1. VADP’s Policy Goals
VADP'’s long-range policy goal is abolition of the death penalty in Virginia,
which we hope to achieve by 2025. Our roadmap for reaching that goal has
a number of intermediate objectives. Most immediately, we will continue our
efforts to defeat expansion of capital punishment through advocacy with
members of Virginia’s General Assembly and to reduce death sentences and
executions through work with the capital defense bar and other participants
in the capital litigation process. By 2014, we plan to introduce and promote
reform legislative measures to increase fairness in the capital litigation
process (eg, ???), thereby resulting in even fewer death sentences. By 2017,
we plan to begin introducing bills to abolish capital punishment.
2. The Work for Which VADP Seeks Funding
VADP seeks funding to maintain the minimum organizational capacity
necessary for us to achieve our policy goals. There are three planks to the
operational platform by which we seek to achieve our goals - Education,
Organizing, and Advocacy.
Education - Each month, VADP sponsors and participates in a number of
educational events throughout the state. These events add vitality to the
abolition movement by keeping our supporters engaged and informed about
our work while also reaching out to new potential supporters of our mission._
[list number of events & estimated # of participants from X date to Y date]
Organizing - This is the fabric that holds the abolition movement together --
connecting people in new and dynamic ways to effect change. Last year we
launched a new Facebook page, which has-continuedte-generates positive
feedback and participation from eur353 supporters and etker“friends.” This
year we have begun to use Twitter and have redesigned our website
(www.vadp.org) to make it more user-friendly and to integrate it with our
social media platforms. This year we have also invested in a new contact
management system which allows us to communicate with our supporters in
very specific ways, track them based upon a number of criteria, and mobilize
them to act in a timely and effective manner.
The vitality and strength of our organizing efforts are demonstrated by the
emergence this-yearin XXX month of 2012 of a new VADP chapter in
Northern Virginia, the region of the state with our highest number of
supporters. The chapter maintains its own list of members and manages
many of its events and meetings on its own, with only minimal oversight and
assistance from the state organization._So far this year the chapter has
organized X events & drawn Y participants.
Advocacy - The final building block in our structure is the lobbying work we
do at the General Assembly. This is the time when VADP’s year round
education and organizing efforts pay dividends through an informed and
engaged base of support that is ready to act when called upon. These
advocacy efforts have enabled us to defeat expansion of the death penalty
for each of the past five years and to form relationships with lawmakers on
both sides of the aisle that will be crucial as we undertake more ambitious
legislative efforts in the future.
| 3. VADP Seeks to Maintain its Capacity at This Time
At this time, VADP seeks to maintain its organizational capacity of two full-
time employees. Based on our experience, this is the minimum capacity we
need to continue making progress toward our policy goals.
In order to continue this work, VADP requires a minimum staff of two full-
time employees -- an Executive Director and an Administrative Director.
Although we have made great advances in our ability to raise funds from
Virginia sources, we have not yet reached the level of revenue necessary to
sustain our current level of staffing without external funding. !A-2008-VADP-
Becoming financially self-sufficient through contributions and grants from
Virginia individuals and organizations is an essential part of our mission.
Between 2008 and early 2012, VADP’s mailing list has grown from 3000 to
5250, its email list has increased from 730 to 2600, and its number of annual
| contributors have grown from 312 to 478.
| Exclusive of grants, VADP’s total annual contributions during the past four
years have been $34,000 in 2008, $78,000 in 2009, $81,000 in 2010 and
$105,000 in 2011. If VADP receives funding from DPMF/FADP this year, our
current rate of growth, along with local grant opportunities and fundraising
initiatives by our Board of Directors, should enable VADP to be financially
self-sufficient by 2014.
VADP requires external funding of $ in 2012 in order to avoid once
again having to reduce its staff and scale back its education, organizing and
advocacy activities. The consequences of such a reduction and scaling back
would be substantial, ranging from a near-term loss of leadership in the
annual effort to oppose death penalty expansion to a more long-term loss of
momentum in the ongoing efforts to build the foundation for a successful
abolition campaign in Virginia.
ices £ ise vee i
th, FRaLp: Fat
bp rohan es he seis ee eo eee, [woud lear
off by saying there was a big shift in Virginia politics with the Senate shifting
to Republican control that made VADP’s work to block expansion FAR more
difficult. Explain how past votes in the Senate Courts of Justice Committee
were razor close despite a big Democratic majority.] Virginia’s fundamental
conservatism and long history of supporting capital punishment continue to
be roadblocks to achieving VADP’s policy goals. In addition, Virginia’s
current Republican Governor, Robert McDonnell, still supports the death
penalty; the House of Delegates remains in the firm control of conservative
Republicans who are strong supporters of capital punishment and its
expansion; and the Senate, while evenly divided between Republicans and
Democrats, was successfully organized by the Republicans for the 2012
session with the tie-breaking help of Virginia’s Republican Lieutenant
Governor who also serves as the President of the Senate. Because most
Republican Senators and a handful of Democratic Senators support capital
punishment and its expansion, it seemed at the outset of the 2012 session -
as we predicted in our 2011 LOI - that it would “be difficult to hold off death
penalty expansion efforts.”
However, the death penalty expansion effort failed during the 2012 session.
It did so because two Republican Senators on the key Courts of Justice
Committee did not vote in support of the expansion bill, which as a result
never reached the Senate floor. The decision by those two Senators not to
support the expansion bill is, we believe, indicative of a gradual erosion of
support for capital punishment that we are beginning to detect among some
Republicans in the General Assembly. Further evidence of this erosion was
the vote against the House expansion bill by a handfit+-ef X Republican
Delegates. VADP’s Executive Director spoke with each of these Delegates
following their votes and learned that they are starting to question whether
capital punishment is sound public policy. This apparent erosion of support
for capital punishment among Republicans represents a significant political
opening for achieving VADP’s policy goals.
[This account makes it look like VADP did nothing to lobby these Senators
only talk to them after the fact. | would stress how the VADP & Virginia
Catholic Conference staff met repeatedly with legislators explaining the
downside to the Triggerman repeal. | would also mention how VADP will
continue building relationships with these & other Republicans. ]
Another potential opening could come from the state-by-state assessment of
capital punishment by the American Bar Association, which is now underway
in Virginia. (VADP’s Executive Director was consulted about the formation of
the panel that is conducting the assessment.) When completed and
published, the assessment should be critical of at least some aspects of
Virginia’s capital punishment system. Assuming that to be the case, the
assessment should strengthen the argument that capital punishment is bad
public policy, thereby enhancing our ability to attract Republican and
conservative support for our mission.
