Sender: ftr-strategy-owner@qiclab.scn.rain.com Date: Wed, 30 Mar 94 01:39:53 EDT From: "Keith A. Williams" To: ftr-strategy@qiclab.scn.rain.com Subject: _Washinton Blade_ article on grass-roots organizing X-Vms-To: PONY%"ftr-strategy@qiclab.scn.rain.com" Sender: ftr-strategy-owner@qiclab.scn.rain.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: ftr-strategy-owner@qiclab.scn.rain.com [submitted by: Keith A. Williams ] The following appeared as an editorial in the March 25 edition of _The Washington Blade_. It is by Arlene Zarembka who was recently elected president of Missouri Pro-Vote. She is also a member of the legal team that is challenging the anti-gay initiative in Missouri. I found this interesting, for all of you who may not have access to the _Blade_. The article is reprinted here without permission: THE NITTY-GRITTY WORK OF GRASS-ROOTS ORGANIZING How will we defeat the right wing? For the Gay community, the battleground is in the states. The smashing defeat on the military ban has weakened the community's political power to win federal legislative protection for sexual orientation discrimination. More importantly, the right wing is waging war in the states. After its massive defeat at the national polls in the 1964 Goldwater race, the right wing rebuilt from the grassroots up. It succeeded not only in capturing the presidency in 1980, but used the next 12 years to attack minority communities, abortion rights, social welfare programs, enviornmental protections, and unions. Since losing the presidency in 1992, it has continued organizing at every level, from school boards on up, to form a large movement designed to win political power at the local, state, and national levels, much as the Nazis did in Germany. The anti-Gay initiatives are just one attack in their war. The Gay community, except in a limited number of enclaves, does not have the votes to defeat, by itself, right wing candidates or to elect legislators whom it can trust to vote the right way on its issues. It certainly cannot defeat statewide anti-Gay ballot initiatives by itself. It can defeat right wing candidates and elect progressive politicians, however, when working in coalition with other groups that have an interest in electing progressive politicians. These coalitions also give the community an opportunity to gain straight allies on the anti-Gay initiatives. Progressive electoral organizations in over a half dozen states provide a useful model. Five northeastern states (Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island) and two mid-western states (Missouri and Minesota) have electoral coalitions that unite labor unions and community organizations, including environmental, feminist, Gay male and Lesbian, and other organizations for the purpose of electing progressive politicians to office. Several western states are in the early stages of forming such coalitions. While not agreeing on all the issues, coalition members are able to unite on a common goal -- electing progressive candidates to office and defeating right wing legislators. By limiting endorsements to candidates who have the support of a super majority of the organizations in the coalition, the candidates must be good on a wide range of issues, not just on one or two issues. Because the coalitions are broad-based, and include organizations that normally do not work together, they can elect progressive legislators outside of existing liberal and minority enclaves. For example, a primarily white district with a lot of union members but no visible Gay community might well elect a candidate who has a strong union record, even though the candidate is also pro-Gay. Missouri Progressive Vote (Pro-Vote), a statewide coalition of over 20 different organizations, illustrates the operation of such a coalition. Two member organizations (the St. Louis-based Privacy Rights Education Project and the Kansas City-based Human Rights Poject) focus on Gay male and Lesbian issues, two are pro-choice, two are feminist, one is environmental, one is housing, one lobbies for a single-payer health care system, and 13 are labor unions. Each Pro-Vote affiliate provides two questions concerning its key issues for a candidate questionnaire. If a candidate's responses are on target, Pro-Vote then interviews the candidate. The interviews not only flesh out the candidate's positions on matters of concern to members of the coalition, but also help to educate candidates on the issues. Before a candidate is approved for endorsement, she or he must gain support from 75 percent of the local board members in the area where the candidate will run. Pro-Vote staff then assists the candidate, not with money, but by developing the candidate's campaign and by coordinating canvasing and phone banking. Pro-Vote organizations provide the people power, telephones, and/or organizational mailing lists that can spell the difference between victory and defeat. There is, of course, no guarantee that politicians elected through such coalitions will always vote the way Gay men and Lesbians want them to vote (although every candidate elected with the help of the Connecticut coalition, LEAP, did vote for Connecticut's Gay civil rights bill). But it oils doors so they open more easily. Our community gains access to candidates that the coalition helped to elect, even if the candidate does not have a large number of visible Gay male and Lesbian constituents, and provides our community with some leverage with candidates who begin to waiver on our issues. As the coalition gains strength, member organizations gain influence with legislators who were not elected with coalition help, as they begin to see the coalition and its members as politically powerful forces. Just as importantly, by sitting as an equal at the table with a wide variety of other coalition partners, many of whom know little, if anything, about Gay issues, the community gains an important opportunity to educate leaders of major organizations on our issues and to gain their assistance. In turn, our organizations learn about their issues. These working relationships give our community a foot in the door to educate our allies about issues such as the anti-Gay initiatives that are sweeping the country. While Pro-Vote is only two years old in Missouri, it is successful and growing. If such a coalition can work in Missouri, it can work anywhere.