February 9, 2022
With our new Promote the Vote 2022 ballot initiative campaign underway, it’s fun to look back on, and take inspiration from, what made our Prop 2 campaign in 2018 so successful. Most VNP volunteers will recognize Betsy Robbins who gained notoriety on the 2018 campaign trail for her fun and entertaining songs to educate Michiganders about redistricting reform. Betsy looks back on her time with VNP fondly and supports the organization as a monthly sustainer.
I still donate money monthly because I think it is an important thing. It was the best experience I have ever had. Hopefully, we will be able to help out on [VNP’s] next project.
Betsy found out about VNP in an unlikely place. She and her husband were in New Orleans at the same time as the Represent.Us Unrig Conference in 2017. Though policy conferences can be a bit stuffy, this one was anything but.
It was kind of a party with bands and we thought it would be something fun to go to. There was a seminar and Katie Fahey was on one of the panels at Tulane University. My husband Corrie and I saw her and heard about what we were doing in Michigan. We decided we would volunteer with VNP and when we got back we joined.
The timing was perfect for Betsy. She had recently gotten into songwriting to commemorate her daughter’s wedding and was branching out into lyrics that explored politics and civic issues.
I had just written a song called Confusion and part of it was, “Let’s wake up and work on a solution to help protect our constitution. If we all make a contribution, we can be neighbors in a worldwide revolution.” I was singing a song about the Constitution having no idea that I would be helping amend the Michigan Constitution.
Betsy was drawn to Prop 2 because she thought ending gerrymandering was important. She hadn’t known much about gerrymandering, but when she found out she was shocked that politicians could use the redistricting process to pick their voters.
I always thought you just had to vote and you were doing your civic responsibility. I had a son-in-law who didn’t vote and I was trying to encourage him and tell him how important it was. He said that his vote didn’t count. I did some research to teach him how important it was to vote and then I learned about gerrymandering and I was like, “He’s right. Our votes don’t count depending on where we live.” That definitely isn’t right, and people need to know about what goes on behind closed doors.
After the conference in New Orleans, Betsy joined the Education Committee to help teach people about the problem with gerrymandering and how Prop 2 would fix it. At first, she was using the traditional teaching tools to convey the importance of the ballot initiative. However, she quickly began collaborating with other volunteers across the state, in particular Yi-Li Wu and Rena Basch, to put the message into song, which she found to be an effective teaching tool.
I was doing educational workshops teaching people about it, but then I got involved in producing music and that really helped teach my friends and family. A lot of friends had never heard of Prop 2 and gerrymandering and it really helped educate people in a fun way. I had a niece on the other side of the state and someone came knocking on her door asking if she had heard about Prop 2 and she said, “Yes, my aunt sings songs about that.”
In addition to educational presentations and producing music to inform Michigan voters, Betsy went door to door to get the message out there. As many volunteers know, knocking doors can be challenging at times because you don’t know who you are going to meet and how receptive they will be to your cause. It can also be rewarding and inspiring when you connect with people who understand and care about your issue.
I was doing some canvassing after work and I found this neighborhood that I didn’t know existed even though I passed by it everyday. It was filled with young families and they were like, “Yeah, we know about proposal 2 and we’ll definitely be voting for it.” It gave me so much hope. There were these young families that really cared about it. I had a lot of doors slammed in my face, so it was really nice to see people who actually listened and cared.
A highlight for Betsy was working with Rena and Yi-Li to produce the songs for the campaign, though the first time they met face-to-face was at the celebration event in Lansing after Prop 2 passed in 2018. Up until that time, the trio had collaborated entirely by videos, email, and text. Not only did the celebration event bring Betsy together with her partners in song, it also helped Betsy realize the greater impact of her contribution to the campaign, in particular in boosting volunteer morale.
Paul Rincon (now a VNP Regional Organizer) was a volunteer, and he hugged me and told me that the songs and videos really helped him and the other volunteers keep motivated, and that he’s been involved with many campaigns before, but they’ve never had songs like we did and that it made a big difference.
