CITIZEN POWER FINDS ITS VOICE

...In West Virginia, Bob Wise led the fight to reduce utility rates in low-income communities...

...in the environmental movement, which cuts across party lines and regional divisions...

...We picture neighborhoods organizing against crime and toxic dumping, farmers protesting foreclosure auctions, workers fighting to keep plants open—many small Davids against a giant Goliath...

...Though reminiscent of past populist stirrings, today's movement is distinHeather Booth is president of the Citizens' Leadership Foundation, founder and president of the Midwest Academy, and founder and past director of the Citizen Labor Energy Coalition...

...Citizen Power Finds Its Voice BY HEATHER BOOTH AND JANET KELSEY The term "grass roots" conjures up images of something democratic, self-reliant, feisty, egalitarian, distinctly American, and neither leftist nor rightist...

...Over the next few months, an education and petition drive will be conducted in 300 Congressional districts, reaching more than fifteen million households...

...Brush seemed vulnerable...

...The measure was introduced in the summer of 1981, but before it could be passed, Brush, up for reelection, was targeted for defeat by the Republicans and corporate political action committees...

...For citizen groups, the question is no longer whether to be involved in political races, but how to make them part of a long-term strategy for education and empowerment...

...Permanent, multi-issue coalitions are functioning in more than twenty states as part of the Citizen Action network...

...Most important, it was often difficult to keep politicians accountable after they took office...

...There are now many examples of how issues organizing—around such matters as housing, taxes, and utility rates—can be combined with electoral work to produce victories without draining organizational resources...

...In the 1960s, with an expanding economy and a growing pool of government funds for social spending, direct action yielded results—whether it meant sitting at the restaurant counter to end segregation or protesting to have neighborhood garbage picked up...

...But he and OPIC met the challenge...

...Securing equal garbage clean-up meant little if an entire city was suffering a reduction in services...

...In Connecticut, the former co-chair of the state's Citizen Action Group, Doreen Del Bianco, was narrowly elected to the General Assembly on the strength of her positions and the volunteer work of labor and local groups...

...To improve the quality of life, activists had to do more than organize demonstrations and publish exposes...

...For many years, citizen action groups were reluctant to enter the electoral arena— for good reason...

...Access to the counter did not provide money to eat...

...It is the existence of organizations with self-confident leadership, skillful activists, and solid bases of support that has proven decisive for many worthy candidates...

...Organizing provides the tools to develop programs and take them door-to-door, and it affords the strength to elect candidates and hold them accountable...

...Elections focused on a candidate to the detriment of building up the people's sense of their own power...

...Local actions are not isolated and unconnected events...

...The recently formed National Campaign Against Toxic Wastes is an example of a coalition that has succeeded in drawing together many different groups around a common issue and political goal—the defeat of Ronald Reagan...

...In the past, there were many reasons for organizations to remain divided...

...guished by the successful merger of issue politics with electoral politics, the development of strong new citizens' organizations capable of participating in both, and the construction of powerful new coalitions...

...But by 1980, the economic and political backdrop had dramatically changed...

...in the development of a mass peace movement...

...The right-to-know ordinance was adopted in June 1982...

...He served on the executive board of the West Virginia Citizen Action Group, and when he decided to run for Congress, Wise brought his concerns and organization into the race...

...he beat a candidate who had outspent him two-to-one...

...This emerging movement consists of many New Deal constituencies—trade unions, farmers, the poor, minorities—but it also includes new elements: statewide citizen action groups, environmentalists, voter registration organizations, senior citizens, women's groups, peace activists, and others...

...Campaigns tended to consume time, eat up money, and drain an organization's leadership...

...The Reagan Administration, which has swelled the ranks of the unemployed, despoiled our natural resources, increased the misery of the poor, and stoked the fires of international tension, has made one big coalition of us all...

...As a result of these efforts, pegged almost entirely to the toxics controversy, Brush was reelected...

...Out of the nine council members elected citywide, he had run ninth the last time around...

...in the revitalized labor movement, and in organized groups of senior citizens, farmers, the handicapped, the Spanish-speaking, and many others...

...With its allies in the AFL-CIO and the United Auto Workers, OPIC asked Tom Brush, a city council member, to sponsor a municipal right-to-know ordinance that would require corporations to inform and educate workers about the dangers of exposure to toxic substances...

...Yet the roots are deeper, broader, and stronger than these images suggest...

...OPIC played a major role in Spencer's campaign, transforming its strength in issues, staff, and door-to-door work into direct electoral clout...

...The integration of issue and electoral politics, and the emergence of issue organizations, have made today's grass-roots movement unique and powerful...

...they are increasingly part of a national movement the likes of which we have not seen since the 1930s...

...Another contributing factor has been the growing trend toward coalition work...

...in the broadening of the women's movement and the political power of the gender gap...

...Such victories would not have been possible without groups that could articulate the issues, mobilize members, and do the grinding day-to-day work of contacting voters and getting them to the polls...

...Janet Kelsey is training director of the Midwest Academy and the Citizens' Leadership Foundation...

...And Lane Evans (see Page 27) was elected to Congress thanks to the help of the Illinois Public Action Council and other organizations...

...The emergence of new statewide citizen action organizations has been an important factor in the success of issue-based electoral politics and politicians...

...In addition, powerful new electoral coalitions operate in some states—such as LEAP in Connecticut, CANPAC in Illinois, and MONTCEL in Montana—while similar groupings are being built in many communities across the country...

...The Ohio Public Interest Campaign (OPIC) decided in 1980 to focus on the issue of toxic chemicals in factories and neighborhoods of Cincinnati, which has the highest cancer rate in the United States...

...OPIC's sophisticated in-house polling capacity was used to develop a media strategy, and its door-to-door canvass was invaluable in building grass-roots support...

...The group flexed its electoral muscle again in 1983, when Marian Spencer, a member of Cincinnati OPIC's steering committee, became the first black woman elected to the city council...

...Even where organizations remain formally independent, with separate issues and constituencies, they are increasingly drawn together by converging interests and goals...

...It brings together such diverse constituencies as environmentalists, trade unionists, public health officials, and community organizations...

...These groups see elections as important opportunities to further issue agendas—but never at the expense of the painstaking work that goes on 365 days a year...

...The separate strands of a single movement can be seen in the mayoral victories of Harold Washington in Chicago, Wilson Goode in Philadelphia, and Harvey Gantt in Charlotte, North Carolina...

...Today, no group can go it alone...

...We needed to elect local, state, and Federal officials committed to social and economic justice...