Solomon could face rough terrain in California

Having led the effort to secure equal marriage in Massachusetts, outgoing MassEquality Executive Director Marc Solomon is a natural choice for the post of Equality California's (EQCA) marriage director, which will put him in charge of the statewide LGBT organization's efforts to win back marriage equality in the Golden State. But without a doubt, he'll be facing far greater challenges out west than he did here in the Bay State.

For starters, Solomon, who departs MassEquality on April 1, is heading to California as the state's LGBT community struggles to find its footing after the devastating passage of Proposition 8, an anti-gay marriage ballot amendment, last November. The amendment's passage reversed the California Supreme Court's May 2008 ruling in favor of marriage equality and has thrown into question the legality of the roughly 18,000 same-sex marriages that occurred in the state prior to Prop. 8's passage. Last week, the California Supreme Court heard arguments in a lawsuit filed by EQCA aimed at invalidating Proposition 8. However, after harsh questioning by the seven justices legal LGBT advocates aren't terribly optimistic the court will rule in favor of tossing the amendment. Should the court rule against EQCA, the only recourse would be to mount a ballot initiative campaign to pass a pro-marriage equality constitutional amendment, an unprecedented feat.

On top of the difficult legal and political terrain, Solomon will likely face a skeptical grassroots LGBT community in his new role. Following the passage of Prop. 8, EQCA, its executive director Geoff Kors, and a host of other LGBT organizations and leaders affiliated with the No on 8 campaign were roundly criticized for running what many saw as an ineffective, top-down campaign that failed to harness grassroots support or find proper messaging. In the aftermath of the November election, grassroots groups like Join the Impact and the Courage Campaign seized on the perceived failings to call for new leadership in the state's marriage equality movement, in addition to organizing anti-Prop. 8 protests and other direct actions around the state. The Courage Campaign, for instance, which launched an aggressive advertising campaign during and after No on 8, has been busy organizing its 700,000 strong membership network to recruit and train more grassroots activists with an eye to overturning Prop. 8 independently of EQCA. The group recently secured funds from the Human Rights Campaign to conduct more of its daylong Camp Courage trainings, the most recent of which happened in the conservative enclave of Fresno.

And based solely on its size - never mind its more racially and culturally diverse population - organizing in California is far more difficult than organizing in the Bay State. California is about 20 times the size of Massachusetts in terms of land area and has more than five times the population. Los Angeles county alone has about 1.5 times the population of Massachusetts, even though it's only about half the size of Massachusetts in terms of land area; conservative Orange County has about half the population of the entire state of Massachusetts.

Courage Campaign founder and chair Rick Jacobs suggested that Solomon would need to open up some lines of communications with other activists if he is to be successful. "What I do know is that there is a lot of work to do all the way around," said Jacobs. "I would say this: if I were new to a state coming into something like this I would sure want to do a lot of listening."

Gloria Nieto, a longtime activist from Santa Clara County who characterized her experience volunteering on No on 8 in purely negative terms, questioned Solomon's ability to replicate the Bay State model of success in a state as large and diverse as California. "How could there not be anybody from California qualified to do this kind of work?" said Nieto, the former president of the national LGBT Latino organization LLEGO, which folded in 2004. "There's a very large population here and a lot of people have really extensive experience."

Nieto also stated that Solomon would have to spend some time rebuilding bridges in the LGBT community after the loss on Prop. 8. "There's just so many bridges that have been burned it's like they're operating in a different universe," she said of EQCA.

Solomon, of course, brings to his new job significant experience running a grassroots campaign, given that the mobilization of thousands of same-sex couples and their families to political activism - from lobbying to volunteering on political campaigns - is largely seen as the key to MassEquality's success in winning the marriage battle here in Massachusetts. Additionally, he is bringing with him to California MassEquality Field Director Amy Mello, who was in charge of marshalling the organization's grassroots army. Solomon also has some sense of what he's walking into, having volunteered on the No on 8 campaign in the two-and-a-half weeks leading up to the election last November.

In an interview this week at MassEquality's Beacon Street offices, Solomon acknowledged some of the difficulties he'll be facing in his new role, including questions about whether he'll be able to deliver for California.

