By Shane Johnson
On every fourth Tuesday of the month, community members from around the state join us for our Keep The Power On monthly campaign meeting. One of our members, Ms. Donna, shared an article with me about how Houston leads the nation in power outages and residents experience 18 times as many outages as the national average. That is truly horrifying, and an important reminder that Texans have to push our state leaders. Texans deserve to be safe in our homes, and have access to electricity that isn’t breaking the bank. We brought people together for our February meeting to hold our elected leaders accountable for their action - or inaction - on these very issues.
What is the Keep The Power On Campaign?
We started this campaign because, since Winter Storm Uri, everyday Texans haven’t really had a voice in the state’s decisions about where our electricity comes from, whether families can truly afford their bills, and how to ensure the power stays on when we need it most.
In the five years since that devastating storm, we’ve been building a network of Texans who care about making sure everyone in our state has clean, affordable, and reliable power. We know that only by bringing enough people together, taking collective action, and sustaining that effort over time, can we build the people power needed to stand up to the mega-wealthy interests that dominate decision-making in Texas.
February Keep the Power On Meeting Recap
Our February meeting focused on holding our state leaders accountable. Rising and unaffordable utility bills, skyrocketing grocery costs, attacks on fundamental rights like voting and essential health care, and many of the other very real harms people are experiencing can all be traced back to decisions made by our elected officials.
We wanted everyone who joined us to leave with a clear understanding of who the key decision-makers are when it comes to clean, affordable, reliable power - and what choices they’ve made. At the same time, we built in some fun, so it didn’t feel like just another 60 minutes staring at a screen late on a Tuesday night.
Texas Legislator Lotería
To bring little laughter and joy to the forefront, we built a mini-version of lotería focused on some of the most important figures in the Texas Legislature in the 89th legislative session last year. Lotería is a game of chance very similar to Bingo, but played with cards. With each card pulled, we discussed the legislator and what they're doing, or not doing, to protect Texas communities.
My colleague Agripina in south Texas made sure everyone on the call knew that, even while communities in the border zone, like the Rio Grande Valley, are under attack, they show resilience by spending time with loved ones and playing games like Lotería. Here is a sneak peek of a few of our favorite Lotería cards shown on the call, and why we assigned these people to these cards:
El Diablito - Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. He needs no introduction. This man is in charge of the TX Senate and has done more than almost anyone else to fight clean energy, attack vulnerable people and communities in Texas, and caused too many harms to name right now.
La Calavera - The Skull: Sen. Adam Hinojosa
He displaced a friendly Senator from the previous session to become not only someone who supports far-right causes but is Space X & Elon Musk’s right-hand man at the legislature, passing legislation to take away the people’s access to public beaches, blow up more rockets in people’s backyards, and other harmful decisions….
El Paraguas - The Umbrella: Rep. Ken King
Rep. King is Chair of the highly influential State Affairs Committee, and used his position generally to help Texans and keep energy more affordable by shielding clean energy resources from a downpour of harmful legislation. During the stormy weather of the Texas Legislature, he helped keep us dry like the paraguas.
El Nopal - The Cactus: Rep. Drew Darby
He is the Chair of the Energy Resources Committee and was a much-needed change from the previous chair of the committee— he led a fair committee process giving good legislation hearings and even passing some bills out of committee. His leadership immediately was bearing fruit like the prickly pears on the nopal, despite some thorns along the way since he was not with us on 100% of things
La Dama - The Lady: Rep. Ana Hernandez
Rep Hernandez was a champion for affordability and Texans on the important State Affairs Committee and authored one of main most important bills (called HB 1359) to provide Texans who can’t afford their utility bills with payment assistance. We will take a closer look at this bill later in the call for our action to hold legislators accountable. Mrs. Ana Hdz. Is truly a first class lady.
How to Hold Your Legislators Accountable
To wrap things up, we needed to focus attendees attention and energy on a quick, easy action to hold their elected officials accountable. Doing this for 12 votes and behind-closed-doors political maneuvers is a bit too complicated, so we decided to focus on a single key vote for each of the Texas House and Texas Senate. We recommend that, when someone reaches out to their legislators, they contact them about one issue at a time.
During the call, we identified how legislators voted on HB 1359 by Ana Hernandez—it would have created a VERY limited bill assistance program for low-income or during extreme weather events after passing the House 100-45 but the Lt. Gov (el diablito) made sure this didn’t continue to move any further.
For Holding TX Senators accountable, we’re contacting them about how they voted on SB 819—a bill that would have created many ridiculous extra rules and laws to stop most new wind and solar power. Thankfully the TX House listened to Texans and stopped the bill, despite it receiving some bipartisan support in the TX Senate.
Not sure what to say? Click here for quick easy samples emails to contact your elected leaders.
Upcoming Events and Opportunities to Get Involved
If you’re wondering what you can do beyond taking action this one time, don’t worry - we have plenty of upcoming events and actions for you to come out to to join the movement to fight for clean, affordable, reliable power for everyone.
- Mar 3rd - National Sierra Club Action Hour: Data Centers (RSVP here) - reminder: this is also election day!
- Mar 9 (second Mon) - Water for People and the Environment (Register now)
- Mar 19 (third Thurs) - Legislative Action Team (Sign-up here)
- March 24 (fourth Tues) - Keep the Power On (Click here to RSVP)