Community Voting Project Teleconference

Audio of the teleconference can be found here.

Operator:                                 

Good day ladies and gentlemen and welcome to your CDP Launch.  At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode.  We will conduct a question and answer session later and instructions will follow at that time.  If you should require assistance during the conference, please press star then zero on your touch-tone telephone.  And as a reminder, this is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Miss Sally Kohn, please go ahead.

 
Sally Kohn, Center for Community Change:                          

Hi, good morning everyone.  My name is Sally Kohn I am the senior campaign strategist with the Center for Community Change and I want to welcome you all.  Thank you for listening in and being with us today.

The Center for Community Change is a national organization that strengthens, connects and mobilizes grassroots organizations to enhance their leadership, voice and power.  And today we’re going to be talking about our work through the community voting project, with grassroots organizations nationwide mobilizing voters around the election.

 
I’ll be moderating the call and will have opening remarks for about 15 minutes and then we’ll be opening it up for your questions.  And we’ll be making a transcript and recording available, as you just heard, following the call so we’ll be sure to get that to you.

So the first speaker I’m going to turn it over to is Gabe Gonzales, who is Director of the Campaign for Community Values at the Center for Community Change, Gabe.

Gabe Gonzales, Center for Community Change:                    

Good morning and thanks Sally.  So the reason for putting this call together is I know I think everyone has been aware that there’s been a lot of coverage in the media about the influence of community organizing in this election.  But generally speaking a lot of that is focused on sort of the technical aspects of it, how this influences field operations, things like that.

We believe, as practitioners of community organizing that there’s really a lot more to this and that, the other aspects of organizing involving deep relationships, creating long-term structures for change, are just as important in this election cycle as sort of the technical field operations.

We think that what we’re seeing in 2008 is sort of the more noticeable elements of the sea change in the way Americans think about politics.  We think it’s a more grassroots politics, one that understands that people’s involvement in the political process doesn’t begin and end on Election Day but rather, continues throughout the year.  We think it’s a politics that’s focused on reaching across partisan lines. Building long-term relationships, understanding common purpose and agreeing that there are common self interests that unite different constituencies, different ethnicities, people across geographic lines to create sort of real progressive change in America.  We think that’s what’s going on in the country right now.

In 1988 Barack Obama was writing about community organizing.  One of the things he said was it enables people to break the crippling isolation from each other and to re-shape the mutual values and expectations and re-discover the possibilities of acting collaboratively. This year John McCain’s website invites people to “Support a cause that is greater than their own self-interests”. So we think that both of the candidates recognize what’s going on in American politics and that they know there’s a real sort of desire for people in this country to work for—what in very practical terms we would call the common good.

And we call that desire and that set of values to go along with it, community values.  You know if you think about family values as sort of a brief reaction to the nation—or sort of the reaction to the progressive reforms that have gone on in the 40’s and 50’s, we think that these community values are actually sort of more representative of some of the deep self-image and sort of history of the United States. Whether you talk about—Native American tradition, you talk about the pioneers coming across in wagon trains, barn raisings, the formation of unions, etcetera, what we think is that there’s a stream in American society and political thought and belief that we’re really all in this together.

And so, because of that, we believe that there’s a real hunger right now, after 30 some odd years of rugged individualist, dog-eat-dog politics, there’s a real hunger to return to that in America. Because of that, we formed the Campaign for Community Values.  It’s a campaign that involves over 300 grassroots organizations from across the country that work at a very local level, on issues that concern people, but also, across issues.

Some of the accomplishments that we've done, you know last year on December 1^st we had the Heartland Presidential Forum.  In Des Moines Iowa we had about 3,600 people come in the middle of an ice storm to a hall in Des Moines Iowa, where they heard a number of the primary candidates, including Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, talk about their values, to listen to people’s stories and to respond to this desire of real American for a greater sense of connection.

We’re going to be doing 80 more of those forums throughout the summer and fall leading up to the election. And then, we’re also in that time period, organizing Community Value voters to register, turn out and to turn out their neighbors to the polls so that’s what we really want to talk to you about today.

What you’re going to hear from the folks on the call today is how they are engaged in this work at the local level; you’re going to hear nuts and bolts stories about people reaching out across community lines, reaching out across constituency lines, across issue lines to make common cause with each other. But you’re also going to hear about how people are creating lasting structures that are not just going to last through this election cycle or the next one, but over time.  And we believe are going to sort of help re-define American politics for the next generation.

So that’s my brief intro, Sally you want to take it?

Sally Kohn, Center for Community Change:                          

Yeah, thank you so much Gabe, Gabe Gonzales the Director of the Campaign for Community Values at the Center for Community Change.  So we’re joined by grassroots organizers from across the United States who are running electoral projects this year.  And their remarks are going to reinforce how grassroots groups across the county, have been laying the groundwork for this movement of Community Values voters. That they’re more visible in this election than ever, because the public is realizing, as Gabe said that, this current scapegoating, divisive politics have in fact, made us worse off.

And the kind of grassroots voter engagement we’re talking about is qualitatively different because it’s building an infrastructure beyond just the election, for long-term change around these community values.

The way we’re mobilizing voters around shared values is also, different from the way that progressives have been doing their work in the past.  I think you’ll see that comes out in what folks are about to say.

