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PUBLIC MEMORANDUM

ADVANCING AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

Date: April 2019

To: Progressive Americans

From: Caroline Fredrickson

It is time we progressive Americans spelled out our own vision for restoring American democracy. While Lewis Powell wrote in his memo of 1971 to business executives about their responsibilities, my message in this memo is to all Americans about our responsibilities as citizens. Our democracy is in peril; we must act boldly to ensure democratic survival. All people in the United States must be concerned with protecting and preserving the American system of democracy. To do that we must recognize that to win and keep power, leaders on the left—activists, funders, and politicians—need to ensure large-scale and longterm investment in a progressive infrastructure to control and create the rulemaking process for our society, including think tanks to generate ideas, media to disseminate them, lawmakers to enact them, and judges to uphold them. This work of defending our democracy is rarely either exciting or glamorous, but it is essential.

Six ideas provide the foundation to protect and preserve American democracy for progressive values. They are:

1.  Embrace small-d democracy

2.  Invest financial resources in progressive outcomes

3.  Win elections through long-term constituency building and presence in statehouses

4.  Work for the greater good rather than personal gain

5.  Reform voting laws to energize democratic participation and win elections

6.  Elect and appoint good judges by acknowledging that the process is political—and engaging in the process

Collectively, these six actions can transform our current system, which increasingly gives power to the plutocrats, and return it to the engaged, vibrant American democracy where power is in the hands of the people.

EMBRACE SMALL-D DEMOCRACY

For our ideas to take hold and remain strong, we need to understand that long-term victories will require locking in democracy with a small d. That means embracing nonpartisan redistricting commissions and state constitutional changes to protect the right to vote, and it means building capacity to get good, progressive judges elected and/or confirmed—judges who can overturn terrible precedents like Citizens United and Shelby County and protect core victories like Obergefell and Roe. Democrats are not the same as progressives, and vice versa. Democrats’ interest is in personal preservation, sometimes at the expense of liberal values. That’s why we need to push Democrats to adopt nonpartisan redistricting plans and move constitutional amendments to protect the right to vote, because the Left can’t be beholden to politicians—who care more about incumbency than progressive policy—to draw representative districts or to anchor the right to vote in something stronger than what benefits them on any particular day. Moreover, we need and should want to support a system that is fair and democratic. What makes us progressive is our belief in democracy as a value; we won’t win by abandoning what sets us apart. Since the Left embraces the role of government, we need to show that government can and does work. If most Americans think there’s no difference between “all those politicians in DC,” the Right wins. They’re the ones who want to tear down government; we need to make it worth supporting.

INVEST FINANCIAL RESOURCES IN PROGRESSIVE OUTCOMES

Progressive change requires progressive capital investments. Despite the gains in the 2018 midterm elections, the Left must take stock of how and why it has been losing for so long. Some have recognized the asymmetry in funding strategies. In 2005, Rob Stein, founder of the progressive donor network Democracy Alliance, set out to organize funding for infrastructure analogous to Powell’s vision for the Right.¹ But, as current Democracy Alliance president Gara LaMarche admits, “liberal values aren’t command and control. It’s a steep climb to get donors to consider collective aims. The Right believes in long-term funding and general operating support while the Left requires groups to perform against metrics in project grants and cuts them off after a short time to fund something new.” At an event for philanthropists, LaMarche had a conversation with James Piereson, formerly of the conservative Olin Foundation. “Piereson said to me that he would read the newspaper to find out whether groups are performing.” LaMarche thinks that sums up the difference.²

Major funders, elected officials, and advocacy groups have the responsibility of sorting the wheat from the chaff. We need a major and undivided focus on elections (that means not just on the candidates but on the electoral system), on the courts, on core legislative priorities, and on an effective communications infrastructure. Large donors, including progressive foundations, need to take a page from the right-wing philanthropists and coordinate funding so that these priorities get substantial resources. They need to agree on a sustainable and long-term commitment to a smaller set of organizations that work in collaboration and not, as they do now, in competition for funders’ dollars. Fewer groups with more money will make a difference. Funders have a unique ability to make the advocacy community play nice. In researching the conservative attacks on unions, Columbia University political scientist Alexander Hertel-Fernandez acknowledged that liberal donors sometimes work together, but emphasized that the Right shows far more unity. Calling it a “multipronged, multitiered strategy,” Hertel-Fernandez found that, while conservatives funded differing projects on the state level, nationally “they’re all working with one another. You don’t see the same thing on the left.”³

It is time for those liberal billionaires who think their vanity projects are more important than the future of our democracy to get behind these efforts. On the left, individual ego often bests collective advantage. As a friend said to me, “The Right wants power, but the Left wants to be right.” But even if they go big on democracy, these wealthy liberals have more than enough in the bank to support their pet causes. And foundations, sitting on huge pots of money, have got to stop being afraid that certain projects are too “political.” The rights to vote and to participate in a democracy are indeed political rights. What could be more central to the mission of a progressive or even moderate foundation than that?

