriving environment, and material support for families. What we need more folks to learn is how we get what we need – through collective action, shoulder to shoulder, with a clear target and a strategy to move them. As a community organizer who has spent years fighting alongside workers and poor people, I understand that one politician can’t change the world alone, but a movement can and will – especially a movement that understands the power of mass worker action. I’m running a class struggle campaign that will bring more people into the fights that affect our lives, to build a district that is organized enough to win its own gains and strong enough to hold any politician’s feet to the fire.”<\/p>\n Primary Candidate Heidi Sloan on Texas Socialism<\/a><\/p>\n “There\u2019s an ethos in Texas that you can\u2019t just do something cause you need it, you have to do it cause your neighbor needs it, too \u2014 taking care of one another being one of our deepest core values.”<\/p>\n Episode 102: Interview with Heidi Sloan<\/a><\/p>\n “We are definitely considering and building on and working towards the full incorporation of declaring the rights of sex workers as the rights of any workers. You know they are the same category as far as providing a service and making an income and having to pay their rent and their bills and et cetera. What is different about sex work is that it is pushed into the shadows and I know for certain that that is not a healthy or safe place for work to happen, any kind of work but particularly work that is in large part provided by already vulnerable people, tending to be women, tending to be people of color, tending to be younger people, folks who are already folks without much power in our communities.”<\/p>\n The Progressive Labor Agenda is Popular. Are Insurgents Running On It?<\/a><\/p>\n As the plot shows, incumbent Democrats have reliably co-sponsored and voted for key proposals backed by organized labor, such as the Employee Free Choice Act, the Raise the Wage Act, and the Protecting the Right to Organize Act. In other words, there\u2019s a baseline of support organized labor can count on from Democrats: and with the exception of Heidi Sloan (TX-25), Rebecca Parson (WA-6), Russ Cirincione (NJ-6), most progressive challengers are failing to stand out from baseline Democrats on labor.<\/p>\n Episode 103 – Interview with Texas-25 Candidate Heidi Sloan<\/a><\/p>\n “When we go and talk to people in electoral spaces about policy, about a Green New Deal, about Medicare for All, about these huge visions for a future that are better for the vast majority, for all of us\u2026 we have to articulate that those things don\u2019t just happen because you elect the right person. Those things absolutely require vigilance, they require the fight, the boots on the ground, and we are… building an office for this campaign that governs alongside the people \u2014 the same community organizers, the same labor organizers, the same directly affected individuals who are standing with us and making our policies stronger now \u2014 that our office will create space for them to have a permanent seat at the table as we learn to govern.”<\/p>\n DSA Member Fights for the Working Class<\/a><\/p>\n “While I am a Democrat running on the Democratic ticket and pushing that as far to what we would call the left as possible, what I am ultimately trying to do is draw a distinction between policies that come from people who have existing and hegemonic power in our country towards policies that are stemming directly from the grassroots leadership of the working class. I\u2019m a Democratic Socialist and for me that means that I am constantly pursuing the democratic voice of all people.”<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.26.3″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Media” _builder_version=”3.26.3″ header_text_align=”center” text_orientation=”center”] Media See Heidi’s appearances in the local and national press. [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.26.3″ admin_label=”Media Clips”] The Austin Chronicle Community Organizer Heidi Sloan Announces Candidacy for TX-25 “I want to push into this idea that electoral politics can be a platform for organizing.” Jacobin Magazine It\u2019s the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":163820724,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"[et_pb_section fb_built=\"1\" _builder_version=\"3.26.3\"][et_pb_row _builder_version=\"3.26.3\"][et_pb_column _builder_version=\"3.26.3\" type=\"4_4\"][et_pb_text _builder_version=\"3.26.3\" admin_label=\"On the Issues\" header_text_align=\"center\"] The following section lays out the concrete policies and laws that Heidi will help fight for when elected to the US House of Representatives.