There are many reasons to love the Drum Major Institute*, but one of the best is their truly awesome DMI Scholars Program. Every year, DMI takes a number of college sophomores and juniors and puts them through a two week public policy bootcamp in NYC.
The DMI Scholars program addresses one of the most critical challenges facing the progressive movement today: the lack of a pipeline dedicated to supporting and guiding talented young people into the field of public policy. DMI Scholars identifies progressive college students from diverse communities and trains them in the skills necessary to obtain and succeed in entry-level public policy positions .
Our mission is to increase and diversify the pool of strong candidates that enters key professions in the field, better equipping the movement for social change to affect reforms on a policy level.
And the cost? Nothing. Those chosen are provided with transportation, housing and meals for the duration of the program. Oh, and they learn a whole lot.
The deadline to apply for this year's class is Feb 1st. If you are someone you know wants to learn more about public policy and social change in two weeks than you ever thought possible, this is absolutely the program for you.
*(Full disclosure: I am a member of DMI's Netroots Advisory Council.)
Turns out that New York's members of Congress aren't all at the top of the class, but most are getting a passing grade, says the Drum Major Institutes's congressional scorecard website, TheMiddleClass.org. The site rates members of Congress based on their votes on legislation that has a significant impact on the current and aspiring middle class.
So how did New York's senators and representatives rate? Senator Chuck Schumer received a B and Hillary Clinton earned an A+. Schumer, it turns out, missed a vote on immigration legislation and voted wrong on a trade deal with Peru that would have moved American jobs overseas and brought down the wages of American workers. Clinton voted "with the middle class" on all of the bills. As DMI says of its grading,
"TheMiddleClass.org 2007 Congressional Scorecard takes a closer look at the decisions made by Congress, from the one-year freeze to prevent the Alternative Minimum Tax from hitting middle-class families to the filibuster that originally torpedoed a minimum wage increase (later passed) and the trade bill that put the interests of multinational corporations and large investors before the concerns of middle-class Americans. After examining 13 bills in detail, the 2007 Congressional Scorecard assigns a grade to each Member of Congress based on his or her support for the middle class."
New York's representatives were more of a mixed bag, weighing in with 9 A+s, 11 As, 3 Bs, 4 Cs, 1 D and 1 F. Check out the grades of the individual members here.
DMI held a press conference/reception for legislators who received As on the scorecard, and several of New York's representatives were in attendance. Check out this video of Rep. John Hall, where he speaks about issues of importance to his constituents and the importance of "tilting the balance of power back towards regular folks." "There is a middle class squeeze going on, and many people who thought they were in the middle class are being squeezed down," he said.
The American people want change. Every Presidential candidate, Democrat and Republican, has made this a mantra. But the State of the Union Address reveals no alteration from President George W. Bush. This year the President labored to keep breathing life into the same worn out ideology that has repeatedly failed America's current and aspiring middle class.
The President continues to proclaim the foundation of our economy sound when so many current and aspiring middle-class Americans are losing their spot in the American Dream. He prioritizes ideology over proven methods of stimulating the economy and providing health care. He uses the language of consumer choice to dress up what really amounts to unbridled corporate power and profiteering. He continues to assert that the market will right itself, if only people understand it more and restrict it less, despite all of the evidence to the contrary.
Despite the praise-worthy components of President Bush's address tonight - his signing of the Energy Independence and Security Act, his cooperation with Congress to pass a stimulus reform that would include millions of low-income Americans he initially intended to exclude, his newfound interest in supporting military families - his approach reflected a commitment to ideology, as opposed to willingness to see how that ideology has actually impacted current and aspiring middle-class Americans.
After years of insisting that the economy was doing great as middle-class families were squeezed by stagnant wages and a rising cost of living, it takes weak corporate profits to make the President recognize that times are tough.
Go read the whole thing. There's lots of good stuff there.
Today's Albany Times Union included an oped by DMI's executive director, Andrea Batista Schlesinger and Joel Barkin, the executive director of Progressive States Network.
