Looks like we will be back in the voting booth a little sooner than we expected. It won’t be for the primaries in March 2024. It will be in 82 days, give or take.
On November 7, 2023, fourteen propositions will be on the ballot statewide in Texas. That means we have just under 12 weeks to bone up on the issues; more like 10 if you plan to vote early.
Something we hear from folks fairly often is that they have trouble finding election info. They don’t mean when the election is and where to vote. That’s easy to find at our county elections department website. To be honest, people often want to know who or what their like-minded friends are voting for or against.
To meet this need, we hope to provide that info here and on our Facebook page as we progress through the next 80-odd days until the election. Fourteen propositions. Sheesh. Better get started.
Some of them are no-brainers for a Yes vote, like Prop 4 (property tax relief) and Prop 9 (teacher retirement pay increase). Some of the others are less straightforward.
Prop 1 is a good example. Just from reading the blub in our graphic, who wouldn’t want to support hardworking farmers and ranchers? But if you dig into the issue, you quickly realize it is not that cut and dried. We hope you will take a minute and read the discussion on our Facebook Group. Feel free to strike up a discussion in the comments here as well if you’re not on Facebook.
Here’s the gist: some might argue Prop 1 would do more for giving megafarms free rein to pollute our waterways than it would for ‘protecting’ your friends raising chickens on ten acres out in Rosanky. We definitely need to dig into this topic further.
We hope you can join us for our August meetup this Saturday August 19 at 6pm. We’re having a game night at the Cormies’ home in Tahitian. Food, fun, and a tiny bit of CODA business. Reply or comment here, or RSVP at the event page in our Facebook Group.
We’re off to a good start satisfying the August requirements for our CER grant. Two local businesses are happy to partner with us on some voter registration events. One was last Saturday at The Bearded Baking Co. in Bastrop. Hats off to Wes Dills and his staff for their wonderful hospitality; specifically, making space for our table indoors as opposed to out on the sidewalk as originally planned. As much as we love registering new voters, we don’t particularly love having a heat stroke in the process. And it’s totally worth the click to our Facebook Group to see the video of Robby’s wisdom about the important of voting.
Our next voter reg will be Thursday August 24 during Trivia Night at Bastrop Beer Co. Send us all of your friends and neighbors who haven’t registered yet. Early voting for the November 7 election will be here before you know it.
Look at the great group we had for the Barbie movie on August 6! Bastrop Chamber did a super job organizing. Pretty sure CODA had the biggest group participating.
We will leave you with a teaser about something to look for in the next newsletter. We want to thank those of you who are our five-star subscribers. In Substack Speak, that means those of you who are our most faithful readers, and open our newsletters without fail each time they hit your inbox. We appreciate you. One of you will be selected for a little prezzie. But you’ll have to read the next newsletter to find out who is this month’s winner.
“Studying up” on these Amendments is a perfect way to put it. So often they are written to be confusing. I read the one about supporting Ag businesses. Remind me to tell you about how a CAFO 60,000 hog farm moved in 2 miles from our little slice of county heaven in northern Indiana. We tried fighting it but not much we could do when one of our county commissioners owned the land the meat packing company leased to build its abomination on. I know how I will vote on Prop 1! Study up every one!! Thanks Lissa for drawing our attention to these.