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Power Coalition for Equity and Justice is proud to release "Where the Power Resides", our 2020 Annual Report. Our team, partners, volunteers, and community worked tirelessly throughout 2020 to increase voter turnout, get our communities counted in the Census, and to build power throughout Louisiana. We could not have accomplished this work without you. We hope you are as excited as we are about the results of this work and we look forward to continuing on this path with you in 2021.
Download the Full 2020 Annual Report
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Map that shows the increase in voters of color in Lousiana from 2016-2020. Voters of Color represented 70.1% of all new voter registrations.

Executive Summary

Building POWER

2020 has been one of the most challenging years for communities locally and globally. We have battled a pandemic that has taken countless lives, and shuttered our businesses and schools. Louisiana has experienced five hurricanes. Our nation continued to grapple with large-scale racism and police violence, and a presidential election that saw both the highest voter turnout, and some of the most volatile events leading up to it.

Through all of this, YOU have continued to show up and remind us what we love about our communities, about Louisiana, and why we don’t stop fighting for people. It is with deep gratitude that we release this end of the year executive summary. This summary highlights the passion and dedication of communities to stand up time and time again to push for the kind of leadership that is responsive and accountable to them. Power Coalition and Voice of the Experienced (VOTE) worked in deep partnership throughout the fall GOTV season to expand our reach and build capacity throughout the state. This is a manifestation of how hard work and commitment to standing in one’s power is changing our state for the better.

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Get Out the Vote

In November, we made 1,807,785 total contact attempts to infrequent and semi-frequent voters of color and 62.1% of contacts in our universe voted.

In the December runoff election, we made 893,473 contact attempts and 29.6% of contacts in our universe voted.
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Overall, 5.6% more people turned out to vote in 2020 than in the 2016 Presidential election. That amounted to 120,000 more total votes across the state, including 25,000 more ballots cast by Black voters. The sustained increase in turnout, particularly among Black voters, proves that our work over the last three years has grown democracy, and deepened justice and equity in our state.This base building and foundational work led to the highest early voter turnout in Louisiana history, thanks to the successful lawsuit that extended early voting. Nearly 1 million people early voted, and 30% of all Black voters early voted in November. 

Since 2015, Power Coalition has been engaging with infrequent and semi-frequent voters of color, unregistered and newly registered voters, and others who have often been on the outside of the political process, as part of our campaign to build a movement for a more expansive and effective democracy in Louisiana

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Other Campaigns

We led and supported 10 issue based campaigns including paid sick leave, eviction moratorium, early childhood, stopping corporate welfare, and supporting workers striking for safety measures during COVID. We worked collectively with our partners to advocate at the federal level for needed relief as the $600 unemployment insurance ended. We worked at the state level to address our depleted unemployment insurance fund and highlighted the fact that Louisiana has the lowest payouts in the country.

We will continue our work in 2021 to increase the voices of BIPOC communities, civic engagement, and to address the humanitarian crisis to raise the unemployment benefit and shore up the funding mechanism as Louisianans face growing eviction and foreclosure crises, and jobs that will not return in the hospitality industry. 

We will build off of our GOTV work where we asked candidates to pledge to a fair and equitable redistricting process, given the newly elected legislative body will oversee the process. More than 100 candidates took the redistricting pledge and we hope the Governor adopts the principles of our pledge as a criteria for maps that won’t be vetoed. We have been working with Southern Coalition for Social Justice (SCSJ) to CROWD Academies to train more than 100 residents statewide, hiring organizers statewide and working with a demographer to support the overall process. 

This work is made possible through deep partnerships with organizations across the state and a coalition of dedicated people that believe a more equitable and just Louisiana is possible.

Executive Committee

Voice of the Experienced (VOTE)

Step Up Louisiana

New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice (NOWCRJ)

VAYLA New Orleans

Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children (FFLIC)

Jericho Road Housing Initiative

Louisiana Budget Project (LBP)

Women with a Vision (WWAV)

Housing NOLA

Louisiana Partnership for Children and Families (LPCF)

Partners 

Louisiana Policy Institute for Children (LPIC)

Black Voters Matter (BVM)

Together Louisiana

Lawyers’ Committee

Louisiana Pan-Hellenic CouncilReady Louisiana Early Childhood Coalition

NAACP Legal Defense Fund

Churches and religious institutions

Neighborhood Associations

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Our Impact

Census

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Get Out the Vote

  • 3 Early Voting days added due to lawsuit filed by Power Coalition and partners
  • 5 COVID-19 reasons to vote by mail due to lawsuit filed by Power Coalition and partners
  • 30% of Black voters voted early for the November election
  • Over 2.7 million contacts for the November election! 
  • 25,000 more Black voters turned out for the 2020 presidential election than the 2016 election
  • Black voters turned out in a higher proportion than white voters in the December runoff election