(Note: I have sent out a brief Q&A to all of the announced HCDP Chair candidates for whom I could find contact information. I will run the responses I get in the order I receive them. While only precinct chairs will vote on the new Chair, I believe everyone should have some basic information about the candidates.)
Lillie Schechter
1. Who are you, and what is your background/experience in Democratic politics?
I grew up in the Democratic party, whether I was marching with my cousins, chanting, “vote for Annie, she’s our granny,” as part of my grandmother’s successful bid for Tax Assessor-Collector in Hood County; block walking, making signs and working polls when my mom was the State Representative of District 134; working at the HCDP office in High School; attending or working at fundraisers hosted by my family; or working on my dad’s campaign for HCC Trustee.
Since 2009, I have run my own consulting firm, working with non-profits, organizations and helping progressive candidates in all areas of campaigning, from candidate training to fundraising and campaign strategy. I have had the pleasure to work and volunteer on campaigns in Houston, Pasadena and Galena Park, including races for United States Senator, State Senators, County Commissioner, Sheriff, City Council, Constable, School Board, Judicial, State Representative & Mayoral. I have had the fortune of working closely with some of the superstars of Texas and national Democratic politics, including Cecile Richards and Planned Parenthood, Wendy Davis, Leticia Van De Putte, and Hillary Clinton.
Regardless of the pleasure I’ve had to work on these efforts, my real passion has always been a solid blue Harris County. Since 2012, I have worked on a team effort to organize a coalition of elected officials, grassroots organizations, local and national donors and labor in order to push the County’s largest get-out-the-vote efforts ever. In 2016, it really paid off. Harris County Democratic voters turned out, electing all county-wide Democrats and giving Hillary Clinton the largest victory in Harris County of any Democratic Presidential candidate since LBJ.
In addition to working with the local party and with Democratic candidates, I gauged the need for a leadership-training program focused on growing, recruiting and training progressive candidates in Texas. After researching organizations across the country, I worked to bring Texas’s first chapter of the New Leader’s Council (NLC) to Houston. I raised money for the program and helped assemble an advisory board that has become a who’s who of local politics. NLC has thrived ever since, with twenty new progressives entering the program each year and chapters forming in Dallas, San Antonio and Austin.
2. Why are you running to be HCDP Chair?
I am running for HCDP chair because keeping Harris County blue and flipping Texas starts with having a strong local party. We not only need to elect more democrats in Texas, we also need to drive up the Democratic vote share in our largest counties so we can flip Texas as a whole. I don’t want to live in a state that denies people the right to public education, health care, a living wage and who separates families. As a 7th generation Texan, I want to live in and raise kids in a state that respects all its residents and provides every citizen a fair shot, no matter your race, gender, sexual orientation, or citizenship status. My experience will enable me to hit the ground running on Day One and position the Harris County Democratic Party for gains in 2017, 2018 and beyond.
3. What is your assessment of the HCDP today, and what does it need to do going forward?
HCDP has a strong core of dedicated volunteers, clubs, precinct chairs, and activists. HCDP in recent years has been able to dedicate time and resources into running a mail ballot program and we have indeed increased our share of Democratic mail ballot voters. To move forward, though, the Party needs to grow. The size and infrastructure of the Party should reflect the fact that Harris County is the 3rd largest county in the country and larger than 24 states.
In addition to doing mail ballots, the Party needs to expand its infrastructure to support the vast number of strong clubs and dedicated volunteers. This means expanding resources including training materials, and more group and one-on-one VAN trainings, increased number of staff, and making office space available when needed.
The first step toward creating a Party that reflects the size of Harris County is raising money. We need to expand our base of financial supporters. I want to grow the number of small dollar donors and large dollar donors. We can grow our base of small donors by being more active locally by increasing the frequency of in-person events, expanding our social media reach in order to get new people in the doors, and expanding our engagement and appreciation of small dollar donors who sacrifice what they can to make the Party better. We will grow our large dollar donations by creating a strategic plan that investors believe in. Increasing the amount of money raised through the Party can only be done through creating professional, goal-oriented plans with deliverable results.
In addition to building the HCDP infrastructure and raising money, we need to create a Party that works with the larger constellation of organizations that work to make Harris County more progressive, like AFL-CIO. We have no shortage of potential voters to contact in election years and no shortage of voters to register here in Harris County. No one organization can do all the work, but HCDP can collaborate and assist with other organizations to get us to our shared collective goal, not just keeping the county blue, but creating a more progressive county for us to live in.
4. How do you use social media? How should the HCDP be using social media?
I use social media to keep my friends, family and followers up to date on my activities and to amplify the work and beliefs of those I support. In this capacity, HCDP’s social media footprint has been fairly well done, but as an organization social media is more than just an outlet to amplify ideas and notify followers of events, social media is a tool.
While likes are not equal to votes, they are a good way to get someone’s foot in the door who then comes to an event and eventually becomes a volunteer, and later a sustaining member. Social media needs to be used as a tool that increases our base and helps us reach our goal of building a bigger Party.
In addition to using social media as a tool to build our volunteer and donor base, social media is an emerging tool in voter contact. When talking to voters we must use the best medium to get our message through. For some that is a knock at their door, a phone call, or a piece of mail. For others, particularly younger voters and first time voters, social media is their chosen line of communication. Targeting voters on social media has come a long way and we no longer use it to cast a wide geographic net, but can use it to target specific individual voters. As Chair I will make sure that we are using social media in the most current, strategic and effective way possible to grow our base of volunteers, donors and voters.
5. What kind of involvement should the HCDP have in non-partisan races (city council, school board, etc)?
If there are progressive candidates on the ballot, HCDP should be involved. Organizing doesn’t only happen the months leading up to a November election in even years. From our work in Harris County, we have learned that we need to talk to voters year-round and voters from previous elections are easier to turn out for the next elections. This includes people who turned out for the first time in a Mayoral or odd year election.
That means turning out Democrats to vote in non-partisan races when there is a clear D-R match-up should be an integral part of our overall strategy for keeping Harris county blue and contributing to turning Texas blue.
6. What is your plan to improve Democratic turnout in 2018?
Improving Democratic turnout in ’18 starts this year. That means organizing voters in upcoming May and November elections and doing voter registration.
The key to winning in 2018, and 2020, and 2022 is voter registration. HCDP has the most valuable and underused resource when it comes to registration, our volunteers. As chair, I will increase the number of trainings done at HCDP and increase our outreach to our volunteers to let them know about other trainings.
In addition to working to get more HCDP volunteers trained as deputy registrars, I plan to make a calendar available and send emails about all events in the county where VDR’s can go and register voters.
7. Why should precinct chairs support you to be the next HCDP Chair and not one of your opponents?
I am honored to be a part of a good group of candidates running for chair and am sure that our party will be stronger and in better shape after the election on March 5th. My extensive professional and volunteer experience working on every level of campaigns sets me apart from any other candidate. I know what it takes to create, fundraise, and implement multi-tiered campaign plans focused on door knocks, phones calls, mail and media in Harris county and have been involved in executing these efforts during multiple cycles. I have spent the last ten years building coalitions to support different campaigns and build the local Democratic Party.
This experience will allow me to put HCDP in a better position to organize toward the future from Day 1 and I look forward to being able to work with all allies in the county. I ask for your support to help elect me Chairwoman of the Harris County Democratic Party so that we can continue working together to keep Harris County Blue and flip the state.
You can also find out more at www.lillieforchair.com.