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Voicing progressive concerns since 1962
BY ADAM REILLY
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THE PHRASE "politics is the art of the possible" is usually invoked to urge conservatism and restraint. But for the past four decades, Citizens for Participation in Political Action (CPPAX) has shown the viability of another interpretation — namely, that politics is about taking commonly held notions of what can and can’t be done and shaking them up a bit. In November 2002, for example, as part of a campaign to unseat House Speaker Thomas Finneran, the group brought a nonbinding ballot question before voters in 18 legislative districts. The question was simple: should their state representative be instructed to vote against Finneran when the House chooses its new Speaker? In each of the 18 districts, a majority of voters said it was time for Finneran to go. In January of this year, of course, Finneran was re-elected by a comfortable margin, easily defeating a challenge from State Representative Byron Rushing. But that doesn’t mean CPPAX’s efforts were in vain. Finneran’s aura of invincibility had been punctured — as demonstrated by the subsequent debate over salary increases for key Finneran supporters, which resulted in a rare retreat by the Speaker. And CPPAX deserves much of the credit. "I would say it’s not insignificant that Finneran was not able to give pay raises to his lieutenants," says Dan Cohen, chairman of CPPAX’s board. "And I think that comes from the scrutiny we’ve been able to help push on him and the way he runs the State House." CPPAX emerged from the 1962 US Senate campaign of H. Stuart Hughes, a Harvard University history professor drafted by Jerome Grossman (uncle of Democratic Party luminary Steve Grossman) and other peace activists concerned with the imminent possibility of nuclear war. Hughes, who ran as an independent, faced stiff competition: the Republican candidate was George Lodge, son of Henry Cabot Lodge; the Democrats fielded first-timer Edward Kennedy. Even as Hughes’s campaign workers gathered the signatures necessary to place him on the ballot, Jerome Grossman recalls, no one actually expected him to win. But the effort was about more than just electoral victory. "You have to remember that at that time there was the Massachusetts Un-American Activities Committee; they’d bring people up to ask them their opinions, and people were losing their jobs in Massachusetts. It was a rough time," Grossman recalls. "We got 150,000 signatures [to place Hughes on the ballot], which in itself was a tremendous feat. And we gave people the courage to express liberal views, left-wing views." CPPAX’s lobbying efforts over the last 41 years are too numerous to recount in full, but there are some obvious highlights: the group helped lead the anti–Vietnam War effort in Massachusetts; pressured the state’s congressional delegation to vote to impeach Richard Nixon; drafted and worked to pass laws barring the state from dealing with or investing in corporations that do business in Burma; and helped pass the state’s lesbian and gay civil-rights law. More important, CPPAX has consistently worked to convince ordinary people not just that they have a stake in all levels of the political process, but that their active involvement can effect positive change — an almost revolutionary notion in an era when voter turnout over 50 percent is cause for celebration. Like many activist organizations, CPPAX — which has about 3000 active members — has lately fallen on hard economic times. Long-time organizing director Eric Weltman was recently laid off, and there’s currently only one staffer left in the group’s Winter Street offices. But Cohen says the situation isn’t as dire as it seems. "The economy’s not good and people are contributing a little bit less — it’s something that happens all the time," he says, adding, "I don’t think anyone in the organization or on the board has any doubt that a year from now, we’re going to be really excited about the way we’ve come out of it." Given the breadth of CPPAX’s work over the years — and the doggedness of the group’s approach — it’s not unreasonable to call it an institutional embodiment of Massachusetts progressivism. Assessing the degree to which people do or don’t feel empowered is an inherently subjective exercise. But it’s safe to say that without CPPAX, left-leaning voters across the state would be far less engaged than they are today.
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