I am pleased to present my first Democracy OTL podcast interview!
My guest is Jonah Garson, Democratic primary candidate for NC House district 56, representing Chapel Hill and Carrboro. This NC House seat has been held since 1997 by Verla Insko, a well-respected and much-loved politician who has announced her retirement. We Chapel Hillians sincerely thank her for her years of dedicated service representing us and being our voice in Raleigh.
Jonah Garson has packed a lot of political experience into his life, going back to his college days. I really enjoyed my discussion with him.
The action steps that Jonah recommends as action steps at the end of the interview are:
Get to know the New North Carolina Project and consider supporting their work
Join your local branch of the NAACP and become an active member
Learn more about Jonah and his campaign at JonahGarson.com and social media
Jonah Garson is a grassroots organizer, attorney, former voter protection director and Democratic party chair, running to represent his native Chapel Hill and Carrboro, North Carolina, in the NC House of Representatives.
A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (’09), and Columbia Law School (’14), Jonah served as the Voter Protection Director for the 9th Congressional "redo" election, redone because of GOP ballot fraud in Bladen County, NC. In 2020, he was one of the attorneys who represented NC Chief Justice Cheri Beasley's campaign to ensure that every ballot was properly counted (Beasley is now Democratic the nominee-apparent for NC's 2022 US Senate race). Most recently, he represented a key legislator-witness in litigation to prevent a voter ID requirement that was intentionally designed to disenfranchise Black North Carolinians.
Most of Jonah's work for the past decade, though, has been organizing and fundraising for dozens of Democratic legislative challengers across battleground North Carolina, informed by what he describes as his political coming-of-age in North Carolina, when, as a policy staffer working for progressive champions at the North Carolina General Assembly during the last days of the state's Democratic majority in 2008-2010, he watched the NCGOP execute a plan to seize control of the legislature going into the 2010 redistricting year to gerrymander themselves into power for years to come against the backdrop of President Obama's landmark victory in the state in 2008.
Democracy OTL podcast #1 with Jonah Garson, candidate for NC House 56 representing Chapel Hill and Carrboro