"My m.o. always is, the proof is in the puddin'," he said with a smile. "We need to go and hit the ground running and show results. What kind of results? Amy Mello's coming out and we're going to build a strong field operation that is centered on ... married couples, their parents, their kids and we're going to be doing the door to door, person to person, community by community work that we did in Massachusetts and we're going to take it to scale because California's a lot bigger than Massachusetts.

"But it can be taken to scale," he added. "Anyone who questions whether that kind of work can be taken to scale just needs to look at the Obama campaign."

Solomon said he'll be starting with a team of six organizers, which he aims to grow as their fieldwork expands. He and Mello will be based in Los Angeles.

Kors characterized Solomon's hiring as a continuation of EQCA's work on marriage equality prior to the No on 8 campaign. "But this is the first time we have someone who's exclusively focused as a marriage director, with that exact title," he said. He added that under Solomon, ECQA would be looking to put field staff in regions of the state - namely its southern half - where Prop. 8 passed, including San Diego, Orange County, the Inland Empire and the Central Valley.

He also dismissed the idea that Solomon's hiring was a response to the criticism of EQCA in the wake of Prop. 8 and calls for new leadership in the state's marriage equality movement. Noting that Equality California was just one equal vote on No on 8's executive committee Kors said that EQCA has received the brunt of the criticism "because we stepped up at the level we did," particularly when No on 8 was having difficulty raising money. "We raised a third of all the money that the campaign raised," said Kors. "So people sort of saw me as the face even though I was not involved in the decision-making for the campaign" besides his voice on the executive committee. Criticism aside, Kors said EQCA wants to hire the most qualified people it can. "So whether or not there was criticism... it made sense to bring [Marc] on board to do this work," he said.

In the short term, Solomon anticipates several challenges in working to restore marriage equality in California. "One is the fact that after this loss there are groups that are sort of all off doing their own things and aren't coordinating terribly well," he said. "So pulling the LGBT and allied communities together as much as possible to have a common effort is one big challenge," said Solomon. The second challenge, he said, would be building to scale a grassroots campaign by partnering with organizations like Courage Campaign, Join the Impact and Let Freedom Ring and empowering grassroots activists to self-organize utilizing the model of the Obama campaign. "It can't be Equality California on its own," said Solomon. "That would neither be smart nor successful. It's got to be all the organizations working together." Lastly, Solomon expects that fundraising in the current economic environment will prove challenging.

Solomon will leave MassEquality's leadership in the hands of MassEquality Development Director Scott Gortikov, who has been named interim executive director (See related story, page one).

Solomon's tenure as the leader of MassEquality began in 2006, after the departure of Campaign Director Marty Rouse. Solomon had previously served as the organization's political director. In addition to leading the organization through its most crucial battle - the defeat of an anti-gay marriage amendment sponsored by the Massachusetts Family Institute in June 2007 - he has also steered Mass Equality sto success in its new iteration as a multi-issue LGBT political organization. Most notably, Solomon and MassEquality led the effort on the repeal of the 1913 law that prevented non-resident same-sex couples from marrying in Massachusetts. Gov. Deval Patrick signed the repeal bill into law last July in a public ceremony. The organization also played a leading role in the passage of the MassHealth Equality bill, which enables same-sex spouses in Massachusetts to access MassHealth benefits, and was pivotal in securing increased state funding for a host of LGBT and HIV/AIDS programming in last year's budget. Solomon's tenure also saw the launch of the "6x12" strategy, a partnership with Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) to win marriage equality in every New England state by 2012.

As the face of the marriage movement in Massachusetts, Solomon has become a respected, connected leader on the state's political scene whose ability to form personal relationships with lawmakers and political movers and shakers has also aided MassEquality's political success. On May 13, he will be honored for his work on marriage with the Massachusetts Democratic Party's 2009 Franklin D. Roosevelt Award.

Democratic Party Chairman John Walsh said that the honor is one of two awards given annually to individuals "who are committed to and have shown a large amount of energy on values that are important to the Democratic Party. And clearly Marc's work in the drive and the successful achievement of equal marriage rights and the preservation of those rights makes him a natural choice for that."

Walsh also credited Solomon with making a lasting impact on the state's political landscape. "Mass Equality under Marc's leadership has sort of taken the dual advocacy of legislative work within the State House and electoral work supplementing that to a level that I think anyone who is looking to move policy in Massachusetts should be studying and following," said Walsh.