Blog
Local Progress is a network, housed within CPD, that supports progressive elected officials, facilitates best practice sharing, and connects members in their shared efforts for a more equitable and just future for communities across the country. One of the most elusive challenges faced by localities large and small across the country is to plan for growth and the decades to come in an inclusive way that rectifies historical injustice. Fortunately, this past year, Minneapolis succeeded in providing a north star from which communities all over can draw inspiration.
On March 15, Local Progress hosted a webinar about Minneapolis 2040, the city’s comprehensive plan, which the council passed in late 2018 after an in-depth three year process. The webinar featured Council President Lisa Bender, Councilmembers Phillipe Cunningham (ward 4), and Jeremiah Ellison (ward 5) and Long-Range Planning Director Heather Worthington.
The content focused on several aspects of the plan: process and timeline, key highlights, and the political conditions that made it feasible in the first place. In particular, the city grounded the work in the community through a robust effort to solicit widespread engagement from start to finish, which included the creation of a Civic Engagement Plan to help ensure efficiency and transparency. This commitment to community engagement produced a clear need for a long-term vision of the city grounded in racial equity that could begin to address past historical injustices. The goals of the legislation include eliminating disparities, creating affordable and accessible housing, and fostering a healthy, safe and connected populace, to name just a few.
Local Progress members share in the desire to see their cities and future growth serve everyone, not just those at the top of the wealth scale. In many cases, growth and economic development intentionally leaves people behind, particularly communities of color. Historically, communities have often been left out of decision-making and deprived of the ability to build wealth. Minneapolis acknowledges that there are systemic and racist barriers which they must address to move forward building a vision of their city that is for everyone. The Minneapolis plan 2040, both in creation and design, offers an exciting case for cities seeking to realize similar commitments to equity and justice for their communities. Watch the webinar here.
In a webinar on March 5, CPD’s Rachel Deutsch spoke with Tanuja Gupta from End Forced Arbitration, an alliance of Google workers, and Reyna Lopez from the CPD affiliate PCUN in Oregon, about corporate use of forced arbitration to strip workers of their rights – and what we are currently doing to fight back. Watch the webinar here.
Corporations now force over half of American workers to sign arbitration clauses that waive their right to go to court if they ever experience injustice in the workplace. Instead, these workers’ only recourse is to arbitrate their claim before a private arbitrator (often hired by the company), usually in secret. It’s so difficult for workers to win in arbitration that an estimated 98% of legal claims are simply abandoned when the only option is arbitration. The large and growing scale of forced arbitration has a chilling effect on workers seeking to vindicate their rights in areas ranging from overtime and minimum wage to discrimination and sexual harassment.
But CPD and our allies are fighting back. Tanuja explained how Google employees organized a 20,000-employee walkout in November that eventually drove the company to give up arbitration for employment disputes. An offshoot of that walk-out, the End Forced Arbitration campaign, is now organizing workers across tech to pressure their employers to abandon forced arbitration.
The most effective way to address forced arbitration is to change the law. Earlier this year, Congress introduced the Forced Arbitration Injustice Repeal (FAIR) Act (H.R.1423 and S.610) to make forced arbitration clauses unenforceable.
And as Reyna explained, state and local governments can pass laws to reinvigorate workplace rights by strengthening public enforcement agencies and giving them new tools to partner with workers and community organizations. By empowering workers to pursue legal penalties on the government’s behalf, states and cities can preserve access to court even for workers restricted by arbitration clauses, similar to a law currently in place in California. Some of the penalty revenue should be allocated for community organizations to educate immigrant workers, low-wage workers, and other vulnerable worker populations about their rights and assist them in pursuing justice. CPD affiliates and their allies are campaigning to expand this model to six other states: New York, Massachusetts, Washington, Oregon, Maine, and Vermont.
On March 13, in conjunction with a federal hearing held by Judge Laura Taylor Swain, CPD affiliates, activists and ally organizations held actions across the country to demand the $6 billion in illegal debt to corporate entities be canceled. Before Hurricane Maria made landfall in 2017, Puerto Rico was already facing a fiscal crisis created by austerity measures that benefited private corporate interests. This illegal crippling debt negatively impacts communities both on the Island and within the Puerto Rican Diaspora in the U.S.
