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Victories We've Been Part Of...

While we haven’t won every battle - hey, we’re Democrats, we can count 4 losing Presidential campaigns and the Clinton health care fight as part of our track record – we’ve been involved in a lot of exciting victories over the years:

1999 Forced Investigation of the Centers for Disease Control. The Sheridan Group led efforts resulting in an Inspector General's audit of the Centers for Disease Control's Chronic Fatigue Syndrome program, as well as restoring the misappropriated funding.

Impeachment fight. While at People For the American Way (PFAW), Mike Lux managed the major advertising, grassroots and Internet campaign against the impeachment of President Clinton.

1998 Election victories. Lux oversaw the new PFAW Voter's Alliance, which won every Congressional race that it was a top tier priority. Also won 93% of our targeted school board races.

California Paycheck Protection Initiative. Lux led PFAW's and the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center's efforts to rally non-union progressive groups in opposition to the anti-union paycheck protection act in California.

1997 New York Constitutional convention referendum. Lux helped direct PFAW's efforts as a major partner in the coalition that defeated the Constitutional convention ballot question in New York.

1996 Clinton-Gore re-election. Lux was a vice-chair of the Clinton-Gore finance committee, and a vice-chair of the Democratic National Committee's Business Council.

Colorado parental rights initiative. Lux was one of the key national players working to defeat the parental rights initiative in Colorado.

1993-1995 White House victories. While serving in the White House as Special Assistant to the President for Public Liaison, Lux served as a key staff member on the following legislative victories:

Saving the school lunch program when it was threatened by the Republicans' budget axe.

The Family Medical Leave Act
The Motor Voter Act
The 1993 Budget package

1992 Clinton-Gore campaign. Lux was national constituencies director.

1990 Americans with Disabilities Act. Tom Sheridan played an instrumental role in the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Harkin re-election. Lux served as AFL-CIO political director when Senator Tom Harkin (IA) beat back Tom Tauke's challenge.

Ryan White CARE Act. Tom Sheridan wrote the the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency Act and led the fight for its passage, and its re-authorization in 1996.

1985-1986 Superfund. While Lux served as Executive Director of Iowa Citizen Action Network (ICAN), ICAN played a key role organizing on behalf of the Superfund legislation with the Iowa delegation, especially key Energy and Commerce member Tom Tauke.

Election victories. ICAN targeted 10 tough state legislative races - all challengers or open seats - and won all 10 of them.

1983-1984 Natural Gas Decontrol. While field director of ICAN, Lux managed the fight to pressure Tom Tauke to oppose natural gas decontrol.

Integrated Issue Campaigns...

What's Included...

Field organizing
Internet organizing
Fundraising
Political giving
Paid advertising
Earned media
Direct mail
Voter contact
Opposition research

We believe that more issue advocacy organizations can and should build fully-integrated issue campaigns with a political punch to them. Issue campaigns can be used to drive and shape political debate, defeat targeted opponents, and create fear among others who are hurting your cause.

An excellent example of what we mean by a fully-integrated issue campaign is the impeachment battle in 1998-99. When it became clear that the Republicans in Congress and the far right were dead-set on impeaching President Clinton rather than taking care of the nation's business, People For the American Way launched a major advertising, grassroots and Internet campaign against the impeachment was launched. This campaign included both paid and earned media, rallies and Congressional meetings, as well as a 1-800 number for people to call. And working with www.moveon.org, we promoted an on-line petition that ultimately signed up more than 500,000 Internet petition signers.