vol.10 no2 v4 - urban habitat all.pdf · tactics by kimberley paulson 66 rap the vote by wiretap...

Race,Poverty Environment

the&a journal for social and environmental justice

Vol. X No. 2 $10 Fall 2003

EJ&ElectoralActivism

Governingfrom theGrassroots:

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Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., James Meredith, Stokley Carmichael and Floyd Mokissick lead the7,000-strong Meredith Mississippi Freedom March to the state capitol in Jackson on June 27, 1966.The civil rights march is in protest of the violence faced by black voters. Meredith is still recoveringfrom gunshot wounds he received when he was ambushed a few weeks earlier. 'Topham / TheImage Works

Cover: West Palm Beach, Florida: African American boy protesting vote count in election. 2000 'Leslie Hugh Stone/ The Image Works Background: Pro Gore demonstrators gather outside the Florida capitol building during a rally onDecember 2000. 'Bruce Brewer / The Image Works

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Updates

4 News from UrbanHabitat

6 News from CRPE

Election 2000/2002Revisited

9 The Color of Election2000by Bob Wing

13 Beyond Florida: Votingin Tennessee, 2002By Catherine Danielson

State of Our Union

17 Curbs on Clean AirBy Richard Toshiyuki Druryand A. J. Napolis

20 Right-wing Rollbacksand Our CourtsBy Deeohn Ferris

25 Civil Rights in ReverseBy Liza Siu Mendoza andRico Oyola

Building Power: TheCase for EJ ElectoralPolitics

29 The Mother ofMovementsBy Rob Arnow and PaulPlatt

33 Getting PoliticalAn Interview with AnthonyThigpenn

38 Organizing is NotEnoughBy Robert McKay

Electoral Strategies

41 Learning to LobbyBy Judith Bell

46 Campaign Financeand Civil RightsBy Paul Turner and HectorPreciado

49 One Person, No VoteBy Ludovic Blain III

52 Taking Over CityCouncilBy Amy Dean

55 The EJ CandidateBy Michael Leon Guerrero

59 Precaution as PolicyBy Bhavna Shamasunder

63 Electoral Tools andTacticsBy Kimberley Paulson

66 Rap the VoteBy WireTap Staff


the&a journal for social and environmental justice c

ontents

68 5 Things You Can Do to Protect Your Right to VoteBy Melissa Siebert, Stan Goff and Chris Kromm

Resources

69 Resources

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Dear Friends,

As Californians recover from the tumultuous gubernatorial electionin our state while also looking ahead to the 2004 presidentialelection, the issue of electoral politics looms large. The question is:how do activists and organizations struggling to promote equity inlow-income communities and communities of color incorporateelectoral politics into our work?

In recent years, the Environmental Justice Movement and itsallies in the environmental, civil rights, public health, labor and faith-based movements have been assaulted on a number of fronts. It sclear that while our tried-and-true tactics of grassroots mobilization,research and litigation have led to victories, those approaches arenot enough. To realize our goals of equity and sustainability, wehave to move beyond the strategies we know.Over the last two decades, conservative activists have been

strategic and deliberate as they ve advanced ballot initiatives andused media, whether in California or Washington, D.C. Consideringtheir successes in rolling back policy on the environment, healthcare, education, civil rights and voting rights, we have many lessonsto learn.For these reasons, Urban Habitat has begun to explore what an

electoral strategy would entail for our organization and communitiesof color in the Bay Area. For one, it would mean partnering withnontraditional allies, including progressive businesses. It would alsomean expending the energy, resources and time to promote anelectoral agenda that favors equity instead of always reacting toagendas that undermine it.This issue of Race, Poverty & the Environment is dedicated to

examining the intersection between environmental justice andelectoral politics. With key elections on the horizon, we wanted toprovide our readers and partners with tools and strategies toinfluence and implement electoral campaigns.As we went to press, UH and dozens of other progressive organi-

zations in California were organizing furiously to oppose Proposition54, an anti-civil rights initiative that would ban collection of mostracial and ethnic data in the state data that is vital to our work. Thisstruggle presents yet another example of how the EJ communityneeds to build its capacity to be more proactive in the electoralrealm. We in the EJ Movement need to envision not just an EJelectoral platform but a powerful EJ lobby. It s possible we have todedicate the time and resources to make it happen.

UH UpdateSince our last issue, Urban Habitat has continued its efforts to

race, poverty and the environment | fall 2003

Elections 2000/2002 RevisitedRace, Poverty & the Environment

Editor EmeritusCarl Anthony

Editors & PublishersJuliet EllisLuke Cole

EditorZiba Kashef

DesignGuillermo Prado, 8 2 Design Studio

Cover Photos Leslie Stone, Bruce Brewer/The ImageW orks

Race, Poverty & the Environment ispublished twice a year. Articles are ' 2003by their authors; please reproduce RPE byevery means and give authors credit. Annual subscriptions are $20 for groups and individuals; $40 for institutions (or freefor grassroots groups upon request). Sendsubmissions and subscription checks toRPE, 436 14th Street, #1205, Oakland, CA94612.

RPE is a joint project of Urban Habitat andthe Center for Race, Poverty & theEnvironment. This issue was supportedby the Ford Foundation.

The views reflected in RPE are not neces-sarily those of the Editors, the Center forRace, Poverty & the Environment or UrbanHabitat.

Urban HabitatAdvisory Board Members

Fred Blackwell (Co-Chair)Annie E. Casey Foundatin

Joe Brooks (Co-Chair)PolicyLink

Michael OmiUC Berkeley

Arnold PerkinsAlameda Public Health Department

Bernida ReaganPort of Oakland

Belvie RooksCarrie Productions, Inc.

Omowale SatterwhiteCommunity Development Institute

James Thomas

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achieve social and environmental justice in these ways:

UH s Leadership Institute is in the process of developing aseries of trainings on electoral politics. The goal? To groomcommunity activists and leaders to participate in the electoralrealm and encourage civic participation.

UH s Environmental Health and Justice Program continues toarticulate the link between environmental justice and health.Two recent events that support this important work are: therecent adoption of the Precautionary Principle (a concept thatpromotes precaution in decisions that affect the environmentand human health) by the city and county of San Francisco(see p.59); and the precedent-setting approval by theCalifornia Environmental Protection Agency (Cal/EPA) sAdvisory Committee on Environmental Justice of comprehen-sive recommendations addressing a broad range ofcommunity concerns. This report will guide implementation ofenvironmental justice in the state.

UH is working to send a delegation from the Social EquityCaucus, a regional coalition that UH convenes, to the WorldSocial Forum in Bombay, India, in January. The Forum is anopportunity for our staff and allies to not only see that we arepart of an international movement, but that there are alsospecific strategies and tools used abroad that we canreplicate here at home.

The close of 2003 is an exciting time for Urban Habitat as we designour electoral strategy. There is a great need for leadership and vision inthis arena and the EJ Movement must develop the infrastructure to be akey player in building political power over the long term. Thank you forsupporting of our work and don t hesitate to give us feedback on thisissue of RPE.

In peace and solidarity,

Juliet EllisExecutive Director

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new

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n this issue, we document both the right-wing assault on America andsteps that people across the United States are taking to use theelectoral process to protect their communities, their laws and their lives.For 14 years, the Center for Race, Poverty & the Environment (CRPE)has worked with poor people and people of color to achieve CRPE scomplementary goals of building personal capacity and communitypower while fighting environmental hazards. These efforts have bornefruit in a number of electoral successes in rural California.

In Kettleman City, after the community group El Pueblo parael Aire y Agua Limpia (People for Clean Air and Water)defeated a toxic waste incinerator proposed by ChemicalW aste Management, El Pueblo leaders such as Mary LouMares went on to win election to the local CommunityServices District, which controls water policy for the town andChem Waste s toxic waste dump (see p. 56).

In Del Rey, local residents who were frustrated with theapproval of a huge juice factory organized to win three of thefive seats on the local water board so that they could controlthe approval process in the future.

In Alpaugh, CRPE advisory board president Sandra Meraztired of drinking contaminated water for which she wascharged exorbitant prices worked to elect a progressiveslate, including herself, to the local water board. Communityresidents are now working with CRPE to fashion a sustain-able, long-term plan to provide the community with safe andaffordable water.

In Frazier Park, long time CRPE advisory board member LindaMacKay leveraged her reputation for activism to secure aseat on the town council.

In each of these cases and countless others those directly affectedby environmental hazards chose to step up from grassroots activism toelectoral activism. As Mike Guerrero explains in his article in this issue(p.55), that step can have valuable returns for community organizationseven if a candidate does not win.

n

The attacks on the Environmental Justice Movement came home toCRPE this July, when our San Francisco office was burglarized. Amongthe stolen items were our computer towers and on-site back-up disks.Because there were no visible means of entry meaning the thief pickedour locks and because the only things stolen were our computers andbackup disks (while rolls of stamps, printers, a postage machine, and asmall stereo system were left untouched), we consider this an act of


6

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violence against CRPE, not a random property crime. CRPE represents people fighting powerful enemies: the world’s

largest zinc and lead mine, in Alaska; the country’s largest toxic wastedump, near Buttonwillow, CA; mega-dairies in California’s Central Valley,and more. Many of our clients have been physically threatened andintimidated; it was a matter of time before it happened to us. The factthat the director of a California-based environmental justice organizationalso recently had his computer stolen forces us to wonder if certainmovement organizations are being targeted.Just as we hope you will learn from the articles in this issue of RPE

how to fight back against the right-wing onslaught nationally, we hopeyou will learn from the break-in at CRPE. On the technological front, ifyou don’t regularly backup files and store them off-site, start doing it. Onthe security front, you should take this opportunity to review your organi-zation’s vulnerabilities; we now have a burglar alarm, our computers arephysically locked down to our desks, and we have taken other securitymeasures.The message the thieves intended to send was clearly one of intimi-

dation. Is CRPE intimidated? No way. Are we pissed? You bet. And wewill continue in our aggressive defense of communities under toxicassault.

Aluta continua!

Luke W. ColeDirector

7


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Critical reviews of recent

elections revealthat campaigns

for social andenvironmental

justice face manychallenges

Elections2000/2002

Revisited

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hat if there was an election, and nobody won?Thank you, Florida, for exposing as fraud

the much-vaunted sanctity of the vote in thiscountry and placing electoral reform back onthe country’s agenda. Reports out of Floridashow that people of color cast a dispropor-tionate number of disqualified votes. Onelection day, black and Haitian voters wereharassed by police, their names removedfrom the rolls, and their ballots left uncountedby outdated machines. Thirty-five years afterpassage of the Voting Rights Act, racist viola-tions of election law are rampant and shouldbe pursued to justice in Florida andelsewhere.But beyond these immediate issues, this

election reveals again just how central race isto U.S. politics and how racism is institutionallystructured into the electoral system. Theelection reaffirms that people of color are themost consistent liberal/progressive voters inthe country and their clout is increasing butthat electoral racism effectively nullifies almosthalf of their votes. The Civil Rights Movementdestroyed the monopoly of power by whites,but the tyranny of the white majority is still insti-tutionalized in the winner-take-all, two-party,Electoral College system. Unless we place fighting electoral racism at

the top of the racial justice agenda, we cannotchallenge the political stranglehold of conser-vative white voters or maximize the growingpower of people of color.

By the Numbers The idea that race and racism are central to

American politics is not just a theory thatharkens back to the days of slavery. It’s acurrent-day lived reality that is particularlyevident in this country’s biggest and mostsacred political event: the presidentialpageant. According to the Voter News Service exit

polls for Election 2000, 90 percent of AfricanAmericans voted for Gore, as did 63 percentof Latinos, and 55 percent of Asian Americans.(No exit poll data on the Native American voteis available, but most have historically votedDemocratic.) Combined, people of coloraccounted for almost 30 percent of Gore’stotal vote, although they were only 19 percentof voters. On the other hand, whites constitut-ed almost 95 percent of Bush’s total vote.Latinos, the country’s fastest growing voting

bloc, went heavily Democratic even inTexas despite extensive efforts by theRepublicans to sway them. Most AsianAmericans followed suit. People of color arebecoming a larger portion both of the U.S.population and of the electorate, and votinglargely in concert with each other in presiden-tial elections. Conventional electoral wisdom discounts

race as a political factor, focusing instead onclass, the gender gap, union membership, etc.But, the only demographic groups that had afairly unified vote defined as 60 percent ormore for one of the candidates were blacks,Latinos, Jews (81 percent for Gore), unionmembers (62 percent for Gore), residents oflarge cities (71 percent for Gore), and whitemales (60 percent for Bush). All but union

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By Bob Wing

The Color of Election 2000A look at the resurgence of electoral racism

W

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Eddie Covington atthe MLK parade inMiami, FL, protestingalleged police harass-ment in a recent elec-tion. He stands nextto a mural depictingcivil rights marchersfrom another era,painted by studentsfrom his alma mater,Miami Jackson High 'Tony Savino/The Image Works .

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members and big-city residents are racial orethnic groups. And, the large numbers of people of color in

unions (about 25 percent) and big citieslargely account for the heavy Democratic voteof those demographic groups. White unionmembers and city dwellers vote to the left ofwhites who live more racially isolated lives, butthey barely tilt Democratic. Similarly, womenvoted 54-43 percent for Gore, but whitewomen actually favored Bush by one point.W omen of color create the gender gap.The same can be said of the poor: although

57 percent of voters with incomes under$15,000 voted for Gore, poor whites whomake up just under half of eligible voters inthis category broke slightly for Bush. Theincome gap in presidential politics is thorough-ly racialized. As the sociologist William Formpointed out long ago, if only a bare majority ofwhite working-class people voted consistentlyDemocratic, we could have some kind ofsocial democracy that would provide muchmore social justice than the conservativeregimes we are used to. Despite the pronounced color of politics,

Ralph Nader (and his multi-hued progressivepundits) blithely dismiss the fact that hereceived only 1 percent of the votes of peopleof color and that the demographics of his sup-porters mirrored those of the Republicans(except younger).

Electoral College: Pillar of Racism The good news is that the influence of

liberal and progressive voters of color is

increasingly being felt in certain states. Theyhave become decisive in the most populousstates, all of which went to Gore except Ohio,Texas, and (maybe?) Florida. In California anoptimist might even envision a rebirth ofDemocratic liberalism a couple of electionsdown the road, based largely on votes ofpeople of color. The bad news is that the two-party, winner-

take-all, Electoral College system of thiscountry ensures, even requires, that voters ofcolor be marginalized or totally ignored. The Electoral College negates the votes of

almost half of all people of color. For example,53 percent of all blacks live in the Southernstates, where this year, as usual, they votedover 90 percent Democratic. However, whiteRepublicans out-voted them in every Southernstate (and every border state exceptMaryland). As a result, every single SouthernElectoral College vote was awarded to Bush.While nationally, whites voted 54-42 percentfor Bush, Southern whites, as usual, gave over70 percent of their votes to him. They thuscompletely erased the massive Southern black(and Latino and Native American) vote forGore in that region. Since Electoral College votes go entirely to

whichever candidate wins the plurality in eachstate whether that plurality be by one vote orone million votes the result was the same asif blacks and other people of color in the Southhad not voted at all. Similarly negated werethe votes of the millions of Native Americansand Latino voters who live in overwhelminglywhite Republican states like Arizona, Nevada,Oklahoma, Utah, the Dakotas, Montana andTexas. The tyranny of the white majorityprevails. Further, the impact of the mostly black

voters of Washington, D.C., unfairly deniedstatehood, is undermined by its arbitrary allo-cation of only three electoral votes. And thepeoples of Puerto Rico, the U.S. VirginIslands, American Samoa, and Guam whichare colonies ruled by the U.S. and have

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Elections 2000/2002 Revisited

n Decades after the Voting Rights Act

passed, racist violations of election

law are rampant.

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greater populations than more than aquarter of the U.S. states get noElectoral College votes at all.

Slave Power In his New York Times op-ed, Yale

law professor Akhil Amar reveals thatthe hitherto obscure Electoral Collegesystem was consciously set up by theFounding Fathers to be themechanism by which slaveholderswould dominate American politics. The Constitution provided that

slaves be counted as three-fifths of aperson (but given no citizenship rights)for purposes of determining how manymembers each state would be grantedin the House of Representatives. Thisprovision vastly increased the repre-sentation of the slave states inCongress.At the demand of James Madison

and other Virginia slaveholders, thispro-slavery allocation ofCongresspersons also became thebasis for allocation of votes in theElectoral College. It is a dirty littlesecret that the Electoral College wasrigged up for the express purpose oftranslating the disproportionateCongressional power of the slavehold-ers into undue influence over theelection of the presidency. Virginiaslaveholders proceeded to hold thepresidency for 32 of the Constitution’sfirst 36 years. Since slavery was abolished, the

new justification for the ElectoralCollege is that it allows smaller statesto retain some impact on elections.And so it does to the benefit of con-servative white Republican states. AsHarvard law professor Lani Guinierreports, in Wyoming, one ElectoralCollege vote corresponds to 71,000voters, while in large-population states

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Casting a vote for AlGore in Glenville,N.Y., on Election Day,Nov. 7, 2000. 'David Jennings /The Image Works

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(where the votes of people of color are morenumerous) the ratio is one electoral vote toover 200,000 voters. So much for one person,one vote.

Two-Party Racism The two-party system also structurally mar-

ginalizes voters of color. First of all, to win,both parties must take their most loyal votersfor granted and focus their message andmoney to win over the so-called undecidedvoters who will actually decide which partywins each election. The most loyal Democratsare strong liberals and progressives, thelargest bloc of whom are people of color. Themost loyal Republicans are conservativewhites, especially those in rural areas andsmall towns. The undecideds are mostly white,affluent suburbanites; and both parties try toposition their politics, rhetoric and policies towoo them. The interests of people of color areignored or even attacked by both parties asthey pander to the "center." Another consequence is that a dispropor-

tionate number of people of color see noreason to vote at all. The U.S. has by far thelowest voter participation rate of anydemocracy in the world. The two-party systemso demobilizes voters that only about 65

percent of the eligible electorate is registered,and only 49 to 50 percent usually vote (farless in non-presidential elections). Not surprisingly, the color and income of

those who actually vote is skewed to higherincome, older and more conservative whitepeople. In the 1996 presidential election, 57percent of eligible whites voted compared to50 percent of blacks and 44 percent ofLatinos. Seventy-three percent of people withfamily incomes over $75,000 voted comparedto 36 percent of those with incomes below$15,000. In addition, current electoral law disenfran-

chises millions of mainly Latino and Asianimmigrants because they are not citizens. And,according to Reuters, some 4.2 millionAmericans, including 1.8 million black men (13percent of all black men in America), aredenied the right to vote because of incarcera-tion or past felony convictions.

Proportional Representation To remedy these racist, undemocratic

electoral structures, Lani Guinier and manyothers propose an electoral system based onproportional representation. New Zealand,Australia, all of the European countries exceptGreat Britain, and many Third World countrieshave proportional electoral systems. In suchsystems, all parties that win a certain minimumof the popular vote (usually 5 percent) win rep-resentation in the Congress (or Parliament)equal to their vote. To win the presidency, aparty must either win an outright majority orform a governing coalition with other parties. Thus, for example, the German Green

Party, which gets about seven percent of the

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n The Electoral College negates the

votes of almost half of all people of

color.

When this article was first published in Spring 2001, Bob Wing was executive editor of ColorLines. He’s a longtime fighter for racial and

economic justice. Vanessa Daniel of the Applied Research Center provided research assistance. Reprinted with permission from

ColorLines.

