Texas Impact's Weekly Witness Texas Impact

Texas Impact staff recently met in Austin and welcomed several new staff and new people to new positions, so we thought we would use part of this summer break to introduce you to our new team members. And, we are starting that series today with a conversation with Kaitlin Dunn, our new Houston Faith Community Mobilizer working with the Houston Faith Votes team. I know you will be excited to hear from her today and get to know her in the months to come. 
We are in the heat of the summer in between the primary elections and the consequential general elections. There is important civic engagement work going on. Now is the perfect time to use the Texas Faith Votes resources to figure out what you and your congregation plan on doing this fall. Visit texasimpact.org/campaigns/texas-faith-votes to find out more!
 

This week marks the beginning of Gun Violence Awareness Month and many of us will still remember where we were when we received the news about the tragic school shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde just two years ago. Joining us this week is Texas Impact's Policy Advocate, Bobby Watson, to discuss his work with our gun violence prevention issue team and their visibility project, Vidas Robadas, an installation of t-shirts bearing the names of victims of gun violence. 
 
Find out more about the project and join Texas Impact's issue team at texasimpact.org/campaigns/vidas-robadas

We talk weather this week with Dr. Becca Edwards, Texas Impact’s Climate Action Fellow. Originally because we wanted to talk about Hurricane Season, which begins this weekend and runs through November, but seems like most of Texas has already endured at least one climate disaster in the last month. North Texas has had floods, tornadoes and wind events. Houston had a wind event that knocked out most of downtown and had people without power for the better part of a week.. and we haven’t even made it to hurricane season yet!
Join Texas Impact's Climate Action Team at texasimpact.org/our-issues/join-a-team/issue-champions-groups

The runoff elections are next Tuesday, May 28th, and interim hearings are underway to help shape public policy recommendations going into the next legislative session. What does it all mean? Here with us to discuss is friend of the program and Texas Impact’s outside legislative counsel, Beaman Floyd. Spoiler Alert: he is going to remind us about the importance of these elections and how your vote is extra valuable and he will talk about ways you can get involved in public policy during the interim.
Fear not, Texas Impact has tools for you. This is a perfect time to visit Texas Impact’s election center and our Texas Faith Votes campaign resources at texasimpact.org/campaigns/texas-faith-votes

 

This week we are excited to welcome Diana Forester, Director of Health Policy with Texans Care for Children. This is an important conversation this week because legislative leaders recently released their interim charges for the biennium, and it provides some opportunities to speak to the unacceptable state of health coverage in the state of Texas. Diana joins us to talk about that, the interim charges, and what Texans can do.
Find out more about the work of Texan Care for Children at https://txchildren.org
To receive updates about Medicaid eligibility email update@hhs.texas.gov 

Texas Impact is proud to be a part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s ELCA Advocacy family as a State Public Policy Office for Texas. Joining us this week is Christine Moffett,  ELCA Program Director for Environment and Energy Policy, to discuss the Farm Bill. She will talk about whether Congress can pass anything during an election year, what’s in the bill and why it matters. 
Find out more about the work of ELCA Advocacy at https://www.elca.org/Our-Work/Publicly-Engaged-Church/Advocacy/Environment