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June
30, 2003
The Do Nothing Strategy
an Exposé
of Progressive Politics
By KARYN STRICKLER
If you feel frustrated and think Americans are
losing ground on issues like the right to choose safe and legal
abortion, environmental protection, electing more progressive
women to public office and civil rights - you're right. The reason:
The Do Nothing Strategy that infects many national, progressive
organizations today. The Do Nothing infection has broader implications
for American democracy, liberty and justice because it allows
right-wing viewpoints, by default, to dominate public policy.
The year was 1989. The U.S. Supreme Court
had just decided the Webster v. Reproductive Health Services,
returning the regulation of abortion to state legislatures across
the country. At a meeting of the pro-choice coalition, Marylanders
for the Right to Choose, the Chair of the group, an employee
of Planned Parenthood of Maryland, began presenting The Do Nothing
Strategy. She very carefully detailed how, in the face of potentially
severe restrictions on abortion rights, those of us whose jobs
were to defend reproductive choice, were going to achieve that
end by actively doing nothing. Never mind that access to safe
and legal abortion is critical to the lives and dignity of women
or that limits on abortion could send us hurling backwards to
a time when women risked their lives to get abortions.
The Do Nothing Strategy was a detailed
plan with very specific strategies and tactics about how we,
the pro-choice community, would spend hundreds of thousands of
dollars and boundless energy -- to do nothing. That way none
of the Chair's friends in the State legislature would ever have
to make a tough vote on the contentious issue of abortion. The
Chair had this strategy elaborately detailed on flip charts and
went through it point by excruciating point. I looked around
the room several times at my coalition partners and waited for
someone to laugh. Surely the Chair must be kidding. No one laughed.
No one asked whether our opponents might move to curtail access
to safe and legal abortion if we did not move to protect it.
No one challenged the perverse logic of The Do Nothing Strategy.
As the Executive Director of the Maryland
affiliate of the National Abortion Rights Action League, I wasted
half of my day exercising patience and listening to this surreal
strategy until I could stand it no longer. Incredulous, and past
the end of my patience, I stood up and said, "This is the
most absurd idea I have ever heard. I'm going to codify Roe v.
Wade for the State of Maryland. You have two choices. You can
work with me to codify Roe v. Wade, or you can eat my dust."
I left the meeting.
A broad coalition ultimately came together
in Maryland and was successful in passing legislation that put
the principles of Roe v. Wade onto our state law books, protecting
a woman's right to choose safe and legal abortion. We worked
together in the 1990 election to defeat anti-choice legislators,
then passed the codification of Roe v. Wade through the State
House and Senate and finally were victorious in a statewide referendum
where Maryland voters in 44 out of 47 legislative districts ratified
the law making Maryland the fourth state in the nation to put
the principles of Roe v. Wade onto our state law books. In fact
it was this experience that gave me my understanding and strong
appreciation for the effectiveness of grassroots political organizing.
The voters of Maryland made this historic victory possible.
In my experience, the conventional wisdom
around a controversial issue usually begins with: "Political
reality dictates that it can't be done." Ask the experts
on almost any issue, they'll tell you the same thing. Whatever
reason they give, the real reason for such advice is that their
funding, power and prominence comes from protecting the status
quo. The next time you're told about "political reality,"
ask yourself how the expert giving the advice benefits from maintaining
the status quo. Then move forward in spite of this advice. The
experts told Maryland NARAL that we could not unseat anti-choice
incumbent legislators from pro-choice districts. We ignored them
and carried forward the momentum of our electoral victories to
make history and codify Roe v. Wade.
Since that first experience, when the
strategy was actually named and detailed, it has become painfully
clear to me that The Do Nothing Strategy defines much of the
national, progressive community's approach to issues today, whether
articulated or not. It's true on every progressive issue on which
I have had direct personal experience.
