Organizing progressive energy at the state and local level

(From center) Matt Dragon standing with members of ‘Our Revolution’ and Lawrence Hamm, Chairman of the People’s Organization for Progress (P.O.P)

NEWARK, NJ—Our Revolution was created out of Senator Bernie Sanders’ Presidential Campaign at the end of the 2016 election. It was created to bring together individuals who wanted to continue advancing progressive policies that Senator Sanders and others had been advocating for during the primaries. Advancing progressive policies nationally meant empowering and educating voters, supporting progressive candidates, and holding politicians accountable, both for their votes and how they’re influenced by corporate spending in politics. Another presidential election has come and gone, and heading into what’s expected to be an extremely difficult midterm election, Our Revolution continues to advance progressive policies from the national to the local level. Our Revolution does this work through a 5-point plan — Organizing progressive energy at the state and local level, holding politicians accountable to working class voters, working to elect truly progressive candidates, fighting corporations and special interests to enact progressive policies, and working from within to make the Democratic Party more progressive. 

At the state level, Our Revolution New Jersey has 4 areas of focus — Medicare for All, Police Accountability, Eliminating the County Line on the Ballot, and Fighting Climate Change. For all of us to make progress we must confront these issues head on. The leadership of Our Revolution Essex County sees our role as helping to elect candidates committed to meaningful policy to address these goals, advocating for those policies at the municipal and county level, pushing back when corporations or other special interests try to insert themselves into the process, and when all else fails, taking to the streets to ensure working class voices of all races, our friends and neighbors, are heard and respected.

Building a movement based around solidarity doesn’t mean we show up in communities demanding that they sign on to our priorities. We must not only engage communities in support of our national or statewide goals, but also help each community in the struggles and fights that they have chosen to focus on or advance. We also must embrace that we’re currently a white-led organization and many of our communities in Essex County are not. We must hold space for local leaders to help shape our understanding and must constantly try to expand our membership, and leadership, to match the rich diversity, backgrounds, and experiences of the county we represent. 

With the national and statewide lens and resources, we can help elevate existing issues or policies that communities have already been trying to advocate for. We can also help educate communities on the civic process and why civic engagement is so important. Many folks believe that by showing up on Election Day and dealing with the occasional jury duty notice they have checked the boxes for their civic engagement for the year. But that approach cedes so much power to corporate interests or politicians that don’t represent you or advocate for the policies that would benefit you and your family. So we need to hear from our members, and from their communities, what issues they’re focused on so we can work alongside them to figure out how we can help. 

We try to articulate how voting is the first step, the bare minimum.  We know it doesn’t work to guilt or shame people into voting. We need to ensure that candidates are engaging with communities and policies are being developed such that people want to vote, want to engage in the process. We must make sure that when someone decides to engage, they’re actually able to. Voter suppression is often seen as a problem that happens in other states, particularly in the South, where racist histories are buried in such shallow graves that a stiff breeze is all it takes to unearth them again. But even here in supposedly progressive NJ, intentional and systemic forms of voter suppression, such as the lack of same day registration, laws preventing the incarcerated from voting, inadequate numbers of voting machines and ballot drop boxes, and most prominently, the Primary Election County Line, disenfranchise thousands of voters every election cycle. New Jersey is the only state in the country where the County Line determines how your ballot is designed and its entire purpose is to drive less informed voters to vote for candidates hand picked by the party political machine, or in some cases the County Chair alone.

To be honest, someone setting foot in the polling location to vote is actually pretty far along in the process, even though we often take the prior steps for granted. Before someone can vote, they have to be registered. They have to know there’s an election happening. They must know their polling location, or have signed up to vote by mail. They have to know about the candidates, and like one of them enough to motivate them to show up. They need to have seen how casting their vote, that day, in that election is going to change their future.

Within Our Revolution Essex County we see this as our contribution to our county and our state. Using our resources to help communities learn more about civic processes, candidates, and policies that would benefit them. There are many ways to approach these goals, and more than enough work to keep current and future members busy. The door is always open, our organization is our members, and we want to grow our organization and leadership. We know there are great ideas and talented individuals out there in the community.  

At the most local level, we see two lanes. One lane is electoral, encouraging members to run for office, endorsing candidates that align with our values and policy goals, and providing field support to campaigns by recruiting members to canvas, phonebank, text, or otherwise volunteer. The second lane, and the one that I sometimes feel is underrated, is boots on the ground, bodies in the streets: advocating in the halls and offices of power, and protesting in the streets when that power refuses to listen. The electoral lane often feels more proper, more established. It’s the way you’re supposed to do things. But many of our communities in NJ and in Essex County specifically have gotten no relief from the electoral path. For example, the families of those harassed, abused, and even murdered by police in NJ have been continually let down by the elected, legislative path. Even after the 2020 uprising following George Floyd’s unconscionable murder, when Governor Murphy marched, promised reforms, and indicated he expected NJ to be a national leader, little action actually followed.

And so it’s on both these paths that we, in coalition with other groups, ask our members to show up. Because without our members, and without those groups we’re lucky enough to work in coalition with, we wouldn’t have the numbers or the grand ideas to motivate folks to get off the sidelines and engage in bettering their communities, our state, and our world. Some of the most rewarding work comes not from having a great new idea, but in supporting the initiatives of our partners. Because the critical thing is solidarity, not lock-step unity, we don’t always have to agree on everything. There’s space in our group for many different points of view and we are building a better organization because of it. And if you’re interested in helping your community or contributing to the political sphere as a progressive in NJ, there’s space for you in Our Revolution. What progressive policy can we help you advocate for?