Assessing the first days of the Obama administration from the perspective of community organizing.

By Deepak Bhargava

Although our country faces enormous crises in many dimensions, for those of us who care about social justice, this is a very good time to be alive. The dismal cocoon in which our national policy debate has been encased for decades appears to be breaking open, with new possibilities, energy and hope everywhere you turn.

It is typical to start the clock on new Administrations with the inauguration, and assess their performance 100 days later. But these are no ordinary times and the pace of activity in Washington, D.C. has been breakneck since the election. It is timely to ask a few questions: how do we make sense of the 97 days since the historic 2008 election? How should we interpret the debate about the economic recovery package winding its way through Congress and the early action by Congress on a variety of issues? What are the implications for organizers and advocates?

These brief reflections are based on the experiences we at the Center for Community Change and the Campaign for Community Change have had engaging the new Administration, advocating with Congress, and developing and advancing policy in concert with national and grassroots allies on the set of issues we work on.

I’d draw five important lessons from this very early period:

1. We are seeing more substantive progress on issues of poverty and social justice in days and weeks than we have in years and decades—and the action has really just begun. Most of the early signs from the Obama camp and the U.S. House of Representatives on issues of poverty and social justice have been overwhelmingly positive.

2. The structural obstacles to dramatic, transformative policy change are more profound than most recognize—and the main threat to realizing the promise of this moment has been and will continue to be the U.S. Senate, where there are few genuine champions, many weak knees, and lots of determined, ideological opponents.

3. Events are rapidly outpacing the dominant ideological frameworks in Washington, and even the imagination of advocates. We must think bigger and be bolder—and insist that equity be a core component of a new economic paradigm. Otherwise, there is a danger that an unimaginative, palliative liberalism will prevail—one that does better by vulnerable people, but still fails to address many of the underlying structural causes of inequality and the economic crisis.

4. Immigration remains a flashpoint in the national debate—on issues that have nothing to do with immigration, from tax policy to infrastructure spending to access to health care for children in poor families. The importance of getting immigration reform done—not just for its intrinsic value, but because of its significance to the larger social justice agenda—is becoming more and more clear.

5. Relentless, thoughtful and sophisticated organizing and advocacy—in Washington and from the grassroots—matters more than it ever has. A historic window for transformative change has opened up, and it is abundantly possible that the window will slam down on our fingers if we’re not nimble enough to jump through. Some organizers and advocates have been doing better work than ever in history, with fewer resources at their disposal. Yet it’s also true that this historic moment calls on all of us to substantially raise our game—and fast.

I. Dramatic Policy Change for Poor People

This week, the Senate passed a bill to renew and expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), which provides coverage for children whose families earn too much to be eligible for Medicaid, but not enough to afford private health insurance. The bill will maintain coverage for 6.7 million children and provide health insurance to another 4.1 million children who had not previously been covered.

The most striking new element of this legislation is a policy that eliminates a five-year coverage delay for documented immigrant children and pregnant women who are eligible for Medicaid and SCHIP. Requiring immigrant children to wait five years for health care has caused untold suffering, and fighting against that ban has been a signature issue for the Center for Community Change, our partners in the Northwest Federation of Community Organizations, the Health Rights Organizing Project and many other national and local allies, with special credit to the National Council of La Raza and the National Immigration Law Center. The fact that SCHIP passed with immigrant coverage intact— despite strong opposition in the Senate—is a thrilling victory for low-income families. And it could be the first of many.

The recovery legislation moving through Congress would do more to address poverty in the United States than any legislation in 40 years. The poverty dimension of the recovery package is not well understood by the public or even by most members of Congress, and it has been poorly covered by the media. The provisions of the House-passed package would literally put thousands of dollars into the pockets of the poorest families in America (through new and expanded refundable tax credits, food stamps and otherbenefits expansions), and make structural and permanent changes in the country’s broken safety net that will particularly benefit low-wage workers of color and women workers. The expansions of the refundable child tax credit, the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Unemployment Insurance system are deep and profound changes that will make a substantial difference in poor people’s lives. The House bill’s refundable tax credit provisions alone would keep 2.5 million people (including 1.1 million kids) out of poverty.

