It's the political season, and all sorts of interest groups are trying to assess which candidates are going to do the most for their agendas and constituencies.
Quad Cities Interfaith, though, is trying to speak for populations that don't normally get much attention during campaigns. Its agenda focuses on social-justice issues that primarily affect the poor.
The organization, representing 25 congregations including the Christian, Muslim, and Unitarian faiths, will be hosting the public "A Harvest of Justice" meeting on Saturday, October 20, at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Bettendorf. The event runs from 2:30 to 4 p.m, and seating starts at 2.
The meeting will feature entertainment, but more importantly Quad Cities Interfaith will be rolling out its agenda in four areas and inviting politicians and their representatives to state their positions on those issues: living wage, education, immigration, and transportation. Father Rudolph T. Juarez, a former president of Quad Cities Interfaith and a member of the transportation task force, said the meeting is meant to be "a springboard for action." Politicians and community leaders will be able to "declare in a public way" their support for elements of the Interfaith agenda.
Task forces in each area have been meeting since the spring. While the issues are complex and multifaceted, the task forces have boiled them down to one or two key solutions, said Julie Abdel-Fattah of the education task force.
• The living-wage task force is pushing for a meeting among Quad Cities mayors to discuss municipal initiatives to increase the number of living-wage jobs, usually defined as those that pay at least $9 or $10 an hour and include health-care benefits. For example, a city might pass an ordinance stating that it will not give Tax Increment Financing to any business that doesn't pay its workers a living wage. A living-wage ordinance might also deal with the money paid to city employees or contractors. "We want to raise people above poverty," said Diane McCarthy, representing the living-wage task force. She said Quad Cities Interfaith doesn't want tax dollars used to pay people poverty-level wages.
• The education task force is seeking to reform the way Illinois funds its schools. The state's school-aid formula is presently based on property taxes, and as a result rich counties have much higher per-pupil expenditures than poorer counties. "The schools that need the money the most are getting the least," explained Abdel-Fattah.
• The transportation task force wants an interconnected public-transportation system across state lines. That might include a schedule with longer hours that would better allow people to get to and from work, and current public-transportation providers working together on schedules and routes.
• In the area of immigration, the agenda is a little less clear-cut. "Immigration itself is a catastrophe," said Julian J. Gutierrez of the immigration task force. People have been working legally in the United States for more than 10 years, yet they can't get permanent-resident status because of the bureaucracy, Gutierrez said. Instead, people have to pay money for their work permits every few years, and eventually those can't be renewed. Government officials "take their green cards away from them and put these people in limbo," Gutierrez said. In addition, many immigrants cannot get an identification card that would help them get a checking or savings account, so they operate on cash alone. Many immigration issues, obviously, are affected by the "ghost of terrorism," Juarez said.
While the aims of Quad Cities Interfaith and its meeting are noble, there are a number of barriers to success. The agenda is not fully formed, for one thing, and in many cases the goals don't necessarily represent progress toward the ultimate end. For instance, the living-wage task force aims to get a meeting with all the mayors in the Quad Cities, but a meeting doesn't give anybody a higher wage. Even so, getting that meeting seems more of a challenge than it ought to be. "What we've been told by the mayors is if all the other mayors agree to me, we'll meet," McCarthy said.
And the goals have varying degrees of difficulty. While the living-wage task force wants a local meeting, the education task force hopes to re-vamp the Illinois educational system by reducing its reliance on property taxes. That system has been in place for decades, and there are powerful interests - particularly suburban-Chicago legislators - fighting against change.
Add to that the fact that some of the agenda items are directed at local-government officials, while with other changes will happen only at the state or federal level.
Quad Cities Interfaith representatives acknowledged some challenges but emphasized that the organization's mission is to push politicians to solve these problems.
"It's not our job to accomplish these things," said Abdel-Fattah. "It's our job to get our elected officials to accomplish these things."
"You have to take things one step at a time and address these things individually," Juarez said.
Even if the meeting doesn't directly effect change in these policy areas, it might show public officials that the social-justice movement in the Quad Cities has a lot of people behind it. Some politicians are hesitant to throw their support behind things until they have a sense of how much support they have in the community. "Some of the people wait until they see how many people show up," McCarthy said.
