Meet Corinne.
Artist, Educator, & Volunteer with People for the American Way
As we chatted over coffee in a sunny cafe in Derry, New Hampshire in August 2016, Corinne described to me the emotional roller coaster of the last legislative session: For 20 minutes, NH was the 17th state to pass a resolution supporting a constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United. The resolution, the end goal of a year’s worth of organizing, quickly evaporated after murky procedural re-vote.
At the time of the winter 2016 session, there was clear, demonstrated public support of the measure through an ongoing campaign of People for the American Way. Sixty-nine towns and 87 percent of NH residents throughout the state had supported the resolution, as indicated by a 2013 poll. In step with this support, the State Senate had voted unanimously in support of it the previous March. When the bill finally made it to the House of Representatives in January, it initially passed, but the party leadership called for a second vote. Due to a mysterious Internet outage shutting down the voting system after this was announced, leadership had the opportunity to speak to party members and when the second vote was counted, the measure failed to pass.
Corinne led the effort at the local level to pass a referendum in support of the effort and worked with her state legislature to secure a supporting vote. She points to this as a blaring example of the effect of moneyed interests in the NH legislature: elected officials blatantly failing to carry out the demonstrated will of the citizens. Judging from the fluency with which Corrine explained the winding legislative process, it was stunning to learn that until 2012 the retired teacher had never been involved in politics. Humble and emotionally attuned, Corrine had some great insights on the
power of perseverance, the role of art in politics, and advice for folks new to
political activism.
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This interview has been edited for clarity and succinctness.
-Bridget, Small Planet Intern
Interestingly, I was never, ever involved in politics short of about two and a half years ago. I voted, occasionally I would send a letter to a representative if there was something I was upset with, but my work really began in the wake of Newtown. I had just retired at the time, I taught special education for years. When I heard about the massacre, I felt like I couldn’t just sit back and do nothing. I forced myself to get involved.
So I first got involved with the organization Moms Demand Action in Portsmouth, NH. I read about it in the paper, and it became clear to me that I needed to join them. Originally, I wanted to be anonymous, to just make the group bigger. I worked with them for about a year, and I watched how people who wanted to make good changes, who had the support of many, many citizens, just couldn’t get traction. This was really when I found out how corrupted the legislative process was. I got so discouraged... It became clear to me that legislatively nothing was going to happen without first overriding our corrupt election system. So, I heard of a coalition of a bunch of groups who were working on campaign finance reform, I went to a workshop, and the next thing I knew, I was involved.
To start out, can you introduce yourself? I know you’ve been very involved with People for the American way for the last couple of years. How did you initially get involved?
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You talk about how this last legislative session was devastating in light of how close you got to passing SB 164. How do you keep optimistic in light of the blatant disregard of public support of this organizing?
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I stepped away for a little bit, and then I got back in with other people, and I knew someone else would pick up where I left off. We support each other, and that’s how we keep going. And I think there is something I learn from my work: I work with severely mentally disabled children. Perseverance is the only thing that keeps it going. It’s not patience, it is perseverance. So I would say the answer is gaining support from my fellow workers. And it’s important to be able to take some time and step back into the work when you are not empty. I finished the piece when I came back from Washington, because I found it depressing. We weren’t going to change any senators’ opinions, what we wanted was for people of the whole United States to know that this was happening. And the only way they know is through social media and some independent news sources. And so I really threw myself into that.
I think this kind of work is very intimidating for a lot of people. Again I’m going to throw in Newtown, once you realize this is life or death, you begin to do things that you wouldn’t normally do. People in general don’t believe yet that our democracy is on the verge of going extinct.
Seeing that you came from this work having never done political work for your whole life, what is your advice for really getting people motivated to get involved?
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I didn’t come to it until I was so bothered that I had to. To be honest with you, when you are uncomfortable, and you understand, that is when the learning happens, that’s true of all human beings. I work with severely handicapped children, and when they are uncomfortable with something, and I can show them a way to become more comfortable that’s when the learning happens. What I hope to do, especially when I work as Betsy Ross, is to give a warning from the 1700s that people worked, fought and died giving birth to democracy, and that we now owe to them and our unborn children to protect that democracy. And if we don’t do something soon it’ll be gone.
Most of the work that I’ve been involved with volunteering with People for the American Way has been to support a resolution to overturn Citizens United, locally here in Derry, and at the state level. In 2015 I worked with my senator here, Senator Regina Birdsome -- I organized meetings of her constituents -- and she actually ended up supporting the initiative (Learn more here)​.
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So when that passed, which seemed like the hard part, we went to the House of Representatives. Working with the house, I started to learn some of the evasive tactics that representatives will use to get around public opinion. Interim study, for example. When I was really naïve, I thought that interim study meant that the issue at hand was so important that they were going to study it to really understand it. No, that means they take the piece of paper, they put it on someone’s desk where it wont be seen for a year, and then after a certain amount of time, it disappears, that is what interim study means. The voters don’t know that. They were supposed to do something by November. It became pretty clear that what they wanted to do was to go to a committee of leaders, and it became clear that the leaders were going to suggest that they don’t pass it. And so once that was done, it was very unlikely that it would pass. They have to vote on it, but after that point, it is highly unlikely that they will vote to support it. The first vote is, do we approve this committee or not. So I worked for two months, asking representatives to vote to support the bill and reject the committee's recommendation, and in the end I got x number to say yes, which was well beyond what we needed. I was told that if members of the House voted against the leadership more than three times – I’m not sure if it was in a year, in a session, either because your constituents want it or because its your conscience, then your position in that party is in jeopardy. We had the numbers to pass, and it was as unbelievable as the Senate voting unanimously.
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But then, it had to be voted on again. Bascially the democrats had the chance to vote again. That minute the electronic voting system broke, and so for 20 minutes the leadership got to walk around and talk to people and when they did take the vote, it changed. And so for 20 minutes, we were the 17th state in the country to push Washington for a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United, until the speaker of the House spoke with them.
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Can you talk a bit about the range of your work?
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