Innovative California Progressives Help Return State to Sanity With Effective Organizing

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But in 2008, the Republican Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and a handful of Republican legislators who could block a two-thirds majority needed to pass a state budget, kept winning. Their victories took $25 billion out of public education and human services. Those cuts were made worse by inequities in the state’s arcane property tax system, where rates stayed at 1978 levels for longtime property owners (following the passage of Prop. 13), meaning the largest revenue source for schools was frozen.

The GOP-led cuts were really felt at the local level. Teachers were fired. Class sizes increased. School supplies went missing. After-school activities and arts were canceled. University tuition went up. Programs for the elderly, mentally ill and others were reeled in.

Progressive leaders knew something had to change. Different groups started studying different options. The CFT “decided that we had three long-term goals and we would be working toward these goals no matter what else happened,” Glass recalled. “That was to overturn the two-thirds rule in the California Legislature for passing a budget, to overturn the two-thirds rule for passing or increasing any tax, and conduct an education campaign among our members and the public about fair tax policy, progressive tax ideas, so that when we would achieve the proper balance of forces in the legislature, we would be able to turn to a constituency that would be able to pressure them properly.”   

At the same time, Thigpenn was thinking about how to engage the new voters who had first elected Obama. While the CFT was planning and then executing what became a 48-day, 350-mile march from Southern California to Sacramento to promote its reforms—a tactic akin to what Cesar Chavez did decades ago—Thigpenn was meeting with 31 local groups from 11 counties, mostly in cities along the coast, with the idea of building up these groups institutionally with technology and training, and launching a series of ongoing discussions about economic justice challenges and solutions.

“We did capacity-building—getting people technology and computers and databases and training on that,” he said. “Then we did a number of what we called civic engagement programs. This was a time when all of the organizations for four to six weeks would go out and do phoning and door-knocking around a common issue or theme.” Thigpenn said the grassroots groups would do this every few months.

“We first started by asking people about the budget crisis, what the causes were, particularly what they thought about Prop. 13,” he said. “So we started there. Then we started asking, what about this solution or that? What about taxing the rich? What about reforming commercial property taxes? What about taxing corporations or closing corporate loopholes? And so with time we built a base of new and occasional target voters who agreed with us on a progressive agenda: taking the top, reforming corporate loopholes, reforming Prop 13, etc.”

As the Arab Spring unfolded in the media, different groups started looking past their traditional areas and asking what they collectively could do to break the budget deadlock. They started to focus on overturning the two-thirds legislative rule to pass a budget, using the state’s ballot initiative process. And they started looking for a Democrat they could back in 2010, who turned out to be former Gov. Jerry Brown.

“One of the lessons in California is we are far from perfect, but we do coalition politics really well,” said LAANE’s Tynan. “I think part of it is there is a generation of leaders who include Anthony Thigpenn at California Calls... who knew each other, who went to People’s College of Law together… and who have a real commitment to multiracial organizing and multi-issue organizing.”