Meet Chris.
Campus Coordinator for Democracy Matters at UNH
If you have heard about money-out-of-politics work at the University of New Hampshire (UNH), it has likely been in the context of the pop-up Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros / Young the Giant / Bernie Sanders extravaganza that drew thousands to the campus February 2016, kicking off the 2016 Democratic primary season. After gradually longer sets by the two bands, Bernie finally hit the stage, delivering a rousing speech, the centerpiece of which was a compelling portrait of American electoral systems. In the echoing university hockey stadium, he explained, “Democracy is not a spectator sport. In fact it is a radical idea... not just kings and queens, czars and billionaires, but all people have a right to determine the future of their country... there are people who are very wealthy and very powerful who control what goes on in our economic and political life. They would not like you to vote. They would like things to remain as they are, where big money is able to buy elections.”
​
As Chris Grinley, senior and activist at UNH, described it to me, Bernie is something of a regular on campus, thanks to the work of the University’s money-out-of-politics activists, who hosted him on two occasions prior to this event. Chris, who has worked with these organizations during his time at UNH, is a campus organizer for Democracy Matters, an organization that helps undergraduate students build awareness around money in politics. I had the chance to speak with Chris about his work with Democracy Matters in August 2016.
​
This interview has been edited for clarity and succinctness.
-Bridget, Small Planet Intern
Q
A
How did you get involved?
When I first got to UNH, I got involved with a bunch of different activist organizations. So I was working with the Student Environmental Coalition, and through that got involved in activism around tar sands and divestment work. I was also involved with our Peace and Justice League, which is concerned with international justice work. As I got involved with all of these issues, I began to see that a barrier to all of those issues was money in politics. So that’s really how I initially got interested in the work and involved with Democracy Matters.
Q
A
How would you describe the work in broad strokes?
I’d say a lot of the work is education and action, but there is a real focus on bringing students into the world of political activism who aren’t necessarily involved, or who see it as kind of an unnecessary thing. I think the biggest presence for activism on campus is environmental, and I think that’s true on most college campuses. But I think more and more people are coming to understand the tie that money in politics has to that.
I would say that…. I think it definitely comes down to how people get elected: if people are dependant on large campaign donors to get elected, who can get elected is limited to those who have the approval of people who have money to fund the elections. Even if we want an environmentalist to be a candidate, they have to meet the beliefs of say Tom Steyer, or someone like that, rather than the broader environmental beliefs of someone more radical, someone who would do better for issues of climate, but they are not going to have the support of mainstream democratic donors.
​
The system we have right now really limits what you can think of as solutions to what can fit into the democratic mainstream thinking. It really narrows down who can get elected to a very small set of people who have one idea of a solution: renewable energy within our current system, which isn’t talking about a lot of the origin of the issue, like capitalism as a source of climate change, things like that.
What is your answer to someone who is interested in environmentalism, but doesn't understand the link between that and electoral politics?
Q
A
Q
I know you’re going to be a senior this year, and you’re more involved with running Democracy Matters on campus. What do you have planned for the year?
A
In addition to getting out the vote, we’re going to be doing some educational events. We have two loosely planned right now: in the fall, we’re going to have a former congressman and an ambassador come in and talk about their idea of reform and money in politics as a panel event. Then there is another event with the patriotic millionaires, so we’ll be hosting them, and the event is going to be at the intersection of what they do and money in politics.
​
We’ll also have some events that are more student-focused and organized as well: a lot of the focus will be organizing an event focusing on creating activists. So we’ve done some work like this in the past, holding an event called “Food for Thought,” where we basically got a bunch of burritos, and then we had a bunch of different tables with varying conversation topics with different people leading the conversation at each table. We got about 50 students to attend to talk about getting money out of politics and other relevant issues over burritos
Yeah, so I went to a Democracy Matters Summit in Albany, New York, which brought together a lot of different students who were working at schools all over the northeast. It was fascinating because of all the organizations that I’ve worked with that call themselves nonpartisan, Democracy Matters is the most legitimately so. Everyone there clearly supported money-out-of-politics and campaign finance reform, but there was no doubt that there was a good chunk of conservatives and liberals, and anything in between. There was a lot of focus on the issues, on organization and organization building, and surprisingly there was an aspect of this that felt like it was aimed at getting students to run for office. A lot of the students that work for Democracy Matters, especially from the other schools seemed to be interested in it as an issue, not just from an organizational standpoint, but from a political office standpoint.
I know Democracy Matters works to train and empower students to become effective activists. Can you talk about your experience with that?
Q
A
What was the experience of being around folks who come to this work from such diverse backgrounds?
Q
It was very cool in that, you know, I learned a lot more about the way that other people thought about the issues… so we would have these groups brainstorming for solutions on the variety of areas that people had expertise in, whether someone knew a lot about a certain bill that was going to be passed, or someone else knew a lot about recruiting students and planning events and things like that – so different means for fighting to get money out of politics.
A
Q
What are some first-steps you would recommend for folks who want to get more involved on campus?
A
It varies on what background you’re coming from or what situation, but for students, definitely start by seeing if your school has any organizations focused on the issue. If they don’t, most schools have a fairly straightforward way of starting your own organization. Beyond that, I think it varies location to location. In a lot of cases, it’s as easy as showing up to a meeting or event, and I would say, it’s pretty easy to get intimidated. When I started, there were people who were either part of Peace and Justice League or CEP who had just graduated, some of them were my age, freshmen, who had been involved for five years with issues like that or they were the graduating seniors who had just started their own political non-profit, or something like that. So it’s easy to look at that and think: I don’t know anything about that, but in reality, once you start organizing, it’s really just socializing with a focus. You learn just by doing it, and there is nothing preventing anyone from getting involved with activism, because they want you to help.
