Candidate Spotlight: Jessica Harrington
All year long, we’re introducing you to our most creative and dedicated 2020 candidates in our new Candidate Spotlight!
Jessica Harrington is proud public school teacher and union member running for State Representative in Florida’s 64th District. For years, Jessica has been a fierce advocate in her community for public education, the environment, equality, and justice. Learn more about Jessica below!
How has the COVID-19 outbreak affected your campaign and your community? What have you been doing in your community as a candidate?
Before COVID-19, we were starting to pick up steam with fundraising. We were only 100 petitions away from qualifying with signatures (we need 1,202 total). We had a lot of momentum in the community and knocked thousands of doors in 2019. We were just a week away from filming our first campaign ad with the same folks who created some of Obama’s and Anna Eskamani’s digital ads, and then our commercial was cancelled until this is over.
Now that we are not canvassing door to door, we are thinking outside of the box. We have been running wellness check phone banks (volunteers are at home by themselves doing the phone banks) in order to check in on voters in District 64 to connect them to resources that they need. We have updated our website with resources. I am a school teacher, so I have been volunteering to pass out food to families and students in my district that are in need. We have been passing out over 250 meals per day at just my Middle school alone.
I also joined a group of 40 other candidates in a bipartisan effort to encourage the Florida Secretary of State to waive some of the strict requirements for petition gathering. We will continue to connect with voters. This is an unprecedented time for campaigns and we are all trying to cope the best we can. We will continue to highlight the small businesses in our community. We will continue to connect resources to voters and help them the best we can.
What issue is most pressing in your community and how do you plan on remedying it?
One of the most pressing issues in my community is the crisis of public education funding. Every single family in my district agrees that education is important and they want their children to have the best education possible. Unfortunately, for the last twenty years, our government in Florida has put profits over children. Since 2008, when the recession hit, Florida’s education funding budget has been slashed and has never fully recovered.
Although Florida is the third largest state in the USA, with the 17th largest economy in the world, we rank near the bottom in all of the important indicators, such as spending per pupil, funding for schools, and teacher pay.
Parents are not aware of what is happening, so we are educating them on the issues and asking them to vote for a teacher to be sent to Tallahassee. I will be a strong leader and voice in public education. I will guarantee that we finally fully fund our public schools, pay our teachers and support professionals (including bus drivers, cafeteria workers and everyone in education) a living wage. We will stop the over testing. We will stop the test and punish system.
As you’ve been meeting with voters in your community, what is something new that you learned?
I have learned that many people do not understand how their local and state government works.
As a Civics educator, it’s my job to teach students about government. I love being able to connect with people in the community to educate them about local and state issues. I also have learned that people really want to be listened to. They do not want candidates just knocking on the door and telling voters what’s important. The voters want to be able to tell the candidate what is important to them. It makes for wonderful conversations. We have held community canvass events in which the sole objective is listening conversations. It has been wonderful.
If you could change one thing in politics today what would it be?
Getting money out of politics. Corporations are not people and should not be able to donate to campaigns. Now the people that work at these corporations can exercise their first amendment right by donating, but corporations should not be allowed to. One person should not have more speech than another because they have more money. That includes corporations. I would want Citizens United to be overturned. Every contribution should be made public as well to make sure we keep dark money out of politics.
What is one takeaway you’d like to leave your constituents with?
People are so divided in this country, that it makes it nearly impossible to pass laws that are really going to help people. I would hope that people could look past party lines, and realize that we can save public schools in Florida. We can save our environment. We can end government corruption by electing everyday people into office that put people over politics.
Final Question: What would you say to someone who is thinking about running for office someday?
When you start thinking about running for office, and you start saying it to people, many will have their opinions. Not everyone will be encouraging. In fact, some will try to discourage you.You may here things like:
“ Wait your turn.”
“Get in line.”
“Do X, Y, and Z before you run.”
“You’ll never raise the money.”
“That’s too hard for you,”
“It’s an impossible seat to win, why bother?”
My advice would be just do it anyway! What are you waiting for? The right time to make change is always now. I promise that no matter how many books you read, how many training sessions you do, nothing will prepare you for the experience of running for office. It will be the most amazing experience and the hardest thing you will ever do. Just jump in and learn on the way. You may win the first time around or you may not, but if you ever decide to run again, you will be that much better as a candidate the second time around.
Run for office now! We need you!
