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CLCV leads innovative environmental collaboration

(From Groundswell, California League of Conservation Voters, Winter 2007)

In 2006, the CLCV Education Fund pioneered a new process designed to increase collaboration and strategic coordination among environmental lobbyists working on state policy in Sacramento. Through the CLCV-led "Green California" group, environmental advocates representing over 30 organizations collaboratively identified priority bills and assembled our resources behind those bills, pioneered new ways of working together, and developed new ways to build legislative power and legislative relationships—and the results have been overwhelmingly positive.

For the first time ever, the environmental community communicated the bills we identified as priorities to legislative leaders at a number of critical points during the 2006 legislative session. Of the twenty-eight bills the Green California group identified as priorities in the final days of the 2006 legislative session, nineteen made it to the Governor’s desk, a significant improvement over 2005’s mediocre legislative performance. Of those nineteen, ten were signed into law.

On December 4, the CLCV Education Fund held our second annual Environmental Collaboration Summit. Over 90 advocates representing 53 organizations met to review the process and develop new ideas for 2007. Assemblymember Hector De La Torre and Senator Alan Lowenthal provided frank feedback on legislators’ perceptions of the environmental community and suggested ways to increase our effectiveness.

The Collaboration Summit was a huge success, and we have received tremendous feedback from legislators and our colleagues on this new collaborative process. Though it is a project designed to be effective in the long term, in its first year it has led to more collaboration among environmental lobbyists in Sacramento and improved legislative results. “Ultimately, we’d like to focus our efforts on a small number of very large-scale policy priorities from the outset of the legislative session,” notes Katy Rexford, CLCV Outreach Program Manager.

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© 2008 California League of Conservation Voters Education Fund.