<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=\"3.26.3\" admin_label=\"Summary\"] In America we work hard, and we can provide the good life for everyone. But billionaires control our system and put their friends like Roger Williams in charge. The laws their politicians pass make them richer and leave us paying more for the things we need to survive. It\u2019s time for the working class to work together and create a system that is fair to everyone and not just good for the rich. When we control the results of our labor, there will be plenty for everyone to live a decent life.<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=\"1\" _builder_version=\"3.26.3\" custom_margin=\"-37px|||||\" background_color=\"#1b2c57\"][et_pb_row _builder_version=\"3.26.3\"][et_pb_column type=\"4_4\" _builder_version=\"3.26.3\"][et_pb_toggle title=\"Medicare for All\" _builder_version=\"3.26.3\" open_toggle_text_color=\"#1b2c57\" title_text_color=\"#1b2c57\" icon_color=\"#1b2c57\" background_color=\"#ffffff\"] Healthcare is a human right and right now too many people go without it. Texans feel deeply the failure of our current healthcare system: we lead the country in people without health insurance, and have seen the most rural hospital closings of any state in the last 10 years. District 25 saw the 2014 closure of a rural hospital in Whitney, thirty-five miles north of Waco. Working-class Texans are putting off necessary surgeries and doctor visits because we simply can\u2019t afford them. Others are forced to use sites like GoFundMe to raise money for expensive hospital visits or life-saving medications like insulin. Meanwhile, health insurance companies and private hospitals are making record profits.<\/p>\r\n Heidi Sloan has fought for health justice: with the Austin Democratic Socialists of America, she fought for the right of workers in Austin to have paid sick days, and urged Congressman Doggett of TX-10 to become a cosigner of the Medicare for All Act of 2019.<\/p>\r\n Read more<\/a><\/p>[\/et_pb_toggle][et_pb_toggle title=\"Housing for All\" _builder_version=\"3.26.3\" background_color=\"#ffffff\" icon_color=\"#1b2c57\" open_toggle_text_color=\"#1b2c57\" title_text_color=\"#1b2c57\"]Decent housing is a basic human need, but we have let greed and profit deprive thousands of Texans of safe, stable, affordable homes. Long-time residents are pushed out of their neighborhoods by explosive rents and gentrification. We see working class families, communities of color, artists, musicians, students, and retirees displaced for luxury condos and corporate chains.\r\n\r\nThe market builds houses for investors, not homes for people. Wall Street sees our homes not as places for humans to live but as assets they can use to make profits. Every year, housing in central Texas gets more expensive, more people have to move further away from where they work, and more people end up homeless.\r\n\r\nHousing is a human right. We will fight against predatory foreclosures and evictions to keep people in their homes. We will use public money to build beautiful, eco-friendly housing available to everyone.\r\n\r\nRead more<\/a>[\/et_pb_toggle][et_pb_toggle title=\"A Green New Deal\" _builder_version=\"3.26.3\" background_color=\"#ffffff\" icon_color=\"#1b2c57\" open_toggle_text_color=\"#1b2c57\" title_text_color=\"#1b2c57\"]Climate change is real and it is destroying our planet. Scientists say we have 10 to 12 years to transform our society before we face disaster. We see this as an opportunity. In the 1940s Americans transformed our economy to produce the materials we needed to win World War II. If we approach climate change in the same way we can transform our society, prevent the worst of climate change and create a society that works for people and not for profit.\r\n\r\nRead more<\/a>[\/et_pb_toggle][et_pb_toggle title=\"Childcare and Abortion\" _builder_version=\"3.26.3\" background_color=\"#ffffff\" icon_color=\"#1b2c57\" open_toggle_text_color=\"#1b2c57\" title_text_color=\"#1b2c57\"]Raising children should not be a for-profit industry. That\u2019s why our platform focuses on healthcare, abortion, childcare, and education \u2013 so that families can have the resources we need to raise happy, healthy families, when and how and if they choose, regardless of how much money we make. We believe the decision of whether and when to start a family is deeply personal. If the answer is no, we support people in that choice, and if the answer is yes, we support them too.