Robert in Wisconsin beat me to it. But this is our own personal story, as much as I can tell right now. It's late! But I wanted to share our good news.
Over the past several months, more than thirty communities in Wisconsin have gathered signatures on petitions to force advisory referenda on Iraq troop withdrawal. Backed by the Wisconsin Green Party and the Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice, grassroots citizens' groups used Wisconsin's Direct Legislation statute to put the issue on their local ballots in April.
(Milwaukee will vote on a similar referendum in November. Supporters there failed to gather the thousands of signatures required under the Direct Legislation statute, but Milwaukee city representatives agreed to include it on their November ballot.)
"Should the U.S. begin an immediate withdrawal of its troops from Iraq starting with the National Guard and Reserves?"
- more below -
Almost everyone expected Madison's vote to favor troop withdrawal, and it did. But many eyes were on La Crosse, a city of about 55,000 along the Mississippi River in western Wisconsin.
Fifty-five per cent of La Crosse voters said yes.
Supporters of the referendum - university students, Green and Democratic Party members and a strong local peace and justice community - mounted a solid campaign which included canvassing local voters, several information sessions (we showed the film, Dreams of Sparrows and hosted speaker, Sami Rasouli, of the Muslim Peacemakers Team), forums and discussions in the local media, an informational website, yard signs and a strong GOTV effort.
It was a great campaign and many more people are now educated about the issue. Unfortunately, even though we won, the carnage and occuption continue. But we hope this effort will encourage others to plan similar campaigns. And we hope elected representatives will finally get it.
Read more here.