The oped makes strong policy AND political arguments for this course of action.
With President Bush's anemic proposal to assist homeowners meeting with lukewarm responses, the table is set for Spitzer to send a bold message that New York is capable of leading the nation in addressing one of the most pressing issues of our time. There is already a growing movement within the state Senate's Democratic Conference to propose a six-month foreclosures moratorium. By ensuring the passage of such legislation, Spitzer could regain lost allies and start to build the kind of broad-based coalition necessary to move legislation on other pressing issues affecting working families such as affordable healthcare.
Since we know that Spitzer is reading up on biographies, we're sure he knows about what Franklin Delano Roosevelt did in similar circumstances to protect the interests of ordinary citizens in the face of economic meltdown and corporate greed.
FROM: Elana Levin
The Drum Major Institute for Public Policy
DATE: December 4, 2007
RE: Immigration and the blogosphere
The problem:
America's current immigration policy is clearly unacceptable to the general public, immigrant rights activists, immigration opponents and organized labor. Even corporations are dissatisfied with the status quo, even if for their own profit-driven reasons. There is a consensus that reform is needed but there is no consensus on what that reform should look like. At the same time, the status quo of maximum noise with minimum action is a political strategy for a certain segment of the organized right wing. The netroots can play a critical role on this issue by facilitating a conversation that will lead to increased political will for a progressive immigration policy that will benefit America's squeezed middle class and all those struggling to become middle class.
Many progressive and centrist politicians and political influencers have, until recently, chosen to either remain silent on the need for comprehensive immigration reform or confine their speech to statements supporting an increase in border control only. Local elections across the nation have shown that anti-immigrant demagogy does not win elections despite the public's concerns about the issue. Yet political leaders continue to advise progressives running for office to regard immigration policy as a "third rail" that should not be touched.
The current state of the debate on immigration policy is entirely unproductive and the relative silence of progressive movement voices has, and will continue, to contribute greatly to the lack of vision and unity on this issue. Treating immigration as a cause to support or attack for the sake of political expediency will not lead to an immigration policy that will strengthen and expand the middle class.
In the interest of full disclosure, I am on DMI's Netroots Advisory Council and I did a some (very minor) consulting on this project.
The good folks at the Drum Major Institute have outdone themselves. For years, DMI has produced its "Middle Class Scorecard", grading every member of Congress on their votes on bills affecting the middle class. Today they have launched themiddleclass.org, which takes their efforts to a whole new level. From the DMI Blog:
Dream with me for a minute. Imagine that we-the-people could easily find out how our members of Congress voted on the bills that are most important to us. Imagine that there was a place that explained clearly and simply how those votes really impact America's current and aspiring middle class.
And, while we're dreaming, imagine that Congress knew that Americans of all walks of life could keep an eye on them, comparing their rhetoric in favor of strengthening and expanding the middle class with their votes.
With TheMiddleClass.org, you can check throughout the year for our signature DMI analysis of key legislation as members vote on it. You can track the scores of each member in the lead-up to the release of their final 2007 specific grade. And, you can easily build a custom widget for your own website, where you can share the information that matters most to you.
For example,
Want to learn more about the SCHIP bill?Click here.
Want to know how Montana's state delegation voted on it?Click here.
Want to know how Senator Max Baucus voted on this bill, and others?Click here.
I've often said that nobody, but nobody does more with less than DMI. Today they prove me right once again.
The Drum Major Institute hosted an event yesterday on preventing wrongful convictions and exonerating the innocent. Dallas DA Craig Watkins, Barry Scheck from the Innocence Project, New York State Senator Eric Schneiderman, and Westchester DA Janet DiFiore discussed reforms for reducing the incarcerations of innocent people in Dallas and how these policies could work in New York and what it would take to get them implemented here. Our liveblog and some video clips are posted below.
New York Assemblyman Joe Lentol was among the audience members. He asked the panel a question but included this horrifying anecdote that reveals the attitudes that keep common sense criminal justice reform from passing.