So we have four leaders of grassroots organizations who are going to talk for two minutes each about the work they’re doing, then we’re going to open it up for questions.  So on the call we have Pramila Jayapal who is the Executive Director of One America, formerly Hate Free Zone in Seattle, Washington. Sandra Cook is the Vice Chair of the Virginia Organizing Project based in Charlottesville, Virginia.  Juan Salgado is Chair of the Board of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights based in Chicago, Illinois and Pastor Gregory Chandler is President of the AMOS Project and Pastor of the World Outreach Christian Church in Cincinnati, Ohio.

And then, for the question and answer portion of the call we’ll also be joined by Amy Thompson from Maine People’s Alliance, Bob Fulkerson from the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, Jon Liss from Tenants and Workers United in Alexandria, Virginia and Will Pittz from Washington Community Action Network.

So first we’re going to hear comments from Pramila Jayapal, Executive Director of One America in Seattle, Washington, Pramila.

Pramila Jayapal, OneAmerica:                  

Thank you Sally and good morning.  One America, formerly Hate Free Zone in Seattle, advances the fundamental principles of democracy and justice and we do that by building power within immigrant communities in collaboration with key allies.  We work on grassroots organizing and on policy advocacy. We develop leaders and build the voice and power of immigrants across Washington State.

Our civic participation program is really central to our mission of advancing (audio interference). And I can tell you that, we are feeling the excitement in our communities as we do this work this year.  Because the election of course is an important mobilizing opportunity but this isn’t just about one time engagement, it really is about building a powerful movement.

Since 2006, in just two short years, One America has registered over 23,000 new citizens as voting Americans in Washington State. We’re bringing many new citizens into the political process, strengthening the immigrant voice and ensuring a strong democracy.

In 2007 alone, we registered over 12,000 new voters, (audio interference) 6,000 households and distributed 20,000 pieces of mail to mobilize and educate our new voters. We also hold candidate forums in five languages and do massive door-to-door outreach.

This year in 2008, building on past successes, we’ve already registered 4,000 new citizens to vote and we’ll be reaching out over the course of the next six months, to about 18,000 people to educate them and get them to the polls on Election Day.

It’s important to know that we are not working for any political party. We are completely focused on bringing our diverse communities together to fight for those community values that we all hold so dear, the values that have guided our own families and our own communities, through generations.

We’ve already had huge victories just this year.  In February our Governor became the third Governor in the country to establish a New American policy counsel to integrate immigrants into our State’s fabric.  She did this because she knows that immigrants and non-immigrants share dreams and values and that, we need to ensure that all of us have access to those things that allow us to contribute our full selves.  Healthcare, education, a clean environment, civil and human rights and yes, a chance to make our voices heard.

So this year, One America is happy to say that, we’re also going to be coordinating our immigrant vote campaign with Washington Community Action Network.  In District 8 for example, while we’re organizing in immigrant communities, Washing CAN will be organizing amongst small business owners and low income and working class communities around health care reform.  Together we see a new convergence of community value voters with common concerns and we expect that, together we are going to be able to register another 10,000 new voters and turn out 40,000 voters on Election Day across the region.

So what’s different? What’s different is that we’re building a movement that crosses ethnicity, race and even issues.  Immigrant voters care about health care and voters who care about health care want to make sure that we protect those rights and civil liberties.  All of us want good jobs and education.  None of these are in opposition and our voters know and believe, truly believe that, we can build a movement and a nation that lifts up everyone.  And that’s actually why we’ve just changed our name from Hate Free Zone to One America With Justice For All.

We know we can build One America with justice for all boldly reclaiming the words in our nation’s pledge of allegiance.  So we’re calling everyone to a commitment to our nation’s fundamental values, One America With Justice For All, thank you.

Sally Kohn, Center for Community Change:                         

Thank you Pramila.  And actually, we’re getting a little feedback on the line so for folks who are speakers, if you could just be a little careful, sort of cover your mouthpiece, you don’t have to must yourselves but just cover your mouthpiece unless you’re speaking.  So thank you Pramila, next we’re going to hear from Sandra Cook, who is the Vice Chair of the Virginia Organizing Project in Virginia, Sandra.

Sandra Cook, Virginia Organizing Project:                       

Good morning, I’m the Vice Chair of the Virginia Organizing Project which is based in Charlottesville, Virginia and I actually live in Petersburg, Virginia.  The Virginia Organizing Project is a statewide grassroots organization dedicated to challenging injustice by empowering people in local communities, to address issues that affect the quality of our lives.

It’s worth noting that Virginia is one of the four states in the United States that is a commonwealth, meaning a state governed for the common good. So community values run through our veins but we’ve seen it pulsing (unintelligible) strongly lately as Virginians realize that, go it alone politics haven’t gotten us anywhere.

This election we have 50 college interns, 10 organizers and lots of volunteers across the state of Virginia who will be knocking on 300,000 doors between now and the end of July, to identify and engage community values voters.  From this we’ll know what’s moving Virginia voters this fall and have a broad base of voters to mobilize in demanding policy change at a state and national level on issues that matters to most of us.

