We’ve been revolutionizing grassroots politics for a decade and a half: NPI is fifteen today!

Today is the fif­teen year anniver­sary of the found­ing of the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute, which pub­lish­es this blog, the Cas­ca­dia Advocate.

At the time I start­ed the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute, I had been work­ing in oppo­si­tion to Tim Eyman’s ini­tia­tive fac­to­ry for about a year and a half. Dur­ing those eigh­teen months, I made two impor­tant discoveries:

1. It’s not enough to be against bad poli­cies and bad actors like Tim Eyman and Don­ald Trump, nor is it sat­is­fy­ing to be on defense all of the time. Peo­ple want to know what you are for — how you’d gov­ern if giv­en the chance.
2. A mas­sive infra­struc­ture gap exist­ed (and arguably still exists) between the right wing and the pro­gres­sive movement.

These dis­cov­er­ies were very unsettling.

Towards the end of this eigh­teen month peri­od, George W. Bush ordered Amer­i­can troops to invade Iraq under false pre­tens­es — an action that Con­gress could have and should have opposed, but end­ed up going along with.

The inva­sion of Iraq helped gal­va­nize what the late Mol­ly Ivins called “the great lib­er­al back­lash of 2003”, which saw the found­ing of sev­er­al new nation­al pro­gres­sive orga­ni­za­tions and the strength­en­ing of many exist­ing ones.

Draw­ing inspi­ra­tion from what I saw hap­pen­ing at the fed­er­al lev­el, I decid­ed to do my part to build pro­gres­sive infra­struc­ture here in the Pacif­ic North­west, fig­ur­ing that our long term suc­cess absolute­ly depend­ed on it.

As Gand­hi said, you must be the change you want to see in the world. 

Those wise words still ring true today. I could­n’t find a cen­ter for pro­gres­sive thought work­ing to equip activists with the intel­li­gence need­ed to advance pro­gres­sive caus­es, so I start­ed build­ing one.

And a decade and a half lat­er, NPI remains under construction.

At the time it was found­ed, NPI had no mon­ey, no mail­ing list, no board, and no resources. All it had that first day was a web presence.

It would be a whole ‘nother year and a half before NPI was legal­ly estab­lished as a non­prof­it cor­po­ra­tion. Talk about a hum­ble beginning!

Today, NPI is a valu­able cen­ter of pro­gres­sive thought for the Pacif­ic North­west, serv­ing activists, can­di­dates, elect­ed lead­ers, jour­nal­ists, and the public.

We con­duct research to gauge sup­port for pro­gres­sive ideas using sur­veys of our own design, pro­vide essen­tial intel­li­gence to elect­ed lead­ers and bal­lot mea­sure coali­tions work­ing to advance pro­gres­sive caus­es, and active­ly lob­by for rev­enue reform and neglect­ed caus­es that hard­ly any­body else is work­ing on — like fund­ing for geo­log­ic haz­ards research, which was one of our 2018 leg­isla­tive priorities.

We devel­op and main­tain nifty tools like our State­house Bill Track­er and Pacif­ic NW Por­tal to help activists make sense of the leg­isla­tive and elec­toral landscapes.

And, of course, through our Per­ma­nent Defense project, we con­tin­ue to give Tim Eyman the vig­or­ous, year-round oppo­si­tion that he deserves.

Last month, on July 12th, the val­ue of our many capa­bil­i­ties was on full dis­play when we held a press con­fer­ence in Seat­tle with Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son and five state leg­is­la­tors (Man­ka Dhin­gra, Jamie Ped­er­sen, Roger Good­man, Lau­rie Jink­ins, and our own Gael Tar­leton) to announce our find­ing that 69% of Wash­ing­to­ni­ans sur­veyed pre­fer life in prison alter­na­tives to the death penal­ty.

Bit by bit, NPI has been turn­ing into the refram­ing hub and cen­ter for strate­gic pro­gres­sive thought and long term think­ing that I con­clud­ed our region need­ed all the way back in 2003. That would not have hap­pened with­out the com­mit­ment of a great many peo­ple. As they say, it takes a village.

Nobody makes it on their own… there are no self-made indi­vid­u­als in this coun­try or any­where else, for this mat­ter. We know this to be true because we are pro­gres­sives. Empa­thy and mutu­al respon­si­bil­i­ty are our core val­ues. We all get by with help from our friends… and our fam­i­lies… and our community.

The com­mu­ni­ty of peo­ple who have come togeth­er to build NPI is tru­ly incred­i­ble. To those Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate read­ers who have donat­ed to sup­port NPI’s work, thank you. I also want to rec­og­nize our cur­rent board and staff — Gael, Robert, Rick, Essie, Mario, Gar­rett, Diane, Kei­tha, Ren­nie, Greg, David, There­sa, Tam­mi, Ali­son, Caitlin, Brad, and Sungea — for their essen­tial and invalu­able con­tri­bu­tions, as well as our mem­bers, who donate annu­al­ly or month­ly to sup­port NPI.

Every­one who is a dues-pay­ing mem­ber (includ­ing our awe­some Com­mon­wealth Bond­hold­ers) has played a spe­cial and instru­men­tal role in NPI’s development.

If you are not a mem­ber, I invite you to take the next step and become one today. It’s easy: just fol­low this link and select a giv­ing lev­el, then com­plete the one-page form. You can choose to donate annu­al­ly or month­ly as a Bond­hold­er. Even five dol­lars a month real­ly helps.

At NPI, we are experts at stretch­ing a dol­lar, so each mem­ber­ship rep­re­sents great val­ue to us. Every time a new mem­ber signs up is a cause for celebration.

We val­ue all our mem­bers indi­vid­u­al­ly as opposed to only the cumu­la­tive pow­er of lots of peo­ple giv­ing small amounts.

When you become a mem­ber, you’re mak­ing a com­mit­ment to invest in NPI’s work.

That com­mit­ment is what dri­ves our team to con­tin­ue lay­ing more bricks and reach­ing for new heights. And no mat­ter what your giv­ing lev­el is, we will put your dues pay­ment to work to accom­plish pro­gres­sive change. Count on it.

This Sun­day is our Fif­teenth Anniver­sary Pic­nic at Red­mond’s Per­ri­go Park. Cool­er marine air is rolling into the region and dis­plac­ing the tox­ic smoke that has enveloped our region for much of the month. (Those east of the Cas­cades will unfor­tu­nate­ly have to wait a bit longer for relief.) The fore­cast for this week­end calls for cool­er tem­per­a­tures and maybe even a few rain showers.

Giv­en the smoky, yucky weath­er we’ve expe­ri­enced, we’re not com­plain­ing. We for­tu­nate­ly have the biggest pic­nic shel­ter in Red­mond, so there will be plen­ty of room under cov­er in the event it hap­pens to be rain­ing on Sun­day evening. We are still accept­ing RSVPs for the pic­nic and we’d love to see you there.

If you will be join­ing us at Per­ri­go Park on Sun­day evening, then I look for­ward to shar­ing some excit­ing and hap­py news about NPI’s future and the future of pro­gres­sive infra­struc­ture devel­op­ment at that time.

Again, read­ers, thank you so much for being part of the NPI com­mu­ni­ty and for every­thing you do for pro­gres­sive caus­es. The strug­gle con­tin­ues. Let’s keep keep­ing on… we are the last, best hope for those com­ing after us.