Organizing for a New Millennium

Turning politics around in Washington will require unprecedented organizing and new political strategies. Here are some ideas.
by Mark Gardner, The Free Press

It is the year 2010. The Washington state legislature is in session, and a bill reauthorizing a key environmental law is moving toward final passage in the House of Representatives. Committee Democrats have attempted a series of strengthening amendments, to no avail. As the bill gets ready to move out of committee, lead environmental lobbyists are surprised by an unexpected series of "technical amendments." After quick analysis, they realize the amendments will eviscerate the bill.

To their horror, they find that key Democrats, including some who attempted earlier to strengthen the bill, have signed on to the amendments and are willing to vote the bill out of committee for certain passage and the governor's signature. "We've got to get it reauthorized, and some law is better than none," these Democrats say. In any case, they're covered by their earlier votes, which can be trumpeted in public meetings as evidence of their commitment to the cause. The bill looks sure to pass.

Suddenly, things change as a team of crack strategists initiates a quick-response campaign to fix the bill. Thousands of e-mails are sent out, which set in motion a wide variety of actions challenging the bill. A website tracking the legislation documents every twist and turn of the committee, and exposes the backroom deals and vote reversals that move the bill along. Dozens of letters appear in papers large and small all over the state excoriating the legislation. A score of "guest editorials" appear in newspapers statewide attacking the bill. Thousands of calls, letters, and e-mails pour in to legislators on the committee, and off. Legislators who are not on the committee begin to grumble, "This bill's getting really hot. I'm not sure I can support it on the floor. They're going to have to watch those amendments."

Some of the erstwhile environmentalist legislators begin to fall back in line. Two high profile press conferences of activists, policy experts, and academics are held, one on each side of the state, catalyzing a spate of media editorials decrying the content of the bill. Press releases are faxed to the machines of every media outlet in the state, resulting in numerous follow-up stories. One Democrat, facing a possible challenge in an upcoming primary, dusts off some strengthening amendments, which go on to pass. Key members of the committee agree to pull out the offending measures, and the revised bill passes, moves on to the Senate, and is signed by the governor, greatly strengthening enforcement of environmental clean-up measures.

The defeat of the amendments and the strengthening of the law was attributed to the Washington Citizen's Alliance, a grassroots policy and political organization that works independently of political parties, and in close cooperation with labor unions and established public interest groups. "That God Damn Washington Citizens Alliance," exclaimed one legislator. "Used to be you could slip these things through and no one would notice. Now, not only do they hammer us on legislation, but they've got the nerve to run candidates against us," he says in frustration.

It's time to think big, and to start organizing to create a decent future. Right now, small groups of organizers and lobbyists are beating their brains out to fight regressive laws or to achieve small incremental reforms. A slightly wider ring of what political scientists call the "attentive public" joins public interest groups and follows the issues, and a smaller subset responds to crises by writing letters or making a phone call. The great majority of the population -- well over 90 percent -- have no more than a vague sense of what's going on. So when legislators go to local meetings to talk about their votes on issues X, Y, and Z, most of the voters believe them, and proceed to vote them back into office, regardless of the record. Candidates willing to push substantive issues are cut out of the game because they can't raise enough money to get elected, and the lucky few who get into office are frozen out by the party establishment.

Ill Political Winds

And it is getting worse. Previous battles pale compared to the challenge of fending off the broadsides of organized right-wing initiative campaigns. The initiative tool used to be owned by the progressive left. Now, the extremist right dominates the "populist" agenda. The serial successes of far-right initiatives have opened the floodgate for many more to come. Linda Smith, and then John Carlson, and now Tim Eyman have let loose a dizzying barrage of retrograde measures that are reversing decades of progress. Linda Smith gutted the state's ability to invest in the future with 601. Carlson and Eyman teamed up to pass anti-affirmative action I-200, and Eyman had his own show with I-695. Two other absurd initiatives by Eyman are currently in the works, one to eliminate what little remains of public transit funding, and another to give a huge tax break to property owners in the wealthiest parts of the state.

