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This study group will examine the growing impact of environmental groups, issues and campaigns on politics and policy. It will place special emphasis on the politics of 2008, when environmental issues – especially global warming and energy policy (e.g., energy independence and sustainable energy) – are likely to play a bigger role than ever before in national elections. Participants will learn about the nuts and bolts of how environmental organizations plan and carry out successful campaigns and longer term strategies to build power. Participants will also consider the larger implications and future potential of these activities.

This study group will be valuable for persons who care about protecting the environment and also for those who care about successful campaigning in a world in which environmental issues and groups are becoming increasingly more important in elections. It will also build understanding of how to translate a wider range of issues into successful strategies for action.

Study group leader David Zwick has been a ground breaking expert in grassroots politics and organizing and a national environmental leader for more than three decades. He is the founder and former President of Clean Water Action, a million-member national organization whose political programs he continues to advise. He wrote Water Wasteland, a 1972 book that shaped the federal Clean Water Act, and spearheaded the coalition that pushed for its passage. He also coauthored the best-selling Who Runs Congress?

A primary focus for Zwick’s work has been helping people-based groups – including environmental, community, and labor organizations – become more effective campaigners. He is the Treasurer of America Votes, a coalition of national organizations that coordinates and provides support for its member groups’ work on election campaigns. He is also the founder of Citizens Campaigns, Inc.(CCI) whose mission is teaching and assisting citizens organizations to be effective in politics. He has been involved with grassroots campaign work in more than a hundred election contests each two year cycle since the early 1980s.

Preview of Study Group Sessions (Some dates, subjects, and/or guest speakers may change to take advantage of speakers’ schedules, developing current events, and students’ interest. )

February 12:Introduction and Overview

Zwick will summarize study group goals and preview the role of sessions. This session will include a quick history of how environmental groups’ electoral strategies and capacities developed since the early 1970s and an introduction to the main organizational players. It will provide an overview of how these groups operate in politics and campaigns and how these approaches and capacities compare to those of candidates, parties, and other groups. The session will discuss how electoral programs, issue-focused campaigns, and organizing to build groups’ capacity can be integrated and will identify questions to address later in the study group.

February 19 : National Politics and Issues of 2008

This session will identify key upcoming races for Congress with high stakes for the environmental movement and will discuss environmental groups’ priorities and plans for these races. It will spotlight the Presidential race – how candidates stack up on environmental issues, the role these issues could play in the contest, and strategies for improving the environmental performance of future occupants of the White House. The session will discuss the relevance and role of environmental issues and messages in 2008 (especially energy and climate change issues) and will look at group strategies – what has been, will be, and could be done.

Guest Speaker: Gene Karpinski, President, League of Conservation Voters, the national political arm of the environmental movement, which includes state leagues in many states.

February 26: State Level Strategies for Change

This session will examine how state-level campaigns – electoral and policy – play a key part in bringing about national change. It will look at several state examples with a focus on past progress and future plans for state level solutions to the climate crisis in New England, especially Massachusetts.

Guest Speakers: Rob Garrity, Massachusetts Climate Action Network and Cindy Luppi, Clean Water Action Alliance of Massachusetts, leading campaign strategists and coordinators in Massachusetts and New England.

March 4: Voter Registration, Education, and Participation – Non Partisan Approaches and Groups

Millions of voters will be registered, educated, and turned out in 2008 with nonpartisan approaches by nonprofit groups. The future potential is much greater. This session examines nonpartisan voter registration, education, and mobilization activities, their scope, and leading practitioners;how these approaches and the groups leading them relate (legally, strategically, etc.) to partisan strategies for expanding voter participation; and the future potential of these activities and groups for changing politics and policies.

Guest Speakers: Mark Ritchie, Secretary of State of Minnesota. Ritchie, elected in 2006, is a national leader among a new generation of reform-minded secretaries of state. He earlier formed and headed National Voice and its “November 2" Project, the network of nonprofit groups that registered and turned more than 5 million voters in 2004. Ritchie was founder and President of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, a national organization focusing on agriculture, trade, and environmental policies. Also invited as a guest is George Pillsbury of the Nonprofit Voter Engagement Network.

March 11: How Environmental Issues Play With Voters

This session will examine the changing picture of how the electorate, and different parts of the electorate, view environmental and related issues and how that relates to their voting behavior. It will identify the role of different research tools in helping to answer these questions.and what opinion research and actual campaign experience tell us about them. The session will look at how different issues, messages and messengers play with different groups of voters – different parts of the electorate; how media-related campaign efforts compare to direct voter contact in communicating with voters; and how understanding of voters’ perspectives can shape successful strategies.

Guest Speakers (invited): Stan Greenberg or Al Quinlan of Greenberg, Quinlan, Rosner Research, Mark Mellman of The Mellman Group, leading practitioners of opinion research and strategy development that informs campaigning by environmental organizations and candidates.

April 1: Learning from Experience

This session puts the spotlight on case studies – examples of successful campaign work by environmental groups in an important contest, to enable study group participants to examine how campaign concepts, strategies, and tools apply in practice. One example for group focus is the successful 2006 campaign to defeat U.S. Rep. Richard Pombo (R-CA) from California’s Central Valley – widely known as the most anti-environmental Member of Congress.

Guest Speakers: Cathy Duvall, National Political Director, Sierra Club, veteran of more than twenty years of organizing and campaigning, including work as Field Director for Richard Gephardt’s presidential bid, the Democratic National Campaign Committee and America Votes. Also invited is U.S. Rep. Jerry McNerny (D-CA), who replaced Pombo in Congress.

April 8: Building Broader Alliances

This session explores why and how, in recent years, environmental organizations have helped organize and play a leading role in broader election coalitions involving a wide range of groups. It will take a close look at America Votes, a coalition of environmental, community, labor, women’s, and other groups formed in 2003. The session will discuss players and practices, with special emphasis on the how-to of planning and managing campaigns, what results they can achieve, plans for 2008, and future potential and implications of broader alliances .

Guest Speakers (invited): Former U.S. Rep. Martin Frost (D-TX), President of America Votes; Greg Speed, Executive Director, America Votes; and/or Carl Pope, Executive Director of Sierra Club and Chair of America Votes. Also invited may be representatives of America Votes and partner organizations from New England states such as New Hampshire.

April 15: Moving Forward

David Zwick will lead a discussion that ties together what has been learned in the study group. The session will examine campaign planning for 2008 and beyond, which comes more alive when looking closely at what can be done in a small number of specific places. It will explore what we have observed about current strengths and limitations of environmental groups’ election campaign capacities and strategies and about their future potential for impact on politics and policies. It will identify needs and opportunities for environmental campaigning and ways that students and others can get involved – as volunteers, interns, and in short or longer term jobs.