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Protesters in a Gore-sponsored rally outside the historicFlorida capitol inDecember 2000'Bruce Brewer /TheImage Works

areas of Nashville, black voters stood in linesover a mile long to use ancient punch-cardmachines on the verge of falling apart.The Department of Safety mysteriously lost

and mishandled voter records and applicationsall over the state, turning the so-called motorvoter process into a nightmare. TennesseeState University, a historically African-American school, was the only college inCentral or Eastern Tennessee that didn t getsatellite polling place status. Polling placeswere moved and changed their hours ofoperation all over western and southernTennessee without notifying anybody.Tennessee s felon purge list was possibly

as problem-ridden as Florida s. Only the quickwork of Dr. Blondell Strong, a NashvilleNAACP representative, kept many formerinmates from being improperly barred from

voting in Nashville. In some areas, such asMemphis and Bolivar, simple misdemeanorsplaced some people on the purge list. CliftonPolk, a NAACP worker in Bolivar, filed acomplaint with the Equal EmploymentOpportunity Commission over the difficultiesexperienced in his area. The Tennessee Voter Empowerment Team

met at the Tennessee NAACP Conference ofBranches on November 17, 2000, andreleased their findings to the state. There wasmassive evidence that thousands perhapseven tens of thousands had been disenfran-chised, mostly African Americans. Theevidence was serious enough to merit alawsuit conducted by the U.S. Department ofJustice.But the vast majority of media coverage that

appeared on this issue came from the black

By Catherine Danielson

BeyondFlorida:Voting in Tennessee, 2002

ennessee is one of the jewels of the New South, glittering with new construction in its cities andsuburbs, a growing population, and, of course, relentless urban sprawl and hideous traffic. Yet, likeall the South, it remains a place haunted by its past. This was evident in the 2000 elections, whenallegations of racist voting irregularities swept through the South, and particularly this state. Blackvoters were reportedly told to get behind the white voters in Murfreesboro and Memphis. In theHadley Park district of Nashville, black voters were told to remove NAACP stickers from their carsor leave the polling place without voting. Police standing around polling places intimidated African-American voters in several locations. In western Tennessee and the Upper Antioch and Hadley Park

T

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press, newspapers like the TennesseeTribune, Nashville Pride and Urban Flavor.For several months, major news outlets suchas The Tennessean (a Gannett paper), TheScene, and local network affiliates essentiallyignored the entire matter. Drew Smith, aproducer for NewsChannel 5 (Nashville s CBSaffiliate), received reports on election night ofpolice intimidation and African Americansturned away from polling places in Memphis.Smith, along with the news director and theanchor, refused to run the story, either thatnight or in the future. (The employee whopassed this story on to me begged to remainanonymous, terrified of losing his job.)

People want to sweep this under the rug,says Rev. Neal Darby, head of the GreaterNashville Black Chamber of Commerce. Theydon t want to think it could have happenedhere. But Tennessee, in some ways, has thedubious distinction of representing the worst ofthe worst in the United States voting. And now( ) we are faced with the same question as in2000: Will we ever have justice in voting here?Voting irregularities were reported in 23

states in 2000. Yet Tennessee may have themost strikes against it far more than Florida,the state that received the lion s share of thecoverage. Being one of only three states suedby the Department of Justice is only thebeginning. The governor of Tennessee, DonSundquist, never signed notable electionreform legislation. The flawed felon purge listwas not corrected. The oldest type of votingmachine has not been replaced. Tennessee isone of only six states that received a grade ofF in the NAACP s report on the voting situationnationwide.This is not a new story, and it isn t necessary

to go back to the pre-civil rights era to find sig-nificant problems. In 1992, hundreds of peoplein Davidson County showed up to vote andwere told they were at the wrong precincts. In1994, election results from early voting weren tcounted until the Friday after Election Day. In1997, faulty computer equipment at early voting

sites in Nashville kept untold hundreds fromvoting. In 1998, sample ballots were notpublished before early voting, as required bystate law.Problems continued in the 2002 primaries.

Twenty-one of the state s 95 counties were stillusing the infamous punch-card ballots, exactlythe type that caused problems in Florida. MichaelMcDonald, Davidson County s administrator ofelections, acknowledges that polling places wereunderstaffed and the workers badly trained.Redistricting caused polling places to be changedthroughout the state, and frequently voters werenot informed. Though the state is required by lawto send registration cards to voters, 20,000Davidson County voters received their cards lateand some never received them at all. Up to 500voters in Madison, Hadley Park, Brick ChurchPike and Bordeaux (the poorest areas, which hadthe most problems in 2000) received incorrectpolling information on their cards. Phone linesthat were supposed to keep voters informed onprimary day were overwhelmed and out of order.Voters in almost two dozen Davidson county

precincts who asked for paper tally sheets forwrite-in votes had their ballots mysteriously gomissing. The Tennessean whose coverage ofthese issues has significantly improved since2000 went to the Election Commissionwarehouse and hand-counted all the tally sheetsto confirm this fact. The ballots have never beenfound.On Friday, Nov. 1, three days before the

general election, Tennessee s state electioncoordinator, Brook Thompson, warned thatRepublicans had encouraged poll watchers tochallenge voters who had registered underTennessee s motor voter law. Thompsonpresented as evidence an internal GOP emailobtained by Justice Department lawyers.

In light of the apparent suspicion andpossible hostility that some poll watchers mayhave to (motor voter) voters, Thompson wrotein a memo to county election officials, wemust advise the election officials that the pollwatchers cannot and will not be allowed to

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harass and/or intimidate voters. We will not bepatient with any person seeking to create ahostile and unfriendly atmosphere in thepolling place.In a particularly surreal note, state

Republicans criticized the federal govern-ment s involvement in the matter: With all duerespect, I don t think the Justice Departmentknows what it s doing, said John Ryder, theparty s attorney in Tennessee.

There s obviously room for improvements,and we re going to make those improve-ments, says McDonald. However, there is stillno state law requiring a recount in closeelections or setting uniform standards forrecounts. Almost two dozen election billsproposed in the Tennessee legislature soonafter the 2000 election went nowhere,including proposals to allow provisional voting,adopt minimum standards for nonpartisanvoter education, and provide central votinglocations for voters who have gone to incorrectpolling places. One bill detailing what countsas a vote in counties that still use punch-cardballots did go through, but it s largely a mootpoint, since recounts are not required.Republican Senator Fred Thompson explains

that the state simply doesn t have the money toaddress all these problems due to seeminglyperennial budget crunches, although he says,We have taken steps to rectify some

problems. There isn t any money left in theloan fund that counties could previously borrowfrom to replace outdated voting machines; itwas cleaned out by the legislature whilebalancing the budget this year. The NAACPwants more money spent, Thompson adds. I

couldn t agree more. But there s really nomoney to be had. Rep. Sherry Jones (D-Nashville) states, The legislature was waitingfor the federal government to act, which neverhappened.The question that must be asked, then, is what

the proper response should be in the face of gov-ernment apathy, not enough money, not enoughvolunteers, not enough laws, not enoughequipment, and a very disturbing past. Theanswer, so far, lies almost entirely in grassrootscommunity organizing. Nowhere is this moreobvious than in the African-American community,where most leaders seem to feel that the only waythe situation will improve is through increasedvoter education and awareness. This is whathappened, the Rev. Edward Robinson ofNashville says. Now we know how they threwaway votes and took advantage of us. But you vote regardless of whether you go to the polls ornot. Politicians will only respond on how orwhether we vote.The national NAACP has assigned voter

empowerment coordinators to 22 states,working with a threefold purpose: to register, toeducate, and to get out the vote. They reworking with people where they live, throughthe organizations vital to them labor unions,black colleges and their sororities and fraterni-ties, local NAACP branches, the Urban League,black employee networks and communitycenters. They re registering voters at neighbor-hood parades, festivals, tailgate parties andbeauty shops.A 36-city NAACP bus tour traveled through

the South this summer to promote voterawareness. It was as grassroots as grassroots

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'Bruce Brewer /TheImage Works

Catherine Danielson is the founder United Progressive Citizens for Change, a nonprofit organization in Tennessee dedicated to

researching and publicizing the need for election reform. This article originally appeared in the winter 2002/2003 issue of Southern

Exposure; it is reprinted with permission.

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Analysis of federal

policies that undermine efforts to

protect the environmentand preserve civil rights.

State of our Union

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n

Communities for aBetter Environment(CBE) Archive

Since taking office the administration hasattempted to eliminate key environmentalprotections that have historically benefited low-income communities and communities of color.This summer, the administration approved thesingle largest rollback of the Clean Air Act arepeal of a provision known as "new sourcereview" or NSR.

NSR: The Heart of the Clean Air ActWhen the Clean Air Act was enacted in the

1970s, its drafters struck a compromise:Rather than require all existing plants to installmodern pollution controls immediately, thefederal government would allow old facilities tophase-in modern controls over time when theyengaged in major plant modifications. NewSource Review required old power plants,refineries and other major sources of pollutionto install the best available control technologywhen they undergo major modifications.Older facilities that do not meet modern air

pollution standards continue to create anenormous pollution problem throughout thenation. Seventy to 80 percent of all powerplant emissions come from facilities that werebuilt before 1977, and virtually all refinerypollution comes from pre-1977 facilities.Compared to modern or updated power plants,old plants emit four to 10 times morepollution for every megawatt produced,creating dramatic adverse health conse-

quences. These facilities also have an unac-ceptable rate of accidents and explosionsthat expose residents and workers to severehealth and safety risks. In the San Francisco Bay Area, communi-

ties of color and low-income communities arehosts to a disproportionately large share ofthese old, highly polluting facilities, some ofwhich operate with technology that is literally50-100 years old. Every day these facilitiesrelease thousands of pounds of toxicchemicals that residents are forced to breathe. Technology is available to dramatically

reduce pollution from facilities and improvesafety as well. At the end of the Clintonadministration, the United StatesEnvironmental Protection Agency (EPA)embarked on an ambitious campaign toenforce NSR at some of the worst pollutingfacilities in the country. The EPA investiga-tors found that almost without exception,major power plants and refineries hadmodified their facilities, but failed to installthe required best available pollution controltechnology. As a result, EPA’s Office ofEnforcement filed dozens of lawsuits againstpolluters across the country. The resultswere dramatic. Facilities nationwide agreedto install billions of dollars worth of modernpollution control and safety equipment. Insome cases, emissions were cut by morethan half.

By Richard Toshiyuki Drury and A. J. Napolis

Curbson Clean AirA major environmental threat to the poor and people of color

magine a law that, if enforced, could save the lives of between 4,300 and 7,000 people a year.Better still, what if that law could also prevent up to 120,000 asthma attacks annually? This ground-breaking law the Clean Air Act already exists but is under attack by the Bush administration.

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Vol.10_No2 v4 6/2/2006 2:47 PM

Bush’s New RuleRather than build on this successful

campaign to modernize our nation s energyinfrastructure, the Bush administration hasenacted a rule that eliminates NSR altogeth-er. Under the old rules that have existed for30 years, a facility was required to install thebest available control technology (BACT) if itunderwent a major modification that resultedin an increase in emissions over currentlevels. Bush has now created a routine repair and

maintenance exception to the rule that allowsfacilities to make modifications that cost up to20 percent of the replacement cost of theentire plant. Even if emissions will increasedramatically, no pollution control would berequired. For example, a refinery worth $300million that spends $44 million on a modifica-tion that increases emissions by 1000 tons peryear could avoid installing BACT because themodification costs less than 20 percent thecost of the entire facility. This exceptionessentially swallows the rule since very fewmodifications will cost more than 20 percent ofthe replacement cost of the facility. Permittingsuch exemptions enables facilities to spendmillions on factory improvements whileavoiding anti-pollution measures. The new rules would also allow a facility to

choose any two years of the past 10 as thebaseline. Permitting polluters to cherry pickemissions from the past decade will enablefacilities to avoid NSR entirely by selecting ananomalous year of high emissions as thebaseline, even though the facility may havehad much lower emissions in other years. Inthis way, hundreds of facilities (up to 50percent, by EPA estimates) may be able toavoid installing modern pollution control tech-nology by selecting unrepresentative,anomalous emissions. Additionally, the administration proposes an

approach called "plant-wide applicabilitylimits," or PALs, under which a source may

increase emissions so long as it haddecreased emissions by an equal amount inthe past 10 years. In other words, a companycould modify its facility today, with substantialemission increases, but avoid new sourcereview if it decreased its emissions a decadeearlier for entirely unrelated reasons. Thisapproach has key problems. First, it increasesthe risk that an emissions cap will be signifi-cantly higher than emissions under normaloperations. Second, it will be extremely difficultto enforce since there is no reliable way todetermine the actual emissions from a facility,especially if dozens, or even hundreds ofsources are involved, as with a refinery. Voluntary EnforcementOne of the hallmarks of the 1990 Clean Air

Act was the requirement of public monitoring,permit limits and enforcement. However, theadministration s proposed changes eliminatethe requirement for non-utilities to obtain,through permits, enforceable pollution limits forany pollution increases resulting from modifi-cations. Rather than having enforceablepermits with operating conditions that can bemonitored, reported and examined by govern-ment inspectors or the public, the administra-tion proposes a "voluntary enforcement"approach that relies upon facilities to set theirown limits, keep their own records and turnthemselves in to regulators if they exceedthose limits. In simple terms, this is a case ofthe proverbial fox guarding the henhouse.These changes eliminate the very features

of the current law that provide transparency tothe public monitoring, record keeping, andreporting. Worse, the very minimal recordsthat would be required may be shielded fromthe public because facilities are only obligatedto keep them on site. While records submittedto regulators are available to the publicthrough state or federal freedom-of-informationlaws, records maintained on site at companiesmay not be available to the public. It is now well documented that environmen-

tal laws are not sufficiently enforced by gov-

18


State of Our Union

n Communities of color are hosts to a large share

of old polluting facilities.

Vol.10_No2 v4 6/2/2006 2:47 PM

ernment, particularly in communities of color.In such communities, residents must oftentake enforcement into their own hands, asallowed by most federal environmental laws.Eliminating the public s access to informationundermines the ability of community membersto fully engage in the process of protectingtheir own air. Preventing meaningful, workableopportunities for enforcement by the publicand regulators undermines our rule of law,harms the competitive interests of companiesthat play by the rules, and damages publicconfidence that our air is getting cleaner.

The Human Toll The EPA estimates that the proposed

changes could remove 49 percent of pollutionfacilities from the new source review require-ments. A report by the Boston-based Clean AirTask Force reveals that the proposed changescould result in thousands of deaths. Keyfindings of this report include:

Pollution from the 51 plants thatare targets of NSR enforcementactions shortens the lives ofbetween 5,500 and 9,000 peopleevery year. Requiring the plants tomeet modern pollution standardswould avoid between 4,300 and7,000 of these deaths.

Pollution from the 51 NSR plantsleads to between 107,000 and170,000 asthma attacks each year.Between 80,000 and 120,000 ofthese attacks could be avoided byrequiring the plants to meetmodern pollution standards.

Fighting BackIn response to this threat several states and

environmental groups, such as Communities fora Better Environment (CBE), have filed suitsagainst the Bush administration s repeal of theClean Air Act. In anticipation of the number ofyears that it would take for this litigation to

19


n

CBE Archive

Richard Toshiyuki Drury is an attorney for the law firm of Adams, Broadwell, Joseph and Cardozo, in South San Francisco, CA, where

he represents labor unions in environmental matters.

A. J. Napolis is the program director for Communities for a Better Environment (CBE), an environmental justice and health organization

based in Oakland, CA.

Vol.10_No2 v4 6/2/2006 2:47 PM

policies; and staff and state programs. In September 2001, the Congressional

Black Caucus culminated the year-longNational Environmental Policy Commissionwhich assessed environmental communitiesthrough five Listening Sessions andevaluated policy options. Industry trade groupssuch as the National Association ofManufacturers and the American ChemistryCouncil have established committees focusedon environmental justice. States are establish-ing environmental justice programs, conveningadvisory groups and issuing responsivepolicies. Most important, communities around the

U.S. are working on environmental impacts,land use, community health, wages andworker protection. Activists have influencedcleanups, permitting and economic develop-ment decisions. Communities have positivelyshaped decisions in their neighborhoods andregions and have also defeated localproposals to site or expand facilities rangingfrom medical waste and garbage incineratorsto low-level radiation dumps and chemical

plants.

Partisanship and the Public InterestPolitical shifts are threatening to truncate

these successes. The shifts are reflected inthe election of George W. Bush as well aspolitical successes achieved by conservativesin Congress and the state houses. Theincreasing influence of the corporate sector onthe electoral process, and in state and federalagencies is another factor. In what has been aRepublican majority Congress, environmentaljustice activists, civil rights advocates andenvironmentalists continue to battle over leg-islative proposals to rollback environmentaland civil rights laws.Under the guise of a domestic energy plan,

President Bush is attempting to open criticalwilderness areas to oil drilling. The Bushadministration has also proposed weakeningimportant environmental protection standardsand shifting national environmental enforce-


State of Our Union

By Deeohn Ferris

Right-wing Rollbacks

and Our CourtsEmerging legal roadblocks

to environmental justice

ince the inception of the Environmental JusticeMovement, grassroots activists, their partnersand allies have engaged the legal system andemployed the law to leverage greater socialequity and environmental justice. There havebeen impressive gains: Executive Order12898, the Presidential Executive Order onEnvironmental Justice, signed in 1994 duringthe Clinton administration; the formation of afederal National Environmental JusticeAdvisory Council; federal governmental

20

n

A symbolic protest ofthe U.S. Supreme

Court s controversialruling that decided

Election 2000 in favorof George W. Bush:

an American flagwaved upside down.

December, 2000'Rob Crandall / The

Image Works

S

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ment responsibilities from the federal govern-ment to the states, has shrunk funding in keyprograms, and retreated from implementingnew standards that took decades to develop. This summer, a coalition including the

Alliance for Justice, the Natural ResourcesDefense Council and Earthjustice (amongother groups) released a report entitled,Hostile Environment: How Activist FederalJudges Threaten Our Air, Water and Land.The report showcases how anti-environmentalactivism on the federal bench is curtailing pro-tection of America s natural resources. Although not noted in the report, a recent

pivotal U.S. Supreme Court decision inAlexander vs. Sandoval also damages com-munities ability to deploy at least one key civilrights law to redress disparate environmentalimpacts. The Supreme Court held that plain-tiffs do not have a private right to sue underTitle VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, whichprohibits discrimination on the basis of race,color and national origin by recipients offederal financial assistance.For the past 20 years, civil rights activists

have fought rollbacks in civil rights laws in thecourts and legislatures. Courts and legislatureshave rejected programs that would enableminorities denied equal opportunity the right tocompete on a level playing field in governmentcontracting, hiring and employment andaccess to higher education. The slow pace ofjudicial appointments compounded by ongoingefforts of conservatives to stymie the federaljudicial selection process in the Senate andpack the courts, has had a negative impact oncivil rights. The tragic events of the September 11

terrorist attack on the U.S. compounded thesetrends. The prominence of domestic securityconcerns, the war on terrorism and economic

stimulus efforts have eclipsed both the envi-ronment and civil liberties as priorities on thenational agenda. The key question is whetherpublic and Congressional attention to theseissues is temporary or whether the politicalterrain has changed for the long term.

Overview of Key Legal IssuesTraditionally, environmental justice activists

have explored and used a variety of legaltools under environmental and civil rightslaws, including litigation. Impediments tobroader use of these tools exist. Foremost,there is a paucity of lawyers dedicated tothese fields in the public interest context.Comparatively, there is a high percentage ofaffected communities nationwide and, largely,they are inadequately resourced.Environmental and civil rights litigation iscomplex, requiring considerable expertise.Impediments to creating partnerships

among environmental justice, environmentaland civil rights groups including, until now, thelack of opportunities to engage in collectivethinking, have inhibited deploying thisexpertise to assist communities throughlawsuits or pursuit of other options. Further, lit-igation is usually long-term, experts arerequired and, in a trend that is affecting eventhe private sector, costs can be high. On a limited basis and with some degree of

success, environmental justice activists andtheir lawyers have explored and filed litigationunder environmental and civil rights laws.However, recent judicial and administrativedecisions and actions by Congress imperilthese modest achievements. Here is a briefoverview of environmental and civil rights toolsand litigation approaches utilized in communitystruggles.

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n Anti-environmental activism on the federal bench is curtailing protec-

tion of natural resources.