The #CanceltheDebt actions were covered most notably by Latino Rebels, Democracy Now, Telemundo, and El Nuevo Día, and also made headlines in smaller local outlets. Further, these actions served as the official release of a new campaign working to hold accountable those who are profiting from the Puerto Rico’s financial crisis, and to build new debt agreements led by and for the people of Puerto Rico. The actions started in Puerto Rico, where Construyamos Otro Acuerdo, a coalition that includes CPD, Colectivo Feminista en Construcción, Frente Por La Auditoría de La Deuda, Unions and other organizations occupied a building to protest UBS Bank and their involvement in creating, financing and profiting from the $6 billion of illegal debt.
In New York, hundreds rallied in front of the federal courthouse to demand that Judge Swain cancel the illegal debt. This action was led by CPD affiliates and allies New York Communities for Change, Churches United for Fair Housing, and Vamos4PR among others. In Nevada and Orlando, activists from Vamos4PR, Organize Florida and Make the Road NV rallied in front of Bank of America and Morgan Stanley for their role in creating and profiting from the illegal debt, and demanded that the Fiscal Oversight Board take immediate action to prosecute these cases.
There is a long fight ahead of us. Hurricane Maria lifted the veil on the impact of colonialism, austerity, structural racism, and climate change that has left Puerto Rico systemically stripped of fundamental rights and the basic elements of a just economy. The CPD Network is committed to supporting the vision and leadership of Puerto Rican people and will continue to hold those in power accountable. Join us by making a meaningful donation today.
From March 25-27, CPD affiliates from across the country came together to strategize and unify the vision for CPD Housing Justice Campaigns at the local, national, and federal levels. CPD affiliates ACCE (CA), Make the Road Nevada, Good Jobs Now (MI), Kenwood Oakland Community Organization (IL), CASA (DC), Organize Florida, New York Communities for Change, Churches United for Fair Housing (NY), Make the Road New York, SPACES, Maryland Communities United, MHAction (National), and Action NC convened to share victories and strategies for building power around housing justice and create alignment for a federal housing justice strategy.
Affiliates shared their experiences organizing for rent control and tenant protections in California, New York, and Illinois, winning affordable housing resources in North Carolina, and launching Renters Rights and Eliminating Preemption on tenant protections campaigns in Florida and Nevada. Further, affiliates and CPD staff held trainings on Legislative Advocacy, Organizing Tenant Unions, Direct Action against Corporate Landlords, Building a Housing Narrative and Messaging, and Corporate Landlord Research, drawing on their experience and expertise from their on the ground experience.
Together, we developed a vision for Housing Justice campaigns across the CPD Network aimed at decommodifying housing, ending housing insecurity, politicizing affordable housing and tenant protections in local elections, and addressing the racist legacy of the housing market. Affiliates members participated in a story bank on their own housing experience and how they are organizing for housing justice in their communities and together.
After strategizing together, affiliates visited Capitol Hill to lobby their respective representatives for a bold housing justice platform that includes universal rent control and expanded tenant protections, deep investment in low-income and public housing, and increased oversight over corporate and private equity landlords.
On March 5, CPD joined allies Law for Black Lives, PolicyLink, BYP 100 and The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights to convene an all-day conversation about working to develop and pass federal legislation that would repeal and replace the 1994 Crime Bill, which allowed for over-policing and mass incarceration to ravage our communities. With our allies, we gathered to think critically about how we will engage base-building groups across the country in order to reform this piece of legislation that has negatively impacted Black and Brown communities for more than 20 years.
The meeting took place in Washington, DC and is the first step in developing what we are calling, “Freedom To Thrive” legislation that will acknowledge and begin to repair the harmful, ineffective, and wasteful aspects of the 1994 Crime Bill, while advancing a new vision of security and safety for our communities. With a major election on the horizon that is surfacing criminal justice as a significant societal issue, it is vital that we intervene with our vision of divesting from criminalization, incarceration and surveillance and reinvesting in the health, safety and wellbeing of Black and Brown communities.
