This Could Be the Start of Something Big by Manuel Pastor Jr. & Chris Benner & Martha Matsuoka

Author:Manuel Pastor Jr. & Chris Benner & Martha Matsuoka
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: 2015-10-02T16:00:00+00:00

In 2005 a new organizational umbrella for AGENDA was formed, Strategic Concepts in Organizing and Policy Education (SCOPE). Integrating AGENDA as well as the Metropolitan Alliance, CIPHER, and a training arm called the Environmental and Economic Justice Project (EEJP),22 SCOPE’s mission is “to develop multi-dimensional approaches that reduce and eliminate structural barriers to social and economic opportunities for poor and economically disadvantaged communities and communities of color.”23 SCOPE now leads a statewide coalition—the California Alliance—that comprises organizing groups throughout the state such as ACORN, Working Partnerships, and Urban Habitat. Together, they aim to develop a long-term plan for systemic reform of California’s state policies and the formulation of ballot initiatives to organize around and spur electoral action.

The Metro Alliance has initiated the Progressive Electoral Project (PEP), which currently functions in seven regions—Los Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco, San Jose, San Diego, Fresno, and San Bernardino—to build the electoral organizing capacity of fifteen leading community groups within each region. In the midterm November 2006 election, more than thirty-seven organizations participated in regional get-out-the-vote efforts, mobilizing more than 600 neighborhood precinct leaders and volunteers and contacting over 80,000 voters in low-income, working-class communities throughout the state (SCOPE 2006).

From South Central L.A. to the region to the state and, increasingly, to the nation as well, SCOPE continues to build its relationships, capacity, and influence. In 2005, SCOPE began discussions with the national Apollo Alliance, an effort led by such groups as the Sierra Club and the United Steelworkers to create jobs and secure energy independence by promoting investments in the domestic clean-energy sector. More than thirty national, state, and local unions as well as more than thirty environmental and community organizations are members of the national Apollo effort. SCOPE is now represented on the national advisory board and has taken the lead in convening a local chapter of the Apollo Alliance in the Los Angeles metropolitan region. Sabrina Smith, SCOPE’s organizing director, notes that Apollo constitutes a new proactive strategy for economic development: “We’ve proven our ability to secure community benefits from the regional economy through policy wins; we’re now testing our ability to develop alternative economic directions to provide permanent solutions to poverty and the problems our communities face” (2006).24

Furthering its national agenda, SCOPE has begun to work with a set of community-based organizations that have experimented with ways to link organizing with new strategies for electoral politics. The Pushback Network involves grassroots organizing groups from California, New Mexico, New York, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Alabama which emphasize long-term planning and execution over tactical and reactive campaigns; developing state electoral alliances and partnerships from the bottom up; targeting communities of color, poor people, and marginalized communities to expand the electorate; and integrating community organizing with electoral work.

It has been an impressive trajectory that reflects scaling geographically, analytically, and politically. The geography is straightforward: when AGENDA/SCOPE decided to lift its eyes from the neighborhood to the region, it saw a hopeful path toward building power also at the state and national levels. Analytically, SCOPE began

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