The Endangered Species
Coalition Steering Committee
I moved on to direct the National Endangered
Species Coalition (ESC) not realizing at the time that The Do
Nothing Strategy had beaten me there. America's national environmental
organizations who made up the Steering Committee of the ESC had
become giant bureaucracies where self-perpetuation, the quest
for funding from large foundations, and the desire for a seat
at the political table has replaced environmental protection
as the primary goal. It's arguable whether environmental protection
evens remains on the list of goals for some national, environmental
organizations. At best these groups have been out of touch with
the public and grassroots activists, engaged in destructive competition
for media coverage and funding and resistant to change for more
than a decade. At worst, they have been cavorting with industry
to destroy the environment, just as the recent series of articles
about the Nature Conservancy in the Washington Post, entitled,
Big Green: When Conservation and Business Fail to Mix, have made
painfully clear.
During my tenure as Executive Director,
from 1993-1994, the Coalition worked to build a national grassroots
force in order to reauthorize and strengthen the Endangered Species
Act. A strengthened Endangered Species Act (ESA) would protect
us, safeguarding species upon which we rely for medicines. Endangered
species also identify problems that could be threats to human
existence, just like the canary in the coal mine. The ESA protects
ecosystems like wetlands, which purify our drinking water and
forests which filter our air. It protects private property from
corporations that benefit financially from the destruction of
our natural heritage. It helps to ensure our long-term economic
viability by contributing to the tourism, fishing, pharmaceutical
and agricultural industries.
The talented Coalition staff of 24 employees
designed a simple, compelling, campaign message meant to resonate
with all Americans by emphasizing the link between issues of
human health, ecosystem protection, economics and the protection
of endangered plants and animals. We successfully used the message
that the "Endangered Species Act Protects US" to build
a large base of grassroots support for the Act, recruiting and
training 1,000 citizens leaders who were to lobby and lead our
efforts on the local level, 4,500 volunteers and 10,000 individual
donors. We raised one million dollars. We accomplished all this
in a little over 1 year's time.
In short, the Coalition was fully prepared
to fulfill our mission of reauthorizing and strengthening the
Endangered Species Act (ESA) with a powerful organizational infrastructure,
grassroots base, and adequate funding. There was one obstacle
- not the American people - but the Steering Committee of the
Endangered Species Coalition.
The Steering Committee was a small, self-appointed,
decision-making group which led the Coalition. It had no criterion
for participation and provided no direct funding or other assistance
to the Coalition effort. The larger Coalition included 145 organizations
but was governed by this self-selected Steering Committee representing
10 of the largest, national environmental groups. The Steering
Committee members list reads like a Who's Who of the national
environmental groups and included organizations like Sierra Club,
Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund, Environmental Defense Fund, National
Audubon Society, Greenpeace, National Wildlife Federation and
the World Wildlife Fund.* What the Steering Committee did not
include were representatives from the 145 grassroots regional,
state and local groups. Even the Coalition staff of 24 had no
vote on the Steering Committee.
As the Coalition staff and I traveled
the country laying the groundwork for an effective campaign,
grassroots member groups who had no voice in decision-making
were clamoring for reauthorization of the ESA. They urged me,
as the Director of the campaign to help make it happen. The Steering
Committee, however, made the unilateral decision that the Endangered
Species Coalition would not move for a vote on reauthorizing
the ESA in 1994. That singular decision has sealed the ill fate
of 10's of thousands of threatened and endangered species and
contributed to overall environmental degradation.
Continuous delay motivated by fear resulted
in the inability of the Steering Committee to understand and
appreciate the power of grassroots pressure. The Committee refused
to move on reauthorizing the ESA in 1994, when we had a Democratic
Congress and President. I explained to them that "historically,
the party controlling the White House has lost congressional
seats in every midterm but 1934 and our job could range from
slightly more difficult to nearly impossible in 1995 with Republican
control of Congress." Of course 1995 saw the realization
of the Republican Revolution and the Contract on America, led
by Newt Gingrich, which had a strong anti-environmental component.
But in the face of impending disaster the Steering Committee
held fast to its policy of "do nothing" and "delay."