When the 1994 Crime Bill passed, the legislation faced widespread criticism from criminologists, civil-rights lawyers, community activists, and numerous members of Congress. Today, advocates, organizers, and even elected officials who had previously supported the bill, recognize its flawed nature and the need to remedy the damage that has been done. In particular, draconian punishment and imprisonment, paired with increased resourcing and militarization of police did not make communities safer, but instead contributed to mass incarceration and criminalization, destabilizing an entire generation of Americans and their families, with a particularly destructive impact on Black communities. Complimenting “Freedom to Thrive” work at the local level, this federal expression serves to build the capacity for our larger vision of replacing this legislation with a modern public safety bill and galvanize collective action.
The CPD Network was represented by: SPACES in Action (DC), Ohio Organizing Collaborative, Good Jobs Now (MI), Black Leaders Organizing Communities (WI), One Pennsylvania, Maryland Communities United, Organize Florida, New Florida Majority and members of Local Progress.
CPD affiliate members from OLÉ are celebrating an expansion of democracy in New Mexico after the legislature passed and Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham signed into law Same Day Registration and Automated Voter Registration on March 27. An estimated 300,000 people now have expanded voting rights thanks to these measures.
OLÉ believes "nothing about us without us is for us" and OLÉ members brought their voices to the legislature to make voting rights a central issue in this year’s legislative session. OLÉ members spoke with various law makers, testified in committees, wrote Op Eds, and appeared on a local news program to speak about the impact that voting rights have on every day New Mexicans. Watch OLÉ’s members Lauren and Eric on a CPD Facebook live stream discuss their work to advance democracy this session.
To expand voting rights OLÉ worked in coalition to draft and introduce two voting rights bills for Same Day Voter Registration (House Bill 86) and Automatic Voter Registration (House Bill 84). OLÉ organized, advocated and brought members of the community to the capitol to support their democracy bills. The legislation passed the House fairly quickly. The success of this is the result of the hard work of the coalition and rank and file members from OLÉ who pushed for its passage.
While this is a step forward for voting rights in New Mexico, the next fight is robust implementation to ensure the policies are as expansive and inclusive as possible and to ensure that government agencies that interface with the community are equipped to help register new voters.
Voting rights builds community power and every state agency should offer voter registration. OLÉ is fired up for implementation and CPD is excited to work with them to fight for a robust and inclusive democracy in New Mexico and beyond!
From March 3-7, 35 lead organizers and their teams from six CPD affiliates across the country joined Make the Road Nevada for an organizer training and community engagement blitz in Nevada. This program combines intensive training and cross-affiliate cohort building with direct experience in the field. It also engages a significant number of newly organized members for affiliates. Our team grounded the program in the direct needs of affiliate organizers, tailoring training to fit the skills and campaigns they are driving. Participating affiliates included CASA MD and VA, Good Jobs Now (MI), LUCHA (AZ), Make the Road NV, Make the Road PA, One PA, and UNE (CO).
Each day combined training with one aspect of field organizing, including canvassing for membership, one-on-one meetings and second visits, phone banking, peer-to-peer texting and Make the Road Nevada’s membership meeting. By the end, affiliate organizers had engaged 110 new petition signers, 12 new dues paying members, 41 people through one-on-one meetings, over 70 new people interested in in-person follow up after phone banking and texting, and over 35 people who attended Make the Road’s moving membership meeting.
Many affiliates in attendance gave us positive feedback. “These trainings are so powerful,” as UNE’s Organizing Director, Celeste Martinez, described, “our teams can apply the skills they are learning in the field each day.” Amanda Hill from Good Jobs Now explained that she was, “ grateful to learn about best practices for committee building that fosters leadership development, real buy-in, and member and community empowerment.” And Alex Vazquez, an organizer with CASA, explained that “as an organizer, sometimes you lose sight of your overall mission and purpose. Having this type of training helps you refocus and ground you in the importance and value of your work.”
Affiliates who attended the training will bring home the lessons they learned to continue building the strength and capacity of their organizations. This work is ongoing and critical to CPD’s mission to support and strengthen the power of our communities. Together, we can take bold action to build a resilient economy and political institutions that reflect our priorities. Please stand with us to ensure our country embodies our vision of an inclusive and equitable society by making a donation today.
