Billionaire Democratic donor Tom Steyer is working with gun safety groups to register high school students to vote in the 2018 midterm elections, and in response to the deadly high school shooting in Florida last week, he said he will donate $1 million to an effort to register high schoolers to vote.
“I am tired of watching stories go unheard by politicians who continue to drag their feet on laws to protect Americans,” Steyer tweeted Thursday. “I am pledging $1 million dollars for a nationwide initiative to register high schoolers to vote ahead of the 2018 midterm elections.”
I am tired of watching stories go unheard by politicians who continue to drag their feet on laws to protect Americans. I am pledging $1 million dollars for a nationwide initiative to register high schoolers to vote ahead of the 2018 midterm elections. pic.twitter.com/JrshyFanQn
— Tom Steyer (@TomSteyer) February 23, 2018
NextGen America, Steyer’s group, has partnered with Giffords, founded by former Democratic Arizona Rep. Gabby Giffords, and Everytown for Gun Safety, founded by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, to launch a national voter registration drive that will hone in on states and districts with incumbent Republicans who oppose gun control legislation or have accepted funding from the National Rifle Association.
The groups also plan to launch digital and mail registration pushes and will seek to pre-register students under the age of 18 in areas where pre-registration is permitted.
“If this Congress won’t act to protect our kids, we must elect one that will,” Giffords, who was shot in the head in 2011 during a “meet and greet” event, said in a statement the group was scheduled to release Thursday evening, according to Politico. “If the politicians who have benefited from millions of dollars in NRA cash won’t pass laws to make our schools and communities safer, we will vote them out. Today, students from Parkland and across the country are inspiring the country to be better. Come November, many of those young Americans will be making the difference themselves as they cast their votes for the first time.”
The initiative is slated to begin on March 25, the day following scheduled protests for gun safety in response to the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting last week, which took the lives of 17 individuals and injured more than a dozen more.