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Environmental ToolsW ith moderate success, communities have

employed local, state and federal statutes andregulations as tools to redress discriminatoryenvironmental decisions. Commonly, claimsare made involving procedures, public partici-pation or the technical or scientific bases of agovernmental decision. Environmental statutesprovide civil remedies1 in the courts andadministrative remedies through administrativelaw judges. Some statutes authorize citizensto sue agencies to enforce environmentalstandards. In general, with respect to procedure, the

issue is whether government performed alllegally required steps in the decision process.On public participation, broadly stated, didnotice and opportunity to comment complywith legal requirements? Regarding thetechnical or scientific basis for the decision,the underlying concern is sufficiency of theaction or the data and analyses to support it.In environmental justice terms, discriminationcan occur at each of these levels resulting indecisions adverse to communities. Moreover,accretion of hazards, and disproportionateimpacts in overburdened neighborhoods mustbe a decisive factor.Environmental governance is a framework

of federal, state and local directives usuallyunder statutes and regulations. One suchstatute, the National Environmental Policy Act(NEPA), mandates that federal agencies incor-porate protection and enhancement of theenvironment into decisions and actions. NEPArequires preparation of Environmental ImpactStatements (EIS) and public involvement onfederally funded projects that will have a sig-nificant effect on the environment. If proven,unacceptable health, social and economicimpacts or serious community disruptions canhalt a project. Many states have enactedderivative laws and regulations that mirrorNEPA.Other federal statutes establish programs

that protect public health and the environment

by targeting media or regulating chemicals andwastes such as the Clean Air Act, the CleanW ater Act, the Resource Conservation andRecovery Act, and the Safe Drinking WaterAct. Similar to state-NEPAs, states haveenacted parallel laws and the U.S.Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issuesgrants to states to operate and enforce keyaspects of those environmental programs(although EPA retains certain federal programand enforcement functions and the right totake action that supercedes states). Other non-environmental statutes also

impact these issues. For instance, the NationalHistoric Preservation Act can be a means foraffected communities to participate in federaldecisions that impact resources in historicallysignificant neighborhoods, buildings and tradi-tional, cultural properties. Local governmentsmay also have counterparts.Other concerns worth noting include

standing to sue and sovereign immunity, twoareas under assault in the courts that affectthe rights of plaintiffs to sue at all. Judicialdecisions are imperiling the rights of parties tosue by limiting whether the litigant is theproper party to fight the issue and constrainingsuits against government.Civil Rights ToolsEnvironmental justice activists have

explored and used civil rights laws to addressdisproportionate impacts. Overarching bothenvironmental and civil rights laws is theExecutive Order (EO) 12898 Federal Actionsto Address Environmental Justice in Minorityand Low-Income Populations. The Order,signed by President Clinton in 1994, requiresthat:

Each Federal agency shall makeachieving environmental justice part of itsmission by identifying and addressing, asappropriate, disproportionately high andadverse human health or environmentaleffects of programs, policies, and activi-ties on minority and low-income popula-

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State of Our Union

Vol.10_No2 v4 6/2/2006 2:47 PM

tions.

The EO confers no new rights but requiresfederal agencies to take specific actions toaddress environmental justice such as issuingaction strategies, research priorities andcommunity and tribal involvement. The EO sPresidential Memorandum underscores theapplicability of civil rights to environmentaldecisions.2 Principally, civil rights are claimedby communities under the Equal ProtectionClause of the Constitution and Title VI of theCivil Rights Act of 1964.

The Equal Protection Clause: Constitutional claims against discriminatory

environmental decisions have proven unsuc-cessful. Courts have ruled that plaintiffs mustprove the governmental decision is a result ofintentional discrimination against thecommunity. Although attempted by groupsaround the country, due to the sizable burden ofproving intent in this era of institutionalized and,frequently, more subtle discrimination, theConstitutional strategy has proven ineffective. In one important case, R.I.S.E., Inc. vs. Kay,3

a federal court found that the Equal ProtectionClause doesn t confer a duty to ensure equalityin a government decision to site a landfill butonly prohibits intentional racial discrimination.This decision was rendered despite the fact thatthe population near three other existing landfillswas nearly totally African American.

Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act: Historically, Title VI has been considered

promising for environmental justice. Suits havebeen brought by private parties in the courtsand, administratively, in federal agencies. Forexample, 121 administrative complaints havebeen filed at the EPA alone since 1993. Whilethe legal success of Title VI is uncertain, thereare other measures of success. As part of anoverall strategy, arguably, Title VI has beeneffective in terms of galvanizing communities

and applying pressure on decision makers.

According to Title VI: No person in the United States shall, onthe ground of race, color, or nationalorigin be excluded from participation in,be denied the benefits of, or be subjectedto discrimination under any program oractivity receiving Federal financial assis-tance.

To implement Title VI, most federalagencies have issued regulations. Underthese regulations, generally, instead ofrequiring proof of intentional discrimination,discriminatory or disparate impact is sufficientto demonstrate an unlawful act. Given theproblems of proving intent, Title VI hasprovided putative recourse. For example, the Labor Community

Strategy Center and the NAACP LegalDefense and Education Fund filed a landmarktransportation action involving Title VI onbehalf of 350,000 low-income minority busriders. In Labor Community Strategy Center

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n

Hundreds of peoplegathered outside ofFaneuil Hall, Boston,MA., to protestAttorney GeneralAshcroft who spokeexclusively to lawenforcement person-nel to promote anddefend the USAPatriot Act. Protesterscontend thatAshcroft’s plan haseroded civil libertiesunder the guise ofimproving public safe-ty. Sept. 2003. 'Marilyn Humphries/The Image Works

Vol.10_No2 v4 6/2/2006 2:47 PM

vs. Los Angeles County Metropolitan Trans-portation Authority,4 bus riders amassedextensive documentation asserting intentionaldiscrimination and disparate impact over 30years. The Consent Decree favorably settledthe class-action suit requiring the Los AngelesMetropolitan Transportation Authority toprovide greater service equity for the transitdependent ridership and committed theagency to specific improvements and expendi-tures. The Bus Riders Union has been able todefeat repeated MTA appeals including arecent favorable decision by the Ninth Circuit.Even under the disparate impact standard,

Title VI claims have not been altogether suc-cessful. Sixty-six claims have been pending atthe EPA since 1996. In that time period, 45cases remain under review while 21 are underinvestigation. Since 1993, only one such claimhas been reviewed on the merits. It wasdecided in favor of the permittee.5

In 1998, Title VI was dealt a blow in ChesterResidents Concerned for Quality Living vs.Seif.6 In this case, the complaint alleged thatthe Pennsylvania Department ofEnvironmental Protection (DEP) discriminatedvia a decision to permit five of seven landfills ina predominantly white county in the AfricanAmerican (and low income) community ofChester. An incinerator7 was the subject of thefederal complaint. The District Court rejectedthe claim on the ground that the communitydidn t have a private right to sue in court underTitle VI. On appeal to the Third Circuit, the courtruled that plaintiffs did have a right. The stateappealed to the Supreme Court and it took thecase but ruled it moot after the facility failed tosecure local permits and the project wasabandoned.

More recent cases are causing activists toconsider a legislative strategy urging Congressto shore up Title VI by confirming the privateright to sue and applicability of the disparateimpact standard. In South Camden Citizens inAction vs. New Jersey Department of Environ-mental Protection,8 the community, throughCamden Regional Legal Services (with theadvice of a supporting cast of attorneys),charged the state agency with intentional dis-crimination, disparate impacts and a FairHousing Act violation. The cause is a decision to allow St.

Lawrence Cement Co. to site a $55 millionplant that would grind and process granulatedslag in an area already inundated withhazards. These assaults include a sewagetreatment plant that serves 35 towns, a cogen-eration plant, a trash-to-steam plant, twoSuperfund sites, and 15 other known contami-nated sites.9

In a detailed decision, the district courtjudge ruled in favor of the Title VI claim andthe private right to sue and issued a prelimi-nary injunction against construction of the newfacility. Within a week, the U.S. SupremeCourt issued a ruling in a separate case,Alexander vs. Sandoval,10 a decision thatundermined the remarkable decision inCamden, and held that private suits are notavailable under Title VI. Sandoval involved theissue of whether Spanish-speaking individualscould sue the State of Alabama for discrimina-tion under Title VI for requiring English-onlydrivers licensing.Shortly after Sandoval, the District Court

Judge in Camden issued a supplementaryopinion skirting the Supreme Court decision byholding for the first time that plaintiffs could

24


State of Our Union

Deeohn Ferris is President of Global Environmental Resources Inc. (GERI), a professional consulting firm that provides management

services, technical support and training to clients on environmental, natural resources and public health projects, policies and programs.

This article was excerpted with permission from the author, from, “Promoting Community Building Through Collaborative

Environmental Justice Legal Strategies and Funding Approaches.”

Vol.10_No2 v4 6/2/2006 2:47 PM

tal agenda and judicial appointments, whichundermine civil rights because they dispropor-tionately harm low-income communities andcommunities of color.W e highlight misguided policies that have

led to the destruction of our environment andill health of surrounding populations. Thesepolicies cater to large corporate campaigncontributors, leaving less affluent citizens tosuffer. Finally, we propose that cross-movement alliances promote projects thats u s t a i nand optimize current infrastructures and futureproactive strategies such as full publicfinancing of elections that benefit all organi-zational missions.

Environmental InjusticeIn March 2001, the Bush administration

lowered standards for drinking water and liftedregulations requiring mining industries to postclean-up bonds. Mining runoff has been identi-fied as a major source of water contamination,leading to increases in cancer-causing arsenicin drinking water. A year later, the administra-tion gave coal-mining companies the permis-sion to dump tons of waste into valleys andstreams without penalty. In response, low-income white residents sought the interventionof the courts. The mining companies, in turn,sought protection from the Bush administra-tion, which weakened regulations according tothe mining industries’ demands. Not coinciden-tally, the mining industry contributed more than

25


By Liza Siu Mendoza & Rico Oyola

inReverseRegressive policies thatimperil our communities

espite token gestures such as Bush s recent ban on racial profiling, the administration has generallydemonstrated hostility toward hard-won civil rights that have protected and benefited communities ofcolor for more than 30 years. What follows is a brief survey of the Bush administration s environmen-

n

Students and theirsupporters fromacross the countryconverge onW ashington in April2003 as the U. S.Supreme Court hearsoral argumentsregarding affirmativeaction programs prac-ticed by the Universityof Michigan and itslaw school.' E.A. Kennedy III /The Image Works

D

Civil Rights

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$3 million to Bush’s campaign and theRepublican National Committee, demonstrat-ing the influence of large corporate campaigndonations on the administration’s environmen-tal policy. Similarly, the Bush administration’s attack on

the Clean Air Act disproportionately affects low-income people of color because refineries andpower plants are often located in or near thosecommunities. According to Communities for aBetter Environment (CBE), Southwest Networkfor Environmental and Economic Justice, andthe Center for Race, Poverty and theEnvironment, the gutting of the Clean Air Actcould result in more than 7,000 deaths andmore than 100,000 additional asthma attacksamong low-income people of color. The NewSource Review program under the Clean AirAct required older power facilities, whichaccount for 70-80 percent of refinery and powerplant pollution, to install and upgrade theirequipment to reduce emissions when thesefacilities undergo major modifications. Underthe new Bush administration plan, facilitiescould avoid installing upgraded pollution-controlequipment altogether.

Judicial Nominees President Bush also has the power, with

Senate confirmation, to appoint judges who

make monumental decisions that affect ourenvironment and civil rights. Judges play animportant role not only in interpretingenvironmental laws, but also in enforcing lawsthat protect our water and air. Therefore,judges, like elected officials, are key players inprotecting or not protecting ourenvironment.For example, Bush nominated Judge Victor

W olski to the Court of Federal Claims, a courtthat decides whether the government mustpay companies and developers to comply withenvironmental and safety standards. TheSenate confirmed Judge Wolski on July 9,2003 with a narrow vote of 54-43. A libertarianon issues of government power and propertyrights, Wolski is known for supporting propertyrights of corporations at the expense ofenvironmental and public health safeguards.As a lawyer, Wolski unsuccessfully arguedthat a regional plan established to save LakeTahoe from pollution constituted a taking ofprivate land by the government. The Bushadministration’s choice of Wolski and otherultra-conservative ideologues to the Court ofFederal Claims will have detrimental effects onour environment.Justice Priscilla Owen, another Bush judicial

nominee thus far stymied by filibuster hasan equally unfavorable reputation among

26


State of Our Union

Housing: Last fall Congress voted to drasti-cally cut the Federal Housing Choice Voucherprogram (section 8), putting more than100,000 low-income families at risk of losingtheir rent subsidies, according to theCongressional Budget Office. Other curbsinclude cuts in the HOPE VI program and thepublic housing capital fund. Transportation: The Bush administration

recently proposed cuts in the federal match fornew mass transit projects and to eliminateguarantees of transit money from the generalfund, while speeding environmental reviews oftransportation projects in part by reducing theopportunities for the public to provide input.Education: Funding for the No Child Left

Behind Act, signed by President Bush in 2002,was cut by $90 million, freezing funds for thehiring and training of teachers as well as after-school programs.Health care: More than a dozen state

Medicaid waivers (exemptions) approved bythe Bush administration have resulted infailures to provide services to thousands ofqualified recipients and diminished quality ofcare, according to a recent GeneralAccounting Office investigation.W elfare: The Bush administration s welfare

reform plan increased work requirements forrecipients from 30 hours to 40 hours per week.At the same time, it provided no new funds forchildcare or the Temporary Assistance for

More Anti-Poor Policies

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environmental groups. Justice Owen is knownfor defending the property rights of majorlandowners at the expense of clean watersafeguards. Her appointment to the bench, aswell as other similar appointments, would undothe protections that have been achieved byenvironmental groups through the years.

Call for a United Social Justice VoiceW e should expect more of this type of anti-

environment, anti-civil rights leadership as longas we participate in a donation-driven politicalsystem. This system has severe consequencesin terms of systemic disenfranchisement ofminorities and the poor. Voters of color believethat there is no equality under the currentsystem of campaign finance because they oftenlack the funds to have an influential voice.Publicly financed campaigns would providecommunities of color greater access to thepolitical process and they would replenish thecountry s dire need for community-committedleaders. Achieving this representative elected body

will require social justice groups to makereplenishing our state and national leadershipa strategic organizational priority. We can dothis proactively and reactively. Proactively, wecan allocate staff time toward promoting localand statewide public financing of electioncampaigns in our respective communities.Civil rights advocates can work with campaignfinance reform activists to translate the directbenefits of full public financing of elections totheir individual organizational missions andidentify how those organizations can mobilizetheir constituencies toward reclaiming adiverse and accountable leadership. TheGreenlining Institute s Claiming OurDemocracy program has formulated clear rec-ommendations that groups might begin incor-porating into their public education priorities.

W e can also become more united evenwhen reacting to detrimental initiatives. Take,for example, the Coalition for an InformedCalifornia, the largest statewide allianceformed to defeat the Race Information Ban(Proposition 54), which lost at the polls onOctober 7, 2003, as this article went to press.This broad and diverse coalition of civil rightsgroups, public health providers, medical asso-ciations, academics, think tanks, journalists,bar associations, youth leaders and business-es is intensely committed to educating votersabout the harms of prohibiting the collection ofracial data. The question that follows is: Whatwill remain of this powerful health and justiceinfrastructure after the votes come in? Will itdissolve, with individual coalition membersreturning to their core missions? Or will weview the statewide infrastructure as an assetthat can be used for the next proactive socialjustice issue, such as full public financing ofelections?

The answer is for multi-issue organizationsto reexamine the ways they fulfill theirmissions, particularly by extending strongersupport to other social justice organizationsgoals. A united social justice voice requires anagile infrastructure that communicates anddecides effectively as issues and priorities areconceived. This entails developing trustingrelationships among organizations, along withorganizational missions that fit within abroader vision for civil rights and social justicein the United States. Social justice leadersmight consider integrating alliance-buildingsystems into their own organizational valuechain. The true test of our democracy will be

whether the underrepresented, minorities andthe poor are provided an influential voice.Social justice groups need to assume leader-ship to ensure that elected officials become

27


Liza Siu Mendoza is a summer law clerk at the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights (LCCR) and a student at U.C. Hastings College of

the Law in San Francisco. Rico Oyola is a project director working on the LCCR special initiative: The California Coalition for Civil Rights.

LCCR is a member of a coalition that explores full public financing of elections as a civil rights issue.

n The test of our democracy is whether people of color and the poor

have an influential voice.

Vol.10_No2 v4 6/2/2006 2:47 PM

Building Power: The Case for

EJ Electoral Politics

Perspectives on why environmental and social justice advocates must

engage in electoral activism

Vol.10_No2 v4 6/2/2006 2:47 PM

primarily represented corporate interests,remained in control of the government. As media coverage of progressive issues

tapered off in the early 70s, no doubt due to agrowing awareness among the ruling class ofits effect, so too did the movement. This wasalso due to burnout and other common issuesthat face grassroots movements with limitedresources. Because it had only gained conces-sions, rather than control of power itself, themovement did not have the resources at itscommand to self-perpetuate not to mentionthe resources the government had at itscommand, i.e. COINTELPRO, to destroy themovement. Over the past 30 years we ve seen major

rollbacks: Wages for the bottom 60 percent ofthe population have either declined orstagnated while Americans are working about160 more hours per year (we recently edgedout Japan as the hardest-working country inthe world); the prison population has grown toalmost 1 out of 100 people in the U.S.; oureducational standards have drasticallydeclined; roads and strip malls invade eventhe most remote reaches of the countryside;

rampant development is causing the tempera-ture of our planet to rise; and war and coupscontinue to be a staple of American foreignpolicy. All of this lies against a backdrop ofincredible technological advances that havemore than doubled our productivity, beggingthe question of why society itself, and ourquality of life, hasn t advanced along this sametrajectory. Power in any society is determined at its

base by the psychology of the population.Sometimes this power is determined by fear,sometimes consent, and sometimes both. Inour society both factors are at play, but thefactor of consent is by far dominant among theoverwhelming majority of the population today.This vast majority believes in the validity andfairness of democracy of which the essentialelement is elections as the primary way ofdetermining power. This does not mean thatthey necessarily believe in the particularpolicies of any administration or electedofficial, but merely that they accept theoutcome of the elections as at least marginallyfair. What this means in practice is that no onecan ascend to an elected position in govern-


n

Election Day.Arlington, VA 'RobCrandallThe Image Works

By Rob Arnow and Paul Platt

TheMother of Movements

Beyond the single-issue campaign

n 1960s America, progressive activists made huge strides, securing major victories from the rulingclass on many fronts. These victories were due to several forces, but primarily to effective use ofthe media, especially television. Massive organizing played a large role, but without the coverage ofthe media growing and sustaining the movement, it would have required much more effort. The tel-evising of the Vietnam War and of the brutal tactics used to crack down on civil rights activists inthe South awakened the nation to injustice and caused many Americans to rethink their trust of thegovernment. This change in public opinion, coupled with continued coverage of issues in themedia, is what led elected officials to make concessions to the demands of the public. But conces-sions should not be confused with an actual transfer of power. The same group of people, who

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ment without winning an election. Of course,as we ve seen recently and throughout history,there is election fraud that can skew theelection in favor of candidates who would nothave won. Although in these cases whateverfairness there is in elections is eliminated, inthe vast majority of elections fraud does notdetermine the outcome. Fraud tends to be an effective tactic for the

eventual victor only when the margin isextremely close. Otherwise the scale of theoperation becomes too large to avoid publicscrutiny. In this way candidates who challengethe dominance of the ruling class can andhave laid claim to real power through theelectoral process. Even when they do, theycan be assassinated, but as with fraud, thiscan only occur in an extremely limited numberof cases before the public scrutiny andawareness would undermine most of the legiti-macy the government now enjoys. The result of winning elections is the acqui-

sition of positions of power in government from

which the rules and structure of society aredetermined. We need only look briefly at thepower the government wields to see how vastit is: the power to imprison, to tax, to spendtaxes, to control all military and police forces,to regulate media, to serve as a respected,trusted leader even if that trust and respect isnot deserved, to permit the right to assemble,and to make laws regulating all facets ofhuman life and society including corporations.While corporate interests control the govern-ment we will continue to live in a corporatesociety even if our movements are able to gainconcessions, often temporarily, on particularissues. However, if progressives can gaincontrol of the government we will move muchmore quickly toward a progressive society. Single-issue activism today is a one-step

forward, two-steps back struggle. Whileexpending great amounts of energy in order togain even the most minor of victories, the rulingclass simultaneously advances on severalfronts at once. This is due in large part to a

30


Building Power: The Case for EJ Electoral Politics

n If progressives gain control of government we can move more

quickly toward a progressive society.

