May 31, 2018
This week on Off-Kilter, it’s midterm season — the time when members of Congress come home to their districts to tell their constituents just how hard they’ve been fighting for them, and why they should send them back to Washington. For a look ahead to the upcoming midterms — and a sneak peek at how Indivisible is working to bring change to Washington by supporting activists-turned-candidates taking on GOP incumbents through the “Indivisible 435” campaign launched earlier this week — Rebecca talks with Indivisible’s Chad Bolt.
Next: One month after the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination, a group of faith leaders resuscitated the civil rights icon’s final project by launching the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival. You’re probably familiar with campaign co-chair Reverend William Barber II from his leadership of the Moral Mondays movement. But less well known is his co-chair, the Reverend Dr. Liz Theoharis, who has spent the past two decades working as an organizer with groups led by people in poverty, such as the National Welfare Rights Union and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. Rebecca speaks with Rev. Dr. Theoharis about what’s behind the campaign — and how it’s trying to change the narrative on poverty in the U.S.
Later in the show: TalkPoverty.org broke the story last week that Ohio is hoarding over half a billion dollars in unspent funds for poor families — and how when a bipartisan group of 70 rural mayors asked to use just a small portion of it to help struggling Ohioans afford their water bills… the state said no. Rebecca talks with Jack Frech, who spent nearly four decades working in an Ohio welfare office, as a caseworker and ultimately as itsdirector, to get the skinny on what’s going on in Ohio.
But first: With horrifying immigration stories dominating the headlines, from families being separated at the border to people dying in ICE custody, Rebecca and Jeremy bring in a ringer — Claudia Flores, immigration campaign manager at the Center for American Progress Action Fund — for a special all-immigration edition of In Case You Missed It.