We’re talking to voters about what issues are important to them, giving voters guides on healthcare, climate change and immigration. We’re doing work across the state of Virginia but, with a focus on northern Virginia counties of Prince William and Burke (ph) as well as the cities of Norfolk and Virginia Beach.

Already we’ve knocked on 65,000 doors despite three days of 100 degree temperatures, dog bites, flat tires; we’ve given out 71,000 voter education guides connecting people to 13 organizations. But it’s worth it. The folks we’re organizing will not only turn out on the Election Day but will turn out every day to hold government accountable to our shared vision of Virginia and the nation of politics that work, not just for some of us, but all of us.

We have a detailed plan of turning these voters into citizen activists, building new grassroots communities in every district in which we organize and hosting political forums, and meetings with elected officials to grow the participation and power of the 300,000 voters we engage.  And it’s worth noting that what also makes this unique in this election; we’re collaborating with a diverse range of organizations across the state. Everyone from the state AFL-CIO to the NAACP, to the State Gay Rights organizations, combining our voices for greater power.

The theme of our collaboration, working together for the common good, echoes the idea of community values and ideas that are clearly sweeping Virginia and the nation.  Thank you.

Sally Kohn, Center for Community Change:                          

Thank you so much Sandra, Sandra Cook from the Virginia Organizing Project.  Next we’ll hear from Juan Salgado who’s President of the Board of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights in Chicago.  Juan.

Juan Salgado, Illinois Coalition for Immigrant & Refugee Rights:                      

Hello, the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights is dedicated to promote the rights of immigrants and refugees to full and equal participation in civic, cultural, social and political life of our diverse society.  In partnership with our member organizations and there are over 130 in our State, the Coalition educates and organizes immigrant communities to assert their rights, promote citizenship and civic participation, monitors, analyzes and advocates on immigrant-related issues and informs the general public about the contributions of immigrants and refugees.

We have added to our New American Democracy Project in the past four years; ICR has registered over 55,000 new immigrant voters.  We’ve assisted over 32,000 immigrants to become US citizens, trained over 2,000 volunteers to assist them with their applications, trained 420 immigrant leaders and auditoria campaign management.  Produced election materials in eight languages, recruited 2,776 volunteers to help get out the vote in two election cycles.

We’ve had 234,000 immigrant face-to-face and phone voter contacts and mobilized 95,000 immigrants to the polls on Election Day.  We are clearly building a lasting local infrastructure to engage community values voters and increase their leadership role in the political process.

In the past, our work has generated strong legislative and leadership victories that promote fairness for all.  Things like State tuition for undocumented students, the first ever New Americans executive order within the state of Illinois.  And today we continue to advance issues such as driver’s certificates for the undocumented so that all Illinois drivers can be licensed and insured and Illinoisans can be safer.  The permanent extension of the New Americans Initiative for US Citizenship so that, it becomes a part of our State budget and that, Illinois immigrants can quickly become Americans.  And securing a $2 million grant for the We Want To Learn English initiative to make Illinois the best state in the nation assisting immigrants to learn English in their communities, at their place of work, school and worship.

We’re also trying to change the politician landscape.  In 2008 we will be working in the political labor land such as suburban counties of Lake County, DuPage County, Will County and Kane County where immigrant issues are hot topics in those communities. Especially given the growing immigrant population in those communities.

Within Cook County and Chicago, we’re looking to build immigrant candidates that have been leaders in our campaign.  Past successes include Linda Ramirez Lewinski (ph), she’s a volunteer for our 2004 campaign who ended up winning the Village—winning trusteeship in the Village of Carpentersville Illinois, which if you will remember, is a village that was in the midst of adopting an anti-immigrant ordinance.  She was a pillar in the fight against that, which we have come out victorious through many means.

And Mazie Dolar (ph) a 2004 volunteer, who in 2007, forced a 30-year incumbent to a runoff in Chicago’s Alderman Races.  So we’ll be shaping the elections in significant ways and expanding community leadership for future elections and change more broadly.  This begins this Saturday, June 28^th as we launch a national boot camp of immigrant justice organizations and train 60 national field organizers and all (unintelligible) politics in immigrant communities.  We’re committed to doing this, we’re committed to doing this in the long run, we’re committed to making significant change happen in 2008 in terms of the immigrant vote getting out to the polls.

Sally Kohn, Center for Community Change:                          

Thank you Juan and you actually ended with an excellent example of how the work of grassroots organizations like ICIRR isn’t just making a difference in Illinois, but through the training boot camp you mentioned, helping to train grassroots organizations to engage community values voters around the country. So thanks for referencing that example.

Finally, before we open it up for questions we will hear from Reverend Gregory Chandler who is President of the AMOS Project and also Pastor of the World Outreach Christian Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, Pastor Chandler.

Pastor Chandler, AMOS Project:                  

Thanks Sally.  AMOS is a group of congregations committed to living out their faith through public action.  Our organization is an affiliate of the Gamaliel Foundation a network of faith-based grassroots organizations.

What’s different about what we’re doing here is that, we’re really walking out the talk of community values and not just something that we listen to on Sundays and forget on Monday’s but we really live by this every day.  And then it shapes the way we do political organizing.

Pramila talked about it a little bit, it doesn’t just mean organizing immigrants or immigrant rights, or organizing white working class workers around health care and organizing African Americans around local hiring.  It means finding a way to engage all of us on the common things that matter to all of our communities.  It means organizing that adds up to something that is more than the sum of all of our parts.

