What is Claiming Our Voices? #ClaimingOurVoices is a joint initiative of Faith in Minnesota and ISAIAH to elect a governor in 2018 who will co-create a new people-centered politics of abundance and inclusion with us over the next four years and beyond.
Through Claiming Our Voices, thousands of people of faith from all walks of life were trained across our state to participate in Minnesota’s 2018 precinct caucuses and district conventions. Approximately 3,000 of them attended their precinct caucuses in February, with 800 of them attending district conventions and more than 200 of them being elected as delegates or alternates to the DFL state convention in June.
Why Caucusing? Building a world that justly serves people requires that we all step up and participate, starting with political participation. Minnesota’s precinct caucuses are a grassroots, ground-level way for us to get involved and be heard, even if we have never participated before. Through participating in Minnesota’s precinct caucus system, we have the power to shape the issues and political environment. We can elevate our shared vision for Minnesota by shaping the campaigns, moving candidates to embrace our Faith Agenda, and forming them to commit to co-creating a new, people-centered politics of abundance with us.
Who’s a Faith Delegate? Faith Delegates are people of faith and community leaders who have been elected delegates or alternates to the DFL State Convention, to be held June 1–3, 2018 in Rochester. They are committed to electing a governor in 2018 who will engage deeply with our Faith Agenda, form an authentic relationship of mutual responsibility, and co-create with us a new, people-centered politics for Minnesota in which everyone is in and no one is out.
What’s a Faith Agenda? Our Claiming Our Voices House Meetings throughout the fall of 2017 were the first step in our formation of boldly proclaiming our faith and our vision for a just and fair Minnesota through the 2018 election year. Hundreds of Faith in Minnesota and ISAIAH leaders came together to develop our 2018 Faith Agenda for a just and fair Minnesota that reflected the concerns and issues that emerged from our House Meeting conversations. This Faith Agenda and related Governing Priorities, which are rooted in racial and economic justice, represent our shared values and policy priorities for the next governor of Minnesota.
ISAIAH publicly announced our Faith Agenda in January 2018 at several events across the state that reflected the geographically, denominationally, and racially multifaceted nature of Minnesotans. While the agenda contains several planks, it is one agenda: Just as people of God are called to act as one body, their concerns for justice cannot be separated from one another.
Faith Agenda: https://is.gd/ClaimingOurVoicesAgenda
Governing Priorities: https://is.gd/ClaimingOurVoicesAgenda2
Why the DFL Party? We believe that our Faith Agenda for a just and fair Minnesota is worthy of support from all candidates for governor of all parties. That said, we are well aware that in the current state of our politics, the DFL Party is the only party with a chance of electing the next governor where the candidates and the grassroots are receptive and willing to engage. We are choosing to plant seeds where the ground is fertile.
