CPD IN THE NEWS

VT Digger - January 12, 2014, by Morgan True - Last week’s pro-universal health care demonstration during Gov. Peter Shumlin’s inaugural address drew attention locally and nationally, and left many wanting to know more about its organizers — the Vermont Workers’ Center, which has grown substantially in the past five years.

Founded nearly two decades ago as Central Vermonters for a Livable Wage, the nonprofit labor and human rights group has evolved into a substantial grassroots organization.

In 2001, as the Vermont Workers’ Center, the group affiliated with Jobs With Justice, a national pro-labor group, and is essentially that organization’s Vermont chapter. VWC founded the Health Care Is a Human Right campaign in 2008 because the cost of medical care and health insurance was creating crises for its members that “transcended” the workplace, according to the group’s website.

The campaign is viewed by some as a model for health care advocacy in other states.

Since launching the Health Care Is a Human Right Campaign, VWC’s annual budget has grown from $154,500 in 2008 to $638,700 in 2012, the latest publicly available tax filing from the group.

James Haslam, VWC’s director, said its current budget is close to $800,000, a more than fivefold increase since the campaign began. The money comes from donations and foundation grants in roughly equal parts, Haslam said.

The Ben & Jerry’s Foundation is its largest grantor, providing $50,000 this year, Haslam said. It has given the group $160,000 since 2010, including $35,000 to offer guidance to similar groups across the U.S. Grantees are voted on by a committee of Ben & Jerry’s workers, according to a statement.

“The Ben & Jerry’s Foundation supports grassroots organizations throughout the U.S. that are working for progressive social change and a more equitable society,” according to the foundation’s statement.

VWC also chose to start collecting dues from its members in 2014, Haslam added. The dues follow a sliding scale based on members’ ability to pay, he said.

The grassroots activists have strong affiliations with national labor and human rights groups including Health Care Now, Labor for Single Payer, National Economic and Social Rights Initiative, The Center for Popular Democracy and the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, according to Haslam.

Kate Kanelstein, VWC’s lead organizer, is on Grassroots Global Justice Alliance’s national coordinating committee. Kanelstein was among those arrested during Thursday’s sit-in in the House chamber.

“We’re part of a broader people’s movement to turn things around for working people,” Haslam said.

Those connections have helped propel VWC to the forefront of national activism on universal public health care.

The National Economic and Social Rights Initiative provides strategic advice and training to VWC and similar groups throughout the U.S., said Anja Rudiger, director of programming for NESRI.

VWC has successfully, and appropriately, according to Rudiger, applied the principles of human rights advocacy to health policy by focusing on the hardship of individuals, rather than the “nitty-gritty” of policy debates.

By reframing access to health care as a human rights issue, VWC and others are able to highlight the injustices of the high cost of medical services and a for-profit health insurance system.

There are now Health Care Is a Human Right campaigns in Maryland, Pennsylvania and Maine. Groups in Oregon and Washington are also hoping to model health care advocacy work on the template created by VWC.

VWC is using the tactics and strategies of other human rights movements, including demonstrations and civil disobedience, which are well established, but have not previously been applied to health care, Rudiger said.

A ‘new environment’ and a national movement

Some have argued that last week’s demonstration hurt VWC’s credibility with the Legislature — one senator called the tactics “fascist” — but the demonstration has drawn increased attention from national groups and other advocates for universal health care.

Amnesty International, National Nurses United and more than 60 other labor and health care advocacy groups signed an open letter to the Vermont Legislature urging lawmakers to press on with Act 48, the state’s universal health care law. NESRI helped get many of the signatories to that letter, Rudiger said.

The Rev. William Barber, most famous for starting the Moral Monday movement, wrote a letter of solidarity, calling it immoral for people not to have access to medical care.

The backlash from lawmakers was anticipated, Haslam said, and he doesn’t think it hurts VWC’s ultimate goal of achieving universal access to health services.

“No one that truly supports universal health care is not going to support it because of a protest,” he said.

The visceral reaction from legislators may be partly because the Statehouse hasn’t been the venue for Occupy-esque demonstrations previously, said longtime State Curator David Schutz, though they’ve become increasingly common elsewhere in Vermont and nationally.

“It’s a new environment,” Schutz said, one ushered in by the October occupation of the governor’s offices in the nearby Pavilion Building.

That action was primarily the work of Rising Tide Vermont, the local affiliate of a national climate advocacy group, to protest the expansion of a Vermont Gas pipeline. The Workers’ Center helped organize that demonstration, which resulted in 64 arrests, though charges were later dropped.