(From our friends at the Drum Major Institute. I'll have more on this later. Short version is that I think the Governor's plan is solid policy. I really do. However, I think the ineptitude with which it was introduced has likely killed it. In this piece Andrea describes a "conversation" about an important issue. I'm all for that, but the Governor ceded the progressive half of that immediately by saying, well, by saying nothing. My take on this is very close to Bouldin's. Regardless, I am awfully tired of watching a blowdried blowhard like Dobbs spout Bruno's "spoiled, rich kid brat" schtick. - promoted by phillip anderson)
post by Drum Major Institute's Andrea Batista Schlesinger Lou Dobbs is at it again. His target this time? Governor Eliot Spitzer and his plan to provide drivers licenses to New Yorkers regardless of their citizenship.
In developing your own opinion on the Governor's proposal consider this: If, like Lou Dobbs, you believe political pandering that exploits fear should be used to stall a much-needed conversation about immigration policy, you should join his knee-jerk opposition to Governor Spitzer's plan. But if you want a common-sense approach that follows the lead of eight other states and would make New York's people and streets safer, go with the Governor.
New York: The State That Never Sleeps (except when it comes to wrongful convictions)
New York State has often been at the forefront of social justice and progressive reform. But when it comes to preventing wrongful convictions, New York inexplicably and inexcusably has dragged its feet, standing by idly while other states have taken great strides in embracing systemic reform.
Of the 208 people who have been exonerated by post-conviction DNA testing, 23 were in New York, the third most of any state in the country. Yet the 260 years that those 23 innocent people spent in prison has not been tragic enough to move our policymakers into action.
The Innocence Project issued a report last week titled "Lessons Not Learned", calling upon the Empire State to advance both justice and safety by enacting reforms to remedy problems in the criminal justice system. According to the report, since 2000, 17 wrongfully convicted people in New York have been exonerated with DNA evidence; seven of the 17 were wrongfully convicted of murder. In 13 of the 23 wrongful convictions, eyewitness misidentification was a contributing factor; in 10 of the cases, innocent people falsely confessed or admitted to crimes that DNA later proved they did not commit; in 10 cases, a role was played by unreliable forensic science; and four cases involved informants or snitches.
"A study by the Center for Responsible Lending documented that African Americans and Latinos get high-priced mortgages far more frequently than whites -- even when they are equally qualified for prime loans... For proof of this, all one has to do is go to South Queens, where blacks have higher incomes than their white Queens counterparts, but pay more for credit and are losing their homes through foreclosure at epidemic rates..."
"Sub-prime lending often works as self-fulfilling prophecy. The most efficient way to ruin a person's credit, and thus make him or her truly eligible for a sub-prime loan, is to make a loan unaffordable, or indiscriminately jack up the price of the loan after a few years, to a person who has a good credit history, but whose income is unlikely to rise along with the payments. For those of us involved in anti-predatory lending organizing and advocacy, we talk to people everyday who never missed a loan payment in their lives until they received a sub-prime mortgage."
Clearly there's a lot more to this issue -- one that we often explore on the DMIBlog. That's why I'd like to invite you all to come to our October 11th Marketplace of Ideas Event (yeah that's Thursday!) featuring MN Attorney General Lori Swanson. She will speak on Minnesota's predatory mortgage lending law which requires lenders to verify borrowers' ability to repay their loan and bans refinancing loans without benefit to the borrower among other anti-predatory measures.
Join us at the DOWNTOWN CONFERENCE CENTER AT PACE UNIVERSITY
157 William Street (at Ann Street, 1 block north of Fulton Street) New York, NY 10038
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2007 8:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.
"A study by the Center for Responsible Lending documented that African Americans and Latinos get high-priced mortgages far more frequently than whites -- even when they are equally qualified for prime loans... For proof of this, all one has to do is go to South Queens, where blacks have higher incomes than their white Queens counterparts, but pay more for credit and are losing their homes through foreclosure at epidemic rates..."
