Political Poetry Slam - UNC Charlotte, NC

The Political Poetry Slam on October 17th was a huge success for Democracy Matters! A little over 100 people attended and we had about thirty artists share their political work. The capacity of the Ritazza Café is eighty and there was standing room only. The purpose of the event was to allow students who would not normally be interested in politics, advocacy, pro-democracy movements, etc. to express their opinions in an unorthodox way. The slam brought unlikely participants in the political process to the front stage of action. Many of the students spoke about Hurricane Katrina, the Bush administration, the war in Iraq, education, the 9/11 attacks, and many other issues they felt were important in today's society.

We began planning for the poetry slam a little over one month in advance. We worked with another student organization on campus called CHAIN Reaction. They encourage cultural diversity through various topics from religion to politics in hopes of promoting student unity on campus. We invited two spoken word teams to campus, held sign-ups throughout the week, and allowed general open mike for any students who wanted to come on stage. We funded the event (publicity, invited guests, equipment, etc) with funding from the Student Government Association.

One of the challenges that we faced was official student organization approval. We were approved in the same week that we went before student senate to request funding. However, before approval, the process was delayed by over three weeks because of system errors and delayed paper work processing by the university. We were also worried that the slam would not represent what it was intended for as far as political content. However, the artists exceeded expectations and really shared their perspective of our political system.

I believe the campaign was so successful because we had committed students working to advocate the necessity of active student participation in politics. We discovered that a lot of students are interested in the political changes that affect them; but, they are not given an outlet or ‘way to’ get involved. The slam was an opportunity to voice concern in a way that interest them—through the arts.

I feel as if the focus of the campaign was to inspire students to actively participate in our political system even if that act is simply exercising their first amendment right and expressing their current concerns about our system. Some ideas were extreme, bias, bitter, concerned, fed-up, and frustrated. These were the current feelings towards our politics expressed by students. As a result, a couple of the questions to be asked are: Why do we have these feelings? How can we participate in a way that will provoke change? It then becomes DM’s job to educate the student body on ways of promoting change and voicing concerns. Campaign finance reform is the first step to active reform in our current political system. The students thoroughly enjoyed the event. We received positive feedback, and were asked when we would be hosting the next Political Poetry Slam. Apparently, the students (more than originally thought) have much to say about the current state of our political system.

More than anything, the campaign inspired me to continue my advocacy without worry that students are not taking an active enough interest in the issues that affect them. Give them a channel, and they will speak.

Francswai Davis
Campus Coordinator
UNC Charlotte

Iraq for Sale Forum - LA Valley Community College, CA

On November 6th, we held a forum on the moneyed interests that are playing a major role in the War in Iraq. I was extremely pleased to see such a big turn out of students at our event. We had about 250 students come. It was a pleasant surprise to see so many students, because usually just as many community people come to our events as students, but this time the majority of people were students.

I think that our event was a huge success because our forum was about money in politics at its worse, when war profiteers create private mercenaries. This subject of private mercenaries is such a shocking reminder of why we need Clean Money Fair Elections because almost every minute someone is killed in the name of capital by our tax money being misused by private legislatures helping out their private corporate business partners.

In order to have people understand why it is so important that we create a real democracy for once and for all with Clean Money Fair Elections we thought that it was dire to bring military veterans to our school that were effected first hand by the malevolent war profiteers.

For our program we first showed the trailer of “Iraq for Sale”, by Robert Greenwald, which is a great depiction of the problem of private money in politics. We followed the trailer with Professor Pete Lopez who spoke about the history of war profiteering by the U.S.A and how it has gotten predominantly worse and how we are in the biggest debt we have ever been in history because of our military industrial complex.

Then we had ex U.S. Army Colonel, Ann Wright speak, who resigned from the military after 29 years of service to protest the war in Iraq. She is also an advocate of Clean Money Fair Elections and during her speech she said, “Democracy does matter, and that’s why we need more groups such as “Democracy Matters”. She also spoke about the problem of the “No bid” private contracts in places like Iraq and New Orleans, and after her speech she got a standing ovation.