Keith Brunner, the communication coordinator for the center, was among those arrested at the pipeline demonstration. Though he was present at the Statehouse last week, he was not arrested.

The only comparable event to Thursday’s demonstrations that took place in the Statehouse during the past 30 years was during the debate over civil unions in 2000, Schutz said.

It was necessary to rile official Vermont, Rudiger said, because it appears Shumlin has unilaterally stalled the state’s movement toward universal health care.

“It’s not about being disrespectful to lawmakers, it’s about highlighting the conditions in people’s lives that bring about those actions and that’s always what civil disobedience has been about,” she said.

Nationally, advocates for public universal health care were aware of the movement in Vermont, but few had received the news of Shumlin’s “wavering,” Haslam said.

Last week’s demonstration was an opportunity to get that message out and put Vermont back in the national spotlight in order to keep the momentum behind a universal health care program for the state, Haslam said.

VWC workers among those arrested last week

Many in Vermont’s political Twittersphere expressed surprise — or consternation — that several of Thursday’s demonstrators, including some who were arrested, are paid employees for the Workers’ Center.

In addition to Kanelstein, field organizers Shela Linton, Elizabeth Beatty-Owens, Avery Pittman and campaign coordinator Matt McGrath were among the 29 arrested.

Members, volunteers and staff were told at a planning meeting that the sit-in carried the risk of arrest, Haslam said. Those who participated in the sit-in chose to take that risk in order to push for legislative hearings on the governor’s single payer report.

The Workers’ Center employees who were arrested had “personal experiences with health care crises,” Haslam said. Many got involved because of that experience, and started out as members or volunteers before being hired.

Lobbying only a small part of what VWC does

The Workers’ Center is limited in its ability to lobby elected officials because it is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. The organization is aware of that line, and takes steps to make sure it’s not crossed, according to Haslam.

Its field organizers are registered lobbyists, Haslam said, which is corroborated by the Secretary of State’s database.

The IRS threshold for tax-exempt nonprofits is whether lobbying activities constitute “a substantial part of its overall activities,” with expenditures on lobbying capped at 20 percent for a group the size of VWC.

The Vermont Workers’ Center keeps time sheets and records expenditures to ensure they meet the expense limits, Haslam said. Its 2012 990 tax filing, the most recent available, says those expenditures are available on request and does not list them.

Lobbying as part of the Healthcare Is a Human Right campaign is not a substantial portion of the center’s overall operation, Haslam added.

The group is involved in community organizing and leadership development, and helps build grassroots networks and coalitions on a broad array of issues, primarily labor-related, he said.

The Workers’ Center has supported striking FairPoint workers, recently unionized home care workers and workers at the University of Vermont who are trying to form a union.

They operate a workers’ hotline to field workplace complaints and employ an accountability monitor to help enforce Burlington’s livable wage ordinance.

The Workers’ Center also runs the People’s University for Learning and Liberation with a staffer dedicated to preparing workshops, skill building, continuing education for its members and affiliated groups.

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It is always amusing to be the subject of a John McClaughry jeremiad. While I don’t mind being labeled as the “foremost defender” of public education, he insists on giving me full personal credit for what is a state school board position.

In the instant case, John appears to be affronted by the suggestion that private (independent) schools that take public money must actually be held accountable for that money. This principle is at the core of the state board’s review of the independent school rules. Now this seems like a straightforward and fundamentally democratic concept that is generally accepted, but it has been a long-standing problem for some.

The law (16 VSA 166) provides a list of reporting requirements for independent schools if they want to chow down at the public trough. Unfortunately, as far back as the 1914 Carnegie Commission, we find evidence of the refusal of some independent schools to provide private school data even though it was the law of the land. (At that time, the Cubs were still basking in the glory of their World Series victory.)

The second paramount principle is that we have to educate all the children — regardless of needs and handicaps. That’s a necessity in a democracy. Denying a child admission on the basis of a handicap is, in most cases, illegal. Furthermore, it’s wrong. Public schools serve every child. The false fear John peddles is that the private school can’t afford to serve these children. That’s incorrect. It’s really quite simple. While great eruptions of umbrage are displayed, this problem has been solved for years. The private school contracts with (or hires) a specialist who bills the costs back to the public school. Approval in a given area requires that one sheet of paper be filed with the state. As simple as the solution actually is, some independent schools refuse to adopt an equal opportunity policy.

