2019 was a *BIG* year for us at Common Cause Texas – easily our most successful since our Texas chapter was established back in the 70’s!

By every measure – policy wins, media mentions, membership expansion, and fundraising – we set new records.

Looking at our Instagram Top Nine – we’re literally overwhelmed with gratitude towards the thousands of members, supporters, volunteers and allies who made it such a big year for us.

It included several exciting wins against voter suppression, a big promotion, a new office and the announcement of our newest campaign.

Not a single one of these moments would have been possible if not for the support from so many of you who generously contribute to power our work, volunteer your valuable time, amplify our content on social media, or serve as powerful partners and allies.

We’re tremendously grateful to each and every one of you, and hope to continue to earn your faith and support in 2020 and beyond.

And here are our Top Nine moments as ranked by Instagram:

1. El Paso Strong: Following the heartbreaking shooting in El Paso, we worked to help people understand the connection between how the NRA funds campaigns and the impasse on common sense gun reforms.
2. Defeating SB 9: Senate Bill 9 was one of the worst voter suppression bills we’d seen in the Texas legislature in years – which is saying a lot. We were one of the organizations leading the charge to kill SB 9 – and ultimately – WE WON
3. A New Home: This year we were thrilled to have grown our budget to the point that we were able to move out of the two rooms we were subleasing in the Public Citizen office and moved into a new office all our own!
4. Expanding Leadership: We brought on Amanda Gnaedinger as our grassroots organizer in 2018. She very quickly proved herself to be a tremendous leader and invaluable asset to our organization so in 2019 – we promoted her to deputy director!
5. Fighting the Voter Purge: When the interim Secretary of State announced a purge of the voter rolls targeting tens of thousands of naturalized citizens, we fought back. This photo was at a rally and press conference outside the capitol where I called out Whitley’s attempted voter suppression. The purge would ultimately be stopped in court.
6. Stopping the Whitley Nomination: The architect of the voter purge still needed to be confirmed by the Texas Senate to officially become Secretary of State. And while we traditionally have not taken positions on nominees, we came out strong against Whitley’s nomination. In this photo I was testifying against his nomination before a Senate committee.
7. Building a Voting Rights Movement: This is a photo of a rally we helped organize outside the capitol opposing Whitley and SB 9. Getting people or reporters to pay attention to these issues in the past was a challenge. This year we had great success in building a broad and powerful movement of organizations, activists and legislators to protect voting rights.
8. Crafting the Narrative: With so much going on in the world around us, it can be tough to get media attention on voting rights, especially when they can be so hyper-technical. This photo is one of the many stories we helped to generate in which state and national media outlets lifted up and carried our narrative about the need to protect Texans’ voting rights.
9. Launching Let Texas Vote: This final photo worked out perfectly because this is actually a screenshot of our Let Texas Vote campaign. We launched it in 2019 and it will be our biggest priority in 2020 and beyond. Via Let Texas Vote, we aim to harness all that energy and passion we saw around stopping Whitley and SB9 and direct that towards defending voting rights and advancing important pro-voting reforms.

If you want to contribute to help us get a running start into 2020, click here to make a tax-deductible, end-of-year contribution.