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media that refuses to adequately cover progres-sive issues and a population that is too busy,too distracted, too isolated, too uninformed andfeels too powerless to do anything. A continuedfocus on single-issue activism may fend offsome of the worst abuses at times, but if this isthe primary focus of activism we will seeourselves eventually beaten on all the issues.While tens, if not hundreds, of millions of

dollars are spent each year on progressivenonprofit organizations that tend to focus onsingle issues or a small range of issues, mostof these organizations lose on the majorissues, especially without allies in electedoffice. Then there are the tens of thousands ofcommitted grassroots activists who also usetheir energy in this fashion, and the millions ofoccasional activists who do the same, forexample, by attending a protest on a singleissue. Savvy media activities, combined withnumerous huge protests are the minimum forany hope of success on a single issue, andoften still are not enough. Imagine if those millions of activists could

be mobilized to put up posters, drop literature,make phone calls, go door-to-door and speakto people face-to-face for electoral campaigns.W ith this kind of mobilization, grassroots

activists can make a huge impact oncampaigns. Those who don t believe that suchefforts can have a huge effect on the outcomeof an election have not witnessed first handthe effect of a major grassroots campaign.Their opinion is based on a situation in whichpeople decide who to vote for using the onlyinformation that s widely available what isbeing disseminated by corporate media andwhere a grassroots campaign is the rareexception rather than another regular sourceof information. The definition of a majorgrassroots campaign varies depending on thesize of the race, but in San Francisco, with800,000 residents (but less than 250,000regular voters), a citywide campaign with 100-150 volunteers qualifies as a major grassrootseffort, which can swing tens of thousands ofvotes in either direction. The only thing a self-serving politician cares

about is votes. If your organization has ademonstrated ability to bring in votes, yourclout will be much greater than if you simplymake the public aware of an issue but don t tieit to a particular politician.Of course, some will claim that all politicians

are corrupt or there for personal power orgain. Although this is demonstrably true of

31


n

Members of Hotel andRestaurantEmployees (HERE)Local 2 picket the bigdowntown Marriotthotel in SanFrancisco, whichagreed to recognizedthe union when it gotpermission to build in1984, but has foughtthe efforts of workersto organize eversince.

Nurses on strike

Hospital workers,members of ServiceEmployees Local 250,march downTelegraph Avenuetowards Alta BatesHospital, in Oakland,CA, Dec. 2000.' Photos by DavidBacon

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many politicians, it is not true of many otherswho enter politics out of a sense of civic dutyand a wish to improve social conditions. Thelatter are potential allies in a campaign forelectoral reform and progressive legislation.Because of corporate media ownership, theprecipitous expense required to buy advertis-ing, and the lack of activist volunteers, it isextremely difficult if not impossible for progres-sives to get out their message in the electoralarena. This means that candidates whoappear progressive in corporate mediacoverage often are not upon closer scrutiny,but voters who only find this out after the factgive up in frustration, deciding that all politi-cians are the same. But grassroots campaignson a local level running true progressives, ifeffectively organized, can often do extremelywell, if not win. And this is in spite of apopulace generally unconcerned withelections, and an activist base generally unin-spired and therefore uninvolved.In the past couple of years similar ballot ini-

tiatives have passed in four states: Maine,Arizona, Vermont and Massachusetts. Theseinitiatives have introduced public financing ofstatewide campaigns, including for governorand state legislators. Since state law alwaystrumps local law you don t immediately needto have public financing rules apply to localraces to create a huge change in state gover-nance. In Maine right now there is a Green running

with $1 million in public financing. All he had todo to get it was collect 2000 $5 donations.W ith this money he can now run a seriouscampaign. Although it won t buy a whole lot oftelevision advertising it can buy tons of grass-roots organizers, literature, signs and mailers.Its enough to force the corporate media totake him seriously. Although savvy campaigning can be done

without that kind of government funding, ithelps significantly to level the playing field.Candidates who take the money are designat-ed as Clean Money candidates on the ballotand are not allowed to accept "specialinterest" contributions. Fifty-four percent of thecandidates who recently won statewide racesin Arizona were Clean Money candidates.Savvy campaigning may be adequate to winlocal grassroots campaigns, but publicfinancing is probably necessary in races thattake place over large geographic areas. Wecurrently have some public financing for super-visorial races in San Francisco that passed byballot initiative several years ago. This,combined with district elections and instantrunoff voting, will yield a much easier terrainfor progressives in upcoming elections. Theseprogressives may then move on to a higheroffice that isn t currently governed by theserules. And there is a major campaignunderway to introduce public financing inCalifornia through a ballot initiative that will beplaced on the November 2004 ballot throughsignature gathering. If you are working on a single-issue

campaign right now, consider instead workingon something that will continuously paydividends to the entire system over the longrun. Public financing, instant runoff voting andproportional representation are a few electoralreforms that will completely change thepolitical structure. If you are not interested inthese reforms, then form coalitions with otherprogressive groups based on getting candi-dates that share all of your ideals elected.Then you will win on every issue, not just one.An anti-war movement will not stop the war

machine in the long run. Traditional protesttechniques are important and effective, butthey need to go hand in hand with electoralreform to maintain an effective movement. It’s

32



Rob Arnow is an electoral politics activist and freelance artist based in San Francisco. Paul Platt is content editor for the SF Green Party

Web site and e-newsletter. This article originally appeared on the San Francisco Green Party Web site in August 2002 (www.sfgreenpar-

ty.org); it is reprinted with permission from the authors.

n Candidates who challenge the ruling class can claim power through

the electoral process.

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RPE: Could you talk a bit about the history ofSCOPE and AGENDA and why you decided to moveinto the area of electoral politics?

Anthony Thigpenn: AGENDA, which just had a10-year anniversary, was formed in the contextof the 1992 civil unrest here in Los Angelesand in recognition on the part of a number ofactivists that there weren t enough organiza-tions doing grassroots organizing. Thereseemed to be a disconnect between poor,working people and people of color and thepublic policies that were shaping their commu-nities in adverse ways. That s when we startedas an experiment trying to do several things.One was to build vehicles so that poor peopleand people of color could have an effectiveway of connecting with public policies shapingtheir communities. Second, was to develop aproactive agenda. Third, we understood thatwe needed to do more grassroots organizingbecause no one organization could develop thepower necessary to shape public policy, partic-ularly in the 90s. In 1996, in response to California s

Proposition 209, the anti-affirmative action ini-tiative, we put out a call to form a countywide

coalition to oppose the initiative. Prop. 209was one in a series of struggles, includingProposition 187, [which threatened to denypublic services to undocumented immigrants]and Three Strikes. [So the question was]: Canwe fight Prop. 209 but also agree that weneed to build a more long-term alliance? After the anti-Prop. 209 campaign, we were

involved in similar efforts over the next severalyears. Last year we decided to form a501(c)(4) an IRS code that allows certainlobbying activities for nonprofits with our coreallies so that we could institutionalize the workwe d done in the electoral arena in a moreeffective way. The collaboration, known as theLos Angeles Metropolitan Alliance, includedAGENDA, the Community Coalition, which is agroup here in South L.A., and three unionsthat we have been working with for manyyears. We made a map of the members of thedifferent organizations throughout the greaterSouth L.A. area and found that there wereabout 35,000 members. The idea was to buildneighborhood-based precinct teams startinghere in South L.A., and then expand to otherareas of the city to build institutional politicalpower. The goal is to eventually have a team

33


Getting PoliticalHow justice advocates canorganize to impact public policy

How do the social and environmental justice movements gain and wield political power? What will it take to create

sustained democratic grassroots change? For a perspective on these key questions, Race, Poverty & the Environment sat

down with Anthony Thigpenn, president of SCOPE (Strategic Concepts in Organizing & Policy Education) and founder of

AGENDA (Action for Grassroots Empowerment Neighborhood Development Alternatives) based in Los Angeles, CA.

n

Marchers cross theGolden Gate Bridgeand head throughSan Francisco sPresidio, protestingthe implementation ofCalifornia s1996 anti-affirmative actionmeasure, Proposition209. ' Photo by DavidBacon

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of three to five people in all the precincts inour target areas. We do training and leader-ship development; they do registration, votereducation and voter turnout during elections.The reasons we felt [electoral politics] was

an arena we had to engage in were multiple.One, there were all these assaults against usand they were primarily in the electoral arena.That s not accidental because of the power ofmoney in the electoral arena. Also, it is anarena where public policy is made and if wewere serious about trying to shape regionalpublic policy, we had to have the ability tooperate in that arena. Finally, quite frankly, ifyou do not have some ability to reward orpunish officials and public policy makers oncethey get elected, then [your influence] is goingto be marginal.

RPE: So the separate 501(c)(4)’s are made up ofAGENDA and its core partners?

Thigpenn: Yes. The representatives of variousorganizations are on the steering committeefor the C4.

RPE: What’s the status of this electoral effort rightnow?

Thigpenn: Last year we trained close to 700individuals operating in 100 to 120 precinctsand so we have that as our initial base. Wedid a lot of education and voter turnout workaround last year s election in which the bigthing in L.A. was secession a part of L.A.trying to break off and a bunch of otherissues. We also did some work this pastspring in two election cycles around citycouncil races and some initiatives on the ballotthere.

RPE: How are you able to approach your ownelectoral strategy in a comprehensive way? Forexample, how do you respond to ballot issues andalso groom candidates and support them afterthey get in office?

Thigpenn: [That question] connects very muchto both the grassroots organizing and thealliance building we do. Part of the training wedo with grassroots members, our leaders andour alliance partners is understanding thepolitical landscaping public policy, decisionsbeing made, the planning bodies so thatpeople are educated about who s makingdecisions that are shaping their neighbor-hoods, their communities, and their regions.That s fundamental. And then we engage withpeople in strategy sessions where we askquestions like: How do we become a voiceand a power in that context? That s our long-term strategy of which the electoral piece ispart and the public policy campaign andorganizing is another part. When we first formed the C4 last spring it

took four or five months to recruit people, totalk about our five-year vision and to do apower analysis these are the institutions, thepublic policy bodies, and these are the issues.So we developed that context long before wediscussed talking to voters. One of the funda-mental trends that we use to recruit people isthe fact that civic registration is decreasing inour community. We can see that over the last10 years there has been the decline in voterregistration in our grassroots neighborhoods.That makes it clear why we have to educateour neighbors, register people, and make surethey re educated not just during electoral timesbut also in times leading up to that. Part of

34



n There s a disconnect between working people, people of color and the

public policies that shape their communities.

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our goal here is to both create the precinctteam and also create a more educated andinformed activist neighborhood.In some sense that s the first level of

democracy educating neighborhoodresidents. Then the other dimension isknowing what s on the ballot and what ourpositions are, what things we want to putforward, and/or grooming candidates.

RPE: What’s the connection between where youare and where you plan to be in five years? Do youstart off by saying, “We need to really change thetides here, we need to put forward this proactivevision? This is where we are and this is what weneed for a healthy L.A. region or state?”

Thigpenn: W e sat down both individually andcollectively with the five partners of the LosAngeles Metropolitan Alliance and then others

and talked about the current landscape andwhat our thoughts were in terms of a five-yearvision, both from a policy point of view andfrom a political power point of view. Weshared that, gathered additional input andcreated a shared agenda over the next fiveyears that includes issues we know we needto work on. We developed a vision of politicalpower at the grassroots level how manyprecincts, how many people, how manyvoters. We also discussed how we wanted toimpact things like the L.A. city council, electingsome number of people from the inner city.Next we shared that vision with as manycommunity members as we could through aseries of education sessions. This allowed usto gather people s input, incorporate it, whichresulted in them having greater understandingand ownership of the vision.

35


n

Students atGeorgetown HighSchool in Texas regis-ter to vote for the firsttime, many inspiredby Rev. JesseJackson s speech attheir school in Sept.2003.'Bob Daemmrich /The Image Works

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RPE: What’s it going to take for social and envi-ronmental justice groups to actually engage at theelectoral level and be effective?

Thigpenn: W ell I think there are probably acouple of issues from a capacity point of view.Our movement has tended to shy away fromthe electoral arena and for some goodreasons. [Electoral work] tends to be apassive process because people vote andthen go back to whatever they were doingbefore. The power relations are not to ourbenefit because of the power of money inelections. So there s a cultural resistance inour movement to electoral politics based on[the idea that the] electoral arena is main-stream, right? So part of [the solution] is justengaging people and bringing them to someagreement that, yes, all these are validcritiques of the electoral arena but we simplycannot ignore it or we re going to get killed.What are the capacities that we as amovement and therefore we as individualorganizations need to bring to the table toefficiently engage in building political power?Different people will bring different pieces to the puzzle.

RPE: The Environmental Justice Movement and thebroader social justice movement seem to articulatethe capacity issue in different ways.

Thigpenn: That s a very good point. How broaddo you draw the circle? It s a question ofdebate. So navigating that dynamic is veryimportant. Once we say, Well, here arecapacities we ought to have, here s what wedo have, then [we need] some sense of theprogram and the strategy to close the gapbetween where we are and where we ought tobe. For us part of what that means is thetrainings we did with our grassroots leaders.When we got to the November 2002 election,lots of organizations wanted to participate.Their members would come to trainingsessions that we did on how to read a precinct

map, how to do educational material that s notso abstract that people don t get it. And then itwas somewhat surprising that even whengroups have membership, asking the member-ship to do something in their neighborhood isa big leap for some organizations. So youcould have an organization that has 500members but they never thought about tryingto translate that into some kind of geographicstrategy.

RPE: Within the Alliance did you all identify whichrole each organization would play?

Thigpenn: In forming this C4, we came up withbottom-line criteria, i.e. what any organizationthat s going to be a part of the core, and thenthis outer ring, needs to bring to the table.One example is a good membership base.That doesn t mean they ve got to be big, butthey ve got to have a core to build from. Wealso decided that organizations have to havestaff so they could give some portion of stafftime to the effort.

RPE: As you know, in the EJ Movement there areat times struggles between organizations thatoperate with a membership structure and thosethat do not. Within an electoral strategy, what roledo you see nonmembership organizations playing?

Thigpenn: Its constant tension. However, itseems to me that one way to address thetension is to be clear about what the ingredi-ents [for building power] are. One ingredient ismembership but it s not the only ingredient.For example, even the time and capacity tocoordinate and manage is an ingredient.[Others include] the ability to do research andanalysis so that we re being more strategicand accurate, the ability to develop good com-munication strategies everything from just lit-erature, grassroot literature to media, etc theability to bring other institutions to the table.So it s a whole set of things that are necessaryto build political power. Different partners

36



Vol.10_No2 v4 6/2/2006 2:47 PM

have different strengths. Even inside of ourinstitution, it s a constant struggle to under-stand why we need a research department orwhy all our resources don t go to organizing.The way we try to solve that is to say organiz-ing is essential but organizing by itself will notachieve what we need to achieve.

RPE: Are you feeling hopeful that people arecoming to grips with that understanding?

Thigpenn: It won t be done in one fell swoop.There is a core [group] that we can come toagreement with. We can demonstrate moreeffectiveness by having a more multidimen-sional approach than just organizing orresearch or policy advocacy. We d love to say,Let s convene a convention of all the L.A.movement and come to agreement, but that snot practical.

RPE: As AGENDA and the Alliance are developinga track record in the electoral arena, what haveyou learned along the way? What are some of thelessons and key challenges?

Thigpenn: I think the first lesson is that it tooktime. All of this builds on to what we ve [beendoing] at least since 1996 in the electoralarena, so there s a context. We probablystarted in the fall of 2001, with conceptualizingand having some initial conversations. Duringthe first six months of 2002 we had both indi-vidual and collective conversations. It wasreally after six months of conversations thatwe came to agreement. And then we spentJune through September putting the initialapparatus together. Organizations had to giveus their membership lists. Just building thetrust was huge. I mean in some sense it sunprecedented, particularly for unions to givetheir membership lists like that. We spentJune through September putting together theanalysis and recruiting the initial precinctteams. We did this over the summer inten-tionally when there wasn t an election. It was

non-electoral, but we actually built precinctteams that went out into neighborhoods toconduct issue surveys. That allowed them toget used to the neighborhoods and theirmembership lists. It was a trial run forNovember when we actually were doingsomething in the election itself. So thatinvestment of time, of building relationshipsand trust, is probably the most importantlesson I think we ve learned. Another lesson was to be specific and

concrete about outcomes so we couldmeasure our success. We said for this firstround we will build teams of three to fivepeople in a hundred precincts and we didbetter than that. But it was measurable overtime and so it was motivating. The challenges are several. And one is the

one we all face that we re all really busy withour own thing. So keeping focus on the col-lective agreement and the collective work wasa big challenge and continues to be. Another challenge: we ve run into some turf

issues. As we begin to develop a new entity itmakes other organizations nervous. It makeselected officials nervous. It makes otherpeople who normally do this work nervousand these are our allies, not the opposition. Sonavigating that terrain and holding together theunity has been a challenge.

RPE: Can you do electoral work through a C3rather than creating a C4?

Thigpenn: W e have a line item in our C3budget called civic participation. In non-electoral times, we call our precinct teamsneighborhood education teams. But it s thesame three to five people, on the same neigh-borhood, building a base of informed people.You ve got to be exceedingly careful about

your language and progressive lawyers nowhave a whole manual about that. And it spretty restricted. You ve got to be careful aboutthat spin because if it sounds like you areleading people toward a conclusion as

37


n There s resistance in our movement to electoral politics but if we

ignore it, well get killed.

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The reality is that the ongoing relevance ofcommunity organizing will depend upon acommitment to electoral strategies that linkconstituent groups to larger political efforts.Organizers across the country are finding thattheir usual approach is simply not enough in atime when laws and regulations designed toprotect workers, the environment and civilliberties are under daily assault. At thisperilous moment in our nation s history wemust put in place electoral organizing strate-gies that will become the foundation for thenext generation of activism. For donors andactivists alike, this will require expanding ourambition and sharpening our focus.Toward this end, we must first break down

significant barriers that continue to limit theability of many groups to realize their objec-tives in the political realm. The most obviousbarrier is resource allocation. The fundingcommunity has not yet fully embraced politicsas a critical aspect of achieving substantivesocial change. Even within the limits on chari-table giving, the philanthropic sector remainsoverly cautious about how to proceed in thisarena. W e can and should use our dollars for lead-

ership development, issue advocacy andpublic pressure in ways that many of us havebeen reluctant to do. Furthermore, donorsneed to consider special grantmaking

programs that provide community organiza-tions with the technical resources that areunique to political base-building. We mustconsider supporting entities that are not limitedby charitable tax law. This will require fundersto think more creatively about the vehicles thatwe employ to support this type of work. Wewill also need to urge more individual donorsto make hard money contributions as part of abroader commitment to changing our world.Fortunately, many funders are now adoptingthis view. The challenge will be to mobilizethese resources in the next few months ifthere is to be any impact on the 2004 electioncycle.Most of our political battles to date have

been defensive efforts to fend off attacks onaffirmative action and immigrants, and to limitfurther expansion of the criminal justicesystem. The political right wing s ability tokeep the pressure on their adversaries (i.e. alltrue democrats) is one of their most importanttactics and provides a critical lesson for us.Setting the terms of the debate on an issue,forcing opponents to spend time and moneyfighting against an idea, and putting forwardone heinous proposal after another all serve todivert us from refining and effectivelyadvancing our own agenda. To be sure, weshould not stop defending against theseattacks, but we must also commit ourselves to



By Robert McKay

Organizing is Not EnoughA funder’s call for electoral activism

erhaps just in time to make a difference in the next presidential election, social justice organizersare showing heightened interest in electoral politics. Whether the result of the perceived despera-tion of the current political moment, or a product of a more mature and sophisticated trend, this isan exciting development evident among activists and funders.

