Results from Cora and William's interview with Yawu Miller- organizer for the ONE Massachusetts Campaign against the Ballot Initiative in 2008

Our meeting with Mr. Miller helped gain a lot of insight and set a general precedent, specifically for how we want to use messaging in our campaign and how to use effective messaging. Mr. Miller works for the Public Policy Institute, an organization which helps non profits and other organizations rally together to become familiar with the current political and economic scene to initiate social and economic change. 

In 2008, ONEMass worked against a ballot initiative that would cut a progressive income tax in half. This means that state revenue would be greatly reduced and there wouldn't be nearly as much funding for schools, human services, public transit and public safety. Unfortunately, this referendum was passed and the income tax was decreased. 

Usually, when ONEMass' messaging and publicizing of the campaign was effective was when the campaign focused on spreading their message (as opposed to denouncing the opposing sides' message(s)). Mr. Miller also advised against the "fear tactic" (addressing the negative impacts on certain communities from the income tax cut). Instead, we should emphasize the value of funding for schools, public safety, public transit and human services. 

Another significant messaging technique that Mr. Miller emphasized was the importance of not focusing too much on numbers or statistics, because that's not as rallying to a cause. If we were to use numbers, we should use "social math" (explaining the statistics in terms of the impacts they will have). So, we should keep messaging short and sweet. For example, simply saying, "invest in libraries and schools, (without using "invest in").

Additionally, we discussed the involvement of non profits in the 2008 ballot initiative and how it was very effective that non profits became involved in voter turn out against Question 1 in 2008. Fortunately, all 4 governor candidates oppose the referendum. Therefore, there's a strong hope that the mayor of Boston will take a strong stance against the referendum because it will have such a strong impact on Boston communities. However, some legislators are for the referendum, particularly Carla Howell, who proposed it. We must also keep in mind that in areas where the Public Policy Institute is working, we may have legislators as allies but they don't always speak up, because they don't want to talk about controversial issues as they are campaigning to get reelected.

We'll also face opposition from the liquor industries, who will push the tax cut on liquor.

In order to combat this opposition, Mr. Miller recommended that we don't neutralize the opposition, but focus instead on spreading our message. ONEMass focused very much on voter turnout and rallying voters to vote against the 2008 referendum. An argument we can use against this referendum is the the sales tax is regressive but the budget cuts will be even more regressive, in that they'll impact low income communities the harshest. To make matters worse, debt service won't be cut, so some areas will be cut as much as 20%. Hence, a long term goal could be to work on tax reforms (i.e. more progressive income tax.)

ONEMass' next meeting will be to map out the Boston area and determine who covers voter turnout and messaging in what areas. It's important to know that due to high opposition to the referendum but low voter turnout, East Boston, Chelsea, parts of Lawrence and Everett might be good places to focus on. Especially, since we may need to translate our material into Spanish in those places. Though it's hard to focus on communities that have a high favor of the referendum and we don't need to focus as much on areas with a high "no" turn out such as Cambridge and Lexington.