Email from Colorado Turnout Project I refuse to go quietly. I have fought for this state my entire life. I am not done yet. And I am asking you to stand with me. John, I was 24 years old when I walked into the Louisiana State Senate. No money or establishment machine behind me. Just a kid from Baton Rouge who wrote his own radio jingles and knocked on every door himself. People said I couldn't win. I won anyway. Five years later, I took that same drive, that same refusal to be counted out, all the way to the United States Congress. While I was there, I built the Congressional Classroom, a first-of-its-kind program that brought elementary and high school students to DC to see themselves as future leaders. I fought for job creation, affordable health care, and economic opportunity for the people back home. I gave everything I had to that job. Then they gerrymandered me out. Redrew the lines, erased my district, and sent me home. That was 1996. I was 33 years old. Me in 1995. Standing on the steps of the Supreme Court, fighting to keep my seat. I spent the next 28 years serving Louisiana another way — in the State Senate, in the courtroom, building the Louisiana Leadership Institute into something that has transformed thousands of young people's lives. I never stopped fighting. I never stopped believing that all Louisianans deserved a voice in Congress that represented their interests. In 2024, a federal court agreed. Louisiana is one-third Black. It has six congressional seats. For decades, only one of them gave Black voters a real opportunity to elect a representative of their choice. The court ordered that it be fixed. I ran for the new majority-Black district. I won after 28 years away. And the district didn’t even survive for my full term. Thirty years later, I'm back in the Louisiana State Capitol fighting the exact same fight. Three weeks ago, the Supreme Court struck down my district when they gutted the Voting Rights Act. And MAGA Governor Jeff Landry didn't hesitate. He canceled an active election, throwing out over 45,000 absentee ballots already cast by real Louisiana voters, to fast-track a new gerrymander designed to draw me out of existence. The same dirty trick decades later. The message to Black people is unchanged: your seat at the table is not permanent. We can take it back whenever we want. My response? If they tell me I have to be white to serve in Congress from Louisiana, I cannot change that. But I refuse to go quietly. I have fought for this state my entire life. I am not done yet. And I am asking you to stand with me: This will be an uphill battle. But I have never backed down from a fight I believed in. Will you stand with me and Colorado Turnout Project and rush a split donation of $50, $25, $15, or whatever you can spare? If you've saved your payment information with ActBlue Express, your split donation between Cleo Fields and Colorado Turnout Project will go through immediately: Donate $10 >> Donate $25 >> Donate $50 >> Donate $100 >> Donate $250 >> Donate $500 >> Donate Another Amount >> Thank you. Congressman Cleo Fields Democrat Louisiana's 6th Congressional District Donate Mail checks to: Colorado Turnout Project 140 W. 29th St., P.O. Box 169 Pueblo, CO 81008 Colorado Turnout Project | 140 W. 29th St. P.O. Box 169 | Pueblo, CO 81008 US Unsubscribe | Constant Contact Data Notice