It was, no doubt, a dismal election. The forces of hate, fear, bigotry, ignorance and dishonesty have won. But while pundits talk about the impact of Senate and gubernatorial races, probably the most significant action was at the local level. That’s where we need to look to see our most important failures, our most important successes, and our path for the future.
At the statehouse level our failures were even more devastating than at the federal level. In 2015, Republicans will hold majorities in at least 29 state legislatures as well as holding 32 governorships. When we consider the damage that Scott Walker has done in Wisconsin and Rick Scott in Florida, to cite just two examples, we get some idea of just how much suffering this could cause for the most vulnerable among us. Should this trend hold through 2020, we will have Republicans gerrymandering still more election districts.
And we don’t have far to look to see one of the causes of these devastating defeats at the local level. According to John Oliver, 25% of statehouse seats went to Republicans by default because there was NO DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE! THAT’S 25%--FULLY ONE QUARTER! That is simply shameful. Democrats have failed miserably to organize locally, have simply given up in many districts. That is true in my district, where there was no Democratic candidate either for the Georgia house, the Georgia Senate, or the US House!
But there is also some good news. There were some resounding successes on the state and local levels, particularly involving direct, as opposed to representative, democracy. In four states, Alaska, Arkansas, South Dakota, and Nebraska, none of them noted for electing liberal Democrats, voters overwhelmingly passed referenda raising the minimum wage. Voters in Oakland and San Francisco also voted to increase the minimum wage in their cities.
Voters in California passed a referendum that would re-classify many non-violent crimes as misdemeanors, making thousands of offenders eligible for early release and likely reducing future felony convictions by tens of thousands per year. This would not only free many Californians of the burden of a felony conviction, but also save the state millions of dollars. California’s referendum could be the start of a movement to end the mass incarceration that has devastated minority communities.
Food and Water Watch reports that the city of Reading, PA, passed a referendum forbidding any future attempts to privatize public utilities, the latest of several PA communities to do so.
In addition, according to Food and Water Watch, Athens, Ohio, San Benito and Mendocito Counties in California, and even Denton, Texas, in the heart of oil and gas country, passed referenda to ban fracking, joining 132 other communities that had previously done so. And voters in Richmond, CA, overwhelmingly re-elected a slate of progressive commissioners who had sued Chevron for massive pollution caused by a local Chevron facility and sought to enact restrictions on Chevron’s pollution. Chevron had spent $3 million on the election, $72 for each voter in the Richmond. At least in this case, the big money did not buy victory.
In twelve localities in Wisconsin voters approved, by margins ranging from 70% to 83% non-binding referenda to overturn Citizens United by re-defining corporations. They were joined by voters in Alachua County, Florida, and two Ohio towns, who supported similar measures. These communities joined 16 states and over 500 municipalities that had previously voted to deny corporations legal status as persons.
Today, taking their lead from this grassroots movement, 54 senators, all Democrats and independents (no surprise there), voted for an amendment to overturn Citizens United.
So what can we learn from our dismal failures and from these local successes? First, we MUST work hard to recruit local progressives to run for office in statehouses; we cannot expect victories at the national level until we have begun to run candidates in all local races. Most of our victories were issue-driven, the result of hard work by independent, non-profit, advocacy organizations such as Food and Water Watch and Common Cause. We clearly need to recruit local candidates who, like these advocacy organizations, stand strong on issues rather than, as so many of the defeated Democrats did this year, running away from them. Can we begin to help connect and build these various advocacy groups into a larger and more powerful movement without compromising their non-partisan status? Can we then begin to draw local candidates from their ranks without reducing their effectiveness? I think we must do both.
We must organize not just against the incursions of corporations, but for the rebuilding of local economies through support for small, local businesses, for worker-owned and community-owned enterprises, for public community banks such as North Dakota’s state-owned banks, for publicly owned cable and internet services such as Chattanooga, Tennessee’s, for locally distributable, sustainable energy free from the price fluctuations and vulnerability of large grids.
In reading about the many local victories won by communities nationwide, I ran across an idea that might form the nucleus of a unified populist and progressive movement. Several communities across the country have adopted a community bill of rights. The idea is that just as we “have a Bill of Rights on the individual level,” we ought to have a bill of rights “bridging the individual to her or his community,” a document to define and protect “a right to water and clean air, a right to exist in a peaceful environment, a right to sustainable energy.” Such a document gives us a legal basis for asserting a community’s right to self-determination. Particularly in the 43 states in this country that have home rule, such a document might give us a strong basis in court for defying corporations. For more on community bills of rights, check out this very interesting an provocative web site:
http://www.celdf.org/
I’m sure many of you fear, as I do, that these community victories, even when supported by community bills of rights, will eventually be overthrown in court. Already oil companies have challenged in court the anti-fracking victory in Denton, Texas. In spite of such setbacks, we must continue to build on our movement, undeterred by courts or by federal elections. Community bills of rights would at the very least give us a legal basis for asserting our communities’ rights to self-determination. Particularly in the 43 states in this country that have home rule, such a document might give us a strong basis in court for defying corporations.
If and when the courts rule against us, we can then decide what to do next. Even if the courts refuse to recognize the authority of community bills of rights, if we have begun to build a movement and drawn enough support in enough communities for such documents, we can begin to turn public opinion against the courts and against the corporations. If we can only get enough people to see graphic evidence that corporations want to prevent our running our own communities, we will begin to build a huge movement for community self-determination. And with a large, diverse enough movement, we can defy corporations, court rulings, and bureaucratic regulations just as corporations and their lackeys have done for years.
The power of such a movement can be seen in today’s Senate vote. Taking their lead from this grassroots movement, 54 senators, all Democrats and independents (no surprise there), voted for an amendment to overturn Citizens United. Though Republicans successfully filibustered this time, momentum is building, and as this movement grows, the pressure on Republicans will increase. At the very least, this vote graphically demonstrates Republicans’ debt to their corporate sponsors, a debt their constituents surely will notice.
For a trenchant, if outdated (September 7) assessment of what this vote might mean, see John Nichols' perceptive analysis.
So we must continue to organize locally. In the far too many localities where there is no viable progressive organization, we progressives need to find like-minded people and begin to talk to others, not so much overtly about politics as about ways to improve our communities, about the possibilities of a community bill of rights. We must then begin to involve all elements of the local community, including small businesses, churches, community service organizations, police, teachers, government workers of all kinds and even local politicians. We must to organize townhall meetings after the model of Vermont where Bernie Sanders, the most progressive member of the Senate, has won victory after victory in a state that is almost entirely white and largely rural.
I will begin by sending this blog out to at least a dozen e-mail friends. What do you propose to do?