SPD takes a chance on an American

So I have begun the newest phase of my stay in Germany, I go and get an actual job. I think I did pretty good, as I am now working with the Social Democratic Party of Deutschland. It is the Thüringen State Party. Two projects that I will be working on are the May mayoral race in Erfurt, a partisan affair in which the SPD will field a candidate. Right now though I am working on a Volksbegehren (or People's Demand). It is an interesting feature of the State Constitution (Landesverfassung) in which the people can take matters into their own hands when the bums in the statehouse pass a law no one is really happy with. It is a real experiment in direct democracy. It is also something you don't see very often at all in the states, except maybe in California. Sounds like an interesting idea to pitch in WV, I think. When you have only one party that controls everything in Charleston, there really is no way to balance the interests of the party and the people. So why not create a labrotory of democracy in West Virginia? It would be better than a Republican Majority!

Basically, I will be working with many citizen's groups and other interest groups to create volunteer groups in every county in Thüringen, so about 23. That is a challenge, but the real challenge is when the real petition drive begins, when the volunteers are going to have collect 220,000 signatures in a period of 4 months. That period won't likely begin until later in the summer. This spring will be about getting volunteers and collecting the first signatures to present to the Landestag (state legislature). When these first signatures are reviewed, then we start with the large-scale petition drive. Right now things are going a little slow because if you are going to overturn a passed law, especially if it has financial implications, then you have to propose an alternative. This takes awhile because a citizen's group is going to be made up by teachers, parents, even nature conservationist, anyone who supports it. So everyone has their own say. Then it also has to reviewed so it can pass the muster, will it fit the financial framework already set up by the Landestag and does it not interfere with the national laws passed by the Bundestag? Lots of questions to answer. Luckily all I have to is try to get the volunteers and organized.

I am doing this is until the end of May, and then I do one more month with the Green Party. They are pretty small here in Thüringen and don't have any representatives in the state government. They are on board along the SPD and the Left Party/PDS (the former communists, who are a lot more popular in East Germany, hence the condescension of many "Wessies" or West Germans, towards the party). The labor unions as well as some citizen watchdog groups are on board as well, so it is a large coalition. Hopefully in June, with the Greens I can still do some more work with the Volksbegehren since they are still involved. It is just too bad that I will be gone before the real hard part. It is really inspiring to know that people are concerned enough in Germany to take action and try to make a change for themselves.

The issue that we're working on? It is about funding for day-care and preschool for kids 2-3 yrs old. It is long and complicated, so I am still trying to get all the details mastered. I will ost some more on it later as my knowledge of the issues become more in-depth. Bis dann!