“You have to begin somewhere” I remember somebody telling me that when I first started lifting weights in a gym. (Not much weight on the bar, you see. IIRC, there was actually no weight on the bar.) However, it’s true in a lot of areas – like all of them.
So, even though I’m not a Democrat, I’m trying to help jeffroby get the ‘Full Court Press’ going for Dems. (I expect I’ll try and help Republicans get their version going, if I can find any Republican-leaning citizens who are interested). Because we all have to start somewhere, and complaining in the blogosphere and petitioning those in power don’t seem very effective, we need to truly dump sellout Congress critters.
Chris Bowers has wisely advised us to do things correctly, legally speaking, so I sent an email to a lawyer I had retained, who I knew was a Democrat and seemed like a very good guy, overall. What follows is a modified, de-personalized version, that has a lot of links which will be useful for telling friend, family, and even strangers about the new group.
Dear Mr./Mrs. {LAWYER},
The reason that I’m writing is because I’m looking to help start an organization which will look to run primaries against Democratic incumbents in Congress with much better candidates, and such an organization absolutely needs to be on a firm legal basis. However, the originator or the idea, one Jeff Roby, is unemployed (along with his wife), and is struggling. We are not currently in a position to hire a lawyer. So, I am hoping that you will volunteer to help us get on a firm legal basis, pro bono. It’s conceivable that early backers may come up with cash, so we could pay you, eventually, but without a firm legal basis, we are not even sure how we can properly accept cash.
Jeff Roby’s bio is here: What a long, strange trip it’s been
As you can see, he’s been a lifelong activist, yet hasn’t burnt out, unlike many of his former co-activists of his age (60+).His plan, which he calls the Full Court Press, is here: for a Full Court Press
(Please note that his list of 8 required policy issues are not finalized, and various people, have urged him to either add required items or remove some of them. )Chris Bowers, a principal of OpenLeft, was annoyed by Roby’s diary (and forced it off the front page), but his response was very helpful: How to start your own netroots organization
From Bowers’ diary,Set up your legal structure. Once you have a purpose, you can determine what sort of legal structure your organization will need to function. You need one of these structures, as there are a lot of laws surrounding political action, and you really don’t want to run afoul of them.
If, for example, you wish to support federal candidates who meet your eight-point issue platform, then you are probably going to need to register as a federal multi-candidate political action committee. Doing so will allow you to directly coordinate with federal campaigns, and make independent expenditures on their behalf.
In addition to a PAC, you may also want to form a 527 in order to run negative campaigns against opposing candidates. This is because 527s have far fewer restrictions regarding fundraising and disclosure requirements (although they don’t allow you to coordinate with–or even mention–favorable campaigns). A 501(c)4 may also work, since you are promoting eight policy goals with an ideological bent to them.
Figure out whatever single or multiple structures best serve your purpose. Getting legal recognition costs a few hundred dollars, and a small amount of paperwork. You are also going to need a bank account, a mailing address, and accounting tools to make sure you stay kosher with IRS and FEC laws. All of that will cost you a bit more, and it is probably best to hire a lawyer to help you with this
It appears that there is a massive amount of despair amongst Americans who have fought the good fight for a better America, but have largely gotten a third term of GW Bush to show for it. Also, even 60 Dems in the Senate has not made it friendly to the desires of the American middle class.
E.g., somebody at DemocraticUnderground posted the following “as far as I’m concerned”
I know many here will disagree with my reaction to the no-single payer, no public-option sellout but my reaction is to as soon as I can re-register as an independent voter after 38 years as a registered Democrat. I will admit when I first registered as a Democrat (in California) I was leaning towards registering as an independent but due to the closed primaries I felt it was a better use of my vote to register as a Democrat. I feel the continuing capitulation to the right-wing Republicans and conservative Democrats shows me that the Democratic party takes the progressive wing for granted and really has no intention of moving forward with any kind of progressive agenda. Don’t look for any significant change on the war stance, climate change or any other liberal leaning subject as the Democrats have no intention of making any substantial change to the status quo. Re-registering does not mean in any way that I will give up on progressive causes at this time I just feel that trying to work from within the Democratic party is a waste of time and until the party shows me that they will strongly support the American people as a whole rather than the corporation and the ultra-wealthy they don’t deserve my support. Yes, if it takes the Democrats losing seats and even the Presidency to get them to wake up and reestablish their historic spot as the representatives of everyday citizens then that is what must be done. I have had it with empty promises and spineless Democrats (why the hell was Lieberman in the room for the final health care work?) luckily I have one Senator where I live now, Bernie Sanders, that I can wholeheartedly support.
So, quite frankly, one reason to push a Full Court Press is to save some people from burning out. Or worse, a trip to the psychiatrist. Despair is very disempowering, and we need mentally and emotionally stable fellow citizens to help straighten out the mess of our current government.
While Jeff is more focussed on 2012 elections, please note that some of us, would like to make a serious go of it for the 2010 elections. Here are the filing deadlines for all of the states:
2010 Sortable Congressional Filing Deadline & Primary Calendar
And here are the filing requirements, state-by-state.
Ballot Access – State by StateJeff Roby’s telephone number is {omitted}, and his email is [email protected] . If we can get enough help quickly enough, then running a couple of hundred candidates in primaries in 2010 might be doable.
In case you need a visual picture of what a vibrant democratic movement in the US would look like, here is an example. We will hopefully be collaborating with Democrats 4 Change, which were spun off from the non-partisan effort in New Brunswick called Empower Our Neighboorhoods. See this post: This is what a Democratic Party democratic revolution looks like
One final thing to note, though: the Democratic Party will not look kindly on your helping us upset the apple cart, and you should not be surprised if you get pushback from party ‘pros’ and their allies. If you read the fascinating diaries at OpenLeft by John Emerson, you will come to see that a large part of the problem of corruption of both mainstream parties has to do with ‘pros’ who would rather suffer a loss of reform candidates that they can’t influence, rather than for themselves to lose power. There’s a lot of money to be made by ensuring that guys like Clinton get elected, who will sign off on NAFTA and Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, and also guys like Obama, who will bail out Wall Street (with grossly insufficient oversight) but not Main Street and make deals with Tauzin/Big Pharma that stab the public in the back. At the Congressional level, if you have to put up with a guy from the other party being in control for the next 2, 4 or 6 years, that is less of a problem for your ‘sponsors’. After all, odds are that they are ‘sponsoring’ candidates from both parties, anyway.
It is expected that we will be warning all Full Court Press candidates that they will likely kiss any career as a Democratic Party politician good-bye, since neither main stream party likes primaries of incumbents, least of all by genuine reform candidates. They will likely get black-listed, and so will you. Of course, if we succeed in reforming the Democratic Party in a major way, then such a black-listing will be irrelevant.