Unite and Rise 8.5 campaign points to urgency felt by the League of Women Voters

One of the first actions undertaken when the League of Women Voters was created in the Fox Cities back in 1939 seems pretty pedestrian by today's hot-button political standards.

Back in those Great Depression days, the city of Appleton didn’t have a citywide trash service. So the newly established League of Women Voters went door to door asking people to contact the local government and urge them to provide trash pickup for its citizens.

The LWV has always been dedicated to such action as well as to advocacy and civic education. Above all else, though, the League of Women Voters’ most visible and voluble mission is the maintenance of a healthy democracy in America.

None of that has changed since the League launched in Appleton nearly 90 years ago. The League of Women Voters of Appleton-Fox Cities continues to push for issues within our community and is also the go-to for citizens seeking non-partisan election, voting and candidate information and it continues to facilitate and moderate candidate forums. 

On the advocacy side, in May the local LWV undertook an email campaign to the Common Council to promote the use of carryover funds for a coherent sustainability plan for the city.

What has changed, in the eyes of the League of Women Voters of the United States, is its sense of urgency about the state of our democracy. The national chapter of the League, which promotes issues but not candidates or political parties, took the unprecedented step in March of publicly alerting the American people to what it sees as Congress's inaction when it comes to its oversight role vis a vis the current administration.

The League, which adheres assiduously to its non-partisan roots, was taking a risk by calling attention to the ways it deemed our democracy was at risk. Those included, among a handful of specific items, an attempt to end birthright citizenship – something guaranteed by the 14th Amendment of the Constitution – a refusal by the administration to abide by court rulings and the wholesale firing of federal employees without cause through executive orders.

Democracy is not a partisan issue

The League of Women Voters of Appleton-Fox Cities and the LWV of Winnebago County went a step further, though. The two chapters were the only two among the 21 statewide chapters that decided to hold a press conference proclaiming the national league’s action. The national chapter sanctioned the local chapter’s decision but insisted that the messaging hew closely to its own.

The press conference at the Menasha Library on March 25 was well attended, the message was well honed and precise.

“That was a big bold step for our league to do that,” says Linda Bjella, the president of the Appleton chapter until May. “We’ve never done that. And I was thinking, who’s gonna come? Well, all three networks showed up and all these people showed up. It was just people hungry for some action.

“That was very affirming.”

At the event, a TV reporter asked a tough and pointed question regarding the League’s non-partisan history and the fact that a majority of the voters had, in fact, selected Trump. But the League's spokespeople were prepared for the question. Democracy, they said, is a non-partisan issue and the league had, first and foremost, always been about democracy. 

The press conference earned the League and its message eight full minutes of air time on that evening’s local news.

“We thought, we can’t just be doing business as usual, right,” says Jan Quinlan, who took over from Bjella as president and is serving her second term in the role. “And we thought, even if no one comes, you’ve done something bold. You’ve done something that was intended to catch people’s attention.

“And the national League definitely was encouraging us to catch people’s attention.”

Unite and Rise 8.5

Two months later, the League of Women Voters has decided that the urgency has not abated and, if anything, has grown. Earlier this month the national chapter launched Unite and Rise 8.5, another clarion call to action to the American people.

That number – 8.5 (million) – refers to the number of eligible American voters that make up 3.5 percent of the populace, which a Harvard study has suggested is the percentage of citizens needed to bring about meaningful change.

“The inaction of Congress threatens the rule of law and the constitutional balance of power,” Bjella wrote in a letter to the editor in mid-May. “Our liberties, our Constitution and our democracy are at imminent risk.”

Bjella maintains that, despite these two unprecedented actions undertaken by the League of Women Voters, it is the political parties that have changed, not the League itself. 

“This is a challenging moment for everybody this moment we’re in,” she insists. “I think it’s particularly challenging for the League because, above everything else, we’re non-partisan. And you know, our organization was founded by the suffragists who were mostly Republican. And when I first joined back in the 80s, there was definitely a mix of political affiliations on the board but we just never knew and never asked were they Democrat or Republican.

“But to be honest, the situation we’re in now is I think one in which one party is actively working against our democracy. So how do you stand up and be in favor of democracy and not be viewed as partisan. It’s really a very thin needle to thread.”

Among the actions that the League will be taking under the Unite and Rise 8.5 banner are things the organization has always done, including lawsuits, mobilization, coalition building, partnering with other non-political organizations, civic education, letter writing and rallies. Both Quinlan and Bjella say what differentiates Unite and Rise 8.5 from the League’s everyday mission is the guidance from the national chapter as well as the coherent and pointed call to action. It was more than a century ago, when the suffrage movement was underway, that the League of Women Voters last sound the alarm so urgently.

"I just think the League of Women Voters is uniquely qualified for this since it has been on the frontlines of advocacy for more than a century and knows more about advocacy than just about any other organization," Bjella says.

As the country grows more partisan and the dialogue ever more strident, the League of Women Voters is more conscientious than ever about its non-partisan bona fides. Though the April 5 Hands Off Rally was issues-oriented, the League did not get involved, although members of the organization attended as individual citizens.

“One thing I wanted to point out is, I was on a call last week with … the national organizing director for the League of Women Voters and he's kind of the person that's overseeing this whole 8.5 project,” Bjella says. “He told us, if it's a rally that's just out there to be anti-Trump, we will not participate in that in the name of the League.” 

The League, as a result, will not march in the No Kings Rally on June 14 because it will be specifically targeted at President Trump.

Taking heart from local governance

Quinlan and Bjella lament the divide in the country and recall when the chairs of the Outagamie Republican and Democratic Parties were members of the League. 

“In my opinion, I really believe it goes back to the eighties when the tax code was altered,” Bjella says, pointing to the drastic lowering of tax rates for the wealthy and corporations. “Because up until then there was a middle class and if you had a middle class job you could get ahead. You could build generational wealth and people can’t do that anymore because the tax code is so skewed.”

More and more Republican and conservative candidates decline the Appleton-Fox Cities League of Women Voters’ invitations to fill out candidate surveys or participate in candidate forums, despite the survey and forum questions being open-ended. Anyone who has witnessed a League-sponsored candidate forum can attest to its non-strident tone and issue-oriented content and its insistence on playing it straight down the middle.

Still, Quinlan insists there are a number of Republicans who continue to accept the League's invitations and participate in the forums and surveys.

“When I met with the one legislative aide last month he told me, ‘Oh, (the legislator) loves doing your town halls because you’re so fair and issues-oriented,’” Quinlan adds. “So the ones that are saying yes to us are the ones that are maybe standing up against partisanship.”

While both admit to feeling the same frustration and heartache so many Americans feel about the nature of the political discourse in the country and while they insist the League will continue to fight for the big issues like a healthy democracy, they both take solace and sustenance from their work closer to home and the fact that the Fox Cities continues to be an example of just what healthy democracy can look like. 

“We’re in a really good place with our local governments being able to accomplish things,” Quinlan says. “And the day after the (November) election we attended the budget hearing for the city of Appleton and we had this long laundry list of things that we supported and that the city is doing and that made me very proud.

“And we watch, similarly, the Outagamie County government and we see how our local governments are doing loads of good things for people who live in the community. And that is so heartening to me.”