Trump’s budget is the best indication we have of his priorities as president. And it should come as no surprise that he wants to bolster his deportation forces and spend billions on a racist, needless wall and even more on crony defense contractors, while cutting the programs and investments that people in this country need to live healthy and stable lives.
The Center for Popular Democracy believes that we can --and must-- invest in policy priorities that are premised on respect and commitment to community dignity. We believe that when we invest in the resources that we all need to thrive -- like health care, housing, and education -- we build safe and viable neighborhoods. These are the priorities of the people in this country and should be reflected in the budget.
We’ve contrasted Trump’s vision with ours. It’s possible to build a federal budget to provide for all people in this country, whether white, Black or Brown. We need a budget that invests in the resources that help our communities thrive, instead of Trump’s budget cuts and wasteful spending on a xenophobic and racist agenda.
Criminal Justice and Immigrant DetentionTrump's budget allocates additional billions of dollars towards immigration detention and deportation, and pass-through grants to local and state police departments which fuel mass criminalization and mass incarceration.
The budget increases funding by almost 20 percent for the deportation forces of ICE and Border Patrol. It represents a continued commitment to over-policing, mass criminalization and mass incarceration.
Our federal dollars should be used to advance public safety through an investment in the health and well-being of communities, including in substance abuse, mental health, youth services, housing, education and neighborhood infrastructure.
Public HealthTrump wants to worsen our public health crises by cutting Medicare spending by $845 billion over the next 10 years, cutting SNAP by $17.2 billion just this year, and slashing federal health spending.
Trump went against his commitment to ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic and curtailing the opioid epidemic with these budgetary proposals. Instead of putting the resources into a single-payer health system that would cover all people in this country, he has chosen to leave our sick to flounder.
If we are going to take on public health crises like the opioid epidemic and decrease the rate of uninsured in this country, we need new funding sources. The CARE Act and Medicare for All help to make our country healthy. Cuts to medical and nutritional services do anything but.
HousingThe budget would cut the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s budget by 14 percent, or $6.8 billion dollars.
Because of the cuts, the poorest tenants in publicly-subsidized rental housing would face soaring rents. The federal government would walk back on its commitment to construct and maintain housing in both rural and urban communities. People across the country face an affordable housing crisis that this budget would worsen.
We need deep investments in public and affordable housing and programs that support struggling families, increased and expanded tenant protections, including rent control, just cause evictions and right to counsel, and the regulation of predatory corporate landlords.
Census and DemocracyTrump’s budget jeopardizes a fair U.S. Census count, requesting $7.2 billion for the entire Census when stakeholders estimate that it would cost at least $8 billion to carry out 2020 Census activities in FY 2020 alone.
Trump's budget drastically underfunded the Census and signals the lack of administration support for a fair and accurate count — one that counts all communities equally well.
When everyone is counted in the Census, our government and civil society can make sure that we all have the protections and resources that we need to thrive. We need accurate demographic counts of all our communities, regardless of how we look, where we live, or what our immigration status.
Labor and Workforce ProtectionsTrump’s budget cuts the Department of Labor by nearly 10 percent, which cuts into lifelines like unemployment insurance.
While the federal government has not increased the minimum wage in 10 yrs, this projected debt load will lead to slower income growth and less opportunities for workers. This sham proposal comes in the context of a draconian budget that calls for deep cuts to programs that millions of families rely on.
Instead, Trump could fully fund a paid family leave policy that ensures coverage for all workers instead of excluding 75% of those who take time to care for family members with their own serious injuries or health. The only remedy is real, comprehensive paid family medical leave policy - one that is sustainably funded (not at the expense of already depleted UI) and reflects the true needs of American workers.
EducationTrump proposed a $7.1 billion cut to the education budget, though it asks for a $60 million increase in funding for charter schools. It also increases funding for “school safety measures” that increase militarization and hardening of schools.
In response, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said that the budget is fundamentally about “education freedom.” This statement demonstrates the administration’s adherence to an education privatization agenda. To talk about the education budget as being fundamentally about "education freedom" circumvents the fact that education should be about equity and high quality. It also ignores the growing movement by teachers and parents calling to an end to charter expansion and renewed investment in teachers and public schools.