Another key reason articulated in private
meetings by the Steering Committee for not pressing for a vote
was that, like the Maryland Do Nothing Strategist, they didn't
want to force their friends in the U.S. Congress to vote on a
controversial issue in an election year. It's clear that there
is no time when the Steering Committee would put their friends
in Congress in that position. It's now 2003 -- a decade has passed
-- and still the Endangered Species Act languishes, unreauthorized.
The logging, mining, cattle and oil industries are cheering as
they head to the bank, since that failure allows them to more
freely destroy unique endangered species and their habitat for
profit, with impunity. Those are the species and habitat that
protect us all.
Today the ESC describes the current,
bleak situation on it's website like this, "After the 2002
elections, the far right is sensing victory at last. Already,
on public lands across the nation, the law is being implemented
by a Secretary of Interior who has asserted that the ESA is unconstitutional
and backed up by a President whose close ties to extractive industries
don't even raise eyebrows. With industry-favored appointees in
every key post, carefully disguised administrative reforms are
being crafted to undermine the gains of the last thirty years...The
hounds are baying in Congress too, with the ascension of [anti-environmentalist]
darling and ESA foe, Rep. Richard Pombo, to chairmanship of the
House Resources Committee." If only we had moved for reauthorization
in 1994.
When I, members of my staff and vast
numbers of grassroots Coalition members tried to force the issue
of reauthorizing the ESA with the Steering Committee in 1994,
I was fired. My crime exactly: asking the grassroots organizational
members of the Coalition who were pushing for reauthorization
to communicate their thoughts directly to the Steering Committee.
A Vice President with the National Audubon Society, upon hearing
about this communication and in the process of terminating my
employment angrily said, "How dare you lobby me. I don't
need to hear from the grassroots. I know what the grassroots
thinks."
Electing Women
I still refused to believe that The Do
Nothing Strategy pervaded the entire progressive community when
I founded and directed Fifty plus One, an organization to train
pro-choice women in the campaign skills necessary to run for
public office. At the end of my tenure, I worked with a U.S.
based, international organization to train 60 women to run campaigns
for Parliament and Local Council in Botswana, Africa through
a grant provided by United States Agency for International Development.
Trainings contributed to 100% increase in the number of women
in Parliament in a single election cycle -- from 9% in 1994 to
18% in 1999. Trainings were also a key factor in dramatically
increasing number of women in local councils.
The U.S. Senate is the rough equivalent
of Parliament in Botswana. The U.S. Senate in the year 2000 saw
the highest number of women in its history, with the election
of 13 women. Achieving the 13% mark took over 40 years of actively
working to elect women. The question is, how actively have we
been working toward electing more women? Not The Do Nothing Strategy
again.
Early in my tenure at Fifty plus One
I approached the National Women's Political Caucus (NWPC), to
work cooperatively with that well-established organization. Their
response was to offer me a schedule of NWPC trainings and tell
me we could work cooperatively by having Fifty plus One pay them
$5,000 per training. Since I was hoping to start with 6 trainings
in our first year of operation, the bill would add up to $30,000.00
plus materials - for a fledging organization struggling to attract
funding. And, by the way, it would be up to me to do the most
difficult work of recruiting training participants with no assistance
from NWPC. With such "cooperation" I thought unfortunately
that I had to work independently of NWPC. I would lose the chance
to benefit from their years of experience; they would lose the
chance to nurture a new group dedicated to the same goal of increasing
the number of women in politics.
My hopes, however, were raised again
when I received a letter from the President of NWPC. I opened
the letter with great enthusiasm, hoping for a plan to achieve
real cooperation. Instead, in her letter and a subsequent phone
call the President launched a personal attack that questioned
my integrity and competence. It was an obvious attempt to deliver
a crippling blow to a potential rival for funding and media coverage.
