Generate Health Has Endorsed the NO on 3 and YES on Prop R Campaign

by | Oct 13, 2020 | Blog, News

Each year as we approach our annual Standing up for Black Moms and Babies event, we have the chance to reflect on what it really means to stand up for Black moms and babies. It means we must remain aware of what is happening in our communities, our state, and our country. It also means that we must commit to fight for the needs of Black moms and babies and against the numerous attempts to erode the progress we’ve made on our path towards racial equity.

This election season is no different. Generate Health has endorsed two campaigns to help in the fight for a more racially equitable region.

Generate Health has endorsed the NO on 3 campaign to prohibit the addition of a Missouri constitutional amendment, which would gerrymander our redistricting process. In 2018, Clean Missouri, a bi-partisan legislation, was introduced in an attempt to clean up Missouri politics. The legislation created new guidelines for lobbying and demanded that Missouri’s redistricting process be conducted by a non-partisan company to ensure our new voting districts would be fair and impartial. The legislation was approved by voters in 2018 and passed nearly 2-1.

Now our Missouri legislators are trying to undermine the will of the voters. Amendment 3 seeks to overturn the rules put in place by the Clean Missouri legislation and would completely overhaul the way that districts are created by changing how we count our population. Currently in Missouri, as well as every other state in the country, voting districts are drawn by counting the state’s entire population — adults, children, and non-citizens. Amendment 3 proposes to only count adult citizens over the age of 18 as the population within a voting district.

According to a study by the Brennan Center for Justice, this could leave out 1.5 million people and would remove a disproportionate percentage of Missouri’s Black, Asian, and Latinx population. ¹ Missouri’s urban areas — Kansas City (districts 9,11) and St. Louis County (districts 13,14) — would be greatly affected. ¹ Most alarmingly, as counties that have a majority minority population, reconfiguring the district maps to only include the adult population could dilute the racial makeup, and thus the legislative representation, for people of color within these districts.

To fight against this attack on fair redistricting, please vote NO on Amendment 3 in November. Visit the Clean Missouri website to learn more and get involved in this campaign.

Generate Health also endorses Proposition R (City of St. Louis) to create a fund to support early childhood services and supports.

Research shows that when children receive quality early childhood services, they are better prepared for kindergarten, exhibit more positive behaviors and relational skills, and are more likely to experience better health and academic outcomes later in life. ² There is an extensive body of research that shows that early childhood education provides a huge return on investment for society- for every dollar spent on quality early childhood education, society reaps $13 in benefits. ³

Early childhood services in St. Louis are severely underfunded and face numerous challenges. According to a recent report by IFF, The First Step to Equity, there aren’t enough affordable slots with early childhood education (ECE) providers to meet the region’s need; state subsidies for early childhood care aren’t enough- Missouri’s reimbursement rate for programs are among the lowest in the country; and we face a lack of qualified ECE teachers as well as high turnover rates within the ECE professions. ²

Proposition R seeks to alleviate the early childhood challenges for parents and providers. By creating a modest property tax increase ($11.40 for every $100,000 of home valuation), $2.3 million would be generated every year for early childhood support in the City of St. Louis.

Proposition R is the culmination of several years of advocacy by community members, non-profit partners, and early childhood professionals who are dedicated to ensuring that all babies in St. Louis have access to safe, quality early childhood services.

Please vote YES on Prop R. To get involved with the Prop R campaign, visit the Yes on Prop R website.

Citations

  1. Limón, G. and Rudensky, Y. (2020, September). Gerrymandering away missouri’s future. Brennan Center for Justice. https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/2020-09/Gerrymandering%20Away%20Missouri%27s%20Future_0.pdf
  2. The First Step to Equity. (2019). IFF. https://iff.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/IFF_ResearchBooklet_Final_01.pdf
  3. García, J. L., Heckman, J. J., Leaf, D. E., & Prados, M. J. (2020). Quantifying the Life-Cycle Benefits of an Influential Early-Childhood Program. Journal of Political Economy, 128(7), 2502–2541. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/705718

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