A few months back, I wrote about moral hazard in the LGBT community around the National Equality March. The concept was whether march organizers, who up to that point (eight weeks out) had done a poor job of planning and the March looked like it would be a failure, who made the bed should be forced to sleep in it alone, or whether lots of LGBT community leaders and organizations would ride to the rescue to get them media attention, attendees, etc. It turned out to be the latter, as it became evident that many would rather not get embarrassed on a national stage. The moral hazard problem this created was that any big-name activist who unilaterally plans a major action that will get massive media attention can look at the March experience and witness that others will ride to the rescue to make sure the LGBT movement doesn't look stupid. Insulation from risk.
I'm starting to see this again in California as a movement to repeal Prop 8 is moving forward. The debate had been raging over the past year regarding whether to move forward in 2010 or 2012. Arguments in favor of 2010 include that civil rights should never wait, that there is a very palpable anger in the community to harness, that we could have won if the No On 8 campaign didn't suck so much. 2012 advocates argue that a presidential year is better for us in terms of turnout, that the polling hasn't shown any movement, that more persuasion needs to be done, that there isn't enough time or enthusiasm to raise the tens of millions necessary to win in California. And perhaps the biggest one is that if we lose in 2010, we're done for quite some time.
This past week, as Phillip with UniteTheFight reports, Love Honor Cherish, a Los-Angeles based advocacy group, announced a drive to obtain the one million signatures to qualify its already-submitted language for the 2010 ballot. There are a number of problems with their effort, though, and this is set up to be a very dangerous proposition.
LHC's signature drive is entirely volunteer-based, which they call "ground-breaking".
The Blueprint for Equality, LHC's strategy on a 2010 victory released in July, states that 5,500 volunteers will be needed over the course of 150 days to gather the one million signatures required to qualify for the ballot. 5,000 will each spend one day gathering 100 signatures per volunteer, another 500 "super-volunteers" will spend 10 days gathering the same amount each day.
I'm told by a number of colleagues on the ground that in a state like California, even with volunteers, it is next to impossible to qualify for the ballot without paid, full-time signature-gatherers. In Maine, Stand for Marriage Maine paid $280,000 to collect just 135,000 to qualify. We need one million, and we're doing this entirely with volunteers? And what about those that will be disqualified? This comes across as a back-of-the-envelope calculation, not a realistic effort in nature.
Fundraising. One of the biggest concerns is that this effort will not obtain the funding it needs. Over e-mail, I asked Andy Szekeres, who did the fundraising for No On 1, Rep. Polis' campaign, and the 2006 Colorado domestic partnership ballot referendum, along with 20 other congressional and state races, to comment on the issue. Andy is known to have a good pulse of the LGBT donor community.
In my professional opinion, there will be no way we will be able to raise the necessary 50 to 75 million dollars needed to win this time in California. LHC and its allies have almost no donor base, no major funders backing and a split donor base on if we should even run it in 2010. If LHC somehow gets marriage on the ballot in 2010, it will be an underfunded disaster that will be unable to win. After California, the donor community as a whole was a little in shock, the sense was if we cannot win in a place like California, where can we win? Many of the major donors invested upwards of a million dollars and more because it was seen as the holy grail of marriage fights. After we lost Prop 8, many major funders decided to totally pull back on giving to marriage ballot fights.
After 31 losses in a row, from a fundraising standpoint, people get tired of investing in losing campaigns. I have seen major donors who used to write 6 and 7 figure checks to these marriage fights now only write 4 and 5 figure checks. I do not blame them: we cannot go to major donors like an ATM with a losing campaign over and over without donors getting burned out and closing up the wallet. That was why I viewed Maine the place to win and get the major donors excited so we can raise the tens of millions we will need in larger state like California. I am extremely concerned that even in 2012 we are going to be able to raise what we need, but we have time to build a plan to bring to these donors based all of the lessons we have learned.
The impact of the loss in Maine. Here's Dan Henning, the executive director of LHC, on whether the loss in Maine impacts the ability to win in 2010:
"What happens in a state that is 3,000 miles away and is 1/30 of the size of California doesn't really affect what happens in California," he added.
I don't think that's entirely right. Voters in California do actually read the media. Their perception of this issue- like many issues- is affected by what happens around the country. But even more to the point, there are donors and activists who worry that "now is not the time" to go forward. As Phillip reports in his piece, there are even activists who are urging others to decline to sign the petition. I would think the number of activists doing that has, if anything, increased by the loss in Maine. As I've written before, there is even a lot of talk around "shifting strategy" to abandon marriage equality altogether in favor of comprehensive domestic partnerships. What happened in Maine affected attitudes and opinions across the entire movement, and that makes a difference.
Weird statements by LHC and affiliated staff that demonstrate this is not well thought-through:
"Prop 8 passed last year with just 52% of the vote," said Henning. "Now, a year later, a recent L.A. Times poll says that 51% favor marriage equality. In the next 12 months, we'll make that margin even bigger."
Um. A three-point swing to 51%, not to mention the margin of error, is justification for taking this back to the ballot?
Also, on LHC's drive to raise $10,000:
"We set a goal of $10,000 between now and December 1 for a variety of reasons," said Jane Wishon, who is part of [Restore Equality] 2010's IAG. "We need money to start the process, update our website and logo, and provide resources for signature gatherers all over the state so that can be out gathering signatures rather than worrying about raising the money needed."
"At the same time, we need to prove to the larger donors in the community that we're legitimate, we're for real and that we can do this," she added.
I am sure that the $10,000 is part of a larger goal, but raising $10,000 from the grassroots does not come across to me that you are a major player and can pull this off.
On the organizational side, this whole thing comes across as a repeat of the March- idealism over realism, with poor planning, no money, and blindly rushing ahead with the usual "if not now, when?" justification. I am also concerned that if this qualifies for the ballot, movement activists who oppose this will have to drop everything and work on it (like with the March), because if we lose in 2010, we cannot go back again and again and again and expect to have the resources- or even the votes- we need to win. This is very dangerous. I hope it does not come to that.
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