Much of the credit for these provisions goes to the Obama team, which without much fanfare took 80% of the list of recommendations by anti-poverty advocates under the principle that putting money in the hands of poor people is the most effective form of stimulus. Some of the Obama proposals were actually improved and made more generous to poor families by the House, with particular credit to Speaker Pelosi, Rep. DeLauro, and Rep. Rangel.

The Senate has predictably dialed back the provisions in a number of these areas, and we are in the middle of a brutal floor debate with a high-stakes conference with the House to follow shortly. Nonetheless, the scale and scope of what is under consideration regarding poverty is—after the last decades of indifference and hostility in Washington—breathtaking and hopeful.

II. The U.S. Senate: Threat or Menace?

During one discussion among Senate Finance Committee members about the President’s proposed recovery package, a number of Senators (both Democrats and Republicans) complained that it is too generous to poor people and not generous enough to “middle class” families. (I shudder when I contemplate what “middle class” means to a U.S. Senator.)

While the Obama team proposed bringing down eligibility for the refundable child tax credit to $3,000 and the House went further pushing eligibility down to zero, the U.S. Senate is considering legislation that would exclude altogether families earning less than $6,000 per year. While the Obama team proposed and the House strongly agreed with inserting provisions in SCHIP legislation that would include immigrant children, this issue became a major struggle in the Senate. And, of course, the recovery legislation moved in the wrong direction when it hit the Senate floor - with more wasteful tax cuts and less fiscal relief and aid to poor families - to secure the support of Senate moderates.

The point is that wherever you look, whatever issue you consider, the U.S. Senate will be a significant roadblock to achieving transformative change. Unlike the House, there are few U.S. Senators who are genuine champions, hardly any who are people of color, and only 17 women, of whom only a few prioritize the most vulnerable communities. In the Senate it requires super-majorities to get most things done, and states with weak organizing infrastructures have disproportionately large clout.

It is likely that a good recovery package—although not as strong as the House or the President proposed—will survive the Senate, but it will be a close thing and conference deliberations will be critical. And this debate is an omen signaling the importance of advocacy in the Senate on a wide variety of issues coming over the course of the year.

III. The Need for Equity as Part of a New Economic Paradigm

For all the good things about the recovery package, advocates have so far failed to win inclusion of provisions to target jobs created to low-income people, people of color and women. The Obama team declined to include targeting provisions in the package, while the House legislation—despite significant agitation from women and people of color in that body—also falls short in this regard.

This issue is important because of the level of suffering we are seeing and will continue to see in the most vulnerable communities. A new analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, for example, forecasts unemployment for African Americans reaching nearly 20%, a truly horrific level that will have cataclysmic social impacts on families and communities.

It is also important because the absence of equity is a major cause of the economic crisis itself. For 30 years, conservative economists have preached the gospel that there is a tradeoff between growth and equity—and most liberal policymakers have tended to agree, while preferring a little more equity. This crisis has taught us that extremes in inequality are dangerous for the economy as a whole. Predatory lending, for example, was ignored by policymakers who thought it affected only a politically weak constituency, but we all discovered as it spread beyond its original target that what happens to the most vulnerable will eventually affect everyone.

If we fail to deal with structural inequalities in the labor market as part of the recovery package—the underrepresentation of women and people of color in many well paying, infrastructure-related jobs—we will perpetuate inequality, which this crisis has taught us is not only bad in itself but bad for the economy and the country.

Liberal social policy has tended to take for granted what happens in the “real economy” and relegated concerns about equity to the kids’ table: after-the-fact transfers and programs to make up for the vast inequality generated by the market. Certainly, more transfers and social programs are a big part of what is needed now (if only to provide effective forms of stimulus), but they are not enough. We need structural changes to correct the way the economy itself functions to create vast inequality—for the benefit of marginalized groups to be sure, but also for everyone.

This question of how to create an economy that works for all will play out in many coming debates, from financial regulation legislation to implementation of TARP to the restructuring of the health care system to the Employee Free Choice Act. It is critical that we articulate a new economic vision that doesn’t just remediate the worst excesses of our current, broken system, but offers an inclusive and bold alternative.