What makes this story so sad for women
is that there is so much to do. There are 500,000 electoral offices
in America, the overwhelming majority occupied by men. The NWPC
has done a respectable job of training women for public office
over time, but the job is far too big for one relatively small
group. It's like having one drinking water fountain for all of
America. My experience helps me to understand why progress in
electing women has been so slow. The real problem is that there
aren't enough people working to bring women into the political
pipeline at the entry levels. Progress cannot be judged by input
like media coverage, conferences held, and mailings sent. It
must be judged by output and by the bottom line: a larger percentage
of women in public office at all levels. Fifty plus One worked
with over 1000 universities, labor organizations, local women's
organizations and professional associations, but we suffered
and finally ceased to exist partly because of resistance that
ranged from passive to active from entrenched organizations like
NWPC whose mission it was to elect women to office.
So much for Sisterhood.
Protecting Choice
While at Fifty plus One I was asked to
lobby on the issue of so-called "partial birth" abortion.
After looking briefly at the legislation proposed in Maryland
it was clear that the way legislation was written, it could ban
all abortion. The Maryland legislation had language similar to
laws that passed in more than 30 states and in the U.S. Congress.
It's been eight years since the anti-choice movement first introduced
"partial birth" abortion legislation in the U.S. Congress
and state houses across the country, it is still not recognized
as a carefully crafted, national strategy to ban all abortion.
It's easy to understand why anti-choice
zealots portray the bans as narrowly drawn for the limited purpose
of stopping a certain late-term abortion procedure, but if you
look at the language of the legislation, you see a very different
reality emerging. The mystery is why many pro-choice leaders
and the mainstream media haven't exposed the reality that nowhere
in this legislation is there any reference to stage of pregnancy
- not viability, not trimesters, not weeks of gestation. And
the definition of the banned procedure is so broad that it could
ban the safest, most commonly used abortion procedures.
The term "partial birth" abortion
cannot be found in any medical dictionary because it is a political
term that anti-choice zealots made up as part of their public
relations campaign to stigmatize all abortion. When talking about
the bans, advocates use graphic language about late-term abortion
that is different from anything found in the legislation itself.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG),
which represents most ob-gyn specialists, has rejected these
bans, which fail "to use recognized medical terminology
and fail to define explicitly the prohibited medical techniques
it criminalizes."
Federal Judge Gerald Rosen, a George
H. W. Bush appointee, permanently enjoined an early Michigan
ban because it was so vague that doctors lacked notice as to
what abortion procedures were banned. A temporary restraining
order against legislation in Arkansas said that the "act
applies at any stage of gestation," and that it defies logic
to say that the language applies to only one type of abortion.
Despite evolution in the language defining "partial birth"
abortion since these decisions, a 2000 U.S. Supreme Court decision
in Stenberg v. Carhart found a Nebraska statute unconstitutional
and said that the definition of "partial birth" abortion
remains so broad that it could outlaw the safest, most common
methods of abortion used in the second trimester of pregnancy.
The Center for Reproductive Law and Policy
(CRLP) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) both understood
that so-called "partial birth" abortion bans could
ban all abortion and they have worked at every level to get that
message out to voters.
In a long and difficult battle with other
national pro-choice groups about how the debate on so-called
"partial birth" abortion should be framed, principals
of some of the national pro-choice organizations decided that
those of us saying - so-called "partial birth" abortion
bans were attempts to ban all abortion - had to be stopped. National
pro-choice leaders decided to fight our message by calling pro-choice
leaders on the state level and telling them not to work with
us. The Executive Director of the National Abortion Federation
concluded that our efforts to develop an accurate message should
be destroyed. They knew that Fifty plus One had received funding
to do trainings across the country to change the debate on so-called
"partial birth" abortion. Whether or not our message
was accurate, they felt threatened. The representative of the
National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL)***
said that she would tell her affiliates that I was "a rogue
with a dangerous political message." This despite the fact
that from 1986-1992, I led one of the most successful NARAL affiliates
in the nation. In fact the national NARAL field office at the
time referred to our affiliate as, "The Maryland Miracle."
The Center for Reproductive Law and Policy
(CRLP)**** pointed out to other national groups, that together
we could reach out to more states. The response of the others:
"Why do we need to be in any more states? We don't need
to be in 16 states instead of 10, what good does that do us?"
