Earlham Politicos: Local politics with Reece Axel-Adams

Editor’s note: this is part two of an ongoing series, “Earlham Politicos,” that investigates how alums, current students, and faculty/staff are engaging politically this election season. For part one, click here.

Reece Axel-Adams is currently the campaign manager for Indiana Senate candidate Susan Fortenberry, but their journey into politics really got started during their senior year of high school.  Reece got their start in the fight against injustice in their high school in Pendleton, Indiana, when they saw their school’s Gay-Straight Alliance being treated unequally. They partnered with the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana to ensure that the GSA had access to advertising, keeping a level head throughout the process.

“I can only control how I will approach things,” they said at the time. “I cannot control how others will approach things.”

Perhaps this more localized approach to activism is why the Earlham sophomore and politics major is so interested in the local, rather than national, political scene. In 2023 they worked on their first partisan campaign with Pendleton town council candidate Joe Noel, and lost, but did not let that deter them from continuing to get involved in other ways. This year alone they’ve worked for Fortenberry as a campaign manager and fundraiser and represented as a delegate for the Indiana Democratic Convention.

“People don’t know what’s going on locally, but it’s where it’s at,” they said. “You can get a lot more done locally and create meaningful change because there’s less red tape and bureaucracy.”

One of the key issues for Axel-Adams this election cycle (or, perhaps, every election) is campaign finance reform.

“I feel like we need to pay our politicians more,” they said. “People always give me a weird look when I say that. Most local politicians are paid a base salary of $30,000, ultimately ranging from $35,000-$55,000 a year. That’s not much to live off of.

“So what happens? We elect doctors and lawyers and our legislature ends up lacking the diversity it needs,” they said. “We need to diversify the legislature for it to truly represent the average American, and then, we need to pay them a livable wage. Doing this would literally be the difference between a 5 percent and 7 percent property tax, because the average American, the average person we ideally want to see in those positions of power, would understand that price hike and that difference in percentage and its trickle-down effects.”

Another key issue for them is education. “I come from a long line of educators,” says Axel-Adams. “Education is core to me. If we improve education, we can plant seeds for fixing bigger issues.”

Like lunch debt, for example.

“There is absolutely no reason why we can’t indefinitely extend the free lunch programs we had during the pandemic,” they said, ultimately seeing the solution as a win-win for everyone involved. “Schools and parents would no longer be struggling with debt; kids would be adequately nourished and fed. “Lunch debt is one of the largest non-healthcare debts in the United States. But at the same time, paying off lunch debt one time is not enough. Once the debts are paid off, those kids are going to immediately start accruing more lunch debt. It’s a never-ending cycle. It would be relatively cheap to just indefinitely extend free food programs.”

When asked why they keep fighting, their response was simple: they enjoy helping people.

“I hate putting it this way, but really, politics is a game,” says Axel-Adams, “and while I enjoy playing the game, I love helping people.”

Written by Jay Kibble, writer/editor for Earlham’s Marketing Office