\r\n\r\nRead more<\/a>[\/et_pb_toggle][et_pb_toggle title=\"Workplace Democracy and Unions for All\" _builder_version=\"3.26.3\" background_color=\"#ffffff\" icon_color=\"#1b2c57\" open_toggle_text_color=\"#1b2c57\" title_text_color=\"#1b2c57\"]We spend most of our waking hours at work. If we don\u2019t have democracy in the workplace, then we are not living in a democratic society. The only way we can win our country back from the 1% is standing shoulder to shoulder with our co-workers and fighting back together in the workplace. To fully empower workers in our fight, we must expand workplace democracy while reducing the power bosses and big corporations have over us \u2013 at our jobs and in our lives.\r\n\r\nRead more<\/a>[\/et_pb_toggle][et_pb_toggle title=\"Good Jobs, Wages, Benefits, and Free Time\" _builder_version=\"3.26.3\" background_color=\"#ffffff\" icon_color=\"#1b2c57\" open_toggle_text_color=\"#1b2c57\" title_text_color=\"#1b2c57\"]We live in the wealthiest society in the history of the world, but too many of us are working multiple jobs and struggling to get by. It is time we force corporations to pay out fewer profits and use that money to pay us what we deserve. I want the good life for all of us, and we can have it if we stand together and demand it.\r\n\r\nLabor organizers in the past won the 40 hour workweek, an end to child labor, weekends and OSHA. It\u2019s time to fight for the next generation.\r\n\r\nRead more<\/a>[\/et_pb_toggle][et_pb_toggle title=\"A System of Justice\" _builder_version=\"3.26.3\" background_color=\"#ffffff\" icon_color=\"#1b2c57\" open_toggle_text_color=\"#1b2c57\" title_text_color=\"#1b2c57\"]Too many of us feel scared and not safe when a police car passes. Over the past 30 years America has arrested and put more people in jail, even as crime rates have dropped. These arrests target people of color, specifically our black neighbors. Justice isn\u2019t about punishment, it\u2019s about safety and healing. It\u2019s time we had a justice system that understands that.\r\n\r\nRead more<\/a>[\/et_pb_toggle][et_pb_toggle title=\"Justice for Immigrants\" _builder_version=\"3.26.3\" background_color=\"#ffffff\" icon_color=\"#1b2c57\" open_toggle_text_color=\"#1b2c57\" title_text_color=\"#1b2c57\"]Too often, our immigrant neighbors are scapegoats for right-wing politicians to blame for the economic struggles faced by our working class. The racist lies told by politicians like Roger Williams stoke the fire of violence against our immigrant community, leading to the mass shooting in El Paso, to separating and caging children, to deporting families back to certain death. All working people, documented or undocumented, are hurt when we are unable to come together and organize for our common interests. We refuse to be divided any longer. Our struggle is one struggle.\r\n\r\nRead more<\/a>[\/et_pb_toggle][et_pb_toggle title=\"Gun Violence and Freedom from Fear\" _builder_version=\"3.26.3\" background_color=\"#ffffff\" icon_color=\"#1b2c57\" open_toggle_text_color=\"#1b2c57\" title_text_color=\"#1b2c57\"]We should be free from fear in our homes, our schools, our workplaces, our places of worship, and our communities. With the number of mass shootings on the rise both nationally and in our own state, fear of gun violence has become a barrier to this freedom. However, guns are deeply ingrained in American culture. They have a place in the lives of many Americans, who may enjoy deer hunting or need to protect cattle herds from predators. No matter how people may personally feel about guns, there is no practical way to remove all guns from our current society, and even the best attempt would not heal the many other harms that working-class people face. But we can address the root causes of gun violence, which are deeply connected to many other issues at the core of this campaign: poverty, trauma, and corporate greed.\r\n\r\nRead more<\/a>[\/et_pb_toggle][et_pb_toggle title=\"An Accessible Society for All\" _builder_version=\"3.26.3\" background_color=\"#ffffff\" icon_color=\"#1b2c57\" open_toggle_text_color=\"#1b2c57\" title_text_color=\"#1b2c57\"]Disability rights are human rights, and a community that respects individuals with disabilities is a stronger community. We collaborated with our friends who are leaders in the fight for access to society to draft a platform that identifies where disability intersects other issues and centers the right to access for all people. We are ready to bring this world into being, and that means we have to fight alongside our siblings \u2013 to demand we all have equal access to public space, to housing, to employment and fair wages, and to defend our communities against discrimination and unjust treatment in schools, workplaces, and everywhere else.\r\n\r\nRead more<\/a>[\/et_pb_toggle][et_pb_toggle title=\"LGBTQIA+ Liberation\" _builder_version=\"3.26.3\" background_color=\"#ffffff\" icon_color=\"#1b2c57\" open_toggle_text_color=\"#1b2c57\" title_text_color=\"#1b2c57\"]We are proud of the progress our society has made in recognizing the rights of our LGBTQIA+ siblings, but we know we have a long way to go. Our neighbors in this community still face enormous obstacles\u2013\u2013disporportionate rates of homelessness and suicide, completely legal discrimination in housing and employment, and violence that is actively promoted in many parts of our society.