Instead, John proposes that Vermont “clone” Florida’s McKay Scholarship program where parents can choose the school for their handicapped child. That hasn’t worked out too well. If you think a “business management class” that sends students onto the street to panhandle is an acceptable education, then the McKay program may be just your thing. The Florida Department of Education has uncovered “substantial fraud,” including schools that don’t exist, non-existent students, and classes held in condemned buildings and public parks. And the state of Florida does not have the staff to adequately monitor the program. This is a recipe for abuse. Last May, the Center for Popular Democracy estimated that $216 million in charter school money went out the back door.

Finally, John raises the cost question and says private school scholarships would be “less expensive.” Yet he also criticizes the cost of the state’s excess public school capacity. Now let’s look at Vermont’s private independent school numbers. In 1998, there were 68 independent schools, and by 2016, the number had exploded to 93. In the decade 2004-14, independent school enrollments went down from 4,361 to 3,392. A 37 percent increase in schools with a 29 percent drop in students suggests somebody needs to revisit their business plan.

Taking it all together, (1) all who profit from the public treasury must be accountable for that money, (2) children have the right to be admitted to private schools, free of discrimination, on an equal opportunity basis, (3) private schools are a part of our system, (4) the public purse must be protected from fraud and abuse, and (5) directly or indirectly building and operating a parallel school system would be inordinately expensive and wasteful. Do these principles sound reasonable?

William J. Mathis is managing director of the National Education Policy Center and a member of the Vermont state Board of Education. The views expressed here are his own and do not represent the views of any group with which he is associated.

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The Huffington Post - November 17, 2013, by Farah Mohamed & Ryam Grim - In times of economic weakness, the ruling class has tended to pit domestic workers against immigrants, warning the former that wages are low and jobs are scarce because of the latter.

The effort in the United States has led to tremendous hostility toward immigrants, exhibited by then-GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney's recommendation that conditions be made so unbearable for undocumented immigrants that they "self deport."

With precious little Latino support, the Republican coalition doesn't need to reconcile its domestic and foreign-born workers. But the Democratic Party, which includes many Latinos, Asians and African-Americans, is strengthened when the various elements of its coalition see themselves as aligned in a similar struggle -- one for jobs, better conditions and higher wages.

It's the kind of strengthened coalition that two major grassroots community organizations say they're hoping to build with a previously unreported merger. The Center for Popular Democracy and the Leadership Center for the Common Good will merge on Jan. 1, to become a larger and better resourced Center for Popular Democracy, officials at both groups tell HuffPost.

The new organization, which will have offices in New York and Washington, and staff in California, Minnesota and Illinois, will be composed of 35 staff members and 11 core partner organizations with more than 70 partner organizations in 27 states.

"We are actually trying to connect the world of immigrant justice and the world of economic justice by bringing together two hubs," said Ana Maria Archila, co-director of the new organization. "We haven't seen this level of popular trends and organizations in a while, and our merger is really kind of at the center in the world of economic justice, worker community and immigrant rights."

The Center for Popular Democracy, based in New York, has worked with a range of organizations fighting for social justice. Some of its victories include reforming the New York City Police Department's stop-and-frisk policing, raising New York's minimum wage and forcing the passage of legislation requiring paid sick leave for 1 million New Yorkers. The Washington-based Leadership Center for the Common Good advocates for low- and moderate-income communities, communities of color and immigrants.

By uniting, the two hope to increase their reach. For instance, the CPD maintains that its strongest ties are with immigrants' rights and worker organizations. LCCG, by contrast, works with partners rooted within the African-American community.

The merger would fill a vacuum in strong community advocacy. In 2009, conservative provocateur James O'Keefe targeted the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, a low- to middle-income grassroots activism group, in a series of videos which resulted in the dissolution of ACORN in 2010. House Republicans still include language in spending bills to ensure no federal money goes to the organization, even though it no longer exists.

But Archila and her new CPD co-director Brian Kettenring, who is a veteran of ACORN, see the new partnership as something different. "We're building something entirely new. We're not building a closed network," Archila said.

The new Center for Popular Democracy's mission, according to a concept paper provided to The Huffington Post, is to "build the strength and capacity of democratic organizations to envision and advance a pro-worker, pro-immigrant, racial and economic justice agenda." Staff will be organized around nine "core capabilities," including capacity building, campaigns and politics, and will focus on immigration rights and racial justice, economic justice, voting rights and democracy, education and housing, and Wall Street accountability.

"I would describe the new CPD as a campaign, policy and capacity-building center for community organizations," Kettenring said.

CPD will not launch new campaigns because of the merger, he added, but it does have projects in the works for January, including one that will focus on "articulating a firm vision -- a progressive vision -- of what public education should look like" and "defeating what we see as a corporate takeover of education in America."

By expanding the scale, strength and reach through the merger, the new CPD hopes to play an increasingly crucial role in the rejuvenated battle for social justice.