38

P

Vol.10_No2 v4 6/2/2006 2:47 PM

fighting proactively for a more justand equitable society. This willmean promoting ideas and candi-dates who will take on issues thatare of clear relevance to our base.Vision without tangible results mayhelp us feel righteous, but only bydelivering real change such aswage increases, cleaner air andbetter schools will we earn thesupport of the broader electorate.Probably the most critical point

at which community organizing,philanthropy and electoral politicsconverge and the first step ine n g a g i n gmany people predisposed to share our politics is voter registration.Philanthropic dollars should beu s e dto promote more sophisticated andambitious voter registrationcampaigns. These programs donot simply sign up the new voter.In addition, they identify regis-trants individual interest areasand make regular contact right upto election day. Coordination withother advocacy organizations thatcan speak most effectively to eachvoter s particular interests wouldnaturally enhance the success ofthese campaigns. Due to theirhistory and credibility with local communitymembers, many nonprofits have the potentialto develop the deeper relationships withresidents that can turn the new registrant intoa highly motivated voter. Because so manylocal and municipal elections can be decidedby a small number of votes, a meaningful

voter registration and identification programcan make a community organization a signifi-cant player in local politics. Though it would be no small accomplish-

ment to limit George W. Bush to one term, theultimate measure of success for electoralactivity in 2004 will be the creation of infra-

39


n

Many local electionsare decided by asmall number ofvotes. That s whydedicated voter regis-tration efforts are soimportant. PhotoOctober 12, 1996'SyracuseNewspapers / JimCommentucci / The

n W e can and should use our dollars for leadership development, issue

advocacy and public pressure.

Robert McKay is executive director of the McKay Foundation, which provides grants and support to community-based activists working

for long-term social and economic change.

Vol.10_No2 v4 6/2/2006 2:47 PM

Key ways to

win in the electoral realm:

lobbying, supporting

reforms, running for

office and much more.

40


Vol.10_No2 v4 6/2/2006 2:48 PM


extend environmental protections and mitigateharms. EJ advocates have also lobbied for and

against public policy proposals. They havesuccessfully pushed for changes in laws andregulations associated with exposure to lead(and the responsibility to test for it), monitoringcancer incidence, rules for cleaning up brown-fields, and a host of other issues. But in thetool kit of advocacy strategies, includingorganizing, protesting, litigating, andlobbying/legislative advocacy, it is lobbyingand legislative advocacy that are perhaps theleast used and, for some, continue to presentstrategic and legal issues.

What is Lobbying?While grassroots organizing and protesting

are part of the outside game, lobbying is theinside game in the halls of government andin legislators offices. Lobbying seeks toinfluence legislative decisions in local, state orfederal government. When a change in law orregulation is proposed, lobbying works withinthe structure of the legislative process to impacta pending measure to defeat it, amend it, orpush it through. Lobbying helps frame issuesand choices for policymakers by presenting thefacts and bringing the people who care andwho will be affected by a proposal tolawmakers attention. It also creates public andpolitical pressure to urge lawmakers to take a

stand.Lobbying can be a proactive or a defensive

strategy. Sometimes lobbying is necessary toensure that a victory is not lost. Too oftenonce referendums, initiatives, or litigation aresuccessful, there is a move to overturn orweaken them with follow-up legislation or reg-ulations. When litigation forced the state ofCalifornia in May 2002 to regulate agricultureunder the federal Clean Air Act, agriculturalinterests floated the idea of amending the Act.EJ advocates successfully lobbied to beatback that effort, even before it was officiallyproposed. In other instances, when EJadvocates successfully lobby for new laws atthe local level, legislative proposals to weakenthem emerge at the state or federal level. Lobbying as a proactive strategy strives to

advance needed public policy changes. Thisyear EJ advocates have also sought to codifytheir courtroom victory into state law toregulate agriculture under the Clean Air Act. Whether aimed at supporting or opposing a

proposal, lobbying requires knowing thepolitical terrain or partnering with organizationsor individuals that do. A successful public policycampaign requires lobbying in the halls of thelegislature and in the districts of electedofficials, as well as seeking to sway the hearts and minds of the public.Understanding both the political landscape,(who really makes or influences decisions) and

By Judith Bell

Learning to LobbySteps to successful legislative advocacy

n recent years, environmental justice advocates have worked successfully to educate the publicabout environmental racism and to push policymakers to do something about it. As some of thenation s premier grassroots organizers, EJ advocates have partnered with residents in communitiesof color to eliminate environmental hazards. They have won an impressive array of lawsuits to

n

Students lead amarch onW ashington, D.C., inApril 2003, in supportof affirmative actionas the U. S. SupremeCourt considers theprograms practicedby the University ofMichigan. 'E.A.Kennedy III / TheImage Works

41

I

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the rules governing the political process (whenand where decisions will happen) is the formulafor success.

Bringing on PartnersMoney is a very powerful force in the

political arena. Powerful corporate interests,with their campaign contributions and theiraccess to legislators, often succeed independ-ent of coalitions or a broad base of publicsupport. But for environmental justiceadvocates to succeed, they need the supportof strong coalitions with large constituenciesthat are racially, ethnically, geographically, andorganizationally diverse, and willing and ableto be mobilized. Coalitions should also includediversity in experience, skills, availableresources and expertise. Unusual alliances can bring unexpected

power and attention. For instance, this yearasthma advocates joined EJ advocates topress for legislation that would prohibit the useof five dangerous pesticides on schoolgrounds, a potential trigger for children withasthma. Legislators were lobbied by EJadvocates, by PTA officials, and by parents ofkids with asthma. This new collective voicecreated additional pressure to support the leg-islation. Building coalitions, particularly ones that

endeavor to create and strengthen new alliances,takes time: Trust must be built; coalition partnersmust understand and appreciate the types ofstrategies and approaches each employs tomaximize those skills and power effectively andstrategically. From the outset you should decide:

What are the goals of the partner-ship (is it a long-term or a one-time,campaign-focused entity)?

What role(s) will each memberassume?

Who will lead the coalition? Who will make key decisions? From where will resources come?

The coalition can be the foundation for aviable legislative network of organizations andindividuals prepared to take action when asked.To keep coalition members up-to-date andengaged, everyone in the network needs to bekept informed of regular requests for phonecalls, letters, e-mails, attendance at events and meetings with legislators. Requestsfor mobilization should include drafts of letters,scripts for phone conversations, or keymessages that coalition leaders canincorporate in testimony or in galvanizing theirmembership. Developing and nurturing alegislative network is a must do to grow abroad base of constituents and interest groups.Assessing the Political TerrainAssessing the political viability of any

proposal is a priority: it will shape strategies,timelines, and decisions. Part of this processis understanding policymakers who they areand how they view your efforts and yourproposal. The Democracy Center hasdeveloped four useful categories for compart-mentalizing legislators.

Champions: Your mostprominent and reliable allies whoare willing to take public stands,reach out to others, urge them totake action, and help you withstrategy development and imple-mentation.

Supporters: Can be depended onfor votes and statements of support.

Fence Sitters: Key targets forlobbying; persuading them intoyour camp requires knowing theirviews as well as their personalstories and history. Some wait todetermine momentum of an issuebefore taking a stand; others liketo be power brokers, withholding

42



n Lobbying is perhaps the least used

advocacy strategy.

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support so they can participate inkey negotiations.

Opponents: Need to be constrainedby demonstrations of support foryour views in their districts andamong their constituents, or fromother politically powerful interests,to minimize their visibility and will-ingness to act aggressively todefeat your efforts.

Lobbying StrategiesThe typical legislator is constantly running

a political calculus, assessing the views andneeds of constituents, vested interests, andpolitical leaders. Above all, most legislatorswant to keep their jobs they want to getreelected. The goal of lobbying is to convincelegislators that your proposal is a neededchange and that supporting your position willbe far better for the public good (particularlythe legislators constituents) than backingyour opponents position.

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Can We Lobby?

Nonprofit groups deemed charitable organizations under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal RevenueCode (the Code ) may lobby within certain limits but are absolutely prohibited from endorsing or

opposing candidates. The Code defines lobbying expenditures as those associated with legislation. It simportant to note that regulatory action is not covered by the Code s definition of legislation; therefore,attempts to influence regulatory action (that do not involve specific legislation) are not consideredlobbying. A 501(c)(3) public charity may engage in substantial lobbying activities. To clarify the meaning of

substantial, most public charities (not including churches or private foundations) choose to begoverned by another section of the Code that defines permitted lobbying expenditures based on a per-centage of the organization s annual expenditures. (Private foundations are effectively banned fromengaging in legislative lobbying entirely.) For organizations choosing this route, lobbying activities are divided into two types with different

limits. Direct lobbying is defined as having four elements: (i) communication with (ii) any member oremployee of a legislative body, that (iii) refers to specific legislation, and (iv) reflects a view on that leg-islation. Grassroots lobbying has five elements: It is defined as (i) a communication with (ii) the generalpublic that (iii) refers to specific legislation, (iv) reflects a view on that legislation, and (v) encourages therecipient to take action on that legislation. This is known as a call to action (i.e. Call Senator X at thisnumber and ask him to vote for SB 10. ) Note that all of these elements must be part of an activity for itto be considered either direct or grassroots lobbying. Many activities are not considered lobbying. For instance, communicating with legislators about a

specific piece of legislation but without expressing a specific point of view on the measure is not consid-ered lobbying. In addition, communicating with the public and expressing a point of view on specific leg-islation, but not including a call to action, is not considered lobbying. For charities operating under the direct and grassroots lobbying definitions, there are other activities

that are not considered lobbying and are therefore not constrained by the lobbying expenditure limits.These include:

Conducting and disseminating an unbiased nonpartisan analysis, study or research, even if aparticular position or viewpoint is advocated (provided there is no direct call to action);

Providing technical advice to a governmental body or committee in response to a writtenrequest from that body; and

Communicating with government officials and employees when the charity is not primarilyattempting to influence legislation. (For example, talking about issues or organizational priori-ties.)

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Keep in mind that most nonprofits (thoseincorporated under section 501(c)(3) (see thesidebar Can We Lobby? page 43) areabsolutely prohibited from intervening in anypolitical campaign on behalf of or in oppositionto any candidate for public office. So, lobbyingefforts should focus on issues and legislation,as opposed to candidates. Efforts to holdpoliticians accountable an importantcomponent of advocacy should avoid, evenimplicitly, endorsing or opposing anycandidate s election.A variety of lobbying strategies are needed

for a successful campaign: letter writing, indi-vidual visits, testifying at hearings, actions,and e-mails. Finding and Assigning LobbyistsA vital step is determining who will be the

lead lobbyist and the group of primarylobbyists to help steer your measure throughthe policy process. Among the candidates: thestaff lobbyists for EJ groups, a hired contractlobbyist working for one or more organizations,

and a cadre of lobbyists working for supportiveorganizations. Pulling the lobbying teamtogether requires committed partners willing todesignate organizational resources and staff toyour efforts. However, lobbyists, particularlycontract lobbyists, should not be the sole leadstrategic decision makers for your legislativecampaign, since contract lobbyists typicallywant to be considered inside players over thelong haul and may be representing multipleclients interests. The lobbyists need to beaccepted as insiders may run counter toaggressive positions and actions that you maywant to choose for your campaign. As previ-ously discussed, lobbyists may be subject tofederal, state, and local registration andreporting requirements.

Letter WritingEach letter sent to a legislator s office is read

and catalogued. Legislators pay attention to theirmail and presume that each letter reflects theviews of many voters. Sometimes staff give leg-

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Getting a meeting with a legisla-tor: Be willing to meet the legisla-tor at any of his or her offices.

Identify which coalitionmembers or lobbyists haverelationships with key legisla-tors and ask them to arrangethe meeting.

For legislators whom nopartner knows well, have thecoalition member with thebest connection to themeither by virtue of their mem-bership base or the primaryfocus of their work request ameeting.

If all else fails, visit a legisla-tor who refuses to set up anofficial meeting in his/heroffice and seek an impromptu

meeting. Before the meeting: Research the legislator srecord to determine whichinterests and which local orstatewide groups or con-stituencies can help yourefforts.

Establish your agenda andgoals. Are you looking forhelp from a supporter, tryingto push a fence-sitter or neu-tralizing an opponent?

Prepare the arguments andmessages and determine whowill discuss each one;practice.

Bring a one-page summary ofthe (proposed) legislation andyour arguments.

At the meeting:

Be prepared to wait. Be gracious about meetingwith staff.

Stay focused and be brief.Don t expect more than threeto five minutes for the entirevisit.

Be accurate. If you don tknow, say so; and promise toget back to the legislator withthe answer.

Assume that everything is onthe record and may berepeated later in a publicforum. Going off the recordis a trap; it never works.

Be careful not to burn bridges(unless you ve made astrategic decision that it mustbe done) or to inadvertentlycreate long-term enemies.

Lobbying Your Legislator Face to Face

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islators folders or binders full of letters with majorpoints or authors highlighted. The most effectiveletters tell a personal story: Individuals can telltheir own stories, while letters from organizationscan recount their members stories.Key points to remember when writing a

letter are: be clear and concise; include yourpersonal connection or perspective; and statethe action you desire the legislator to take.(You can also ask for the legislator s viewsand suggested actions.) Data can also addweight to arguments, pointing to the results ofresearch or analysis to influence policymakersviews.

Meeting with LegislatorsEvery meeting with a legislator is a prime

opportunity to seek support; it should also beseen as an opportunity to develop a long-termrelationship. Because legislators deal with anincredible array of issues and measures (forexample, over 2,000 bills are introduced in atypical year in the California legislature),assume that legislators and their staff are notfamiliar with your issue but would like to beinformed and to understand why they shouldbe concerned. You can meet with legislators ortheir staff in their capitol or district offices; usecontacts among coalition partners or lobbyiststo schedule such a meeting with a legislator orhis or her senior staff person. (See thesidebar, Lobbying Your Legislator Face toFace, this page.)

Public HearingsOpen forums usually occur in legislative

committees before a vote is taken on aspecific bill. Hearings provide another opportu-nity to expound your ideas and to ensure thatthey are part of the public record. Remember:your opponents will also testify, so beprepared to answer any of their anticipatedarguments.

You should have a good sense of whereeach committee member stands before thehearing begins. Having a preliminary votecount and a sense of continuing issues andconcerns will inform key decisions about whoshould testify, which critical points should becovered, and what amendments you mayneed to offer or agree to insert into a bill. Invitethe media to attend the hearing then makesure your supporters attend as well, wearingcolorful hats or T-shirts as a show of strengthto legislators.Consider your witnesses: A member of

your coalition or a partner well versed in thebill and the issues and someone else directlyaffected by the problem the legislation seeksto address often present the most effectivetestimony. Experts oftentimes contribute auseful perspective, bringing the credibility ofacademic credentials, research expertise, andintellectual rigor to the issue. All speakersshould be rehearsed and should understandthe typical legislative hearing scenario.Lengthy testimony may be unproductive(sometimes not even allowed), and commentsmay be frequently interrupted with questions. Know the rules for testifying before

preparing your team of witnesses. Remarksshould be clear and concise. Speakers shouldbe familiar with their major points and engagetheir audience without just reading preparedcomments. Each speaker should be preparedto speak for as little as one minute and for nomore than three, in case commentary isgoverned by rules or time constraints.Anticipate questions both to prepare effectiveresponses and to help speakers to deal withuncomfortable moments or hostile legislators.Make sure friendly legislators will be presentto help you in contentious moments by sup-porting your position and by asking youropponents hard questions.Additional Steps

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Judith Bell is executive vice president of PolicyLink, a national nonprofit research, communications, capacity building and advocacy

organization based in Oakland, CA.

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and people of color who lack the relativewealth and income to compete in the politicalprocess. After the 2000 Florida election debacle, a

number of traditional civil rights and minorityadvocacy organizations entered the debate forcampaign finance reform to focus attention oncivil rights implications. Their efforts modifiedthe discourse to reflect a need for equality asa standard of reform, not just the appearanceof corruption. In response to the meteoric riseand influence of money in politics, severalorganizations, including the GreenliningInstitute, Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights,the Fannie Lou Hamer Project and theNational Voting Rights Institute, collaboratedon a groundbreaking study of minorityattitudes about money and politics. That study,which revealed voters believe that specialinterests call the shots in American politics,was instrumental in building support amongminority members of Congress for bipartisanlegislation banning unlimited and unregulatedcampaign contributions (known as softmoney ) from unions, corporations andwealthy individuals. Less than one percent of Americans write

checks of $200 or more to candidates. Yet the

preoccupation with fundraising by candidatesand the media fosters the impression thatmoney is more valuable than votes, whichexplains why fewer people vote today. Theenormous cost of running for office preventslow-income citizens from mounting viablecampaigns, meaning that only the rich, orpeople with rich friends, are able to run. Likepoll taxes in the Old South, this wealthprimary systematically excludes community-based environmental justice groups from par-ticipating and obtaining the representationnecessary to protect communities. The addition of environmental justice

groups to the cause of campaign financereform is logical and strategic given thatopponents of an environmental justice agendaare usually wealthy contributors who buyaccess to legislators. This access affords themthe opportunity to obstruct legislation dealingwith air and water quality, land use andzoning, pollution control and prevention.Environmental justice groups involvement incampaign finance reform will help assureactive and balanced participation bycommunity stakeholders in the democraticprocess.



By Paul Turner and Hector Preciado

Campaign Finance and Civil

RightsHow reforms will foster true democracy and justice

major impediment to progress on social justice and sustainable development issues is the corrupt-ing influence of money on the political process. Real comprehensive campaign finance reform isneeded to lessen the impact of corporate contributions that often work in direct contrast to environ-mental justice goals. Like many mainstream reform movements, the campaign finance reformcommunity needs to be more ethnically diverse and inclusive of other movements. Yet the reformmovement has largely been a white, middle-class affair that does not encourage or include thevoices of people most impacted by the pay-to-play campaign finance system namely low-income

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Reforms to WatchTo promote civic participation and

democracy, environmental justice advocatesshould monitor and consider lending supportto the following three key reforms.

The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002Political parties play an important role in our

democracy by educating citizens about issuesand conducting voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives. Yet parties have used softmoney largely for television advertising. Thetwo major parties are so reliant on large contri-butions and television advertising they have allbut ignored the need to galvanize grassrootssupport. This may explain why in the last 10years there s been no significant increase inAmericans who identify themselves asbelonging to either party.The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act

(BCRA), formerly McCain-Feingold, set out toban soft-money contributions and regulatesham issue advertisements. President Bushreluctantly signed BCRA into law on March27, 2002. The law bans federal officeholders,candidates and national parties from raisingand spending soft money, and prohibits thespending of corporate and union treasuryfunds on any broadcast advertisements thatrefer to a federal candidate within 30 days ofa primary and 60 days before a generalelection. To the dismay of many reformadvocates, BCRA also raised regulated indi-vidual contribution limits (hard money) from$1,000 to $2,000.However, before the ink was dry on BRCA,

84 plaintiffs filed suit against certain parts oraspects of the new law. The lead plaintiff isSenator Mitch McConnell. Joining McConnellvs. FEC (Federal Elections Commission) wasan odd mixture of such groups as the NRA,NAACP, National-Right-To-Life and the ACLU.In May 2003, a federal three-judge districtpanel rendered a split decision, striking downsome provisions and upholding others. Theultimate decision on BCRA rests with the

Supreme Court, which heard oral argumentson September 8, 2003 and will rule by early2004 in time for the presidential primaries. Environmental justice groups can devise

strategies to hold political parties accountableto the law, including a provision known as theLevin Amendment, which allows limitedpolitical party fundraising for soft money up to$10,000 per donor solely for party buildingactivities. Since the amount and sources of these funds must be disclosed, partyofficials can be judged by how the money isallocated. Using the law, environmental justice organizers canadvocate for political party support forn o n p r o f i t sthat mobilize communities concerned withenvironmental racism.