So in Cincinnati the members of our organization know there is no real choice between more jobs and better jobs for African Americans who desperately need them and opportunities for new immigrants who have lost opportunities at homes.

And in fact, we know that the joblessness in the African American community is in part due to the disastrous trade policies that have also hurt communities in Mexico and Central America. So while the powers that be might rather us fight each other so that they can go on exploiting us both, we know better. And at AMOS, which has a strong African American organizing focus, we’re also standing with and for, our immigrant brothers and sisters in the spirit of community values.

We recognize that allowing the mistreatment of immigrant workers enables an economy that short changes African Americans and the low wages and unfair treatment of black workers ultimately undermines protection for all workers.  As Dr. King said, we’re all tied together in a single garment of destiny. 

This election we’ll be working in both urban and suburban precincts in Congressional District 1, connecting inner city Cincinnati to its racially diverse working class suburbs to engage people on those issues of inclusion and opportunity and to register about and turn out about 7,000 infrequent voters around community values and the ideals of shared prosperity.

We’ll have African Americans from my congregation and others, knocking on the doors of other African Americans to talk about immigration and knocking on the door of Latino immigrants to talk with them about local hiring. Because we know we’re all in this together.  Thank you.

Sally Kohn, Center for Community Change:                          

Thank you Pastor Chandler. So, clearly grassroots organizations are mobilizing voters at the local level like never before around issues of shared concern and community values that are transforming this electorate—this election and as folks talked about lasting infrastructure, really transforming the future of politics.

We’re now going to open it up for questions, which I will help to moderate, again, for Pramila Jayapal from One America, Sandra Cook from Virginia Organizing Project, Juan Salgado from the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, Pastor Gregory Chandler from the AMOS Project, and we’re also joined by Amy Thompson from Maine People’s Alliance, Bob Fulkerson from the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, Jon Liss from Tenants and Workers United in Alexandria, Virginia and Will Pittz from Washington Community Action Network in Seattle, Washington, groups which are also registering and turning out community values voters this fall.

So moderator, I think we’re ready to open it up for questions.

Operator:                              

Ladies and gentlemen if you have a question at this time, please press the one key on your touch-tone telephone.  If your question has been answered or you wish to remove yourself from the queue you may press the pound key.  Again, if you do have a question, please press the one key at this time.

We do have a question from Paul Carrier from Portland Press Herald.

Paul Carrier, Portland Press Herald:                          

Hi, I’m interested in what the Maine People’s Alliance is going to be doing as part of this? Maybe Amy Thompson could address that?

Sally Kohn, Center for Community Change:                          

Amy?

Amy Thompson, Maine People's Alliance:                

Sure, thanks for joining Paul.   MPA has been mobilizing voters who we know share these values for some time now. And our activities this year will involve a number of things.  First of all, we’ll be doing a lot of work to turn out to vote our MPA members, which our membership now tops 32,000.  And we know that, a lot of these folks hold these values and are not necessarily always making it to the polls. So we’ll be doing a lot of work with the 10 to 12,000 MPA members who are not always voting to make sure they actually get out to the polls this year.

In addition we, in 2004, registered 12,000 new voters in low income communities across the state. We’re going to be working to make sure that those folks stay engaged in this election.  We’ve been engaging them for four years in a conversation about community values, the fact that we’re all linked together. And as you know in Maine Paul, this is a state where it’s cold, it’s rural, Mainers know you can’t go it alone.  And a lot of Mainers have these values so we’re going to be working to make sure those new voters get out to vote this year.

And we’ll also be registering 3 to 6,000 additional new voters this year, particularly in immigrant and refugee communities in Lewiston and Portland, where we know there’s a lot of new citizens who have not yet taken the step to register to vote.

Altogether our universe of folks that will be knocking on doors, calling, mailing and emailing will come to about 89,000 Mainers, each of who will get several contacts from us about what’s at stake this election year and how important it is to make it to the polls.

Sally Kohn, Center for Community Change:                          

Thank you Amy and thank you Paul for the question. Do we have another question?

Operator:                              

We do have a question from Sarah Lohman from St. Louis Post.

Sally Kohn, Center for Community Change:                          

Sarah, thanks for joining us what’s your question?

Sarah Lohman, St. Louis Post:                     

Several of you—well all actually, you talked about immigrants and you talked about urban areas and suburban areas. But a lot of the readership of the Post Dispatch is rural communities.  And I’m just curious if you guys know of any organizations who are working on outreach in rural communities or how best to go about that?

Sally Kohn, Center for Community Change:                          

Sandra why don’t you talk about—since a lot of the work that Virginia Organizing Project has been doing has been rural,  Sandra it’d be interesting to hear your thoughts on that and maybe Amy from Maine as well since you’re doing a fair amount of that.

So Sandra?

Sandra Cook, Virginia Organizing Project:                       

What we’re doing with Virginia Organizing Project is we have (unintelligible) interns throughout the state of Virginia and they’re working all areas. And what they’re doing is doing door knocking to find out what persons are not registered voters and getting them to be registered voters and also, finding out what their common interests are. We’re asking them questions about what they’re interested in working on, what changes they would like to see in their localities and also, if they’re interested in making changes towards health care.

