Campaign co-founder Bob Cieri has already gathered over 200 signatures (in only 3 days!) and especially because he’s done that without any prior experience we wanted to post some thoughts from him about his experience, his “opening line”, his answers to common questions, etc.
Here’s what Bob had to say
Signature gathering for Clean the Darn Air, believe it or not, is a lot of fun! People are genuinely excited to sign the ballot initiative proposal. At the line for the last two Red Butte concerts, three of us had 2 packets each circulating as fast as people could sign them. Large groups are the best – I have found that approaching a group and opening with “Would anyone who’s a Utah voter like to sign an initiative for clean air?” works 2/3s of the time, and I get to connect with someone in the group 100% of the time if I follow up with “Sign to get clean air on the 2020 ballot?…. 100 million dollars every year for air quality?”
Once one person in a group engages and signs, almost everyone else will want to do so as you start explaining how the ballot initiative works. I usually say “We’re trying to raise $100 million for clean air and $50 million for rural economic development EVERY year while cutting existing taxes with a moderate state-wide carbon tax. We’re going to tax polluters and use the money to clean up the air.” Emphasize that signatures are just to get the initiative on the 2020 ballot, when Utah voters will get to decide on it. Mentioning that we’re going to expand the Retirement Tax Credit (to help offset Utah’s tax on Social Security benefits) really excites older voters. If people don’t want to sign, just move on. Someone else will.
Some useful phrases or responses
If someone asks “Won’t the legislature just overturn this?” You can say: “Maybe, but we’re doing something rather than nothing about it.” Or: “I doubt it, and worse case we’re showing how much we care about air quality.” Or: “Maybe, but I can’t see it being popular to cut money for air quality and put taxes back on food and Social Security benefits.”
If someone asks “So you’re just raising taxes? You can say “We’re moving taxes from food and other items to pollution. We think that polluters should pay a tax to help clean up the environment.” Or: “We have to clean up the air somehow, why not tax the source?” Also point them to our website www.CleanTheDarnAir.org where they can use a calculator tool to estimate their savings and costs under our proposal.
If someone asks “isn’t this a regressive tax that would fall more on poor people?” You can say “We know that bad air hurts the poor more than other because they don’t always have the healthcare resources to deal with the problems it causes and they are often forced to live in the most polluted parts of our communities.” Also, our policy cuts the state sales tax on grocery store food and provides other tax benefits to low- and middle-income households (such as a 20% match of the Earned Income Tax Credit and an expansion of the Retirement Tax Credit) and our analysis is that households in the bottom 40% of the income spectrum will actually come out slightly ahead as a result of our policy.”
If someone asks “What exactly is all this money for: You can say “The money is going to the Utah Department of Environmental Quality, and their dedicated professionals have a whole laundry list of things to fix…. starting with 1) switching old, polluting school buses for cleaner ones, 2) upgrading the switcher locomotives at the railyard with newer and cleaner locomotives, 3) funding the CARROT program to give incentives for people to trade in old power equipment like lawnmowers and leaf blowers for electric… and that’s just the low hanging fruit!”
If someone asks “Won’t this hurt Utah businesses?” You can say “We have a provision in the bill to protect trade-exposed Utah businesses (like manufacturers) from unfair competition. If your company makes something in Utah, and another company makes it in Idaho, we need to protect the Utah company from being outcompeted by the other one without a carbon tax. That’s why the first year that Utah company would only pay 10% of the tax in the first year, and it would go up by 5% every year after that up to a maximum of 50%.”
A few other thoughts
The legislature allocated $110 million for a new parking garage and other improvements at the State Capitol and only $29 million for air quality. We’re proposing $100 million EVERY year to Clean the Darn Air!
If you want to read more about the health effects of air pollution, Utah Physicians for a Health Environment has a great summary.
If people aren’t yet registered to vote they can register right in front of you on their smartphone. If they do that then their signature will (probably!) count: it depends on which item the county clerk processes first: the voter registration or the petition packet.