We envision a flourishing system of public education where all students can learn and grow. Fully-funded public schools give all students the opportunity to thrive. Instead of school surveillance technology that make students of color feel less safe in the classroom, we need investment in guidance counselors, restorative justice practices, and mental and emotional health services.
On March 12, Wells Fargo’s CEO told Congress that the bank is exiting the private prison industry! Over the past two years, immigrant organizations and allies participating in the Corporate Backers of Hate campaign have been working to expose the Wall Street companies that enable Trump’s aggressive anti-immigrant agenda, and pressuring these banks to stop financing private prison and deportation companies.
This victory is the result of two years of sustained organizing led by immigrant families, and comes days after JPMorgan Chase announced its decision to stop funding private prisons and immigrant detention companies. This was the first major bank to make such an announcement, marking a potential turning point in the fight against the industry that cages humans for profit.
When JPMorgan made its announcement, we celebrated, and then we got back to work ramping up the pressure on Wells Fargo and other banks to do the same. And it worked!
In a Congressional hearing earlier this week, Wells Fargo CEO Timothy Sloan told House Financial Services Committee member Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that it is ending its relationship with both GEO Group and Core Civic, the largest private prison corporations in the country. Private prison companies have relied on debt financing from Wall Street to sustain their day-to-day operations and facilitate their rapid expansion under Trump.
Following this important victory, we will continue to hold JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo accountable and work to ensure that all banks cut ties from this morally bankrupt industry.
These victories are only possible because people across the country showed up for each other, organized together, and forced these major Wall Street firms to reckon with the human impact of their financing practices.
We are so proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with the CPD affiliates whose members have led this fight with courage and determination, including Make the Road NY-NJ-PA-CT-NV, New York Communities for Change, CUFFH and Action NC. We are immensely grateful for the leadership of allied organizations that threw down to make these victories possible, including MomsRising, Freedom To Thrive (Enlace), Hand in Hand, JFREJ, CREDO, National Domestic Workers Alliance, LittleSis, In the Public Interest, Presente.org, Rainforest Action Network, Workmen’s Circle, the Candide Group and the entire #FamiliesBelongTogether coalition. We also deeply appreciate and recognize the Forego Wells Coalition (including ACRE, the Committee for Better Banks, and ACCE), who has been working to hold Wells Fargo to a higher standard of responsibility to workers and communities for years.
CPD Executive Director, Ana María Archila, and Make the Road New York Executive Director, Javier H. Valdés said it perfectly in The Nation last week: “By continuing to take on both the public and private sources of funding, we can put this morally bankrupt industry out of business once and for all.” Together, we have made clear that private prisons and their financial backers positioned themselves to gain from Trump’s immigration crackdown.
And together, we will continue to fight to hold Wall Street accountable, keep our families together, and ensure we all have the freedom to thrive. Can we count on you to join us? Make a donation today to support this vital work.
In February, CPD released a new toolkit titled, “Expanding High School Registration: A Toolkit for Local Leaders.” After more than a decade of attacks on voting rights–including efforts to blunt the power of young people and communities of color–democracy is at a crossroads. This toolkit offers resources for local leaders to proactively expand access to the ballot in order to increase the representation and build the long-term power of young people. Specifically, the toolkit includes resources to help local leaders pass high school registration policies, which require that schools provide dedicated voter registration opportunities, at least two times per year, to every student who is eligible.
The toolkit also offers guidance on how to ensure that high school registration policies are meaningful in practice: schools must partner with young people and community-based organizations to design curricula, engage students in every phase of program design, and ensure that programs are inclusive of all students, regardless of their eligibility to vote. The toolkit contains a model high school voter registration policy and model regulations; best practices for building comprehensive high school voter registration programs, which includes considerations for how to effectively engage community groups and students in the design of a successful voter registration program; and communications materials, which help local elected officials and advocates communicate effectively about the importance of student voter registration and the effectiveness of high school-based voter registration.
By passing high school registration policies, school districts can lead the way in helping to reduce generational disparities in registration and voting, and in cultivating a lifetime of civic engagement among young people. Read the full toolkit on our website.
On February 19, CPD's Voting Rights & Democracy team held a webinar to dive deep into how we expand youth voter registration. Check it out below!