And then, from that, we’re going back and sending out organizers because there are 10 organizers throughout the State of Virginia that are assigned to different localities.  They will then, be doing follow-up to find out what the interests of the individuals are and how they can organize those persons and unite those persons to work together to make the changes in their localities.

Sally Kohn, Center for Community Change:                         

And Amy do—(talk over). Sorry who’s that?

Gabe Gonzales, Center for Community Change:                    

It’s Gabe.

Sally Kohn, Center for Community Change:                          

Gabe please chime in.

Gabe Gonzales, Center for Community Change:                    

Yeah if I also might there are a number of organizations that are not present on the call that might be helpful to the question. We can certainly follow up with people working with rural voters in Iowa, in Montana and also, in Missouri—in an area in and around Mexico Missouri that, we’d be happy to put you in touch with folks.

Sarah Lohman, St. Louis Post:                     

That’d be great.

Sally Kohn, Center for Community Change:                          

Thank you Gabe for adding that, Amy do you want to add anything about organizing in rural communities.

Amy Thompson, Maine People's Alliance:                 

Sure, just quickly for us, in Maine, we certainly have a staff of folks, five community organizers, who are all based out of a different region of the State. We have four door-to-door field canvassing teams that are out door knocking.  For us though, a lot—the way that we are able to successfully organize in such a large rural state is through volunteers. So, by the time Election Day rolls around we will have engaged close to 1,000 volunteers in the state of Maine, who will be doing this work in their communities across the State. And that’s really how we’re able to do it and that’s also an example of how we’re building an infrastructure for the future.

Those are folks who aren’t going to go away after Election Day, but will stay involved in this work in the long term.

Sally Kohn, Center for Community Change:                         

Excellent point and Sarah we will follow up with you and I think you’ll learn the points that both Sandra and Amy made are true, will hold true and work in Missouri and elsewhere, so thanks for the question.

Moderator do we have another question?

Operator:                             

Ladies and gentlemen if you do have a question please press the one key at this time.  We have a follow up from Paul Carrier.

Paul Carrier, Portland Press Herald:                          

Hi thanks.  Regarding the Maine People’s Alliance again, I’m wondering how you’re going to be—identifying and turning out these 89,000 people what’s the mechanism for doing that?

Amy Thompson, Maine People's Alliance:                 

We are identifying them by comparing our membership lists with a statewide voter list to figure out who are folks that we know hold our values but aren’t necessarily making it to the polls.  In terms of making sure that they vote, that is happening mostly through door-to-door outreach and phone outreach.

So, by the end of the year our goal is to knock on 100,000 doors in Maine. That’ll mean that we have somewhere between 60 and 75,000 actual conversations with Mainers.  In addition to that, we’ll make about 125,000 phone calls and those will all be folks in Maine calling other folks in Maine, volunteers calling folks in their neighborhood.

So that’s where the bulk of the work happens and we’ll also be working to help folks—a lot of people in Maine don’t realize you can vote early so that you can actually go to your Town Hall and vote ahead of Election Day so we’ll be doing a lot of getting out the word about that and giving people actual rides to their Town Hall or bringing them the ballot if that makes it easier for them to vote. And we know that folks that have never voted before, the first time can be a—an intimidating experience.  So a lot of our work is aimed at making sure that people realize it’s easy to do and an important way to get their voice heard.

Does that answer your question Paul?

Paul Carrier, Portland Press Herald:                          

Yeah it does, yeah.

Sally Kohn, Center for Community Change:                          

So moderator if other folks are still gathering their—do we have any other questions pending?

Operator:                              

We do have a question from Julia Preston from New York Times.

Sally Kohn, Center for Community Change:                        

Please Julia thanks for joining us.

Julia Preston, New York Times:                       

Yeah, thanks I’m not sure I understand exactly how this different for example, from some of the voter registration efforts that happened in ’04.  I think there was a lot of registration work in ’04 that, especially on the democratic side, ended up surprising the people who worked for it in terms of the way that the people ultimately voted.

And so, I’m hearing you talk about making sure that they share our values, some kind of additional effort (audio interference) there to learn something more about the voters that you are reaching out to.  But, I’m not sure I understand exactly how this is different or how you see this as being different from what’s happened in terms of voter registration in the past.

Sally Kohn, Center for Community Change:                       

That’s a great question Gabe I’d like to turn that one to you.

Gabe Gonzales, Center for Community Change:                    

Sure.  I think there’s a couple of ways that make it different.  The first one is that if you think about historic sort of the way progressive organizations and people have registered people to vote and what they’ve done.  It’s really sort of been very sort of issue or constituency specific right? So you might have folks who cared specifically about immigration, only talking about immigration and only two immigrants who are now voters right?  Or you might have organizations that cared about women’s rights, or that cared about the unions, only talking to union members about worker issues.

One of the things that’s different about this is that we have organizations and people who are talking about the intersection of a number of different issues that, lead to a conversation about the kind of America that people want to be engaged in.  And so we think that that is demonstrated in people’s voting behavior.  We believe that this is a reaction to a long period of being force-fed a message around individualism that Americans simply don’t believe anymore.