They were going to actively work against us and refuse to talk
with me from now on. If I couldn't use their message, the others
didn't want CRLP working with me to "legitimize" our
efforts.
Many leaders of the national pro-choice
movement are still debating the issue on the playing field designed
and defined by their opposition, discussing the frequency and
need for late-term abortions. Even worse in pursuit of this inherently
losing strategy the movement destroyed its credibility by making
up statistics about the frequency of certain late-term abortion
procedures. They never put the partial-abortion bills in proper
perspective as an effort to ban all abortions. By contrast in
Maryland we did use the message that so-called "partial
birth" abortion bans were designed to ban all abortion to
defeat the legislation introduced into the Maryland state legislature,
proving the effectiveness of the message.
Since the term "partial birth"
abortion has no legitimate medical meaning, some in the media
have begun an uninformed, dangerous trend by saying that "partial
birth" abortion is medically known as dialation and extraction
abortion (D&X). Assigning a legitimate medical term to this
legislation is something that anti-choice legislators strategically
avoided. They want a broad ban on abortion. Six staunchly anti-choice
U.S. Congressmen including Henry Hyde, Charles Canady and James
Sensenbrenner said in a letter dated March 18, 1996 on an earlier
version of the bill: "H.R. 1833 does not ban 'D&X' or
'Brain Suction' abortions...the ban would have the effect of
prohibiting any abortion [that meets our definition]...no matter
what the abortionist decides to call his particular technique."
If George Bush appoints one more anti-abortion Justice to the
U.S. Supreme Court, this interpretation could well become the
law of the land, in effect overturning Roe v. Wade.
Those who were intent on silencing the
message that Fifty plus One, ACLU and CRLP advocated were only
partially successful. They did convince some of their chapters
across the country not to participate in message trainings we
were offering. They convinced pro-choice U.S. Senators who had
invited Fifty plus One to come and share our message with them,
to "postpone" the meeting, never to be rescheduled.
In Connecticut the local people had been excited to schedule
a training which was mysteriously cancelled. When I traveled
to California, the Planned Parenthood affiliate there obstructed
the training to the extent that I was unable to present my information.
But these national pro-choice groups
couldn't stop the press from writing about the issue. Judy Mann
of the Washington Post wrote an article in 1998 on the issue
entitled, "Partial Birth Abortion Bans: The Big Lie,"
in which she said, "The very clever antiabortion movement
has pulled a fast one. Laws passed in 28 states, ostensibly banning
"partial-birth abortions" in the last term of pregnancy,
are so vaguely worded that they, in effect, could ban abortions
throughout pregnancy." She continued, "Most of the
abortion rights movement have been slow to catch on to this.
The courts, thankfully, have not."
At the end of the conversation after
learning about the realities of this bogus legislation, Judy
Mann asked me, "I just have one question for you, where
have you been?" I answered by saying simply, "You wouldn't
believe where I've been."
Working with the Center for Reproductive
Law and Policy, with funding from the Ms. Foundation for Women,
we were also successful in generating supportive editorials in
The New York Times, The Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, The Boston
Globe, The Madison Capital Times and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
among many others. When presented with the legislative language
they drew their own conclusions. The New York Times wrote, "The
ban's proponents cloak their strategy by directing attention
to a rare medical procedure used in late-term abortions called
"intact dilation and extraction." But the actual language
of the law says nothing about that particular procedure, nor
does it say anything about late-term abortions. The wording [is]
broad enough to cover the most common procedures..."
Time and again we were asked by editors
across the nation, where we had been for the preceding two years
and why they hadn't been informed of the reality of this legislation
previously by national pro-choice groups. We were battled to
a near stand still from within the pro-choice movement. Even
today, eight years later, as a so-called "partial birth"
abortion ban passed the U.S. House and Senate, most pro-choice
groups still have not learned how to accurately portray this
issue, but instead prefer to debate the issue on the erroneous,
graphic terms offered by anti-choice advocates, as though it
proposes to ban a particular type of late-term abortion procedure.