We also had an Iraq Veteran named Edgar Cuevas speak at our event. He is a part of “Iraq Veterans Against the War”, as well as being a new member of “Democracy Matters” at LA Valley College. He hit home to the hearts and minds of people in the audience sharing his stories of first hand experience of interactions with private mercenaries like “Blackwater”. In his speech he stated, “It is important to have cleanly elected officials to represent us, so we can avoid getting into unjust wars based on lies”.

Then Andrea Barrera, (who is a DM member at LAVC), and I gave a presentation about the cost of the Iraq War and Clean Money Fair Elections. We had a panel discussion after that with a lot of good questions from the audience and we had a good amount of interest from students wanting to get involved with Democracy Matters.

It was a great experience and we were thanked by many people for putting on the event.

Anitra Wetzel
LA Valley College
Democracy Matters Chapter Leader

Ed Garvey and Jack Lohman Speak on Clean Elections - UWM, WI

On November 7th @ 6:00pm, Democracy Matters at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee held an event called "Ending the Gangsterization of Politics, Non-Partisan Style" w/ guest speakers Ed Garvey and Jack Lohman. The event was highly attended and co-sponsored by the American Democracy Project, WISPIRG, fightingbob.com, and wiscleanelections.org. Check out the video below to see clips from the event.



Dan Jackel
Campus Coordinator
University of Wisconsin Milwaukee

"Buy My Vote" Gameshow - IUPUI, IN

For National Week of Action, our IUPUI DM Chapter wanted to do something fun and interactive with the students. We reserved about a month in advance a table and a few chairs for Nov. 14^th and Nov. 15^th from 10:00 am-1:00 pm in a central location of campus where many students hang out. We then met as a small committee of about 5 to brainstorm ideas. We knew we wanted to capture the interests of students in a fun way that would get our message across, so one of our members came up with the idea of a game show.

We tossed ideas back and forth and decided to name the game show “Buy My Vote.” We wanted to do an auction format in which someone would play the emcee, two students play politicians, and another student play a corporation. In order to get IUPUI students involved, we planned to ask them to participate by giving them the Democracy Dollars so they could bid against the corporation for the politicians vote. At this point, we were still a little fuzzy on the plans, but we decided we would present this to all of our members at our next meeting a week before the events to hash out the details.

A week before the events, we had a regular meeting where we discussed a few more details for the game show, and we asked if anyone wanted to commit to certain roles. We planned what we could say, and I printed off an example of a script from a street theater put on by another DM campus that we could work off of and make it our own. At the meeting, we made props for the game show, such as two “for sale” price tags to hang around the politicians’ necks, a big check in the amount of $50 million for the corporation, and a poster displaying the title of the game show.

A day before the events began, I sent reminder emails to those who said they would help out and to all students to ask them to come out and support us. A couple people who had volunteered were unable to attend, so we knew we needed to keep things flexible in order for them to work.

On Nov. 14^th, we had about 8 members show up to help with the game show. We reorganized who was going to play what role, got out our props, and commenced to get IUPUI students to play. We started out a little slow and tried working out the kinks so that students would bid against the corporation for the politicians, but students were a little confused by the process. We modified and simplified our original game plan so that students would have to choose just one politician rather than bid for one against the corporation.

The new game show began with us asking students to play a quick game that would only take 2 minutes of their time. The emcee would then ask about an issue they cared about and asked the student to vote for one politician after a short debate about that issue. Once the student announced who he/she would vote for, the corporation sneaks in and presents the $50 million check to the candidate and states they will give the politician their money only if they do the exact opposite they just promised the student they would do.

The students who participated got the message, and thought the skit was pretty funny. We told them about DM and asked them to sign the FENA petition to support legislation that would stop this problem. We had around 40 students in total play the game show, which drew in quite a large crowd. Our members really got into their roles, which I think helped keep up the excitement and draw others to watch.