Although these measures are ludicrous in a technical or policy sense, the sound-bite politics that appeals to voters' worst instincts has an enviable record of success. The successes of these measures, and the weakness of the opposition to them, puts anyone to the left of John Carlson and Tim Eyman on the defensive, and forces us all to play the game according to their rules. And they will not stop until they totally remake our state in their image.

Failure to take the right wing populists seriously is part of what's gotten us into this political mess in the first place. This process reached its apogee with the so-called campaign against I-695, which revealed the intellectual bankruptcy of the state's political and corporate elite. Two million dollars, and the opposition campaign couldn't buy a vote. Some transportation advocates and the union grassroots did their part while the people at the top dithered. The campaign was a textbook lesson in how to lose. Start late; make sure no prominent leader takes a stand against the measure; have a timid, confused message; and, run a late TV barrage of a few mumbling citizens stating vaguely that the initiative "goes too far." The Democratic party remained mute in the face of Eyman's propaganda machine, and there was no other organized movement to step into the breach.

Out with the Old Ways

The old ways -- lobbying, placing a few more Democrats in office, the occasional demonstration here and there -- just do not work in an ideological climate tilted this far to the right. Fighting these ideological broadsides requires a broader agenda and the capacity to transcend single-issue politics. Single-issue politics wins specific battles but loses the war. Anti-tax initiatives, in particular, decimate resources so that various progressive interests are forced to fight one another for the remaining pennies.

It is also necessary to jettison the notion that working through the mainstream of the Democratic party will get us somewhere. Even liberal standard-bearer Frank Chopp has converted to the New Democrat philosophy of winning through capitulation, receiving a lower environmental and consumer rating than many Republicans in his first session as co-speaker. The few genuine populists that do exist in the state Democratic party drown in a sea of skittish colleagues. The total unwillingness of the Democrats as a party to push for meaningful reform -- most notably, the failure to propose progressive reform of the nation's most regressive and antiquated tax system -- set the state up for waves of anti-government backlash. Only the creation of some sort of organization or coalition with the capacity to coordinate multi-issue lobbying and initiative campaigns will turn things around.

There are precedents for this sort of broad, cross-issue organizing. For example, in Vermont, the Progressive Coalition slowly worked its way into power through multi-issue coalition building, and kept it by sponsoring a series of popular proposals on housing, jobs, and urban development. The Coalition worked outside of party structures so as not to be hamstrung by the need to cooperate with Democrats, and was willing to support either Democrats or third party candidates to advance the cause. Such an organization thus has the potential to provide a basis for credible third-party candidacies that would challenge the current two-party duopoly.

Any similar Washington organization ought to have a high-tech twist. It's not possible to compete with the war chest of the right without taking full advantage of the low-cost efficiency made possible by the web and other communications media. As a first step, we ought to fully embrace cyber-democracy, and its capacity for instant monitoring and truth-telling. We'll also need to continue strengthening the alternative media to provide an incubator for new ideas and to assure that all voices have a forum. It is also time to begin "educating" the mainstream media -- working the editorial boards, lining up experts willing to develop relationships with reporters, assembling teams of media "truth squads" who relentlessly seek out and publicize shoddy reporting or bankrupt editorializing.

The real debate on the downside of market-led globalization resulting from the anti-WTO actions shows what a higher level of mobilization and cooperation can achieve. We can also benefit from the increased sophistication and membership of various Washington public interest groups across the issue spectrum. Renewed organizing within the labor movement and an infusion of new people and ideas makes for a stronger voice for workers and more effective alliance-building. Various research organizations that have formed in Washington in recent years are helping to put the "think" back in "think tank." Progressive candidates have made inroads at the county and municipal level, providing a model for effective governance. We need to take this momentum and do something with it, or we'll continue to be blown around by the ill winds of far-right populism.