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SW Action

Update on Building a Southwestern Regional Progressive Center

To:  Friends

From:  Linda Brown, Juan Camacho, Chad Campbell & Joel Foster,
               AZ Leadership Institute
          Mike Valder, Arizona Social Change Foundation
          Wade Buchanan & Adrian Miller, The Bell Policy Center (CO)
          Maeghan Collins & Linda Shoemaker, Brett Family Foundation (CO)
          Brandon Tani & Bill Vandenberg, Colorado Progressive Coalition
          Max Bartlett & Santiago Juarez, ReVisioning New Mexico

Date:  April 11, 2005

Six months ago a small group of leaders from Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico began exploring a regional center that would strengthen progressive politics and leadership across the Southwest. The concept is inspired by models of progressive centers elsewhere that bring resources to their regions, help leaders and organizations grow stronger, and frame and articulate region-wide issues and solutions. It is equally inspired by our belief that we in the Southwest can create a progressive movement of diverse component parts and strong links among us, able to work for what's best for all of our people, and able to articulate 'the Southwest' on our own terms to regional and national audiences. Moreover, we believe the Southwest is vital to prospects for change in our country as a whole, because of our growing populations, and the electoral significance of our states.

We defined our early vision and intentions in a document dated 10/15/04, Exploring a Southwestern Regional Progressive Center, which is attached to this report. Here we seek to report on the progress we have made since, and our plans for the coming few months.

1) Careful Outreach - We began with leaders of coalitions dedicated to finding common ground, joint campaigns and shared vision across a wide range of groups. These coalitions include unions, community organizations, advocacy groups across a host of issues and constituencies. We also began with several progressive funders, and a state-based multi-issue policy center. We've been slowly expanding the conversation in each state, taking care to insure that ownership is sincere, relationships are intentional, and leadership is shared and diverse. Our discussions now include union leaders, immigrant community organizers, funders, think tanks, public and elected officials, political consultants and more. We've held 7 regional conference calls, one meeting for about 30 leaders in Colorado, and innumerable one-on-one conversations. We will be holding more in-state meetings in all three states over the next two months, culminating in a meeting of delegates from each state at the end of May.

2) Core Principles - Our vision for the most effective progressive movement in the Southwest rests upon balance, leadership, representation and participation across a number of dimensions. These include race and class, culture, geography, and the various 'sectors' of progressive strategy including grassroots organizing, electoral strategies, unions, media, policy organizations, funders and so on.

In pursuit of this vision we have adopted a number of principles. One is parity in people of color leadership, meaning that in the organizing of the center and the ultimate governance, there will be rough parity in the numbers, power base and political clout or stature of white and people of color leaders, in particular Latino and Native American leaders. Second is accountability, the principle that the center will rest upon leaders and organizations who are clearly representative of and accountable to real and definable constituencies in the progressive movements in their states. These principles have given rise to an inclination towards some kind of 'affiliation' structure, in which key groups in each state will combine to form the core affiliates and leadership of the center. These groups would commit their leaders and resources, accept risk, exert leadership and accept responsibility. We are not committed to this structure, though we are firmly committed to the principles behind it.

3) Likely Program - The focus, priorities and program for the future center are among the most important topics we're discussing throughout the region, and will be decided once representative leadership is in place. Several common and compelling themes, however, suggest likely directions.

• Regional issues, framing and strategy - Immigration, water rights, public lands, tax restrictions, minimum wage - these and other issues dominate in our states and are shared between them. The center will give us a way to discuss and coordinate our work across states, learn from each other, and work collectively to define long-range solutions and reframe public debate. Moreover we will be better able to articulate our own analysis and priorities to the rest of the country if we think and work together.
• Electoral strategies and voter engagement - Some of the most dynamic electoral and demographic shifts in the country are taking place across the Southwest, and we are all racing to best understand them and take advantage of them. Many of us are retooling our organizations and alliances; we are struggling to balance short-term prospects with long-term goals; we are investing in a wide range of voter education, mobilization and leadership and candidate development activities. A regional center will give us a great learning laboratory, as well as concrete economies of scale, opportunities for collaboration, and greater ability to leverage and negotiate with other players both inside and outside the region.
• Organizational development and support - The infrastructure to support progressive organizing in the Southwest is thin, and the center could provide important services. These might include staff and leadership training, mentorship programs, travel and cross-training opportunities, and technical assistance and consulting, all fully rooted in the real experience of our region. The center could launch common projects, provide economies of scale, and leverage funding and other resources by serving as a 'bridge' between national and state groups, and by educating and motivating funders about the Southwest.
• Policy, media, message - Our region is blessed with progressive intellectual resources, but like elsewhere the practical and strategic relationships between think tanks and field organizing is weak. The center can help change that. Moreover with a regional overview, wide-ranging relationships, and access to resources, the center might help us address and re-frame particular issues in the media and political debate in our states. We may also be able to focus on common policies that can help all our states, and interrupt efforts to play one state against the other in what's commonly called a 'race to the bottom' on tax giveaways, budget cuts, environmental deregulation, wage rates and more.
• Convening, communication, cooperation - Many of us feel isolated, in multiple ways - focused inside our particular issue-area silo's, isolated from the many other people doing great work in our states, and with few opportunities to meet with peers from other Southwestern states. The center can change this by accepting responsibility to convene progressives, build ongoing networks and intentional relationships, and sustain communications among us. This may be through events, through travel, through regular communications. We may also build new organizational vehicles, such as a network of progressive elected officials from across the region.

4) Next Steps - We are now working towards our first face-to-face meeting of representative 'delegations' of leaders from each of our states. The meeting will take place in Phoenix May 20-22, and will bring together some two or three dozen leaders from grassroots groups, unions, policy organizations, funders and other sectors. We hope the meeting will establish general agreement on key issues and priority needs in the region, and shared commitment to launch a regional center. We should then emerge with workplans for building a more formal organizing committee, hiring organizers for this start-up phase, and fundraising.

* * * * * *

We are enthused about the potential benefits from building relationships, cooperation and infrastructure across the Southwestern states. We are deep into the process of testing the idea of a regional progressive center with leaders and colleagues in our states, and we hope by the end of May to have a formal organizing process underway. We believe in this way we can build a stronger progressive movement and more effective efforts in the Southwest, and that doing so will make a notable contribution to progressive efforts across the country. We encourage you to contact any of us below.