On Nov. 15^th, we were a few students shy of putting on the whole production of the game show, so we decided to actively ask students to sign the FENA petition. Overall both days were pretty successful, with the game show probably attracting the most attention. This event was also a good way for our members to get involved and to feel empowered by getting other students to care about clean elections. This event was a lot of fun, and I think we did some great work, too!

Caridad Ax
Campus Coordinator
Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)

Group Presentation w/ NY Citizen Action - SUNY Binghamton, NY

I first began planning an event for the National Week of Action about a month in advance. I set my sights high, planning for two events—one on the main campus and one at the Downtown Campus of Binghamton University. I wanted each to be about an hour or two long with various activities and raffles. I also wanted to involve the community in some way. I didn’t realize at the time, but I set a very unrealistic goal for myself.

As the National Week of Action drew closer, I met with Citizen Action to organize these events. I figured with their help I could easily pull off two events. Upon meeting with them, we talked it over and decided on pooling all our resources for one event at the Downtown Center. The Downtown Center has been built very recently and generated substantial community interest. It would be the perfect place to gather both students and community members for a Clean Money event. I made the decision that night to have a smaller event on campus for the main purpose of spreading the word about the event at the Downtown Campus. This would be more reasonable a goal considering I really had no idea how to plan even one event.

So, with the help of Citizen Action and my group members, we designed an event that would be a sort of information session/press conference regarding Clean Money. I went to the Downtown Center shortly after this meeting (about two weeks before the Week of Action), and reserved the room for the event. After that, I had people from Citizen Action and my group meet at the room to go over some plans for organizing this event. We decided to set up booths representing stations with different materials that would serve to educate both students and community members.

After this initial step, I moved on to organizing the food, fliers, and materials for the tables. I coordinated with Citizen Action to split up some of the planning tasks. I would be in charge of spreading the word to students and getting them to attend and Citizen Action would work on creating interest within the community, the media and with local politicians.

To publicize the event on campus, I felt it important to pass out fliers and put an ad in the school newspaper. The ad ran on the Tuesday two days before the event, and the day before the event my group and I passed out over 250 fliers around campus. It was hard not to get discouraged by the mass apathy of the student body. However, it was encouraging to think that if even five out of the hundreds of people we talked to came to this event it was a success. I set my goal low. I decided I would be happy with 20 people total at my event. The room was sort of small and could look decently filled up with 20 people. I also envisioned people continuously coming and going.

On Wednesday, the day before the event, I went to take care of the food preparations. Food would be my biggest draw with the students, and I knew it had to be done right. With funding from Democracy Matters and Citizen Action, I was able to get subs and pizza. Citizen Action enlisted the help of a local politician, Barbara Abbott King, and had local news channels agree to cover the event.

On the day of the event, I arrived at the Downtown Campus two hours early to make sure everything went smoothly. I was concerned that students would not come from the main campus, which is kind of far from the Downtown Campus. It was also raining, and I thought that might keep some people away. My fears were never realized. The event went great. I’m not too sure how many students actually came from the main campus all the way to the Downtown Campus, but I did see a few students come in holding the fliers I passed out the day before. It also worked out perfectly because we planned on starting the event just as classes let out at the Downtown Campus and many people got out of class hungry and eager to have some free food.

The media covered the event, interviewed me and covered our press release.

http://www.wicz.com/fox40/video.asp?video=11%2D15%2D07+clean%2Ewmv

Barbara Abbott King really helped out with speaking on the issue of Clean Money and how it shaped her experiences running for office. Most of the food was eaten and everyone seemed to have a great time talking about Clean Money. I spoke to a few students about Clean Money as well and saw tons of people taking handouts, signing petitions, signing letters to politicians, and supporting our cause.

Dave Ugelow

Campus Coordinator

SUNY Binghamton

Political Science Debate - Western Carolina Univserity, NC

1. Why did I want to organize this event?

I feel like it is important for students to hear about the issues from other students. The event was also a great follow up after the DM Faculty Panel Discussion last week. The debate also allowed students to address questions to the panel which generated good discussion of the issues.

