| Description |
<p>Funding will support TCRP’s three core legal and advocacy programs, which fight year<br/>round to ensure that the voices of Texans in institutionally marginalized communities are<br/>amplified. We provide critical legal and advocacy support with our dozens of allied<br/>organizations to ensure Texas is fair and just for all communities, not just those with<br/>power and means. Our programming is comprised of three critical focus areas: Voting<br/>Rights, Criminal Injustice, and Beyond Borders.<br/>Voting Rights<br/>Our Voting Rights Program tackles the systemic issues that prevent a thriving<br/>democracy in Texas — issues that leave us with a government that fails to reflect Texas’<br/>rich diversity, is not properly responsive to the needs of everyday Texans, and shields our<br/>statewide officials from accountability. We seek to achieve a more just, more democratic<br/>Texas by working closely with grassroots organizations and community leaders to use<br/>the power of the law to protect the freedom to vote for all Texans, especially those who<br/>have been traditionally excluded from power.<br/>In midterm and presidential election years, TCRP works in coalition with our partners at<br/>Common Cause Texas, the ACLU of Texas, the League of Women Voters of Texas, and<br/>the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law to run a Texas-sized election<br/>protection program. We engage a diverse collective of civil rights organizations,<br/>community organizers, legal organizations, pro bono volunteers and others. Our<br/>multi-faceted, statewide campaign focuses on training and recruiting legal volunteers to<br/>staff the largest hotline in Texas to answer voters’ questions and ensure that they are<br/>able to cast a ballot that counts, executing a robust voter protection field program with<br/>trained volunteers stationed outside of polling places, using digital tools to educate<br/>voters and monitor reports of barriers to the ballot box from the field, and providing<br/>on-hand legal counsel to fight for Texas voters in court, when necessary.<br/>Another of our critical voting rights efforts is advocacy for local election improvements —<br/>a campaign we call Democracy From the Ground Up to push for pro-voter reforms that<br/>county voter registration and elections administrators can implement without the need<br/>for state or federal action. Our aim is to educate the public, partners, and election<br/>officials on ways they can improve election administration and better navigate Texas'<br/>byzantine election law to ease voter access and make our elections more fair and safe.<br/>Criminal Injustice<br/>TCRP’s Criminal Injustice Program fights to bring justice and liberation to people<br/>historically oppressed by the Texas criminal legal system. By pushing back against<br/>police violence, discriminatory school discipline, wealth-based pretrial detention, and<br/>other tactics that sell “justice” to the highest bidders, we challenge the systems that fuel<br/>mass incarceration, systemic racial discrimination, and fundamentally unfair economic<br/>barriers to true justice. Through targeted advocacy and litigation campaigns, we press<br/>for transparency and to hold power accountable to communities, not corporate and<br/>monied interests. As community-centered lawyers and advocates, our Criminal Injustice<br/>team represents community groups and everyday Texans, and works closely with local,<br/>state and national partners to advance this mission.<br/>Notably, our Criminal Injustice program expanded in 2022 to include specialized legal<br/>support for charitable bail funds after the Texas legislature passed a new law imposing<br/>severe restrictions and onerous reporting requirements on their work. TCRP’s team is<br/>helping charitable bail funds to understand and navigate the new law so that they can<br/>continue to bail out Texans incarcerated pre-trial simply because they lack the means to<br/>pay bail. While this effort is important to reduce harm to all people at risk of languishing<br/>in jail pre-trial, it also plays a particularly critical role in the mitigation of retaliation<br/>against activists arrested for protesting.<br/>Beyond Borders<br/>Through our Beyond Borders program, TCRP empowers border communities by fighting<br/>discriminatory policies that prevent social and economic equity. With an office in the Rio<br/>Grande Valley along the Texas-Mexico border, our Beyond Borders program has been<br/>dedicated to defending the rights of immigrant and borderland communities since the<br/>founding of our organization three decades ago. Working closely with community<br/>partners and allies, our Beyond Borders team aims to eliminate policies that perpetuate<br/>the harmful effects of militarization, cultural erasure, imprisonment, and exclusion along<br/>the Texas-Mexico border and across the state. By challenging harmful policies such as<br/>Title 42 and Texas’ Operation Lonestar, we fight for thriving communities and<br/>interconnectedness across peoples, cultures, and natural environments.</p> |
| Benefits |
Through our unique, community-centered approach to lawyering, TCRP works in
partnership with a diverse group of allied organizations to target and uproot the causes
of inequity and injustice in Texas: a political system that systematically suppresses the
voice of the majority in favor of the privileged few; a legal system that incarcerates more
people than any other state and withholds justice to those without means; and a
government with a history of discrimination against people of color, immigrants, women,
and people with less means.
TCRP provides a range of legal services and support – litigation, legal training and
advice, public education, and advocacy of law and policy – with and for our movement
partners and the communities with whom we are seeking empowerment. At the same
time, we rely on our allies and their memberships to help us understand the priorities of
the communities we serve — what keeps folks up at night and motivates them to take to
the streets, as well as what issues we can win by melding legal strategies with
community organizing strategies. |
