CDP, Dept of Peace Building and HR 808

[David Sonneborn]

I do not know which is the appropriate PDA source for this great news, so have included several such sources.

After 3 long years and some 9 meetings, CDP, at its E board meeting this past Sunday, approved both a Dept of Peace Building resolution and the specific

HR 808 bill.These were approvals whose time had finally come. The resolution was already approved for this meeting at the convention in April. The bill was "rescued" from yet another disregard by a  twelfth hour alert to Barbara Lee's office to have a message sent to the CDP Legislative Committee.

Perhaps there are some clues,here, as to how to get some other state parties to approve resolutions and the bill, itself. (In CA, resolutions cannot mention specific bills.) For one, the 15 co-sponsors of HR 808 reside in 11 different states, so requests from them to their state party might help a lot. I'll try to send the resolution as soon as it's posted at cadem.org.

[Karen Bernal]

Hi Dave and everyone,

I was part of the 11th out of the "12th" hour save - I didn't attend E-Board, but was kept abreast via texts, calls and emails.  Nancy Merritt from the Peace Alliance called me on the Thurs before that weekend and told me about the 'oppose' position that was recommended by the Leg Comm ahead of its meeting. I quickly called up Susie Shannon and the three of us spoke on the phone about a strategy going into the weekend. We both felt Nancy should call Lee's office and let them know they were about to be dissed in a big way (it's very unusual to actually recommend an 'oppose' position for a DEMOCRATIC bill) - and if that mattered to them.

Given that Lee's district is home to the REAL Fruitvale Station and the Trayvon Martin decision wasn't even a week old at that point, we said it would be very damaging to the image of the Dem Party if it got out in the press that even in the wake of such violence, that wasn't enough to serve as a motivation for them to change their minds about the need to approach violence prevention in a new way.

The issue of race and violence was key, as the rawness of our national pain over Trayvon and the buzz around Fruitvale was in terrible play. We absolutely knew how important it was to be outspoken in connecting these particular dots and framing our demand within a timely context everyone there could immediately and universally understand, to have it be powerful enough to override any stupid cleaving to ideological prejudices so that everyone could find themselves swept up in that perfect storm of "the fierce urgency of now". It worked. Light bulbs went off in the heads of those who wouldn't have given the bill serious thought at any other time and what seemed silly to them before, now sounded so right. In between fierce individual lobbying of Comm members, the last minute active recruitment and participation of the African American Caucus Chair and Lee's office gave the Progressives a traditional-base 'back'. Indeed, though the effort had started from a position of seeming improbability,  now, there would be no one to contest its inevitability.

My advice is to make sure to connect with those groups with whom Progressives have been less than successful: 'minority' caucuses and affinity groups who are concerned with how violence touches them particularly. The Democratic Party establishment understands how to use 'identity' politics; it's time we do, as well.

Dave, thank you for your help - I'm so happy we were successful!

Karen Bernal
Past Chair, Progressive Caucus, CDP

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Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2013 03:10:12 -0700
Subject: [PDA ECR] CDP, Dept of Peace Building and HR 808
From: drso...@gmail.com
To: pdatimc...@gmail.com; End...@pdamerica.org; econ-j...@pdamerica.org; campaign-to-end...@googlegroups.com; co...@pdamerica.org; and...@pdamerica.org; jeanne...@gmail.com; drbillh...@gmail.com

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[David Sonneborn]

I think I was fully aware of the contents of the Karen/Nancy/ Susie communications. Thanks. There were at least two other strings going on, from times through 9th/10th, as well as 11th/12th, hours. I tried to include people from all three strings, but that did not work out very smoothly. And while in the end the votes were obtained - YAY! - your impression that "no one..(contested)... its inevitability'' was probably overstated. No matter, that's behind us, now.

As you recognize it's going forward that needs sustained attention and effort.  First, I can say with certainty that there are  a lot of people who at least call themselves progressives who still don't "get it" concerning what Dept of Peace Building proposals are about. I still hear a lot of people vociferously proclaiming that legislation variously attempting to regulate gun violence is THE only way to go. Another, albeit less widely voiced notion is that the different proposals should be "farmed out" individually to different existing policy departments. And so on.

The main issue, now, is that same recurring problem with so many issues - how to sustain and build the awareness. Susie, I know, - she told me so - thinks that passing this in CA will have significant ripple effects elsewhere. But how?

Even within PDA, it's not obvious, at least to me, which IOT(s) would consider this as a priority item, and, of course, each IOT already has its own priority list. (That's why I posted to several PDA recipients. That's why I suggested the 11 state initial strategy.)

Of course, your advice about connecting with minority caucuses and affinity groups  - identity politics - is a critical key. However, that said, the means for doing so are not so obvious -especially with so much other "connecting the dots"

activities vying for attention. Please do not mistake my convictions. As I stated at the committee meeting: " To me, this was the most important bill before the committee."

Inside and outside, PDA, let's continue to move on this.

David S

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