We fight together.
District attorneys are among the most powerful local elected officials in the U.S. These officials have broad discretion to either reinforce or reform structural racism within our criminal justice system.
The Real Justice PAC works to elect reform-minded prosecutors at the county and municipal level who are committed to using the powers of their office to fight structural racism and defend our communities from abuse by state power.
Don't wait for change. Make it, with us.
THE STRATEGY
The Bernie Sanders presidential campaign pioneered a new approach to mass participation electoral campaigns called "big organizing." The low-cost, high impact, digitally enabled, and volunteered powered strategies developed during the 2016 primary election offer a new playbook for winning down ballot races. Social media offers new opportunities to speak directly to voters with a big agenda for change and build audiences that are willing to take action to win real justice. The Real Justice PAC will seek to win county prosecutor races by testing, iterating and scaling the "big organizing" approach outlined in the book Becky Bond co-authored titled: "Rules for Revolutionaries: How Big Organizing Can Change Everything." The PAC will also leverage social media, digital tools and the voices of a new generation of leaders like Shaun King who are organizing massive audiences to take action locally and nationally through rapid response campaigns.
The Objective of real justice pac is to win races with a bottoms up approach and a triple bottom line.
- Elect prosecutors who will make a material impact on people's lives by helping end discriminatory policing, eliminating money bail, and rolling back practices that lead to mass incarceration.
- Win county prosecutor races with a systematic, mass participation approach to digital and field pioneered on the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign.
- Win races with a mandate for real justice by working to help candidates with a bold, clearly articulated platform win by the widest possible margin.
OUR TACTICS
DISTRIBUTED FIELD ORGANIZING
We train and deploy volunteers in distributed field programs (door knocking, mass site, phone, and peer to peer text message). Distributed field will be run nationally by a team of staff who train local volunteers and campaign staff to use a suite of mostly consumer software (Slack, Trello, Google Apps, Facebook groups), voter contact specific platforms (peer-to-peer text platform, call center software for phone banking), and a cloud-based voter contact database.
DIGITAL MEDIA
Led by internationally known justice activist Shaun King, social media platforms will be used to educate and mobilize mass audiences of volunteers and donors to take action both nationally and locally. Digital will be managed in partnership with Middle Seat, a consulting firm created by former top Bernie Sanders campaign staffers. A
SMALL DOLLAR FUNDRAISING
Small dollar fundraising will be driven via social media and our national email list to raise money directly for district attorney candidates endorsed by Real Justice PAC. Online fundraising will leverage our national social media and email list race to connect local and national donors with the opportunity to make a difference in key races. Additionally, an
CANDIDATE RECRUITMENT
In 2016, 84 percent of county prosecutors ran unopposed. Since the election of Donald Trump, however, we’ve seen a surge of new interest in running for office at the local level. We'll leverage this new national trend to engage the grassroots around candidate recruitment for district attorney races. Special attention will be paid to attracting civil rights defenders who have traditionally not chosen to serve the public in the capacity of a county prosecutor.