Public Funding of Election CampaignsA consensus is emerging among political

reformers that the best alternative to runawayfundraising is full public funding of elections.However, Supreme Court decisions oncampaign finance and free speech dictate thatpublic funding cannot be mandated it mustbe voluntary. Only through voluntary programsinvolving public funds can candidates agree tolimits on contributions and spending. Most public funding programs are at the

municipal level and entail partial public

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Doris Granny DHaddock and cam-paign finance reformactivists picket theMassachusetts StateHouse in Boston insupport of full fundingfor the CleanElections Law. Thelaw was approved ina 1998 referendum by67 percent of thestate s voters.'Marilyn Humphries /The Image Works

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funding, usually in the form of matchingprograms. In Los Angeles, candidates receivea one-to-one match for contributions. All butone of the Los Angeles city council memberswho ran for office in the last election receivedpublic matching funds. New York City providesa four-to-one matching program for city councilelections, which means a $25 contribution canresult in a $125 contribution. This system hasincreased civic participation and produced themost diverse New York city council in history.Several cities in California, includingSacramento, are attempting to adopt publicfunding programs.At the state level, the most successful

voluntary program for public funding is asystem called Clean Money, Clean Electionsadvocated by Public Campaign. Under aClean Money system, candidates have to raisea qualifying amount of $5 contributions toreceive public funds to mount a campaign. Forexample, to be a Clean Money candidate forthe Arizona legislature, a candidate has toraise $5 contributions from 210 people fromtheir district. Clean Money candidates agree tolimit their spending and not take any private orcorporate contributions. Maine and Arizona have also increased

civic participation since adopting Clean Money.In Arizona more women and minority candi-dates participated in the 2002 elections andmore than half of the Clean Money candidateswon their races. Voter participation increasedas well. A study on public funding systems andminority participation conducted by theGreenlining Institute found that, in Arizona,counties with significant minority populations,turnout increased between 18 and 140percent.To promote public campaign financing, envi-

ronmental justice advocates could incorporategrassroots campaigns into existing communityorganizing efforts. If more cities enact publicfunding for elections, the more viable itbecomes at the state level. An effort to institutea Clean Money system in California is alreadyunderway. The California Clean MoneyCampaign (CCMC,w w w.californiacleanmoney.org) is leading pro-democracy reform groups, community-basedorganizations, advocacy and civil rights groupsin an effort to institute Clean Money electionsfor all constitutional statewide offices and thelegislature.

Instant Runoff VotingIn March 2002, San Francisco voters

approved instant runoff voting (IRV) forupcoming elections. IRV is a method of votingthat determines a majority winner in a singleelection. Each voter ranks his or her favoritecandidates in order of preference (1, 2, 3,etc.). If the first choice candidate is eliminated,the votes count for the second choice. If acandidate receives a majority of first choices,she or he wins. This type of election can helplow-income and people of color becauseelection outcomes will be less susceptible tobig money influence and candidates can ill-afford to take votes for granted. This processalso assures that the winning candidate hasthe support of the majority of voters, ratherthan a mere plurality.Since more than 60 percent of African

Americans, Latinos and Asians in SanFrancisco voted to adopt IRV, some politicalcronies filed a 100-page legal opinion with theSecretary of State s office to question statecertification of an IRV election. In response,the Center for Voting & Democracy

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Paul Turner is the national director of the Greenlining Institute’s Claiming Our Democracy Program, an effort to transform the campaign

and electoral systems to advance civil rights as well as accountability, justice and equality in the democratic process.

Hector Javier Preciado is pro-democracy fellow at the Greenlining Institute and a graduate of Pomona College in Claremont, CA..

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Felony disenfranchisement laws state-level rules that strip voting rights from citizenswho have been convicted of certain crimesprovide part of the answer to those commonorganizing questions. These laws dispropor-tionately impact people of color. In 1998, 1.4million black adult males, or 13 percent nation-ally, were denied the right to vote, a rateseven times higher than the national average.1

While no national studies track Latino, Asianor Native American disenfranchisement rates,an upcoming report by the Mexican AmericanLegal Defense and Educational Fund(MALDEF) finds that Latinos in 10 states aredisenfranchised at higher rates than the whitepopulation.2

In other words, many of the people in com-munities most affected by social inequitiesmay want to vote, but can’t, or believe theycan t, because of confusing laws and lack ofnotification. Since politicians can afford toignore nonvoters, the end result is ademocracy that is incapable of representingthe interests of all of its citizens.

The Facts on DisenfranchisementFelony disenfranchisment laws strip the

vote from more than 4.65 million U.S. citizens,3

a disproportionate number of whom are peopleof color. Blacks are five times more likely than

whites to lose their voting rights due to afelony conviction in their past. Today, 16 statesdisenfranchise more than 10 percent of theirAfrican-American population.4

A few states disenfranchise more than athird of their black male population through"permanent" or "lifetime" disenfranchisementlaws. Other states disenfranchise convictedoffenders for various intervals: while incarcer-ated, on parole or probation, or for someperiod after the completion of the terms oftheir sentence. Only Maine, Vermont andPuerto Rico allow citizens who are incarcerat-ed due to felony convictions to vote.5 (Ofcourse, all of Puerto Rico s citizens are disen-franchised in another way while they canvote in U.S. presidential primaries, they can tsend electors to the Electoral College to selectthe president.) States that don t automatically restore the

vote to ex-offenders often have a confusing,expensive and long process for regainingthose rights.6 For example, Alabama requiresex-offenders to submit DNA samples, anintrusive process which entails getting ananalysis of tissue samples. Other states havecreated various hurdles for voting rightsrestoration, such as requiring ex-offenders toget a two-thirds supermajority of the state leg-islature to pardon them. Even when ex-

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By Ludovic Blain III

One Person, No VoteFelony disenfranchisement strips people of color of political power

nti-racist organizations, such as environmental justice and welfare reform groups, are often puzzledby low voter participation in their communities. Why don t all the town hall meetings, door knockingand leafleting that s done one week increase voter turnout the next? And why are local and statepoliticians so often cavalier about the demands of organized community members?

A

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offenders complete such requirements, thereis no guarantee of a speedy result. In 2002,Florida s Board of Clemency estimated thatthey had a backlog of at least 35,000 ex-offenders who had applied for restoration oftheir voting rights.7

In some cases, disenfranchisement lawsare used to target citizens often poor, peopleof color who have never been involved withthe criminal justice system. Attempts to purgefelons and ex-felons from the voter rolls priorto the 2000 election in Florida resulted inmany eligible Floridians being stricken fromthe rolls because their names were similar toex-offenders. Many advocates are concernedthat this over-purging is a common practicenationally.Some states do restore voting rights to ex-

felons immediately after they leave prison. Butonce the ex-offenders are released and havetechnically regained the right to vote, in manycases no one tells them. That s why activistscompare disenfranchisement to Juneteenth,the celebration of June 19, 1865, or the daythat enslaved blacks in Galveston, Texas,were told by General Gordon Granger thatPresident Lincoln s Emancipation Proclamationhad freed them two and a half years before,on January 1, 1863. Similarly, the lack of notifi-

cation about re-enfranchisement today keepsmany Americans from voting. Only about ahalf dozen states have laws that require thestate to notify an ex-offender when he or shebecomes eligible to vote again.Due to their racist impact, disenfranchise-

ment laws reduce the power that low-incomecommunities of color have to elect their owncandidates. And since elected officials feellittle pressure from constituencies that don tvote, ex-offenders and their communities haveless influence in shaping the policies oneducation, health, the environment, housing,transportation that affect them.A Historically White Supremacist PolicyThe disproportionate racial impact of felony

disenfranchisement laws is no accident. Butjust like Jim Crow-era poll taxes and literacytests, disenfranchisement laws were craftedduring Reconstruction to keep blacks fromvoting. In 1896, for example, Mississippilawmakers ruled that only a narrow range ofoffenses bribery, burglary, theft, arson,perjury, forgery, embezzlement, bigamy and"obtaining money or goods under falsepretenses could result in disenfranchise-ment. Why not murder or rape? Because ex-slaves were far more likely to commit pettyproperty crimes than more serious offenses.8

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To Find Out More

Disenfranchisement laws vary from state to state. Lack of information about re-enfranchise-ment procedures often prevents former felons from registering, which in turn makes it difficultfor community organizers to get out the vote in low-income communities and communities ofcolor. To eliminate barriers to voting by ex-offenders in your state, join local, state or regional

campaigns. The Demos website, www.demos-usa.org, has a detailed voting rights restorationresource page (www.demos-usa.org/demos/votingrights) that includes information on currentand proposed state laws, as well as brochures, posters, flyers and other public educationmaterials. This page also has links to national, regional and local groups active on the issue,including the ACLU, People for the American Way, the Sentencing Project, Mexican AmericanLegal Defense and Educational Fund, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund,Democracy South, the Western Prison Project, Democracy Works in Connecticut, the VirginiaOrganizing Project and the Texas Criminal Justice Reform Coalition. Specific steps for your organization or coalition to take: (1) help ex-felons in states without

an automatic restoration policy navigate the complicated application process to regain theirvoting rights; (2) start a voter registration drive to register eligible people with felony convic-tions, including pre-trial detainees; (3) work with officials in your state s corrections departmentand elections agency to inform soon-to-be-released prisoners of their rights to vote; and (4)

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Southern lawmakers were not shy abouttheir intentions. "This [disenfranchisement]plan," said one Virginia lawmaker in 1906, "willeliminate the darkey as a political factor in thisState in less than five years ( ) so that in nocounty of the Commonwealth will there be theleast concern for the complete supremacy ofthe white race in the affairs of government."9

More than 100 years later, the sole remainingJim Crow law, felony disenfranchisement, isstill effective in barring many blacks and otherpeople of color from participating in the affairsof government. 9

The Growing Movement for JusticeCoalitions of ex-offenders and racial justice

and government reform groups haveconducted many successful campaigns toreform their states’ disenfranchisement laws.In 2001, Connecticut advocates convinced theDemocratic-controlled legislature andRepublican governor to restore the vote to36,000 citizens on probation, and a coalitionled by ex-offenders and drug treatmentcenters in Maryland won the re-enfranchise-ment of roughly 46,000 citizens. Laws loweringbarriers to voting for ex-felons or providingnotification of eligibility requirements have alsobeen approved in Delaware, Missouri,Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Texas,W ashington and Wyoming, restoring the voteto more than 500,000 citizens.10 Many of thesevictories have resulted from strong multiracial,multi-issue and multi-constituency coalitions.There have been defeats as well. Ominously,

in the last five years voters in several stateshave approved ballot measures that strippedvarious offenders of their voting rights.11 Votersin Utah and Massachusetts disenfranchisedincarcerated citizens, and in Louisiana votersreduced the number of first-time offenders who

could have their voting rights automaticallyrestored. The Oregon and Kansas legislaturesalso took actions to exclude some offendersfrom the vote. Recently, Republican AlabamaGovernor Bob Riley vetoed a bipartisan bill thatwould have restored voting rights to a large partof the ex-offender population.But, on the whole, there have been many

more victories than defeats. In order to winenvironmental justice, real welfare reform, andto improve urban schools, health care, housingand mass transit, activists will have to breakdown the barriers that prevent communities ofcolor from wielding political power. Felony dis-enfranchisement laws are among the biggestobstacles to a fully inclusive Americandemocracy. Though it may take a long, heroicstruggle to succeed, this fight is a necessarycomponent to any progressive’s freedomdream. n

Footnotes

1 Marc Mauaer and Jamie Fellner, “Losing the Vote,” 1998

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Voting. Berkeley,California 'Frank Pedrick / TheImage Works

Ludovic Blain is associate director of the Democracy Program at Demos. Blain has nearly 15 years of domestic and international experi-

ence in anti-racist democracy reform, environmental justice and media strategy efforts. Demos, a national public policy think-tank

based in New York City, is working to improve America’s democracy and to foster greater economic opportunity and less disparity.

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So how did labor manage to build a grass-roots electoral campaign powerful enough totake over the city council? The story begins inthe early 1990s, at a time when labor spolitical power was dwindling nationwide. TheLabor Council realized that if working peoplewere to make and maintain substantive gainsin Silicon Valley, running effective unionizationand contract campaigns, while necessary, wasnot enough. As the old labor adage goes,What we win at the bargaining table, we canlose at the ballot box. We needed to breakthrough the old boys network that ran the cityof San Jose. Our goal was to transform city politics so

that working people would have the power tobring about concrete, structural change on theissues that mattered most to them. But first,labor needed to develop an effectivecampaign strategy.

Building Blocks: Turning Grassroots Power intoan Electoral StrategyIn the first few years, the Labor Council

focused on the mechanics of a grassrootselectoral campaign figuring out how to turnout our base (plus other working-class andprogressive communities) and get candidateselected. We built a core of dedicated activistsand created the infrastructure that allowed us

to efficiently and effectively contact voters. Wepored over every detail to perfect our threebasic tactics: phone banking, precinct walkingand distributing printed materials.Although developing our fundraising ability

was a goal, we knew we could never equalbusiness s ability to raise money. Instead, ourelectoral strategy hinged on emphasizingissues that resonated with voters and onmobilizing large portions of our base to be vol-unteers. Most of our volunteers don t sortpapers and stuff envelopes; they make directphone or face-to-face contact with members oftheir community, communicating why they areso excited about the candidate and thecampaign. While increasing our capacity, we also

worked to democratize our endorsementprocess. Endorsements are made through theCommittee on Political Education (COPE),with representation from the 100-odd localunions affiliated with the South Bay LaborCouncil. COPE develops a candidate ques-tionnaire that includes issues of importance tolocal unions and then interviews the candi-dates. Based on the questionnaire and inter-views, COPE makes a recommendation to theLabor Council, where the elected representa-tives of the affiliated unions vote on whom, ifanyone, to endorse. If a candidate wins our



By Amy Dean

Taking Over City CouncilLessons from labor’s grassroots campaign

n November 2002, a decade of political work and strategizing by the South Bay Labor Council ofCalifornia culminated in the election of candidate Terry Gregory to the San Jose city council.Gregory became the sixth member of the 11-seat council elected on the basis of their support forthe Labor Council s progressive, working class agenda. For the first time the nation s eleventhlargest city would be governed by a council committed to working family issues.

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endorsement for a race, he orshe receives the benefit of ourelectoral campaigning. As our capacity grew we

began to link our endorsementprocess more closely to ourissue agenda and our long-termstrategic goals. Beginning in1997, we undertook anextensive collaborative processincluding both union membersand the broader community,which resulted in a CommunityEconomic Blueprint. TheBlueprint outlines the issueareas of greatest concern toSan Jose communities,including jobs, housing, healthcare, transportation andaccountable government. Thisagenda became the basis of ourendorsements. We started todemand more of candidates,pushing for those who were notjust generally supportive of ourprinciples, but for those whowould also work hard to move aworking families agenda,introduce and support goodpolicy based on our core issues,and march in a picket line sideby side with workers standingup to anti-union employers.

Winning Together: Putting Our Strategy intoPracticeOur first big win with a local candidate was

the election of Cindy Chavez to the city councilin 1998. Before deciding to run for office,Chavez had been the Labor Council s politicaldirector. She was running to represent thedowntown area, a crucial district for us since itis where the bulk of development and redevel-opment takes place, and where living wageand affordable housing requirements for newconstruction were most needed. However, the

chamber of commerce also regardeddowntown as a key district and saw a working-families-backed candidate as a threat. Theybacked Chavez s opponent, turning theelection into a fight between business interestsand labor. But we won because we walkedprecincts and talked to voters about issues,including our living wage ordinance, which wassubsequently passed by the city council.In 2000, we were able to capitalize on that

victory by supporting Manny Diaz, a citycouncil member and key living wage supporter,in his run for the State Assembly. Again wecampaigned on the issues and focused on

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Registrating new citizen to vote outsideswearing ceremony inSan Francisco, CA,1996, by theSouthwest VoterRegistrationEducation Project. 'Photo by ScottBraely

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getting volunteers out on the street. We alsoran a completely bilingual Spanish/Englishcampaign. Literature, phone banking andprecinct walking were all done in bothlanguages and all fully integrated with thecampaign strategy. This outreach was wildlysuccessful and the campaign made historywhen Diaz became the first Latino elected tostatewide office representing San Jose. In2001, we continued to organize for working-class power on the city council by throwing ourenergy behind Nora Campos, a young Latinafrom the East Side (the low-income district ofSan Jose) who won a three-candidate raceoutright with over 50 percent of the vote.On the heels of this string of victories came

our most important race, Terry Gregory scampaign for city council. Nora Camposelection meant that the city council was evenlysplit, with five members who could usually berelied on to support working-class issues andfive who could not. But the mayor, who alsohas a vote, often opposed initiatives by laborand other progressive groups, making thecount six to five against us. When one of theopposing council members left office, we sawa chance to shift the balance in our favor.Terry Gregory was in some ways a more

difficult candidate to campaign for than thosewe had backed earlier. Though supportive, heknew less about labor s issues and theCommunity Economic Blueprint agenda. Andas a small business owner, he had beenthrough a bankruptcy, which his opponentdredged up at every opportunity to try to provehe couldn t be trusted with public money. W orst of all, the chamber of commerce

threw everything they had into defeatingGregory. The Mayor joined them, putting outthe word that anyone who supported Gregoryshouldn t bother trying to bring their businessto City Hall. Dirty campaigners attackedGregory s character and painted a picture of

Big Labor taking over San Jose and drivingaway all business. But after almost a decade of building our

agenda, getting wins on key policy issues, andperfecting our electoral strategy, we wereready. We used grassroots fundraising and anarmy of volunteers to engage every voter onthe issues: accountable government, affordablehousing, living wage and children s health care.(The chamber of commerce tried to mimic oursuccess with precinct walking but onlymanaged to get 20 businesspeople in suitsgoing door-to-door, which didn t have quite thesame effect!) This time, we ran a completelyintegrated trilingual campaign, with all of ourmaterials, calls and precinct walking done inEnglish, Spanish and Vietnamese. In short, wegot out there and talked to people in their ownlanguage about issues that resonated withthem. Terry Gregory won the election by anastounding 22 percent margin.

Lessons for Grassroots MovementsKey building blocks of our electoral

campaigns include:

Talented staff and volunteers.Running a grassroots electoralcampaign isn t something thatcomes naturally. Staff and volun-teers need experience and training.

Polling of our base and of voters.The purpose of our polling is tofigure out how to take our progres-sive messages and talk about themin a way that engages voters. Youcan t assume you know what thepeople think and feel you ve gotto ask.

Integration of phone banking, mailand door-to-door outreach. To stayon message and make the best useof resources, these tactics must be

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Amy Dean is former executive officer of the South Bay Labor Council. She now serves as chairperson and founding president of

Working Partnerships USA.

n A grassroots movement cannot wield power without being involved

in the electoral process

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District 2.Supporting candidates had been a discus-

sion among progressives in Albuquerque forseveral years, but we never developed theplans or took steps to make this goal a reality.But in 1999, community organizing inAlbuquerque had hit a political ceiling. Wewere often outvoted 9-0, mainly on issues ofcorporate tax subsidies and growth and devel-opment, despite strong organizing efforts. Alivable wage campaign initiated by local laborand community organizations had recentlybeen rejected.