So by working with different constituencies across those lines we’re forging a stronger infrastructure for change.  And I think that’s the second thing that makes it different, a number of the organizations here have talked what they’re doing is not only aimed at this election cycle, but its aimed at the long-term effect that this has in terms of getting people to think about politics as simply something beyond Election Day.

You know the obvious example was the one that Juan Salgado raised where, people that started off as volunteers in that organization knocking on doors, making the phone calls, are now actually running for office and in the case of Linda Swinski (ph) winning office.

You know and we expect to see more of that over time as people that, maybe in the past simply saw voter efforts begin and end on—or you know leading up to and then ending on Election Day, now see it as part of a process of democratization of the country.

Juan Salgado, Illinois Coalition for Immigrant & Refugee Rights:                      

Can I—Gabe I’d like to add on this this is Juan Salgado.   The fact of the matter is the way the political parties operate you know they only come around around election time. And what we’re building is operations that last all year ‘round that are multi-year efforts that build upon themselves. And that, really creates some power for local communities that are meaningful.

I mean in Illinois we had two major marches and we had both of our Senators, Senator Barack Obama and Senator Durbin attending those major marches didn’t happen in any other states. And so—and working on the issues that are important to our community.

So I think that, the voter work is essential and the fact that it’s not just for this election, it’s going to be for many elections in the future. Demographically, because of the increase in the demographics that kind of a message, the long lasting effect of this work is a very important message to move our agenda forward.

Sally Kohn, Center for Community Change:                         

Thank you and just for purposes of ID that was Gabe Gonzales from the Center for Community Change speaking first and Juan Salgado from the Illinois Coalition For Immigrant and Refugee Rights who just spoke now.

I actually want to—this is a great question so I want to add a little more onto this. Because what I think folks are hearing and I want to ask some others to contribute on this, but I think—we’re talking about is in one way this is what grassroots community organizations have been doing.  Is trying to figure out how to connect across issues, across constituencies as Gabe was talking about, around shared values.

And now we’re seeing the culmination of that, the bubbling up of that, into national politics. So in a sense, it’s a growing movement out of what these groups have been doing that is now sweeping the country.  So in that sense, it’s a growing as opposed to something that’s radically different, this year for these organizations.  What’s different is that it’s visible.

But yeah go ahead.

Gabe Gonzales, Center for Community Change:                    

I was just going to suggest another example of that as to work that’s being done in Washington that—Pramila and Will’s organizations that are working on similar issues in some senses but also, different issues have found common cause.  And are working together to create a bigger, broader, stronger constituency in body politic.

Sally Kohn, Center for Community Change:                          

Yeah.  I’d actually like some others to comment on this, so Bob Fulkerson if you could comment on how you think this is shaping the work in—that you’re doing in Nevada? And particularly this idea of common community values and how it’s emerging out of indigenous community organizing driven voter work.

Bob Fulkerson, Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada:                    

Well you know in 2004 and I think what makes this different is that there are—the work that’s being done now is at the community level.  And we no longer suffer from this idea of smallitis—that we’re able to scale up the work.  Instead of doing a coup—measuring by—in the hundreds we’re measuring in the thousands or tens of thousands. And so the scale is just a lot stronger.

And its indigenous efforts, its community-based efforts.  It’s not national organizations coming in six months before the election registering tons and tons of people and then leaving the day after the election, it’s about community organizations building relationships with people and neighborhoods and between people and neighborhoods. And all of the studies, the Yale studies on voter turnout show that that is the number one most critical way to turn out people to the polls. And that’s what we’re trying to build in Nevada and these other states, with these community-based and community values voting projects.

Sally Kohn, Center for Community Change:                          

And Will Pittz from Washington Citiz—or Community Action Network, could you talk about how you see this as something that’s new and fresh in terms of the engagement that you all have been able to do, with small business owners and others around issues of health care and immigration? Some of what Pramila Jayapal was talking about earlier?

Will Pittz, Washington Community Action Network:                              

Yeah I’d love to Sally; this is Will Pittz with the Washington Community Action Network.  Our organization has 35,000 members across the state. And we’ve been doing election work and civic engagement work for a long time.

What we’re doing now that’s really different than what we’ve done before is we’re talking to thousands of people, door-to-door, around the state as we have before, but we’re not just focusing on health care anymore, we’re also talking about a range of issues that people care about.  And immigration is a really good example of that.

Just this year we’ve talked to 3,000 people and these are mostly low income and moderate income white folks who have taken action with our organization because they believe that immigrants should be given the same rights as everyone else and should have the same opportunity to take care of their families and become citizens.  And we’ve talked to thousands of people this year who have also decided to take action with us because they believe that our health care system will only work if everybody’s in and nobody’s left out.

And bridging these issues is a real example of how community values are at the forefront of people’s minds right now.  And, you know that, we’re not alone in our different communities but whether we’re new immigrants or working families, or small business owners, which we have a large constituency of, we all need health care, we all need decent wages—we all want the opportunity to care for ourselves and our families. We all want clean water and energy.

And so this election to us is about recognizing that just as we’re united in the problems we face, we can also be united in finding solutions that work for all of us.

Sally Kohn, Center for Community Change:                          

Excellent, thanks Will.

