This is what a coalition looks like
Originally posted at ThinkGreenFund.org/blog
“I think that keeping it informal was pretty key.”
That was Jacob Bintliff, campaign coordinator for the Think Green Fund campaign which will help put student-backed green funds at up to 7 Texas colleges this spring. He had just spent his Saturday training student leaders from Houston, Denton, College Station, Austin, and San Antonio on key issues and tactics for creating green fees on their own campuses.
He and I were sitting down for a beer, both to counteract the huge intake of caffeine we’d suffered throughout the day, and to have a chance to reflect on where the campaign stood.
“Everyone seemed pretty engaged. They were taking notes, nodding along. At the end it seemed hectic, but people were getting stuff done – I saw one group put together a campaign video in like 10 minutes.”
He was right. These campaigns are on track.
The students at UNT decided they wanted to have a special election for the fee. We sat down together and went through campus election by-laws and policies and figured out that they’d need support from 2/3 of the Student Senate or a petition of about 1,800 students (5% of 36,000) to get it on the ballot. They’re going to do both.
The Aggie students may be the best organized we’ve seen so far, but they also have the toughest campaign rules to contend with. They have not begun campaigning because campus rules restrict campaign activities to one week before the election. Despite polls showing widespread support for sustainability funding among Aggie students, the green fund faces opposition from, ironically, the local chapter of Texas Young Conservatives (formerly Young Conservatives of Texas). It’s ironic because Rep. Fred Brown (R-College Station) was a co-sponsor to the bill that gives students the right to vote on green funds, and the bill was signed into law by Gov. Rick Perry – twice. Knowing that the measure is likely to pass due to popular support, the TYC have resorted to secretly attending environmental group meetings in the hopes of finding a rule violation in hopes of throwing the initiative out. It’s not likely to happen, though. The green fund supporters have been working with campus administrators for almost a year. They know the rules inside and out, and have been assured by the election commissioner that results would only be thrown out over substantive violations, not technicalities.
In addition to the students who made it to Austin for the weekend, groups from UT El Paso and UT Pan America met for planning sessions and called in to discuss progress and their ideas with us. All of this demonstrates why we’ve spent the last two years building a coalition of student organizers. We didn’t need a formal summit or to advertise our training. We called up student leaders from all over Texas, asked them what they needed, and developed a weekend-long program around those needs. Now we’re set to accomplish our most ambitious goal to date. That’s the power of working together.