\r\n\r\nBut this community is also fiercely energized, and LGBTQIA+ organizers work tirelessly to build queer pride, to promote inclusion, and to demand a world in which all people can live our lives free from fear. This is a world we all have a stake in, and I am committed to standing in solidarity with LGBTQIA+ people in the fight for liberation.\r\n\r\nRead more<\/a>[\/et_pb_toggle][et_pb_toggle title=\"International Solidarity\" _builder_version=\"3.26.3\" background_color=\"#ffffff\" icon_color=\"#1b2c57\" open_toggle_text_color=\"#1b2c57\" title_text_color=\"#1b2c57\"]For too long, the Washington foreign policy establishment\u2014unelected \u201canalysts,\u201d \u201cexperts,\u201d \u201celites,\u201d and bureaucrats\u2013\u2013have controlled how our country and our people relate to the rest of the world, to disastrous effects like neverending war, terrorism, international instability, mass inequality, pollution and environmental injustice.\r\n\r\nWe\u2019re going to need a foreign policy based around international solidarity rather than competition, nationalism and endless war to solve some of humanity\u2019s most pressing crises on a global scale\u2013\u2013climate change, food and water security, public health, and poverty. The United States must be building power with the global working class, not power over.\r\n\r\nRead more<\/a>[\/et_pb_toggle][et_pb_toggle title=\"A Renewal of Higher Education\" _builder_version=\"3.26.3\" background_color=\"#ffffff\" icon_color=\"#1b2c57\" open_toggle_text_color=\"#1b2c57\" title_text_color=\"#1b2c57\"]The purpose of higher education is to allow us as individuals to contribute our skills and abilities to society as effectively as possible. In this sense, college and vocational schools are crucial to the collective welfare of everyone in the United States and should be treated as a public good. We demand an end to college tuition and the abolition of student loan debt, and we commit to the establishment of public trade schools throughout the country that will create a school-to-union pipeline, building the workforce necessary to rebuild America\u2019s infrastructure with a Green New Deal.\r\n\r\nBeyond tuition, the American university system is rife with challenges. From pervasive sexual harassment and assault on campuses to rampant underpayment of student and adjunct university staff, the institutions of higher learning in this country are in dire need of structural change. We commit to not just making college and trade schools accessible to all, but to making them safe, inclusive, and run by workers who are respected and well-paid.\r\n\r\nRead more<\/a>[\/et_pb_toggle][et_pb_toggle title=\"A Commitment to Public Education\" _builder_version=\"3.26.3\" background_color=\"#ffffff\" icon_color=\"#1b2c57\" open_toggle_text_color=\"#1b2c57\" title_text_color=\"#1b2c57\"]Our education system is one of the most resilient public institutions the United States has ever created. Public schools provide a model for what our society can achieve \u2013 free access to a necessary resource built through everyone pooling together, establishing education as a public good which is not for profit and not for sale.\r\n\r\nBut public schools are under attack. The rich want to take this public good and turn it into something they can own and profit off of, destroying schools as centers of community and democracy for the benefit of the wealthy. We can reinvest in public schools to address these problems and stake out an even bolder vision for what public schools can become.\r\n\r\nRead more<\/a>[\/et_pb_toggle][et_pb_toggle title=\"True Democracy in America\" _builder_version=\"3.26.3\" background_color=\"#ffffff\" icon_color=\"#1b2c57\" open_toggle_text_color=\"#1b2c57\" title_text_color=\"#1b2c57\"] Every American deserves a say in how our government runs and how our society is structured. We will remove the barriers to voting and ensure that everyone is able to vote and have their vote count. We will remove the structural racism that prevents people of color from voting, and we will end the gerrymandering that inhibits Democracy here in Texas.<\/p>\r\nJacobin Magazine<\/h2>\n
The Humanist Report<\/h2>\n
r\/ChapoTrapHouse AMA<\/h2>\n
The Conversation by The Young Turks<\/h2>\n
The Dig<\/h2>\n
The Daily Dot<\/h2>\n
The People’s Policy Project<\/h2>\n
The Austin Statesman<\/h2>\n
r\/WayOfTheBern AMA<\/h2>\n
The Michael Brooks Show<\/h2>\n
Season of the Bitch<\/h2>\n
Data For Progress<\/h2>\n
Left Anchor<\/h2>\n
The Damage Report<\/h2>\n
On the Issues<\/h1>\r\n