Pramila Jayapal, OneAmerica:                  

--Can I add one thing to that, this is Pramila Jayapal with Hate Free Zone in Washington and—if I think about what’s different I think that there’s two things that occur to me.  One is that, we as grassroots organizations in the past, have been somewhat fragmented in our work. We haven’t necessarily collaborated closely with other progressive organizations that are working on issues that are just as important to our constituency.

So this year I think, over the last couple of years we’ve really realized that. We’ve been building those relationships—for instance we’re an immigrant rights organization but we’re working closely with labor, we’re working closely with Washington CAN. And so we’re now taking those relationships and that coordination to, together find many levels on which we’re going to collaborate around election work and longer-term civic participation work.

One example is that I know that we for example, have had a lot of our allies ask for our input on candidate questionnaires that include questions about immigration and similarly, we have been—working with our allies to find the questions and the answers that, will help our immigrant voters be educated.  So that’s on one level.

On the other level I think that, when we did some voter ID-ing for our voter base about two years ago, we ID’d on a number of different issues. And it was very instructive to us—it shouldn’t be a surprise but immigrant voters care about everything that any other voter cares about. They want their kids to be able to attend good schools, they want to be able to get good jobs, they want to be able to have health care. 

And in some cases, if they see—if they see a mobilization effort that’s focused on one issue they may actually not get engaged in the way that we’re seeing. And so we’re really treating people as whole people, which makes a lot more sense. And through that, I think we’re really able to turn people out and engage them in a way that just has not been possible in the past.

Sally Kohn, Center for Community Change:                          

Excellent, so thanks everyone, I think—people really are emphasizing that this is interesting and fresh because these groups are coming together and converging across issues, across constituencies around common community values. And this is bubbling up in fact, to a national level and to a national scale and movement. So excellent (unintelligible) on that.

We have time for a few more questions; I wanted to make sure we can get them in.  Moderator do we have any other questions?

Operator:                             

If you do have a question, please press the one key.  You do have a question from Paul Carrier.

Sally Kohn, Center for Community Change:                          

Paul!

Paul Carrier, Portland Press Herald:                          

Is this focus primarily on the presidential campaign? And if so, is this seen as a way to build support specifically for Obama?

Sally Kohn, Center for Community Change:                          

I would like to suggest that Gabe Gonzales answer that question.

Gabe Gonzales, Center for Community Change:                    

No and no.  More specifically the presidential campaign obviously creates a lot of excitement and energy.  And this campaign is obviously breaking records in terms of people’s interest in participating.  So it’s a good time to be engaged in these efforts.

But I think as you’ve heard, most of these organizations—actually all of the organizations on the call, have been engaged in this over time. So they’re building on a basis now and they’re creating their own infrastructures. They recognize the importance of doing this and have been doing this for years.

This is just an opportune moment to be doing it but it’s something that we’ve been historically engaged in.

And then secondly, as it relates to Obama, we’re progressives but part of being progressive, at least, especially from a community organizing standpoint, is the recognition that regardless of who’s in power there’s a need to hold them accountable too the values that we believe Americans share.  So it—we don’t believe that, one candidate or the other removes from us the need to be engaged in the body politic over time, consistently.

We can see a number of different scenarios; we’re already working on it, the Campaign for Community Values, a number of different possible political scenarios that include either candidate being elected president. So this is not about—supporting one candidate or the other, it’s about engaging everyday Americans in what it means to be—a political American. And part of what that means is accountability for the candidates.

So--

Sally Kohn, Center for Community Change:                          

Well, we have time for one more question, moderator do we have one more question?

Operator:                              

We do have a question from Sarah Lohman.

Sally Kohn, Center for Community Change:                          

Sarah.

Sarah Lohman, St. Louis Post:                     

Hi, I was just wondering, you said like this is a chance to engage everyday Americans in what it means to be political.  Do you—have you—and have you seen like the presidential candidates doing that more this election compared to past elections?

Sally Kohn, Center for Community Change:                          

You know it’s really important I think that, we try and make clear—re-emphasize what Gabe Gonzales from the Center for Community Change just said.  Which is that, the presidential elections are an opportunity for a national conversation about what we care about, what we value. But that this work begins way before the election and ends way after the election.  It’s more about the kind of policies and the kind of country we want.

So it provides an opportune moment but this work isn’t focused exclusively on the presidential election.  And that said, I think its worth talking about—actually Sandra Cook from the Virginia Organizing Project, maybe you could speak briefly about the fact that you have these 50 college students who have—you’ve engaged to do voter work around Virginia and are mobilizing historic numbers of folks and whether you do see increased energy and interest in this election.

Sandra Cook, Virginia Organizing Project:                       

Oh definitely with the young adults we’re seeing an increased energy. But as you said Sally, we’re basing this on a non-partisan voter registration drive. And we’re also talking with individuals not only to get them registered to vote, but to see what changes they’d like to see in their communities.  And also, to see what national issues impact them and how they’d like to see changes occur.

And then from this we’re developing strategy teams to then work on these activities to make sure that we’re giving input as far as state issues are concerned and national issues.

Sally Kohn, Center for Community Change:                          

And there’s just two other examples, since we have a moment that, I’d like to draw out one more time.  One is Pastor Chandler, if you could speak—and this question kept arising around what do you think is—here you have African American folks as you talked about, engaging around issues of immigration and mobilizing folks around immigration this election and Ask American folks talking to Latino immigrants about traditionally African American issues.

