- 3. Open Government: Governing bodies must be as open and transparent about their processes as possible. There can be no good faith conversation around governing without transparency, and a lack of transparency will kill the incentive for policy-based organizing.
- 4. Building a citizens base for every policy:The source of legitimacy for every use of government power is the public. That means that as many policies and programs as possible must have a popular base of committed citizens to create a sustainable political consensus for that policy or program, as well as to investigate and correct for error and corruption. There is an artificial divide by good government groups here, in that elections and lobbying are seen as necessarily walled off activities. ‘You do politics, I do policy’, or ‘Here’s my policy, now you sell it’ are relics. Base-building should be transparent, and becoming part of a organizing group should be accessible to all citizens.
- 5. Political patron: Every people-powered government initiative should have a political patron or set of patrons to fight inside the halls of power for the project. To make sure a project works, you need both a base of people who are organized and a political patron to push information back to that base on how to achieve policy objectives.
In other words, people-powered government works as follows. A governing body creates an open conversation with interested citizenry, interested citizenry organize into a coherent and universally accessible groups, and political insiders form an alliance with this group to ensure that it is satisfied with progress.
Sorry for the lengthy quote, but I think it’s awfully germane to Massachusetts. To the extent possible so far, hasn’t this been exactly what the Patrick transition has done?
- “Civic Engagement” is another word for People-Power;
- The working groups have indeed brought in many outside experts into the fold — even to the extent that certain elements of the legislature reportedly feel a little left out;
- The Working Group meetings have also seen the beginnings of building the base for a variety of issues, from Tech to Health Care.
- As far as getting patrons is concerned, we’re actually doing quite well: We’ve got a strong and vital progressive faction which outlasted Finneran and now Romney, and has grown is past few elections; and folks like Senator Jarrett Barrios and Rep. Jim Marzilli have even posted here under their own names. (I apologize if I’m leaving any other elected officials out!) We need to keep in touch with them — and ask them how we can help.
Now, we’ll know more about the extent of transparency and openness when Gov. Patrick takes office; we’ll see if he follows through on his considerable promise in this regard … and he’s already got a reputation to keep up.
So, we’re off to a good start. What else do you think the progs-n’-blogs can do? What’s missing? What are we doing well? (That last part’s an important one — appreciate your strengths, and play to them.)
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Of course that’s democracy. Lobbyists are people with power. They are a shinning example of power to the people!
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If you build it will they come?
“They are a shinning example”
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They’ve been kicking us in the shins for a long time now.
Jon, I’m not actually sure what you mean – guess your irony, is beyond me. Anyway, what does “corporate lobbyists” mean? Lobbyists that work for corporations? Anyone representing more people than their individual selves (the “citizen-lobbyist”)? Not all lobbyists represent The Evil Empire.
Most corporations have been formed by “regular” people, employ mostly “regular” people, are supported by “regular people”. Putting agreement or disagreement with their positions aside, IMHO all lobbyists are shinning examples of people powered civic engagement.
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They have filled the vacuum. I think the big question is if a real civic engagement platform or system or whatever it ends up being called is built, will the “regular” people participate.
…is hash things out in a quasi-public forum, with diparate points of view, experience, and a great deal of imagination. We are a diverse electronic focus group who can be relied to take apart any idea.
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On Cape Cod, we had a Land Bank, a sort of precursor to the CPA. Some towns appointed a three person panel to review purchases, some had outside experts do assessments. My town appointed a 35 member committee, from the wildest tree hugging liberal to the most reactionary major property developer. The theory was that ANY purchse that passed muster with THAT group was a great one. We in the blogosphere can function in a similar way towards policy initiatives.
for the most part activists talking to activists. This is the tip of the iceberg (albeit a very good start) for what civic engagement could be.
… and I’m interested in how to get beyond the activist bubble. I think the Patrick campaign seems to have done a pretty good job of that, but it’s hard to accurately attribute how much he owes his victory (and its size) to his own charisma, Bush/National GOP, weak GOP candidate, or his own grassroots movement.
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I will say that based on electoral results, the “progressive” movement in MA seems to be on a roll. Now it’s time to get the policy done.
I don’t know if you remember our conversation or read any of my blogs on the transition, but Matt Stoller’s words really got at the heart of what I was trying to talk about:
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Offtopic: Matt Stoller is definitely my fav blogger. Plus, he’s kinda cute =p
only kinda?
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