Read JUFJer Terry Fitzgerald’s statement about being part of the campaign to defeat Question H, a bad ballot measure that would have threatened democracy in Baltimore City:
Some comments on the campaign to defeat Question H
It is nice to work on a winning campaign, especially such a significant one. And it is nice to have that sense of community that comes from working intensely together, planning and solving problems as they come along. One can get that sense of community from a neighborhood clean-up or fixing up the playground at the neighborhood school– which are all nice. But this campaign was something different.
The challenge here was great. Ballot measures almost never fail in Baltimore City, because voters often do not know what they are about, so they vote yes or leave the question blank. Opposing this required significant planning and outreach to a public who would not otherwise be educated on the issue, due to the lack of public media awareness around the issue. And there were almost no people who would directly benefit from defeating the proposal – so the fight had to be waged by people who really believed that this proposal was bad for our city and had to be defeated. And fortunately, they were there.
The coalition that defeated Question H was truly remarkable: labor unions, grassroots community organizations, faith-based groups, and political activists. These are organizations that have a history of struggle and have a firm corps of dedicated members. They have all mattered in past struggles, but this time they came together and found ways to collaborate and negotiate through differences to work on a common mission. I am hopeful that, the connections made will pave the way to collaboration and joint support in future struggles. As the legislative session approaches, the experience here should make pushing a progressive agenda more effective.
I have to add that in a world where wealth disparity is outrageously large, it is nice to see that the very rich can be defeated by community organizations. But that was possible only because of the breadth and depth of this coalition and the hard, systematic work that was done.
– Terry Fitzgerald