IV. Immigration as the Central Wedge Issue

Even after an election that saw record turnout in immigrant communities and soulsearching in some parts of the Republican Party about the consequences of immigrant bashing, it is amazing to see anti-immigrant rhetoric and policy used as the key strategy to undermine support for broad, progressive policy change. Attacks on provisions in children’s health insurance legislation that would cover immigrant kids, amendments being offered to the recovery package to mandate the use of E-Verify systems for any recipient of federal recovery dollars, provisions to disqualify immigrant households from receiving refundable tax credits and other benefits—all of this points to the extent to which we need immigration reform, not just for the benefit of immigrants but because the larger social justice agenda depends on it.

Immigration will be one of the critical tests for the Obama Administration: will we see an end to the raids that have devastated families and a push for comprehensive legislation this year? Early signs are positive, but inconclusive. Given the “canary in the coal mine” quality of the immigrant community in America today, an embrace of this constituency by the larger progressive community will be a key moral benchmark.

V. The Need for Organizing and Advocacy

I took a class from the scientist Stephen Jay Gould in college, very little of which I remember. I do recall that Gould argued for a theory of evolution in which change did not happen gradually and slowly over many years (the theory of phyletic gradualism!), but in short, dramatic bursts that he called “punctuated equilibrium.” We are experiencing the policy and political analog of that concept today, but there is absolutely nothing inevitable about a breakthrough from the slime-mold age of politics we’ve been living through. All the forces of inertia, special interest lobbying and business-as-usual stand in our way.

Smart, sophisticated Washington advocacy is critical to move quickly and seize opportunities, but equally if not more important is the creation of local and state capacity to advocate effectively for transformative change—and to shape the implementation of federal policy when it makes its way to the states.

The Center for Community Change, the Campaign for Community Change and our grassroots partners have been preparing for this moment for two years. Together, we have built a multi-issue national coalition, the Campaign for Community Values, which brings together more than 200 diverse grassroots organizations from all over the country. The Campaign has:

• In partnership with the Gamaliel Foundation, organized the Realizing the Promise Forum in December, the first public event with key Congressional and Administration representatives following the election.
• Met with transition and Administration officials on everything from the recovery package to health care to immigration reform.
• Developed policy proposals, in partnership with allies, to target job creation in the recovery package to women, people of color and low-income people.
• Promoted a variety of progressives for positions in the White House and in important agencies, with good success so far!
• Advocated with members of Congress for generous refundable tax credit provisions of the recovery package, and for the inclusion of immigrant children as part of the SCHIP legislation. We supported a remarkable event led by the National Korean American Service and Education Consortium and the Northwest Federation of Community Organizations that brought 22 kids from around the country to display art they had created to dramatize the need for children’s health insurance. Almost 400 students from 24 states submitted artwork. Senate Majority Leader Reid and Sen. Rockefeller invited some of the artists to speak at a press conference held to launch the SCHIP debate. “I wanted to enter the exhibit so that I could make a difference,” said 10-year-old Muhammad Ibrahim of North Carolina. “I believe that we should all be able to go to a doctor. I can go because of my parents. But some kids can't and that's not fair.”
• Started to bring delegations of 10 community leaders to Washington, D.C. each and every week of the first 100 days to advocate with members of Congress. This week, community leaders from Hawaii to Maine met with more than 30 members of Congress.
• Continued to work in coalition as part of larger campaigns to win universal health care, comprehensive immigration reform and the Employee Free Choice Act.

For all the important work that we and others are doing, it has become clear that advocacy and organizing must change to rise to the challenge posed by these new times. We’ll need to ensure that the diverse voices of those most affected by injustice are heard at coalition tables and in policy development. We will need to build stronger capacity in the states so that we have the power, ideas and leadership to shape national policy debates and successfully implement federal victories back home. We’ll need to be more strategic in our advocacy strategies, so that we are tapping into the immense energy flowing in the country and using new, more creative techniques to shape the public debate. And we’ll need to pivot dramatically from the politics of opposing to proposing big, visionary ideas and working constructively with policymakers to get them achieved.

This is a time of profound challenges and opportunities for low-income people. Thank you for all the ways you've contributed to the making of this historic moment - and for all that we will do together to realize the promise.

Deepak Bhargava is executive director of the Center for Community Change.