The anti-choice minority is actively working to ensure that the
long-term consequence is an end to safe and legal abortion.
Why Do Nothing?
What The Do Nothing Strategists and Political
Reality Advisors need to realize is that: Political reality is
created. The perspective of dominant, national, progressive groups
is generally a loser's view of political reality. Contrary to
the early days of the modern progressive movement, today they
see Goliath and they shrivel. The only effective organizing such
groups do is against people within their ranks who are working
for real change. If only their external organizing were as effective.
The experts in political reality insisted
that we couldn't codify Roe v. Wade in Maryland. We did it. The
same type expert believed that we could not reauthorize the Endangered
Species Act in 1994. My indicators were all saying that it could
be done. If we persuaded enough undecided legislators to vote
with us through strong grassroots pressure in targeted congressional
districts, we would win. We had a Democratic Congress and President.
We had a regionally generated grassroots structure with trained
leaders and volunteers in key districts. We had adequate funding
and a strategic plan that would have gained strength with the
momentum of a feisty, national campaign.
In the case of the ESC, history shows
that if you don't move when you are fully prepared, you may find
yourself locked in the endless purgatory of The Do Nothing Strategy.
That is until The Do Nothing Strategy becomes the political reality
presented by George W. Bush and his administration whose goal
is to undermine everything that environmentalists have built
over the last 30 years.
Do Nothing Strategists and Political
Reality Advisors will never get it. They're afraid of change.
So to those in our community who don't share passion and commitment
for actively moving toward progressive change and embracing those
who try to help, you are hereby notified: You're off the team.
Aggressive progressives can create political
reality just as effectively as the Right. In the early days of
the modern, progressive movement we created our own political
reality through grassroots organizing strengthening environmental
protection and making real advances for women and minorities.
That's still the model for effective change.
Understand that if progressives wage
a grassroots battle, our opponents cannot defeat us. We have
overwhelming public support on progressive issues even before
we begin organizing. Change doesn't have to happen incrementally.
Radical change on women's, environmental and civil rights issues
can happen in the streets, but protests are only one tool of
a winning strategy based on grassroots organizing. It can happen
through collective legislative and electoral action. A small
group of committed, passionate people will make political reality
anything they say it is. Those kinds of groups already exist
and are already working effectively, mostly on the state and
local levels, but some on the national level as well. Find them
and join them.
Progressives must realize that legislators
with supportive constituencies who refuse to take tough stands
on a controversial issue are not our friends. They need to let
Do Nothing legislators know that lip service doesn't count. If
your issue never comes up for a vote, you're guaranteed never
to make progress, with the Endangered Species Act as a prime
example. It's the job of a legislator to vote on the difficult
issues. If they refuse or constantly insist on compromise, we
need to work through the electoral process to replace them with
representatives who will lead on challenging questions.
Let's get back to our grassroots. When
asked to compromise, always remember that half of a half of a
half over time equals nothing. Develop an honest, simple, compelling
message around your issue. Your message can make or break you.
Combine education, an uncompromising legislative strategy with
an unflagging electoral strategy and an unflinching enforcement
plan and you have a winning strategy. Organize locally, move
swiftly and decisively when the time is right. Beware and rage
against The Do Nothing Strategy. Create progressive political
reality. Act! Do it as though your life depends on it.
Karyn Strickler,
a grassroots, political organizer and President of Progressive
Consulting Group. She can be reached at: fiftyplusone@erols.com
* Members of the Steering Committee of
the National Endangered Species Coalition 1993-1994 included
Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund, Environmental Defense Fund, National
Audubon Society, The Wilderness Society, Greenpeace, National
Wildlife Federation, Sierra Club, Center for Marine Conservation
(advisory status), Defenders of Wildlife, Humane Society of the
United States, the World Wildlife Fund, the Natural Resources
Defense Council (advisory status).
** On the phone were: The National Abortion
Federation, Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the
National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League.
*** Now known as NARAL-Pro-Choice America
**** Now called the Center for Reproductive
Rights
Copyright Karyn Strickler 2003.
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