 What so you see as different in allowing people to do that and come together around common values?

Pastor Chandler, AMOS Project:                  

Well here in our community we have I think a nice mixture of—within our constituency African American immigrants who are beginning to see more and more, each day that, the issues of their life—intersect with one another. And that they’ve made some decisions that we’re going to be in their community, we’re going to live together. And we’re going to—they’re going to work differently now.

Their decision is that they want to work differently than in the past and not allow to be influenced and be seen as enemies to one another. But understand that we have a life to live, shared values, community values here in this City that are useful. And so working together presents a better alternative than fighting one another.

I think this is the prime opportunity for some of the things that have been said earlier is that, this is just being highlighted more now because of what’s going on nationally. But we see this as an opportunity to get African Americans and immigrant workers talking to one another and understanding that, we are a God’s people.  And we will do better in the long run if we learn how to work together and not against one another.

Sally Kohn, Center for Community Change:                          

Thank you Pastor Gregory Chandler from the AMOS Project in Cincinnati, Ohio. And also, I wanted to bring in Jon Liss who is on the call from Tenants and Workers United in northern Virginia. And John if you could speak also briefly along the same lines Pastor Chandler just did about the work that you’re doing, which is bridging working class and low (unintelligible) white working class folks in northern Virginia with immigrant communities. And how you see that convergence as both possible and changing the election and the region in the country.

Jon Liss, Tenants & Workers United:                               

Yes (audio interference) good morning thanks for having us here.  Yeah so we’re out there and historically I mean it’s been (audio interference) answering the other question about how this new project’s new because previously our organization had never been engaged in sort of systematically trying to involve voters.

So we’re in a very diverse area. We’re working in primarily Fairfax and Prince Williams Counties of Virginia. And we’re trying to bring out 6,000 voters who historically don’t vote, who are low frequency voters. And it’s a chance for us to get out there and talk about comprehensive immigration reform, a chance to talk about--figure out how to provide health insurance for the 45 million folks who are uninsured throughout the United States.

And while doing that we’re on the doors, we’re having conversations and clearly (audio interference) front and center.  That’s a lot of our conversation and again, we’re trying to talk about community values, what sort of holds it together.  What kind of future we’re trying to build for both our region and the country.

Sally Kohn, Center for Community Change:                          

Great, excellent.  So in closing I want to turn it over to Gabe Gonzales from the Center for Community Change for just a short closing thought and then we will wrap it up.

Gabe Gonzales, Center for Community Change:                    

Well I just think that if reporters have any more questions or would like any more follow up we’re happy to answer it if they have questions about the specific locality or about the—efforts as a whole, we would be more than happy to hook them up with—we have hundreds of organizations doing this kind of work across the country.

And we do believe that we’re on the right track here that, we’re tapping into some deep rooted desires and perspectives in the American psyche.  And that, what we’re going to see over the long term is real progressive change in the country because that’s what the country deserves.

Sally Kohn, Center for Community Change:                          

And I want to echo a few points that Gabe made which is first of all, any follow up information, questions on this, we’ll be sending out a transcript and a recording and the follow up press contact is John Moore (ph) and his number is 773-363-6597.

We also want to put out an invitation to reporters to follow, not only to ask questions but to actually follow, shadow, any of these grassroots electoral operations that have been on this call or any of the hundreds that Gabe just mentioned in states across the country. And actually, spend some time seeing how community-based, local values-led, door-to-door voter work is different. We would welcome that and can help connect you with a group.

And we also want to mention that this is one piece, the voter work is one piece of what’s happening going forward this summer through the fall and through next year. So, around July 4^th, immigration groups that are part of the Fair Immigration Reform Movement will be organizing a series of voter registration drives around—immigration/naturalization ceremonies.  The Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights as Juan mentioned, will be doing an electoral training for electoral organizers from immigrant groups around the country.  There will be 80 community values events nationwide like the Heartland Presidential Forum that, the Campaign for Community Values organized on December 1^st. 

And it will continue building through the election and after, when these new—community values voters will be mobilized in a grand and significant scale to hold the next administration and the next Congress accountable for community values vision for America that we all share.

 
So I want to thank all of the groups that were on the call. And again, they ere Pramila Jayapal from One America formerly Hate Free Zone in Seattle, Washington. Sandra Cook from the Virginia Organizing Project in Virginia, Juan Salgado from the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights in Illinois. Gregory Chandler from the AMOS Project in Cincinnati, Ohio, Amy Thompson from the Maine People’s Alliance, Bob Fulkerson from the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, Jon Liss from Tenants and Workers United in Alexandria, Virginia and Will Pittz from the Washington Community Action Network in Seattle Washington, as well as, Gabe Gonzales from the Campaign For Community Values at the Center for Community Change.  And again, my name is Sally Kohn, with the Center for Community Change.

Thank you again to everyone, encourage you to follow up and we will happily connect you with more stories, more groups, more examples and keep you posted as this work develops.

Thank you again for joining us.

Operator:                              

Ladies and gentlemen this does conclude today’s conference; you may now disconnect and have a wonderful day.