"Sub-prime lending often works as self-fulfilling prophecy. The most efficient way to ruin a person's credit, and thus make him or her truly eligible for a sub-prime loan, is to make a loan unaffordable, or indiscriminately jack up the price of the loan after a few years, to a person who has a good credit history, but whose income is unlikely to rise along with the payments. For those of us involved in anti-predatory lending organizing and advocacy, we talk to people everyday who never missed a loan payment in their lives until they received a sub-prime mortgage."
Clearly there's a lot more to this issue -- one that we often explore on the DMIBlog. That's why I'd like to invite you all to come to our October 11th Marketplace of Ideas Event (yeah that's Thursday!) featuring MN Attorney General Lori Swanson. She will speak on Minnesota's predatory mortgage lending law which requires lenders to verify borrowers' ability to repay their loan and bans refinancing loans without benefit to the borrower among other anti-predatory measures.
Join us at the DOWNTOWN CONFERENCE CENTER AT PACE UNIVERSITY
157 William Street (at Ann Street, 1 block north of Fulton Street) New York, NY 10038
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2007 8:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.
We live in the strongest nation in world history, where ten generations of seekers and strugglers from other lands have enjoyed a success they probably would have been denied in the place they or their forebears came from. We are however still far from being all that we could be for ourselves and for the rest of the world if only we managed our resources and opportunities more wisely.
We need to start a new era of opportunity in America particularly for the middle class and poorer population, going back to the kind of enlightened ideas that spurred our progress in the past by uniting us instead of stalling progress by a return to our first century elitism. The failure to do so has been particularly apparent in the first years of this 21st century. Only seven years ago it appeared that we had the wherewithal to correct major problems and to move boldly up the ladder to a richer, stronger and more inclusive union. When George W. Bush was elected in 2000 we had just completed eight years of economic growth, the four best years in market history, the creation of 22,000,000 new jobs, a balanced budget, a potential $5.4 trillion surplus, an ascendant middle class and a shrinking poor population. All of that progress has been reversed. Job creation is weaker, we have record setting deficits, a growing poor population and a middle class that is sliding backwards…although we do have more millionaires and billionaires than ever.
Given that opening, how could you not go read the rest?
In the radio interview Linda Gibbs, NYC Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services notes how difficult living in poverty is for families and suggests the money is helpful to poor parents and their children. She says, "It can be really tough to do the right thing when you're living in a poor household in a poor community and every day a choice of one right thing compromises another right thing. And the family members that I talk to, I think, actually felt more respected and acknowledged for the difficulty of their situation rather than insulted."
Gibbs point hits home to low-income and poor women and families and yet her words seem at odds with policy.
Here at Hunter College it is back to school for everyone. Parents who are raising young children and going to school at the same time started the crushing schedule of getting their children to school and themselves to class and work prepared and on time. Most of the women I work with are receiving welfare and going to college. They talk about getting up at 5 am to get themselves dressed before waking their children and supervising their dressing, breakfast and trip to school. It is extraordinary effort that allows them to accomplish their tasks and without any cash to spare. The welfare cash benefit for a family of 3 is $291 a month. All transportation, clothes and school supplies come from that cash allotment. It is shamefully inadequate.
Today, Roxanna Henry Welfare Rights Initiative's (WRI) Legal Advocacy Organizer is testifying at a public hearing on the adequacy of the public assistance grant in New York State conducted by the Assembly Committee on Social Services.
WRI and other organizations of the Empire State Economic Security Campaign are calling for the state to raise the welfare grant. Mayor Bloomberg's private funds can be helpful to a small group of families but policy changes on the state and city level can have a whopping positive affect on all poor families.
What Bloomberg is doing is charity that has the ability to help empower by making choices easier but lasting empowerment comes from policies that aid people receiving welfare to get family sustaining jobs. However, just increasing the grants alone is not adequate and the Bloomberg administration needs to stop harassing people in welfare out of going to class. Mayor Bloomberg's current welfare policy insists that people need to take dead-end workfare jobs instead of getting training and education. Preventing access to the skills that get good jobs is disempowering and bad policy.