2. What steps did I take to organizing it?

First I created a list of questions, approximately 25 questions total, to address campaign finance reform, the presidential election in 2008, and water conservation issues affecting North Carolina. Then I contacted the three parties on campus, the College Democrats, College Greens, and College Republicans to set a date and distribute the questions. The third item on my to-do-list was to send out promotions for the event through campus email, Facebook, university radio station, university TV station, and political science Listserve for majors. Before the event, I had to create an agenda for the welcome, announcements, and format of debate to keep the event structured. On the night of the event, I found two DM volunteers to keep track of time and hold the microphone to receive questions from the students.

3. What were some of the challenges I faced?

For me, I gave each group the opportunity to choose 5 of the questions from the list I had created and email me the questions they would like to start open with a 2 minute statement and the other groups would be given a 30 second rebuttal. The College Greens did not have 5 questions to give to me at the debate.

4. What accounted for the success of the campaign?

Of course with any campaign prior proper planning prevents poor performance but I must say the political science professors are very supportive of Democracy Matters activities on campus and they encourage their students to attend.

5. What lessons did I learn in organizing this campaign?

For student coordinators it is important that they are listed as the primary contact, because faculty and students sometimes have questions that they would like addressed before the event and people from the community may want to attend your event. It is very important to centralize the information from one source.

Coley Phillips
Campus Coordinator
Western Carolina University

Guest Speakers - Southern Methodist University, TX

Rebuilding Democracy in America: Bipartisan Support for Campaign Finance Reform

Democracy Matters SMU

The event “Rebuilding Democracy in America: Bipartisan Support for Campaign Finance Reform” took place on Wednesday, November 7, 2007 at Southern Methodist University in the Hughes-Trigg Student Center. Arizona State Representative Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat, and North Carolina Court of Appeals Judge Donna Stroud, a Republican, both spoke about the Clean Elections systems in their states and entertained questions after their presentation.

In total, we had 75 attendees. The audience was very diverse – we had a lot of SMU students, a few non-SMU students, and quite a few non-students. There were three classes that offered extra credit for attendance (a politics class, a sociology class, and an English class), and we also worked very hard to promote the event via class announcements, announcements at other club meetings, flyers, stake signs, and basically a lot of constant networking. SMU cosponsors included the Political Science Symposium, Students for a Better Society, Association of Black Students, the Women’s Center, the University Honors Program, and the Department for Leadership and Community Involvement.

Most of the non-SMU attendees came as a result of the participation of our local Dallas Clean Elections Texas coordinator, Liz Wally. Furthermore, the League of Women Voters Dallas cosponsored the event and I believe a few attendees learned about the event from the League’s email promotion. Despite not being to raise the funds last minute, LWV Dallas brought six small cameras and filmed the event. This is awesome as it is, but it also looked great – very professional. DVDs should be available soon to distribute and share.

As for the presentation content, Representative Kyrsten Sinema began and simply told her story and described the system in Arizona, as an introduction to the concept of Clean Elections. Then, Judge Donna Stroud spoke about the system in North Carolina and even presented some comparisons of Texas and North Carolina’s judicial systems. This was especially pertinent to those of us in the audience who are involved with Clean Elections Texas, which is seriously considering pushing Clean Elections at the state judicial level. While New Mexico has passed Clean Elections at the judicial level, only North Carolina has had time to use the system. Therefore, North Carolina is an important role model for any state looking to take action at the judicial level. The two presentations complemented each other nicely, and we had some great questions at the end.

Ultimately, I wished I could have allowed each speaker about twenty more minutes to really expand on their material, share some anecdotes, make it more relevant and real to some of the students, but that simply would have made the event too long. Despite this, I felt that the speakers were received well. Having a speaker from each party was vital to the success of the event, due to the political atmosphere at SMU. Politics can become very polarized here, and I was pleased that Representative Sinema and Judge Stroud displayed such an excellent example of cooperation and respect across party.

Cody Meador
Campus Coordinator
Southern Methodist University