"There is tremendous energy in our communities -- in communities of color, in working class communities -- to change the way the things are done," Archila said. "There is tremendous political energy, and what we need is organizations -- institutions -- that will take advantage of that and will nurture that and drive it in the direction of concrete victory ... We know how to bring institutions together to make sure that it doesn't just mean one plus one equals two, but one plus one equals so much more. And that's what we think is going to happen with this merger."

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If Americans needed any further proof that voting itself has become a partisan battleground, look no further than proposals calling for automatic voter registration.

California this month enacted a law that will automatically register people to vote when they get or renew a driver's license or state identification card from the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), following the example set by Oregon several months ago. Over time, this could bring most of the 6.6 million Californians who are eligible but not yet registered onto the voting rolls. Alex Padilla, California's secretary of state and sponsor of the measure, calls it potentially the largest voter registration drive in U.S. history.

Other states could soon follow.

Legislators have introduced automatic voter registration bills in 16 additional states, including Hawaii, Illinois and Vermont, as well as the District of Columbia. New Jersey lawmakers approved a package that includes automatic voter registration in June. Republican Gov. Chris Christie hasn't acted on it, but he's made his opposition clear.

"The current process creates an unnecessary barrier for citizens to exercise their fundamental right to vote," said state Sen. Andy Manar, a sponsor of the Illinois measure. "And it's an inefficient use of taxpayer dollars."

The states where bills have seen real movement, however, are all blue states. In states where Republicans control the legislature  -- including Georgia, South Carolina and Texas -- measures have mostly languished in committee.

Supporters argue that the real reason for  Republican opposition is the party's worry that automatic registration would boost the number of poor and young voters -- groups that favor Democrats. But Republicans complain that automatically registering people to vote based on their DMV status will result in more fraud because, for example, teens still too young to vote and undocumented immigrants get driver's licenses.

In New Jersey, more than 85 percent of eligible citizens are already registered to vote. During a radio appearance in June, Gov. Christie said that, "there's no question in my mind that there are some advocates of this who are looking to increase the opportunities for voter fraud. That's not democracy either."

Studies have shown, however, that voter fraud seldom happens. Proponents of automatic voter registration say that governments have a responsibility to ensure eligible citizens have the opportunity to exercise the franchise, without unnecessary hurdles.

Supporters of the idea are currently collecting signatures in Alaska to put it on the ballot next year. If Christie ultimately vetoes the New Jersey package, a ballot measure may be likely there as well.

"It's not just an election modernization reform, it's a shifting of responsibilty for who populates the rolls," said Katrina Gamble, director of civic engagement and politics at the Center for Popular Democracy. "Even before Oregon, people saw automatic voter registration as the most tranformative reform that we can move that would bring a huge number of people onto the rolls."

Huge numbers of eligible citizens aren't registered to vote. In addition to the nearly 7 million Californians, there are 2.3 million such people in Illinois and there were 300,000 in Oregon.

"If you look across the country, there are at least 50 million people who are eligible but not registered to vote," said Jonathan Brater, counsel for the democracy program at NYU's Brennan Center for Justice. "We see year after year that registration is one of the biggest obstacles to participation."

Other states might explore other models, like using agencies other than the DMV to find potential voters. If the Alaska initiative passes next year, the state will find potential voters through its Permanent Fund, which pays dividends to residents based on oil revenues.

Regardless of the database that's used, automatic registration has the potential to be more accurate than the current approach, which in many places still means relying on paper forms. It should also save money. When Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, only Arizona and Washington offered online registration. Earlier this month, Vermont became the 26th state to allow voters to register online. Going paper-free saves states at least 50 cents on every registration.

It's in part for that reason that Republican legislators in states including Florida, Georgia and Oklahoma have supported online registration. Supporters of automatic voter registration hope that promises of savings might bring GOP lawmakers around to supporting things like registration through the DMV, too.

So far, that's not happening.

In fact, the way that high-profile Democrats running for president have embraced the idea seems to be driving Republicans away. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont introduced an automatic voter registration bill in Congress, and Hillary Clinton supported the idea during a speech earlier this year in which she castigated the GOP for trying to "disempower and disenfranchise young people, poor people, people with disabilities and people of color," through voter ID requirements and attacks on early voting.

Clinton's speech, according to polling, cost automatic voter registration support among Republican voters. A majority of Republicans (53 percent) supported the idea when Oregon passed its law in March, but after Clinton gave her speech in June, GOP support dropped to 38 percent. When survey respondents were told Clinton backed the idea, their support plummeted further, to 28 percent.

Source: Governing