Charity vs. Empowerment is a false choice. We need and have both and government needs to pick up its end.
NYC would do well to get out in front of the welfare grant increase and speak to the Governor and get it done.
In addition, Gibbs' acknowledgment about poor families with children being strained to accomplish everything they need to accomplish speaks right to the heart of government lagging in policy. As Deputy Mayor, Gibbs can work to direct HRA to adhere to the federal welfare guidelines which require 20 hours of workfare for families with children under the age of six whereas in NYC families with young children must perform 35 . 20 is the federal law and in NYC it should be our law.
The poverty discussion and projects coming from Mayor Bloomberg's office are encouraging and we look forward to his team hitting the solution mark closer and closer to the problem.
Here's some video of Andrea Batista Schlesinger of the Drum Major Institute speaking this morning at the Take Back America conference in DC. It's a little shaky at first as I was being jostled a bit by the crowd, but it's a great speech.
(So true. Then again, I like sweet corn... - promoted by lipris)
As the New York State legislature wraps-up their 2007 session some interesting bills have come to light, like the bill to make sweet corn the official state vegetable and a bill that will help ticket scalpers. Clearly this is the kind of legislation that keeps New York State residents up at night asking existential questions like "what role does sweet corn play in my life?" or "how far from a stadium can I buy re-sold Yankees tickets?". Well I guess if you are involved in the racing industry that scalpers' bill is a big deal but what about the rest of us? What's in the state's legislative hopper?
Last week DMI Fellow Maureen Lane wrote about a sensible welfare policy bill that has the potential to help move people out of poverty. So far it hasn't been introduced by the State Senate. DMI Fellow Mark Winston Griffith blogged about model anti-predatory lending legislation that New Yorkers for Responsible Lending is working to call attention to. The city is now waiting to see if the legislature will approve Mayor Bloomberg's PlaNYC 2030 including its congestion pricing proposals. The Working Families Party has been doing amazing work around the Working Families Time to Care Act which is their legislative priority this year. And as always, The Albany Project has been doing an incredible job keeping track of the legislative goings-ons.
Yet at the end of the day while the legislature is wrestling with the question of who gets to make a whole bunch of money selling tickets there really are serious problems that need to be addressed by the state government. Some of the issues New York is struggling to handle -- subsidy reform, what to do with criminals when they are released from prison, providing universal access to preschool and the skyrocketing cost of prescription drugs -- are real challenges but they aren't insurmountable. In fact four localities around the country did tackle these battles with great success. Want to know more?
Now I know it's a cliche that the state legislature "doesn't do anything" and that's not even my point here. Simply that as they go about the business of the state not all issues are equally urgent and a lot of other parts in the country have implemented policies that New York can learn a lot from. Is that too much to ask? But in the meantime, "Gentlemen, behold! Corn!"
Here is some more video I shot for DMI at their conference on NYC's endangered middle class. In this segment you'll see statements from Rep Anthony Weiner (NY-9), Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion and City Council member John Liu.
Here's some video highlights I made of Mario Cuomo's keynote address to the Drum Major Institute's conference on NYC's Middle Class yesterday. I'll have more on the conference and more video of other participants including Rep Anthony Weiner, Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion, NYC Comptroller William Thompson, NYC Finance Director Martha Stark (a total rockstar, btw) and more later today.
I'm at Drum Major Institute's conference The American Dream in the Big Apple
Is New York City still a middle-class town? at Baruch College this morning. Former Governor Mario Cuomo gave the keynote address this morning and it was a barnburner. I'll have video up later today. There have a been some great panels so far and it's fun to look at each one ask, "How many folks on this panel aren't running for mayor?"
The American people want change. Every Presidential candidate, Democrat and Republican, has made this a mantra. But the State of the Union Address reveals no alteration from President George W. Bush. This year the President labored to keep breathing life into the same worn out ideology that has repeatedly failed America's current and aspiring middle class.
Well I guess if you are involved in the racing industry that scalpers' bill is a big deal but what about the rest of us? What's in the state's legislative hopper?