I had worked at the SouthWest OrganizingProject (SWOP) for about 13 years. SWOP is agrassroots, community-based organization thathad initiated several environmental justice andcommunity development campaigns over theyears in Albuquerque s North Valley. At thetime I was trying to encourage one of thecommunity leaders in the North Valley to runfor that district s city council seat. He said hecould not do it because of other commitments.At one point I mentioned to Jeanne Gauna,one of my co-workers, that I might be interest-ed in running. The idea snowballed into a planand I declared my candidacy in the spring of1999.The North Valley of Albuquerque is home to

one of the most progressive constituencies inthe metropolitan area. The demographics are amix of Chicano families who make up the

foundation of the communityand a primarily professional,white middle class that has grownin many areas of the valley overthe past few decades.Geographically and culturally the areareflects the character of the city ofAlbuquerque. It stretches along thebanks of the Rio Grande River, andage-old irrigation ditches calledacequias weave their waythroughout the community, servingthe traditional Chicano farmers,white elite landowners and manyresidents who use them as walkingtrails. The valley is a diverse mix ofurban and rural, rich and poor,political right and left.The district also houses the city’s

largest industrial park, which hadbecome a battleground because ofthe enormous tax breaks and otherincentives that the city had beengranting to multinational corpora-tions through the IndustrialRevenue Bond (IRB) program.The incumbent Councilor, VinceGriego, had sponsored every oneof the IRBs during the course of two decades.S W O P had begun to question the IRBs,

which translate into millions of dollars in taxbreaks for some of the world s largest corpora-

55


By Michael Leon Guerrero

Candidate

unning for electoral office may seem an unusual step for community organizerswho usually play a background role and help develop community leadership.But in the fall of 1999 I decided to enter the race for Albuquerque s City Council

n

Rallying support forprogressive local can-didate MichaelGuerrero. Source:Guerrero campaign

R

EThe

One organizer’s tale of what’s gained even when youlose a run for office

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Maria Alegr a is mayor of Pinole, CA. Shestarted her political career as parks and recre-ations commissioner working to protect openspace, quality of life and the environment.Alegr a later ran for Pinole city council, whereshe s served now for over a decade.

Q. What lessons did you learn running for office?A. [city council] is a nonpartisan race, so you

really campaign on issues. I would take mychildren with me door to door. My daughter,[who] was 10, asked, Why do you go toRepublicans? They re voters, I said. You think ofcommunity values and speak to them.

Q. Why don’t more progressive, environmental-justice organizers run?A. I think what happens [is they] get labeled

a woman, a liberal or special interest. Yes, [Isay], my community is a special interest they reinterested in having clean air. You have to defineyourself. Once they start defining you as aradical lefty, you lose your message.Its always worth it to go to a campaign class.

It helps you develop your alligator skin. You can tpersonalize this stuff. You have to stay focusedon the work. If you allow somebody to attack youpersonally, you become ineffective.

n

Peggy Shepard, co-founder and executivedirector of West Harlem Environmental Action,held the position of democratic district leader forsix years. As leader, she was responsible fornominating poll inspectors, circulating candidatepetitions and supervising elections. She also ranfor city council and state assembly in New York.

Q. What lessons did you learn running for office?A. In New York City, you ve got to raise a lot

of money and have endorsements as well. A lotof activists haven t developed the networks ittakes to run for office. Once you decide to run,

you ve got to get endorsements from newspa-pers, labor unions. If you haven t already donethat work and created some kind of record, that sgoing to hurt you.Q. Why don’t more progressive, environmental justiceorganizers run?A. I think that activists in general tend to be

anti-electoral politics because they re peoplewho question the system and they don t think ofjoining the system that they are criticizing. Thereare some activists who believe, Let s join thatsystem and fix it. [But] for the most part,activists are not involved. Some of them reallydidn t even know who their own elected officialswere. [But] EJ struggles are political struggles. Ifyou don t know who the officials are, it s going tobe harder to create change.

n

In the early 90s, Mary Lou Mares, ran for herlocal water board in Kettleman City, CA. Theboard was the major governing body of the unin-corporated city and often sided with industry insetting water rates. She held her position forthree years.

Q. What lessons did you learn running for office?A. If I wanted to run for any office again I

could and I would. [But] it is hard being on aboard because you re not the only vote. Youdon t only have to convince the people but youhave to convince your fellow board members. It snot that easy passing resolutions in your favor.Yet it s not that hard either. You just have to bethere and participate.

Q. Why don’t more progressive, environmental justiceorganizers run?A. People have the hacienda mentality.

W ere taught that the big guy knows what he sdoing for you, that people who are in politics insome way were born into it. A lot of these politi-

Talking Politics


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tions. Companies such as Intel, Royal PhilipsCorporation, and Sumitomo were granted theIRBs with the understanding that they wouldcreate jobs. However, some did not comethrough with their job promises. Royal Philipsactually cut jobs and has recently announcedthat it will shut down this year. In Intel’s case,half of the workforce is imported from otherstates, creating the need for additional infra-structure and services for thousands of newfamilies. Vince Griego had already served five four-

year terms when he announced that he wouldrun for a sixth. Griego had been kept in powerby a shrinking political machine and an agingpatronage system. He had narrowly won re-election in 1995 against Dede Feldman whoran mainly on the issue of the Montanoproject, a proposal to run a bridge through theNorth Valley across the Rio Grande to servicethe sprawling west side. Although Vince votedagainst the bridge proposal, many felt that hewas not a strong enough advocate for thecommunity s interests. Much of the oppositionto Griego came from the growing white profes-sional community, but there were alsorumblings in the Chicano community thatGriego was losing his effectiveness on thecouncil.

Five candidates decided to jump into therace in 1999: two Republicans, Griego, AlanReed and me. The white professionalcommunity viewed Alan Reed as the trulyviable alternative to Griego because he wason the board of directors of 1000 Friends ofNew Mexico, an anti-sprawl group, and hadbeen a city councilor in another district. Werealized that in order to win the race we wouldhave to draw both from the traditional Chicanobase of Griego and the professional base ofReed. W e put together some basic materials and I

began to spend my evenings door-knocking.As the campaign moved forward, allies fromcommunity and labor organizations steppedforward to offer their assistance. We built acoalition of activists from several progressiveorganizations in the city who volunteered theirtime. We had easily the largest fieldoperation, mostly made up of teens and youngadults. These volunteers were bold andunafraid to try creative tactics, such asmidnight yard sign blitzes and 4 a.m. doorhanging. As a campaign, we decided to pull no

punches with our messages and thatresonated with the community. Although wewould ask people s opinions when we knocked

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n

Supporters take it tothe streets forAlbuquerque CityCouncil candidateMichael Guerrero.Shoe leather andenergy are invaluableresources in a grass-roots campaign.Source: Guerrerocampaign

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on doors, we would also put their issues in abroader context. Our campaign slogan asked,Who s really running City Hall? We talkedopenly about the control by developers andabout corporate welfare and regressive taxes.W e were the only campaign to stand up andsay that we did not feel that we needed morepolice to promote public safety. We alsogained endorsements from environmental andeconomic justice groups like ACORN, the NMConservation Voters Alliance, and the ToxicVictims Assistance Corporation.In the last few weeks of the campaign, polls

showed that we were gaining. Our successwas due to various factors. I had been organ-izing in the North Valley for several years andwas able to build relationships with manycommunity leaders. Several of them workedhard to build support. My in-laws, a veryprominent and well-respected family in the North Valley, were vital in gaining supportamong established Chicano families. We alsowere able to make gains with Alan Reed’sbase and demonstrate that we actually repre-sented the progressive agenda in the race.Having spending limits was also important.Spending on city council races at that timewas capped at around $16,000. This put apremium on hard work, creativity and volun-teerism, and gave us a fighting chance in theface of the developers and corporations that

backed the incumbent.On Election Day, we were neck and neck

with Griego until the absentee votes werecounted around midnight. As an underdogcampaign we came in a close second, 120votes shy of victory. Alan Reed came in adistant third. Though I lost, for the progres-sive community, the campaign was a majorvictory.

Lessons from the Campaign TrailThere were some important lessons and

benefits that we gained from the race:Campaigns are opportunities. The

campaign gave us a platform to discuss awide range of issues and to make a number ofconnections between issues and politicalplayers.Campaigns target constituents. We had time

and access to discuss issues with a broadrange of audiences. I had assumed thatpeople generally were negative about politi-cians but I had very few doors slammed in myface. People want to know who you are andwhat you are about, so they take the time totalk to you and pay close attention tocandidate forums. Also of note is the fact thatmany traditional Chicano families tend to beactive in the electoral process. Voter turnoutin city council elections is frighteningly lowroughly 16 percent in our race but those who


Michael Leon Guerrero is co-director of the SouthWest Organizing Project where he supervises community organizing efforts in low-

income communities of color throughout New Mexico.

n

Candidate Guerrero listens to a supporteron the campaign trail.

Source: Guerrero campaign

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n

a caption couldgo here photo byDavid Bacon

decisions that affect our lives and environ-ments. As an explicit statement of these values, the

Precautionary Principle presents an opportuni-ty to proactively prevent harm to the environ-ment and to human health before it occurs.The principle can be summarized by thefollowing: When an activity raises threats of harm to

the environment or to human health, precau-tionary measures should be taken even ifsome cause and effect relationships are notfully established scientifically. In this contextthe proponent of an activity, rather than thepublic, should bear the burden of proof. Theprocess of applying the PrecautionaryPrinciple must be open, informed and demo-cratic and must include potentially affectedparties. It must also involve an examination ofthe full range of alternatives, including noaction. (Source: Wingspread Statement, 1998.)Finding viable alternatives to the current

standard of risk assessments and pushing fornon-risk based approaches to guide ourdecision-making is a key step towardsachieving environmental justice. ThePrecautionary Principle is a tool that manycommunities and countries have begun to use

as a step towards this goal.

A Brief HistoryFor the last four decades, a risk analysis

model has guided United States governmentregulation. This model purports to make non-arbitrary decisions by calculating the mathe-matical likelihood that a certain technology oractivity will harm the public. The risk assess-ment is widely accepted and our regulatorsroutinely use it to make decisions such as: thesiting of power plants, incinerators andgarbage dumps; the clean up of contaminationfrom toxic sites such as brownfields or militarybases; and the degree of traffic permissible ina neighborhood, among others. This modelleaves decision-making to experts and useshighly technical language that few lay peoplecan truly understand and evaluate. However, community experiences and

evidence suggests that the risk assessmentmodel is not unbiased but often functions as amanipulation of science to justify politicaldecisions. Such decisions have contributed tosevere environmental injustices. Risk assess-ments effectively exclude community participa-tion, often burdening communities with newfacilities deemed safe. Further, community

By Bhavna Shamasunder

Precaution as PolicyHow advocates are asserting a new standard to protect the environment

he Precautionary Principle, a scientific and ethical concept that promotes precaution in decisionsthat affect the environment and human health, is emerging as a useful policy tool and organizingprinciple for the environmental justice movement. Many Native American communities have longmodeled a precautionary approach by considering all activities in light of their potential impacts onthe next seven generations. The Principles of Environmental Justice, the foundation of the environ-mental justice movement, clearly asserts the universal right to protection from toxic pollutants, andthe right of low-income communities and communities of color to meaningfully participate in the

T

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advocates who oppose existing contaminationor pollution are continually stymied by the riskassessment model and industry expert testi-monies that often claim a lack of scientificresearch or evidence of harm.Despite the widespread use of risk assess-

ment, the concept of precaution beganappearing in international agreements in the1980 s when the world began to face unprece-dented environmental changes such as acidrain, ozone depletion and deforestation. As aresult, the Precautionary Principle is at thecenter of the Rio Declaration on Environmentand Development signed at the 1992 UnitedNations conference. Since then it has beenincorporated into other international agree-ments and the public health and environmentalpolicies of nations such as Sweden andDenmark.In 1998 at a convening at Wingspread in

Racine, Wisconsin, a group of lawyers, scien-

tists, policymakers, labor and grassroots envi-ronmental and environmental justice activistscreated a comprehensive consensusstatement on the Precautionary Principle.Unlike risk assessments, the principle assertsthe right to prevent harm even when science isuncertain. As described in the WingspreadStatement, the principle poses such questionsas: How can we achieve our goal while doingthe least amount of harm?; What is the threatof harm from what we don t know (scientificuncertainty)?; and Who gets the benefits andwho will be harmed?The Precautionary Principle in ActionThree specific examples provide a glimpse

of the possibilities of the PrecautionaryPrinciple and approaches that reframe ourcurrent regulatory framework.

n The European Union. Currently, the E.U. isdrafting legislation that by 2005 will require the

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Elections 2000/2002 RevisitedElectoral Strategies

Safety First

How might the Precautionary Principle apply in your work and your campaigns? Use this checklist as a guide.

1. What are we trying to protect in our communities? How might the things we careabout be threatened?

2. What are we trying to accomplish? Can the community agree on an overall goal orgoals? Do these goals reflect what we care about?

3. What choices do we have? What is feasible and likely to move us toward our goal?How do choices compare and rank?

4. What is the bigger picture? What are the upstream problems that influence theimmediate problem? Which solutions might do more harm than good? Is there abigger, systemic solution that could create multiple benefits?

5. Do we know enough to act? What do we know about harmful effects? What don twe know? Are we getting all the information we need from those who have it? Istesting thorough? Is monitoring adequate?

6. Who is responsible? Is government fulfilling its public trustee responsibility by pro-tecting the commons and future generations? Are polluters paying? Are costs beingpassed on to the community?

7. Is justice being done? Who has the burden of proof those who harm or those whoare harmed? How can we distribute power, costs, benefits, and responsibilitiesmore justly? Is the community involved at each step of the way?

Source: Nancy Myers, communications director, the Science and Environmental Health Network (SEHN)

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chemical industry to conduct extensive safetytesting on 30,000 commonly used chemicals.At least 1,500 of these chemicals areexpected to be banned or severely restrictedas a result. European regulators estimate the cost of

this legislation to total 14 to 26 billion euros bythe year 2020, with 3.6 billion euros for testingand an additional expense for alternatives toforbidden chemicals. But they also estimatethat strengthening chemical regulations willresult in a drop of 2,200 to 4,300 cancer casesper year and a savings of 18 billion euros inoccupational health costs in 30 years. The United States government which does

not safety-test industrial chemicals or requiremanufacturers to submit testing data alongwith U.S. corporations, is strongly resistingthese changes. However, U.S. companies thatoffer safer substitutes for hazardous materialsstand to benefit from access to a unifiedEuropean market. A broad cross-section ofEuropean public interest groups, representingenvironmental, public health, and consumershave played a major role in the developmentof the European policy alongside the countriesthat constitute the E.U. And European publicopinion continues to strongly support the legis-

lation as it moves forward.

n California. In June 2003 San Franciscobecame the first city and county in the U.S. toadopt the Precautionary Principle as a guidefor environmental management and policy-making. Spearheaded by a regional coalitionof environmental health and environmentaljustice advocates, the California initiativeembraces the policy framework used inEurope and creates an umbrella under whichall future environmental decisions can beevaluated. In adopting the PrecautionaryPrinciple, the policy statement reads, EverySan Franciscan has an equal right to a healthyand safe environment. This requires that ourair, water, earth and food be of a sufficientlyhigh standard that individuals and communi-ties can live healthy, fulfilling and dignifiedlives. The duty to enhance, protect andpreserve San Francisco s environment restson the shoulders of government, residents,citizen groups and businesses alike. (Formore information about coalition members andprojects, go to www.takingprecaution.org).At the state level, a precautionary approach

is being recommended for inclusion inC a l i f o r n i a s

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n

San Francisco passesthe PrecautionaryPrinciple Ordinance,June 24, 2003. Members of the BayArea Working Groupon the PrecautionaryPrinciple with SanFrancisco MayorW illie Brown. Left toright: JanetNudelman,Jeanne Rizzo, WillieBrown, Karen Pierceand Davis Baltz.

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environmental justice goals. The CaliforniaEnvironmental Protection Agency is respond-ing to a legislative mandate to implementenvironmental justice in all of its boards,offices and departments. The AdvisoryCommittee on Environmental Justice,convened to formulate specific recommenda-tions to guide the Cal EPA, published severalgoals to advance this agenda. Included inthese recommendations was the specificproposal that, in creating new programs, CalEPA departments must officially recognizethe importance of precaution, and that it is notalways necessary or appropriate to wait foractual, measurable harm to public health orthe environment before evaluating alternativesthat can prevent or minimize harm.

In developing these recommendations,hundreds of community groups and individualstestified from across the state. Many communi-ties both inside and outside California arewatching this Cal EPA process as a potentialmodel in creating concrete guidelines toimplement environmental justice in statepolicy. n Hawaii. Perhaps the most interesting andfar-reaching example of PrecautionaryPrinciple implementation comes from theHawaiian Supreme Court decision onW aiahole Ditch. The case was brought bysmall family farmers and Native Hawaiians inorder to restore the flow of water to their farmsand communities that had been diverted tosugar plantations for the past 80 years. Part ofthe plaintiffs plea was for the State to upholdthe Public Trust Doctrine, which applies to allwaters in Hawaii. The Public Trust Doctrine, one of the oldest

recognized laws in the U.S., incorporatesmany aspects of the modern PrecautionaryPrinciple. Based in common law, the protectionof common resources is a Constitutional rightand it was enacted to protect the use ofcommon property and certain natural

resources for future generations. In Hawaii itapplies to all water resources under a statewater resources trust as well as other stateresources. Further, the Public Trust Doctrinerequires the state to take proactive measuresto protect common property. In the Waiahole case, the court ruled in

favor of the small family farmers and NativeHawaiians and adopted the PrecautionaryPrinciple as a guideline to implement thedoctrine and to protect the water resources.The court also placed the burden of proof ontothe party that wanted to privatize the waterand use it for commercial purposes.The ruling in this case is exciting because it

extends the Precautionary Principle to guideland-use decisions and because it protectednative Hawaiians and small farmers instead ofthe big corporations. Further, the Public TrustDoctrine, already in use in some form in 48states, establishes a proactive governmentrole in managing common property andkeeping it in the hands of the public ratherthan the private sector. It also requires that thestate fulfill its duties as a trustee of our naturalresources and make decisions that preserveintergenerational equity.

Practicing PrecautionOpponents of the Precautionary Principle

claim it is anti-science and anti-progress. Onthe contrary, the principle calls for betterscience and the investigation of cumulativeand complex impacts and interactions. It alsodemands that as decision-makers, all partiestake into account what we don t know andwhat the science hasn t or is unable to tell us. Our predecessors established laws such as

the Public Trust Doctrine in the hope that oncethese were in place, our leaders wouldmanage the environment for the benefit of allpeople and our descendants. Although fewcommunities continue to have faith in a U.S.government that will protect public health and


Bhavna Shamasunder is program associate for Urban Habitat’s Environmental Health and Justice Program. Thanks to Carolyn

Raffensperger for her input and support on this article.

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n

a caption couldgo here photo byDavid Bacon

n Educating Voters on Energy IssuesThe Apollo Alliance is a broad coalition of

labor, environmental, business, urban and faithcommunities that support both good jobs andenergy independence. Coalition members are501 (c)3 nonprofits that are doing publiceducation outreach leading up to the 2004presidential election. The Alliance has fourcore strategies: 1) diversify energy sources 2)invest in industries of the future (i.e. wind andsolar power) 3) promote energy efficientbuildings and 4) adopt smart growth strategieswhile investing in cities and communities. In addition to these strategies, the Alliance

will draft a scorecard of candidates positionson energy independence, job creation andurban development. "It is not that any of theseideas are radically new, said Carl Pope,executive director of the Sierra Club, amember of the Alliance. What is radicallydifferent is the commitment on the part of ahuge segment of American organized labor toorganize the rebuilding of blue-collar Americaaround modern environmentalism and soundenergy technology."For information go to

w w w.apolloalliance.org/vol-unteer or write to:Bracken Hendricks, Director, New GrowthInitiative, Institute for America’s Future, 1025Connecticut Avenue, Suite 205, Washington,D.C. 20036; (202) 955-5665.