If Sunday's meeting is well-attended, you can expect that Quad Cities Interfaith's agenda will get more attention from politicians.
The organization, representing 25 congregations including the Christian, Muslim, and Unitarian faiths, will be hosting the public "A Harvest of Justice" meeting on Saturday, October 20, at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Bettendorf. The event runs from 2:30 to 4 p.m, and seating starts at 2.
The meeting will feature entertainment, but more importantly Quad Cities Interfaith will be rolling out its agenda in four areas and inviting politicians and their representatives to state their positions on those issues: living wage, education, immigration, and transportation. Father Rudolph T. Juarez, a former president of Quad Cities Interfaith and a member of the transportation task force, said the meeting is meant to be "a springboard for action." Politicians and community leaders will be able to "declare in a public way" their support for elements of the Interfaith agenda.
Task forces in each area have been meeting since the spring. While the issues are complex and multifaceted, the task forces have boiled them down to one or two key solutions, said Julie Abdel-Fattah of the education task force.
• The living-wage task force is pushing for a meeting among Quad Cities mayors to discuss municipal initiatives to increase the number of living-wage jobs, usually defined as those that pay at least $9 or $10 an hour and include health-care benefits. For example, a city might pass an ordinance stating that it will not give Tax Increment Financing to any business that doesn't pay its workers a living wage. A living-wage ordinance might also deal with the money paid to city employees or contractors. "We want to raise people above poverty," said Diane McCarthy, representing the living-wage task force. She said Quad Cities Interfaith doesn't want tax dollars used to pay people poverty-level wages.
• The education task force is seeking to reform the way Illinois funds its schools. The state's school-aid formula is presently based on property taxes, and as a result rich counties have much higher per-pupil expenditures than poorer counties. "The schools that need the money the most are getting the least," explained Abdel-Fattah.
• The transportation task force wants an interconnected public-transportation system across state lines. That might include a schedule with longer hours that would better allow people to get to and from work, and current public-transportation providers working together on schedules and routes.
• In the area of immigration, the agenda is a little less clear-cut. "Immigration itself is a catastrophe," said Julian J. Gutierrez of the immigration task force. People have been working legally in the United States for more than 10 years, yet they can't get permanent-resident status because of the bureaucracy, Gutierrez said. Instead, people have to pay money for their work permits every few years, and eventually those can't be renewed. Government officials "take their green cards away from them and put these people in limbo," Gutierrez said. In addition, many immigrants cannot get an identification card that would help them get a checking or savings account, so they operate on cash alone. Many immigration issues, obviously, are affected by the "ghost of terrorism," Juarez said.
While the aims of Quad Cities Interfaith and its meeting are noble, there are a number of barriers to success. The agenda is not fully formed, for one thing, and in many cases the goals don't necessarily represent progress toward the ultimate end. For instance, the living-wage task force aims to get a meeting with all the mayors in the Quad Cities, but a meeting doesn't give anybody a higher wage. Even so, getting that meeting seems more of a challenge than it ought to be. "What we've been told by the mayors is if all the other mayors agree to me, we'll meet," McCarthy said.
And the goals have varying degrees of difficulty. While the living-wage task force wants a local meeting, the education task force hopes to re-vamp the Illinois educational system by reducing its reliance on property taxes. That system has been in place for decades, and there are powerful interests - particularly suburban-Chicago legislators - fighting against change.
Add to that the fact that some of the agenda items are directed at local-government officials, while with other changes will happen only at the state or federal level.
Quad Cities Interfaith representatives acknowledged some challenges but emphasized that the organization's mission is to push politicians to solve these problems.
"It's not our job to accomplish these things," said Abdel-Fattah. "It's our job to get our elected officials to accomplish these things."
"You have to take things one step at a time and address these things individually," Juarez said.
Even if the meeting doesn't directly effect change in these policy areas, it might show public officials that the social-justice movement in the Quad Cities has a lot of people behind it. Some politicians are hesitant to throw their support behind things until they have a sense of how much support they have in the community. "Some of the people wait until they see how many people show up," McCarthy said.
If Sunday's meeting is well-attended, you can expect that Quad Cities Interfaith's agenda will get more attention from politicians.
