Top 3 Pieces of Legislation

Operation Hope Current Mission
50

My concerns were indeed mostly about us not necessarily having individual expertise, such as what I would think I would need in order for me to vote with confidence on a narrowing of our operations or focus. That said, @Galphar has since clarified for me that our voting and narrowing of legislative ideas doesn’t preclude continued development on ideas outside the narrowed scope. And I think I’ve gained a better understanding of how we’re narrowing with collaboration, rather than voting.

To summarize my understanding constructively, it seems our discussions for narrowing our legislative scope ideally should enable a shared understanding of which ideas could be focused on first and why, perhaps because how they are most passable, feasible, or something.

[Second half]:
For our consideration, rather than saying operation hope may collectively organize around a narrowed scope, perhaps we should clearly disentangle the parts of operation hope which broadly invites community members to work on legislative or otherwise political subject matters as they can, from other parts of operation hope which would benefit from the narrowed focus. This way, all the subjects continue development with our community working where they would best fit, while focused teams also prioritize from among those subjects for various stages of development and implementation.

(Perhaps that is actually already some of our intent. If we are to have both focused and general development, I would clearly distinguish the narrowing of ideas to not be for operation hope in general, as it had seemed to me, but instead some operational sub-set of our operation hope).

All the ideas would develop continuously, with both general and focused development operations. As ideas develop some would transition for more focused strategizing, implementation, etc. And some ideas may need teams to help identify and/or resolve roadblocks. Some groups could have various types of operations irrespective of specific subject developments, (ie: general groups for resources such as phone banking, video editing, researching, critical feedback, etc).

I would point out, should we follow this suggestion, we’d anticipate feedback between various aspects of operation hope. Because for example, the development of resources we can provide, the development of strategies available, the viability of legislative ideas, etc., is all interdependent.

So, in total summary, the first half of this comment is my understanding of what we are doing, and I’d appreciate any feedback on that. The second half of this comment is my thoughts on how we could maybe be doing things, and I’d greatly appreciate feedback on that.

2 Likes
51

OK, Since we told Alison we’d try to decide on what 3 we think we should and can do tonight; Let’s dig into it.

For me I’d say John Lewis Act and DACA are the ones I think we’d have the best shots at accomplishing. And maybe the Amnesty courts funding as a third.

What does everyone think of those? If you think 1 is good and the other 2 should be replaced or 2 are good and 1 replaced etc., then speak up. My goal is to let Alison know what we decided when I login tomorrow before TDR

If it’s easier we can discuss this over in the Discord Chat also: Discord

52

I think the simple but meaningful things are what we should focus on to some degree.

Way back when this all kicked off the OG three were:

The original idea was paid family leave I still like this one.

I think a national voter holiday.

Ranked choice voting are all my three.

I really picked these because of scope and my own perceived feasibility analysis. I think building on wins could help gather momentum and improve morale.

1 Like
53

To expand from my previous comment, and agree with you: I don’t think we can know how feasible any ideas are relative to each other until after each are fairly developed generally, as well as developed with more focus towards what strategies an idea could use, what resources we could provide that potential strategies could use, etc.

2 Likes
54

And, to at least be more in line with clearly suggesting my top three:

Student Debt Cancellation (or even more general debt cancellation, such as economic bill of rights).

John Lewis Voting Rights Act

anything/something anticorruption.

1 Like
55

Part A) Spotlight Bill is what I was referring to, stop dark money.
I had forgotten about the call for a national voting holiday, it would be a great benefit but would garner massive conservative opposition I think.
Getting people who are normally our opposition to join us in passing legislation would definitely be a game changer, and absolutely something to build on. It isn’t possible for us to know what all roadblocks we’ll face, but this is still just the first step on a long walk. We aren’t deciding an absolute path, just a direction. Top 3 to discuss and come to an agreement on.

2 Likes
56

It’s looking like right now DACA and the John Lewis act are 2 very good possibilities for what we go with. IF that is true then it leaves one more spot up for grabs. Both Paid Family Leave and Student Debt Cancelation seem like they are up there to be considered for the third.

57

I spent some time looking over the suggestions so far and the post by @over9000 seems to overlap the most suggestions made by others.

I think this might be the path forward for now. I think Medicare for all should be our 4th if there is one and it makes a bit of sense to position it that way due to entanglements to industry.

Does anyone object to this direction?

Oh I I think anti-corruption should include preservation and extension of voting rights perhaps.

58

I love to see it! :+1:

59

I read this one that @over9000 gave a shout out. The Spotlight Bill

1 Like
60

In order of importance for me and the 3 things that I think we can bring voters together. I have ordered them in what I think will get the most bi-partisan action in my state from most to least

  1. Paid Family Leave
  2. Campaign Finance reform (I wish us all luck on this one…our reps are going to fight to the death to keep from happening)
  3. Immigration Reform
61

It looks to me now that we’ve narrowed it down to these 3 in no particular order:

  1. Paid Family Leave
  2. Campaign Finance/Anti-Corruption laws
  3. Immigration reform

If I don’t hear any replies by the time TDR starts then I am going to tag Alison with this as our 3

62

@alison_hartson In no particular order:

  1. Paid Family Leave
  2. Campaign Finance/Anti-Corruption laws
  3. Immigration reform
1 Like
63

I would say honorable mentions to:

  1. Voting rights
  2. Medicare for all.

We could treat these issues as being in the hopper so to speak.

64

@here You did it! Thank you ALL for stepping up this weekend to make this discussion lively and productive. Now that we have our top three, it’s time to explain what the legislation is and why you think it should be the one we focus on.

I’m going to create a new thread so that we can have another focused discussion around this, Stay tuned…

2 Likes
65
66
67

Aaaaaand here’s the link to the next part of our discussion: Rationale for Top 3 Pieces of Legislation

See you over there @here!

1 Like
68

It sounds like you have the first part of your response correct!

As for the second half, if I’m understanding you correctly, you’re recommending that in addition to a campaign that Operation Hope focuses on, people are also invited to focus on other areas if they don’t want to organize around that mission, or in addition to. For example, people may want to collab with a sub-team that focuses on in-person actions, another on online activism, another on letter-writing campaigns. Do I have that right?

2 Likes
69

I think so. Though also, for example, the types of activism people can contribute to would inform what tactical resources are more or less available to operation hope, which in turn also informs what strategies we could or not implement, which in turn informs which ideas / legislation are in fact most feasible for us.

And not only in this direction, since I’m talking about a system of operations. For another example (of that reversed), say we have a legislative goal, and those with expertise collaborating on that specific legislative issue determine that a specific type of activism would greatly serve its strategic implementation; then the development of this legislation also informs the value of so broadening our potential activist operations, which expands our strategic options (potentially viable for other legislative ideas), and ultimately grows the overall scope of our potential in general.

In other words, without organizing to leverage this system feedback: we may not prioritize some specific legislation, which then may leave us uninformed on what tactics it could best use, which then may leave us underdeveloped on a specific form of activism, which then may leave some other completely random legislation options underdeveloped because we presumed we lacked capacity in said specific activism tactic said other random legislations may need, which then may leave us uninformed on which legislations would’ve been relatively most feasible for us, which then ultimately limits the scope of our potential in general.

So basically, not only what you just summarized, but also how such an organizational structure enables various operations to interconnect, and ultimately empower each other to increase our overall potential.

All this said, I do think just starting with a legislative goal, as we are, is probably a good way to hash out such potential organizational adjustments. Obviously, we would find in practice that my perspective on what we could do will be flawed or simply just not optimal in some ways.

…