Sources:n www.apolloalliance.org

n Steven Greenhouse, “Unions Back Research Plan for Energy”

New York Times, June 6, 2003.

Similar sites:

n League of Conservation Voters, www.lcv.org

n Global Stewards, www.global-stewards.org

n The Swing State Project, www.swingstate.org

n Training Tomorrow’s LeadersEMILY s List, an acronym for Early Money

is Like Yeast (it helps the dough rise), raisescampaign contributions for pro-choiceDemocratic women candidates running for theHouse, the Senate or for governor. Last May, itrelaunched a national campaign trainingprogram for both men and women called theCampaign Corps. This unique grassroots

training program is dedicated to empoweringrecent college graduates through an intensiveweek-long campaign school in Washington,D.C. Subsequently, graduates are placed towork on progressive Democratic campaignsthroughout the country for the last threemonths before an election. W orkshops include voter targeting, field

organizing, fundraising and press strategy,among others. We provide them with a broad,strong base of knowledge, so they ll be wellprepared to work on a campaign, regardless ofwhether it s as a field organizer or the financemanager, says Melissa Schiffman, campaigncorps press coordinator. EMILY s List pays forthe transportation and training of all partici-pants. To apply, go [email protected] or call (866) 68-CORPS (866-682-6777).

Sources:n Based on conversation with EMILY’s List Press Coordinator

Melissa Schiffman.

n www.emilyslist.org

Similar sites:

By Kimberley Paulson

Electoral Tools & TacticsPublic education campaigns, candidate training programs and more.

How can justice advocates and organizations shape local policy as well as national elections? Here are just a few examples

of ways progressives groups are grooming future leaders, educating voters and organizing innovatively.

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n Wellstone Action, www.wellstone.org

n MillenialPolitics.com

n “A Million More in 2004,” www.vote.wwe.com.

n Promoting Women in PoliticsThe number of women serving in California s

capitol has doubled within the last 15 years, butthe U.S. ranks 49th in the world for representationof women in elected office. Last fall, Democraticactivists Andrea Dew, Emily Rosenberg, DorkaKeenhn and Lisa Witter decided to do somethingabout it. That something became Emerge, a six-month political leadership training program forDemocratic women in the San Francisco BayArea. Participants meet one weekend a month for six

months and participate in the following trainings:campaigns and elections; fundraising; publicspeaking; the legislative process; networking;coalition-building; media skills and public policy.They also have the opportunity to meet womenwho hold elected office in California and discusscase studies of political leaders. Emerge hopes the program will be replicated

throughout the county to build a cadre of progressivewomen leaders in political office. Applicants shouldhave demonstrated skills such as the ability to bringtogether disparate groups to achieve a goal,evidence of political leadership experience orpotential, and meaningful involvement in a workplaceor community. Diversity on all levels has been andwill continue to be a top priority for Emerge, statedGretchen Schoenstein, Emerge s executive director.Out of the first graduating class of 25 in 2003, 60percent were women of color. Applications for the next session are accepted

in September 2004. Tuition for the program is$1,000 but partial and full financial aid may beawarded. A nonrefundable application fee of $50 isrequired. To apply, please send an email [email protected] or call (415) 874-7433.

Sources:n www.emergeCA.org

n ABC7 News, July 2003, San Francisco

n Based on conversations with Emerge Executive Director Gretchen

Schoenstein.

Similar site:

n The White House Project, www.thewhitehouseproject.org

n A Black PACIn 1968, a small group of politically active

African-American women called Bay Area Womenfor Dellums started working on Ron V. Dellums selection to the House of Representatives.Following his victory, the group of 12 reached outand recruited other politically active women to jointhem, an effort that eventually evolved into BlackW omen Organized for Political Action (BWOPA). Over the next three decades, BWOPA scored

several political wins. Charter member Ella HillHutch was the first African-American womanelected to office in the Bay Area, serving on boththe Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) Board ofDirectors and the San Francisco Board ofSupervisors. United States Congresswomen DianeW atson and Maxine Waters are among femaleelected representatives that received early supportfrom BWOPA. And the organization showed itsstrength as a successful coalition builder increating Bay Area Black Women United, a networkcomprised of over 30 women organizations. In1999, BWOPA also started a nonprofit called TILE(Training Institute for Leadership Enrichment),which provides programs to develop the next gen-eration of African-American women leaders. TILE sgoal is to ensure that these women are part oflocal and state decision-making bodies. B W O PA s state office is in Oakland, CA. To find

the affiliate office nearest you, go tow w w.bwopa.org, click on join BWOPA and fill outthe application. Membership fees range from $15-$125 annually.


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Sources:n www.bwopa.org

n Conversation with BWOPA staff

Similar sites:

n NAACP National Fund and Voter Empowerment Program,

www.naacpnvf.org

n Black Youth Vote, www.bigvote.org/byv.htm.

n Civil Rights Campaigning During the apartheid era in South Africa, the

African National Congress launched a rollingthunder campaign timed meetings, one afterthe other that resulted in mass demonstrations incities across the county.Modeling itself on the same strategy, the Gamaliel

Foundation, a grassroots interfaith network thatprovides support around local issues, recentlyinitiated a national immigration reform rolling thundercampaign. The goals of the campaign are: 1) legaliza-tion of the current undocumented population in theU.S. 2) expanded family and worker visas 3) strongerborder enforcement and 4) policies that encourageimmigrants to more fully participate in civic life.Using its network of 50 organizations in 17

states, the Foundation gathered its leaders andofficially launched the immigrants civil rightscampaign in Dec. 2002. Since then, the foundationhas hosted educational meetings to communicatethe goals of the campaign and rally support. InDetroit this year, 5,000 people showed up,including both of Michigan s senators and otherelected officials.The rolling thunder element of the campaign

will start in Oakland, CA and continue through thefollowing cities from July 2004-Oct. 2004:Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Davenport, Chicago,Northwest Indiana, St. Louis, Detroit, Newark,Baltimore Hartford, Pittsburgh, Buffalo and Albany.After the campaign concludes, the GamalielFoundation will draft a scorecard for its get-out-the-vote efforts, which is targeted towardcongregations. To find

the Gamaliel affiliate office closest to you, pleasego tow w w.gamaliel.org/Affiliates/AffilatesIndexbak.htm. Or contact Ana Garcia Ashley at (312) 357-2639 [email protected].

Sources:n Based on a conversation with Gamaliel Foundation Executive Director

Greg Galluzzio

n www.gamaliel.org

n Online ActivismMoveOn.org is an online advocacy group origi-

nally created in opposition to former PresidentClinton s impeachment. Today MoveOn.org has1.6 million members in the U.S. and an interna-tional network of more than 2 million onlineactivists. The group s objective is to bring ordinary

people back into politics. After establishing amembership base, MoveOn.org expanded itsreach by initiating the first virtual voting drive theday before the November 1998 national elections.The campaign reached over 4 million individuals,including elusive young swing voters. Reflectingthe demographics of the Internet itself,MoveOn.org members are younger than average,with more than one-third under the age of 35.With campaigns like MoveOn.org, the Internet

became a hotbed of political organizing andactivism, reaching tens of millions of people, manyof them new to electoral politics," said Wes Boyd,cofounder of MoveOn.org.More recently, on June 24th and 25th, 2003 the

campaign held an online primary vote to help itsmembers express their preferences among thefield of Democratic presidential candidates. In justa little over two days, more than 300,000

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By WireTap Staff

Rap theVote

Harnessing the power of hip hop among youth

Hip hop is more than a musical form or fashion craze: it is apolitical movement that is gaining momentum. Artists likeKRS-One, Dead Prez and Talib Kweli, have lyrics that con-sistently focus on social and political issues, and hiphoppers like Ras Baraka and George Martinez (a.k.a.Rithm), who have run for political office. These artist arepart of a trend in the hip hop community to translate itslegions of loyal participants into a political power to bereckoned with. Their goal, of course, is to wrest control ofthis nation out of the hands of politicians they see asapathetic to the concerns of poor and working-classpeoples that are at the heart of the hip hop constituency.One of the main obstacles to this goal, however, is hiphoppers themselves: civic participation is notoriously lowamong urban youth of color. In fact, in recent years, manyof these youth have felt their vote is essentially worthless.Since 1971, when 18-year-olds were first allowed to vote

by passage of the 26th Amendment, turnout for 18-to-20-year-olds at the polls has declined. According to the U.S.Census Bureau, in the 2000 presidential election only 36percent of registered 18-to-24-year-olds voted. If youth ingeneral are apathetic about voting, we can imagine thatyouth of color who so rarely have the opportunity to electcandidates who will represent their communities have anadded challenge.Simone Mason, a student at Howard University and the

assistant in the National Youth Voter Empowerment programat the NAACP, says she can understand why black youth inparticular have a hard time believing that their vote will makea difference."There’s a lot of disillusionment with the system," she

says. "They think it s not pertinent to themselves. There area lot of issues that they don’t feel they have any controlover." She mentions the 2000 elections specifically, addingthat the events in Florida made a lot of young people ask:"Why should I vote?"Philip Hales, a college senior from Mississippi, echoes

these sentiments on the Bush election. "To me the electionof George W. Bush to the office of president means that myconcerns as a black person will not be a political priority,"he says. "In the last election, ballots disappeared from his-torically black schools in Florida. My relatives in the Southlikened that state of affairs to the 50s, when blacks did nothave the right to vote. And I agree with this comparison."It’s not surprising, then, that more and more effort is

being put into messages aimed at youth of color that saythat voting is more than a way to be a good citizen andfollow the rules that it is, in fact, one of the only ways tochange the rules.Where does hip hop come into this? You guessed it: the


66

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n

a caption could gohere photo by David

n

Dancer at the EastBay Center for thePerforming Arts inRichmond, CA.Photo by Francisco Villaflor

most successful efforts to get youth of colorinvolved almost always involve hip hop.Take Rap the Vote (http://www.rap-the-

vote.org), for instance. Now an ongoingcampaign co-sponsored by the 12-year-oldRock the Vote organization and the NAACP,Rap the Vote started back in the early days ofMTV-inspired voting advocacy as a meretagline on some 1992 campaign materials.The phrase resurfaced again as more than aslogan in 2000, when Russell Simmons’360HipHop got involved. And in 2002, thanksto the NAACP’s involvement, and endorse-ment and participation by artists such as Jay-Z, Public Enemy, the Beatnuts, and Sean "P.Diddy" Combs, the campaign has expanded.Beginning this summer, Rap the Vote hassponsored a series of concert tours, televisionspots, and town hall meetings across thecountry. They have also sent a van into urbanneighborhoods to educate young people andhelp them register to vote.It you visit the Rap the Vote web site, you’ll

see their "Register. Vote. Represent."message, alongside a catchy hip hop beat andan image of a fist wearing a bling-blingknuckle ring that spells out V.O.T.E. across itswidth.At first glance, such projects may look like

token efforts to include youth of color in theworld of politics, but, as the campaign’s organ-izers will tell you, there’s nothing small aboutit.Channing Hawkins, of the NAACP National

Youth Voter Empowerment Program, thinks it’sabout time someone started using hip hop topromote voting. He believes that, despite therecent push for federal spending on education,very little emphasis has been placed oneducating people about their right to vote."Educating people about the political

process that s integral to making thisdemocracy work," he says. "And I don’t thinkthat message is one that’s being sent: thatthey need to be involved, and that theirinvolvement is necessary."Channing also manages the Rap the Vote

tour bus. And when they appear in a newneighborhood, he says, he sees young peoplewho are energetic and enthusiastic about theirright to vote sometimes for the first time intheir lives."We just pull up in their neighborhoods and

we have freestyle contests, or we have poetrycontests," he says. "And the youth, they’re justgreat because typically it’s a lot of older folksin politics but when we’re in the housingdevelopments and on the college campuses, itjust creates an instant crowd." One of the more inspiring things, Channing

says, is energizing people who, at a youngage, already feel completely excluded from thesystem. In some cases, he says, bringing in arap artist who has been in prison is particularlyhelpful."For [a young person] to find out their

favorite artist might be a convicted felon, but tofind out that [artist] can still vote, that theirlives have been taken away but they can begot back, I think that’s been the biggest thing,"he says.Tai Duncan, a college sophomore from

Chicago, is skeptical. She points out thatalthough the celebrity based programs might beeffective in terms of being something that grabsthe attention of a lot of youths, it may appear topeople outside of the community that the onlyway to get youth of color involved is to cater toan obsession with music, fashion and celebri-ties."I think if you’re going for inner city youths

whose basic role models are the people theysee on MTV and BET, then I say, go for it!"says Duncan. "But to reach other, morepolitical or otherwise intellectual individualswho might have some knowledge of non-popular black figures, using political orotherwise motivational figures would be morebeneficial." Jesse Jackson, Jesse White, SpikeLee were some that came to her mind.Like Duncan, some critics may wonder: Is

voting a realistic trend among young people?Lynn Lyman, of Rock the Vote, is clear aboutthe fact that the Rap the Vote campaign is

Sahil Merchant, Michael Gaworecki and T. Eve Greenaway all contributed to this story. Reprinted with permission from WireTap, an

online magazine by and for socially conscious youth (www.wiretapmag.org).

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68



1. Check your recordsIf you ve registered to vote, you should have no problems casting a ballot come

Election Day, right? Wrong. In 2000, problems with voter records kept 1.3 millionregistered citizens from voting. Troubles with voter rolls threaten to be even worsenow, as several states go through redistricting and others work out the glitches ofnew electronic registration systems. Be proactive: call your local board of electionsand make sure they have the right information about you, what polling location anddistrict you will be voting in, and who will be on the ballot.

2. Know your rightsFind out the laws in your state that guarantee the right to vote. For example, in

many states, if you have registered to vote yet your name doesn t appear on the rollson Election Day, you have the right to cast a provisional ballot. Other standards are inplace to ensure access to the polls for voters who speak English as a secondlanguage or have physical disabilities. People for the American Way has compiled aVoter s Bill of Rights for over a dozen states (visit www.pfaw.org). Distribute copiesto your church or community group, or pass it out to voters on Election Day.

3. Conduct a “citizen’s audit”Most elections in this country are run by local election boards with small staffs,

inadequate training, and shoestring budgets. Doug Lewis, director of the non-partisan Election Center in Houston, Texas, estimates that in 75 percent of thecountry s 6,000 jurisdictions, elections are the least well-funded arm of govern-ment. Concerned citizens and grassroots groups can become voting sentinels byperforming a citizen s audit an inventory of what election systems are in place,what improvements need to be made, and what resources are needed to getthere. If there isn t a group yet working to improve elections in your county, formone.

4. Lend a handMost areas are desperate for poll workers. In 2000, over 1.4 million poll workers

were recruited to help administer elections. The vast majority received littletraining, worked 14 or more hours on Election Day, and received little or no pay fortheir effort. Yet conscientious poll workers are critical to the smooth functioning ofour election system. Contact your local election board and volunteer to staff thepolls chances are, your help is sorely needed.

5. Do election protectionThe best way to safeguard voter rights on Election Day is to organize election

protection teams people who fan out to polling precincts and advise voters oftheir rights, help voters assert those rights and offer access to legal assistance.People For the American Way launched an election protection program in 2001,


Things You Can Do to Protect Your Right to VoteBy Melissa Siebert, Stan Goff and Chris Kromm

Melissa Siebert is director of the Institute’s Southern Voting Rights Project; Stan Goff is an Associate of the Project. Chris Kromm is

publisher of Southern Exposure and executive director of the Institute for Southern Studies. Reprinted with permission from Southern

Exposure.

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Activist Organizations and Projects

Action Agenda for Election Reform

(Sponsored by the Progressive Challenge,Institute for Policy Studies and The Nation magazine)w w w.ips-dc.org/electoral/intro.htm

Ballot Access News

w w w.ballot-access.org/

Brennan Center for Justice’s Democracy Program

NYU School of Law161 Avenue of the Americas, 12th Fl.New York, NY 10013(212) 998-4550w w w.brennancenter.org/programs/programs_dem.html

Center for Policy Alternatives

1875 Connecticut Avenue, N.W.Suite 710W ashington, D.C. 20009(202) 387-6030w w w.cfpa.org/issues/electionreform/index.cfm

Center for Voting and Democracy

6930 Carroll Ave., Ste. 610Takoma Park, MD 20912(301) 270-4616w w w.fairvote.org/

Common Cause

1250 Connecticut Ave., N.W., #600W ashington, D.C. 20036(202) 833-1200w w w.commoncause.org/agenda/

The Constitution Project

1120 19th St., N.W.W ashington, D.C. 20036(202) 721-5620w w w.constitutionproject.org/eri/index.htm

Demos

220 Fifth Avenue, 5th Fl.New York, NY 10001(212) 633-1405w w w.demos-usa.org/demos/democracy_reform/

Election Reform Information Project

1101 30th St., N.W., Ste.210W ashington, D.C. 20007(202) 338-9860w w w.electionline.org/index.jsp

League of Women Voters

1730 M Street, N.W., Ste.1000W ashington, D.C. 20036-4508(202) 429-4508w w w.lwv.org

Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund

634 S. Spring St.Los Angeles, CA 90014(213) 629-2512w w w.maldef.org/policy/index.htm

National Voting Rights Institute

27 School St., Ste. 500Boston, MA 02108(617) 624-3900w w w.nvri.org/

Northeast Action

30 Germania St.Boston, MA 02130(617) 541-0500w w w.neaction.org/electedofficials.htm

People for the American Way

2000 M Street, N.W., Suite 400W ashington, D.C. 20036(202) 467-4999w w w.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=114

Project Vote Smart

One Common GroundPhilipsburg, MT 59858(406) 859-8683w w w.vote-smart.org/

Public Campaign

1320 19th St., N.W., Ste. M-1W ashington, D.C. 20036(202) 293-0222w w w.publiccampaign.org/

resources

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Rock the Vote

10635 Santa Monica Blvd., Ste. 150Los Angeles, CA 90025(310) 234-0665w w w.rockthevote.org/

Southern Regional Council

133 Carnegie Way, N.W., Ste. 1030Atlanta, GA 30303-1054(404) 522-8764w w w.southerncouncil.org/helpnet/index.html

Youth Vote Coalition

1010 Vermont Ave., N.W., Ste. 715W ashington, D.C. 20005(202) 783-4751w w w.youthvote.org/

Resources for Lobbying

To find information on federal legislators:

See www.congress.orgSee www.ombwatch.orgReach any Congress member: (202) 224-3121White House Comment Line (202) 456-7639Publications on past voting history in publicationssuch as the Almanac of American PoliticsSee www.vote-smart.org

For information on state and local officials:

To find out who your state and local officials are,see the League of Women Voters website atw w w.lwv.org

Information on California state officials can befound at: www.leginfo.ca.gov/

Other Resources

Marcia Avner, Minnesota Council of Nonprofits,The Lobbying and Advocacy Handbook forNonprofit Organizations: Shaping Public Policy atthe State and Local Level (2002)

Gregory L. Colvin & Lowell Finley, The Rules ofthe Game: An Election Year Legal Guide forNonprofit Organizations (Alliance for Justice,1996)

Gail M. Harmon, Jessica A. Ladd & Eleanor A.Evans, Being a Player: A Guide to the IRSLobbying Regulations for Advocacy Charities(Alliance for Justice, 1995)

Elizabeth Kingsley, Gail Harmon, John Pomeranz,and Kay Guinane, E-Advocacy for Nonprofits: TheLaw of Lobbying and Election-Related Activity onthe Net (Alliance for Justice, 2000)

Judith C. Meredith and Catherine M. Dunham,The Access Project, Real Clout: A how-to manualfor community-based activists trying to expandhealthcare access by changing public policy(1999)

San Francisco Aids Foundation, Every VoiceCounts: A Grassroots Advocacy Manual for theHIV/AIDS Community (2001)

Jim Shultz, The Initiative Cookbook: Recipes andStories from California s Ballot Wars, TheDemocracy Center/ Advocacy Institute West,1996.

Resources

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71

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