The University of Michigan’s chapter of Roosevelt, a student-run progressive think tank, hosted the first-ever Progressive Policy Summit Wednesday evening at Palmer Commons. Twenty progressive organizations from the Ann Arbor community featured at the event, including AA for Public Power, Environmental Consulting Organization and The American Civil Liberties Union.
Sofia Wynn, outreach chair for Roosevelt at Michigan, told The Michigan Daily the organization aims to give undergraduate students a platform to draft policies covering a variety of areas. Wynn said the think tank was hoping to host organizations working towards the advancement of society at the summit.
“We (say) ‘progressive’, as not so much a specific thing, but just (to refer to) people who are trying to take action,” Wynn said. “(We were) just reaching out and seeing how many people and what breadth of issues we could cover (through our event).”
The summit featured presentations from each featured organization with allotted time for networking in between the talks. Wynn spoke on why the organization provided attendees with opportunities to connect with advocacy efforts related to the Ann Arbor community.
“We really want to promote working together and (forming) partnerships,” Wynn said. “A lot of people are doing similar things and are stronger in numbers. So having people support (those) groups is essential to the overall missions of all our organizations.”
Zackariah Farah, U-M alum and current staff member at Michigan Medicine, spoke at the event on behalf of Ann Arbor for Public Power, one of the attending organizations. Farah said the organization focuses on addressing the harmful practices of energy sources in Michigan. Farah said Ann Arbor for Public Power believes DTE is one of the least reliable and most unaffordable power utilities in the entire country. Ann Arbor for Public Power instead proposes that the city relies on public power utilities instead.
“The only (energy reliability) mechanism has been deeply corrupt, corrupted by (energy organizations’) large donations to political candidates, as well as huge lobbying efforts in Lansing; you can talk to … our state legislators on this. They’ll tell you how dire the situation is,” Farah said. “Public power utilities, on the other hand, are directly responsible to the people and we can hold them accountable through democratic elections and through direct local oversight.”
LSA sophomore Molly Amrine represented the Econ Policy Group at Wednesday’s event. Amrine said this year the group is focusing on repealing the 2015 Public Act 105 of Michigan’s Wage Preemption, which prevents counties and municipalities from setting their own minimum wage proportional to the local cost of living.
“We have wage preemption with Public Act 105 in 2015, and this requires that all counties and municipalities in Michigan follow the $10.10 cent minimum wage, regardless of any preexisting legislation that may have put local wages above that level,” Amrine said.
Amrine said the group also created a policy memo on the issue last semester. As the group works to receive endorsements from local and state legislators this semester, Amrine said they have already been endorsed by five legislators, including state Sen. Jeff Irwin, D-Ann Arbor, and Lansing City Councilmember Ryan Kost.
Wynn said they believe the summit successfully brought members of the U-M community together and that Roosevelt wants to continue extending their reach to anyone who needs help with advocacy, writing and legislative processes.
“I wanted to create an opportunity where we could openly share what we’re doing as a beacon of hope, as well, because things look really dark when you’re just looking at your one issue,” Wynn said. “But here, we’re able to bring everyone together to produce some hope.”
Wynn said Roosevelt intends to continue their Progressive Policy Summit annually and involve even more community members. She also said Roosevelt hopes to use the event to aid freshmen in finding organizations that align with their values.
“The goal of this was to kind of start the ball rolling for an annual Progressive Policy Summit,” Wynn said. “Collaboration is not like a one time thing. … We want to continue to build (these relationships).”
Daily News Contributor Rhea Narayan can be reached at rhean@umich.edu.