WIN ELECTIONS

In order to implement these changes to energize our democracy, we need to win elections. This requires broadening and deepening the right to vote for constituencies on the left—minorities, women, young people, urban voters. In blue states, we need an aggressive campaign to pass legislation to expand early voting and automatic voter registration; in red states, well-funded litigation will be necessary to attack each and every law that threatens the right to vote as well as a political strategy to target the legislators behind those bills. And that will require the Left not to shy away from bare-knuckled tactics. Those lawmakers have to feel some pain, whether that entails losing voter support or having to defend their actions in public from a vigorous attack. Several states already have stronger protections for the right to vote in their constitutions, which has allowed the Left to challenge some voter suppression efforts successfully—for example, the Pennsylvania voter ID law that was found unconstitutional in 2014.⁴ In other states, like Michigan, progressives are trying to emulate Pennsylvania by passing a constitutional amendment to protect the right to vote, including early voting, no-excuse absentee ballots, and straight-ticket voting.⁵ And we need to emulate Florida and restore the right to vote for the formerly incarcerated. Funders and leaders need to coalesce around a group of states where existing constitutional provisions can support a litigation strategy and those where a ballot initiative might be the first step.

Similarly, of immediate importance, progressive donors and activists need to fight for Democratic control of statehouses before the 2020 census, which precedes redistricting. Part of this effort will be constitutional challenges to the districts that were heavily gerrymandered in favor of the GOP after the 2010 census. These lawsuits are beginning to find some success, with some lawsuits focusing on state constitutional provisions, others on federal. This approach perfectly melds our strategic imperative with progressive values. According to Jessica Post, the executive director of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, new rules restricting partisan gerrymandering would put “10 to 12 more chambers in immediate play” in six or seven states. Democrats would then have a role in the map drawing post–2020 census. “We still have a shot on the current map, but if we have fair maps, we could see real progress,” Post said.⁶ But fair maps are only step one. Without powerful recruitment and support for Democratic candidates for state offices, Republicans will retain control. Washington, DC, and national politics hold the Left in thrall, but it is the towns and cities across the country that hold our hopes for future gains.

WORK FOR THE GREATER GOOD

The Left has to end temper tantrum politics. Paul Booth, a real hero of the Left who died early in 2018, left an important message. Recalling Ronald Reagan’s “eleventh commandment—Thou Shalt Not Speak Ill of Any Fellow Republican,” he added one for Democrats that goes further. What we need, Booth wrote, is another mandate: Thou Shalt Support the Primary Winner. We are not just a “Big Tent” but “a battalion in which each wing does its part.”⁷ Booth was interested in getting and holding power, which can’t be accomplished with narrow majorities. In order to really lock in gains, the Left needs numbers—that means sometimes living with candidates who may not be perfect. In fact, it means more than just holding one’s nose and voting but actually getting behind the candidate for the greater good. Witness Tom Perriello, the hero of progressives who lost the Virginia gubernatorial primary to current governor Ralph Northam: immediately after losing, he tweeted, “Congratulations to Ralph Northam. Let’s go win this thing—united.” And they did; Northam won with Perriello working hard on his side. Folks, that’s how we do it.

REFORM VOTING LAWS

And of course, we can fix all the election rules in the world, but if people don’t vote, we won’t win. So that’s where changes like voting by mail and same-day registration come in. We need to make it easy to vote. And donors and the Democratic Party need to invest in a ground game that reaches out to low-propensity voters—minorities and young people—over a period of time. It can’t just be the day before the election but needs to be a continuous engagement over time that gets them invested in the outcome. In an analysis of Obama voters who stayed home in 2016, a group of political scientists found that these voters have strong progressive values and “four out of every five … identify as Democrats, and 83 percent reported they would have voted for a Democrat down-ballot. A similar share of Obama-to-nonvoters said that they would have voted for Mrs. Clinton had they turned out to vote. In short, while reclaiming some Obama-to-Trump voters would be a big help to Democratic prospects, re-energizing 2012 Obama voters who stayed home is a more plausible path for the party going forward.”⁸ But that takes money and a strategy that can’t be cooked up right before the election.

GOOD JUDGES

It’s time to recognize that creating a good justice system—criminal justice reform and fair procedures for low-income people—means we need to get good judges. Black lives matter more when judges aren’t racist, and good judges can help the environment, choice, and workers’ rights. To get those kinds of judges, we need to admit that the nominations process is political. Not just when it entails elections for state judges but also when it involves presidential nominations in the federal system. It is politics and we need to embrace it. We need to recruit and then support good candidates using campaign tactics—paid advertising and social media as well as lobbying and donations. That means helping our “friends,” politicians who grasp the importance of judicial power, and “spanking” those Democrats and Republicans who get in the way through attack ads and a strategy to penalize them at the ballot box. The selection process must have an electoral component including 527 electoral organizations and PACs that will force Democratic politicians to make choosing judges a priority. So long as progressives consider it unseemly or bad form to wallow in this “muck,” those who need a justice system that is not biased toward powerful interests will continue to be denied their day in court. We need to continue to push for tools to limit the power of plutocrats’ money in winning elections—but the best way to achieve that end would be to have a Supreme Court that would overturn Citizens United.

POWER TO THE PEOPLE

It is a cliché but it rings true: progressive policymakers have missed the forest for the trees. But there is no better time than now to grapple with how to win power and develop the strategies and tactics for long-term success. We too must be ruthless in thinking through which procedures and rules will make it easier for us to win electoral, legal, and legislative victories. The difference is that systems that favor transparency and fair dealing and that are accessible to all ultimately lead to better outcomes and outcomes that are sustainable—a virtuous circle for progressives. None of this is easy. Lewis Powell himself did not see his plan come together all at once, but on the right, there was quick recognition that he had correctly analyzed the problem and proposed the only solution. To their credit, they kept their eyes on the prize—power—and have not turned away. We progressive Americans have the same opportunity to pursue with passion and determination a world that is more just, more democratic, and more equal for all people. These six areas for action, when pressed with persistence over a number of decades, can transform our democracy, returning power to people to act with care and compassion for all.