When Baltimore City Councilmember Kristerfer Burnett was first elected in 2016, he remembers ordering a book online in hopes of learning what to do next.
Despite having a master’s degree in public policy, Burnett told Blue Tent, “It’s like, ‘I won my local election, what do I do now?’” Baltimore doesn’t offer any kind of onboarding or training for its local elected officials. “I was given a phone, a computer, and told to go.”
Then Kristerfer was invited to his first Local Progress training. Since then, he said, the organization “has been central to my development as a local official,” making it possible for him to craft and pass legislation creating a Fair Election Fund to lessen the impact of private money on local elections. Today, Kristerfer serves on Local Progress’ board of directors, is a trainer in the organization’s Progressive Governance Academy, and is a founding member of the Local Progress Black Caucus.
In St. Louis, meanwhile, Local Progress makes it possible for Alderwoman Megan Green to do a better job “playing a lot of defense… because we don’t have the numbers we need in terms of elected officials yet in order to play offense in a meaningful way.” On the other hand, Green said, Local Progress helped her start to “change the narrative” on police funding in 2017, years before the murder of George Floyd. By the time of Floyd’s murder, Green said, an op-ed she co-authored and other advocacy work on the issue created an environment where a lot of people had a sense of how much money was being spent on “the incarcerate model of public safety” instead of the human services that prevent crime in the first place.
“Narratives have to change to change public sentiment, and public sentiment has to change before policy ever changes,” Green said.
Part of a larger infrastructure
Founded in 2012 as a project of the Center for Popular Democracy, Local Progress works with State Innovation Exchange (SiX) and re:power to hold “at least 24 trainings a year” for local elected officials, with 15 to 30 participants in each training. In 2020, 679 local elected officials—city council members, mayors, school board members, county officials, and others—participated in Progressive Governance Academy sessions, according to Local Progress Communications Director Trisa Taro.
Teaching local officials how to govern and advocate for progressive priorities is just one facet of what Local Progress has to offer. Baltimore’s Councilmember Burnett told Blue Tent that the organization’s yearly policy guide is “one of my favorite Christmas presents.” Other resources include policy briefs and the ability to network and exchange notes with 1,100 Local Progress members in 46 states.
“One of the things that we know is that the challenges that people face in Baltimore city are very similar to what people are dealing with in St. Louis and New York and Philadelphia,” Burnett said, so “being able to tap into a national network of staff and other local folks who are really incredibly smart folks who are doing amazing work” insures that Local Progress members can “put out a really good set of proposals that can really help families across this country.”
“We know that the most transformative change is possible when activists and advocates and allied elected officials are working in close strategic partnership,” said Local Progress Executive Director Sarah Johnson. “Our guiding principle is that the synergy between grassroots organizing and local politics builds progressive power and makes meaningful and immediate change in people’s lives.”
Think locally
When Johnson says that changes made at the local level can be “meaningful,” if anything she may be understating the case.
For example: “Most police practices are local issues,” said St. Louis Alderwoman Green, with local officials able to set policy on everything from the use of chokeholds to restricting local departments’ power to arrest people for activities that are technically illegal but also cause no harm.
“It’s [also] within our power to change the amount of resources that we have going into an arrest-and-incarcerate model of public safety,” Green added, and to redirect those funds into essential public services like education, affordable housing, “and all of these things that have been cut over the years to pay for bloated police budgets.”
While Local Progress focuses on the lowest levels of government, its ambitions reach nationwide. That ambition is reflected in “Dare to Reimagine,” which the project’s web page says is “a framework for building a just and equitable future from the ground up.” So far, more than 300 elected officials have joined with movement allies and local community partners in committing to the effort, which aims to “reimagine” and build policy change in five areas: public budgets, communities, neighborhood design and development, local economies, and democracy.
A growing track record
The project’s website also details 50 policy wins and organizing efforts across the U.S., “and serves as an important reminder that the work to move our country forward is already happening at the local level,” Johnson explained.
The organization’s leaders are also aware that they’re helping to build a deep bench of officials who can use what they’ve learned from Local Progress should they run for higher office.
“Every year, we have members who go on to run and win elected office at the state and federal level. For example, Ritchie Torres and Ayanna Pressley are both former members,” Taro told Blue Tent. While getting local officials ready for higher office isn’t one of the group’s “explicit goals,” she added, by supporting the development of local leaders at the beginning of their careers and helping them advocate for policies in line with their values, “we believe we are creating a foundation that will stay with them as they advance.”
