Cracking Down On Surprise Junk Fees
The Progressive Change Institute is working to amplify the ongoing work of the Biden Administration and congressional leaders to lower costs for families by ending surprise “junk fees” on everything from banking to cable bills to rent applications. This fits into a larger agenda of growing the middle class, lowering costs on families, and cracking down on greedy corporations.
The Progressive Change Institute works deeply with the White House, congressional leadership, and agencies like the CFPB on this issue. The Associated Press reports that members of Congress “around the country plan to hold events organized with help from the Progressive Change Institute to promote the administration’s effort to curb junk fees. Events have already happened in suburban Detroit, Philadelphia, central New Jersey and Albuquerque, New Mexico. Similar efforts are planned in coming weeks in Pittsburgh, New York and Las Vegas, as well as in Wisconsin, Ohio and North Carolina.” Read national and local media coverage.
Progressive Personnel Project
"Personnel is policy." We led a coalition that worked to get great progressive into the Biden Administration – people like FTC Chair Lina Khan, CFPB Director Rohit Chopra, and many others.
The executive branch has many positions which hold immense power over public policy, our economy, and the functioning of our democracy. The Associated Press reported during the 2020 transition that the “Progressive Change Institute partnered with more than 40 activist groups and on Friday released a detailed list of 400 progressive policy experts they want Biden to bring on.” That list ultimately grew to 700 recommended personnel. The Progressive Personnel Project’s work was also covered by the the New York Times.
Supreme Court Accountability
Business Insider reported on the Progressive Change Institute’s successful strategy in June 2022 to get dozens of members of Congress to critique the Court as an institution – using language such as, “The American people increasingly see this Court as corrupt and facing a legitimacy crisis.”
Dozens of lawmakers adopted this messaging, including Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Senators Tina Smith, Elizabeth Warren, and Sheldon Whitehouse, and House Oversight Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin.
The New York Times reported in 2023 that we distributed “private polling data…that suggests there is support among the public for attacking the court as an institution. In their surveys, 62 percent said the court is ‘increasingly facing a legitimacy crisis.’ Only 26 percent disagreed with that statement.”
This led to John Roberts explicitly protesting this legitimacy critique in September 2022 and Samuel Alito doing the same in April 2023. President Biden made big news when he said, “This is not a normal court” in June 2023.
Voting Rights & Democracy Advancement
Advancing federal and state efforts to protect democracy and voting rights is a top priority.
In 2023, we leveraged our relationships with Michigan and Minnesota government officials to organize a briefing for national multi-issue groups to ensure that all actors had a working knowledge of democracy reforms advancing in the states -- and were ready to help when public education was needed.
In 2021, we leveraged our relationships with federal government officials to ensure that groups with strong state presence knew the federal state-of-play and had actionable intelligence for public education in their states. We also hired a DC street artist to summon the memory of John Lewis in urging lawmakers to take action.
In 2020, we teamed up with the Vote At Home Institute to increase awareness in key states about the need for more time to pre-process early ballots. This would decrease the lag time to count the votes after election day, mitigating conspiracy theories. We looped in local state groups like the Sierra Club, League of Conservation Voters, census groups, and local community leaders like county clerks. In Michigan, this resulted in a rare bipartisan victory -- with ballots processed at record speed in 2020.
We also recruited plaintiffs from Georgia, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Maine for election protection lawsuits by Marc Elias and Perkins Coie on behalf of state voting rights groups. And we worked with local organizers to help organize a Wall Of Vets in key states to lend moral authority if violence at the polls occurred -- including in Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Texas, Ohio, North Carolina, Iowa, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.
More: Projects Over the Years
Read about our other projects over the years here.