Measure H
How Community Activism Overcame the Odds
by Holly Madrigal
In the days before Christmas 2003, Mendocino County court chambers were filled to overflowing. Corporate attorneys were easily recognizable in a room otherwise filled with farmers and local activists. Earlier that month, word had come that Els Cooperrider, Janie Shepard, Dr. Ron Epstein, and County Clerk-Recorder, Marsha Wharf (as the county elections official) were being sued by California Plant Health Association, a conglomerate made up of biotech companies including Monsanto, Dow Chemical, Syngenta, and others, demanding that Measure H—the citizens’ initiative to ban the growing of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)—remove specific language in support of the measure from the ballot.
Late the same evening that the lawsuit was filed, Attorney Susan Jordan called Els Cooperrider in her office at the Ukiah Brewery and offered to support the Measure H group pro-bono. “She and Janie Shepard did such a bang-up job defending the case and whipping up expert local testimony over the weekend, because we had almost no lead time. And when the court took a brief recess, Katrina Frey passed a hat in the crowd and got $650! She was a peach,” laughs Els.
“The room was packed. You could feel the tension just before the judge’s verdict. When he read the ruling, the room exploded!” says local photographer, Ree Slocum. “Our grassroots opposition ended in victory! People were hugging, and there were tears . . .” Superior Court Judge LaCasse ruled that the language included in the “argument in support” of the measure would be allowed, and that the voters would decide the outcome of Measure H, not the courts.
Most of our county’s agricultural acreage is in timber, pears, and wine grapes, not crops like corn or soybeans which are most commonly affected by the GMO industry. If our area was more like the Salinas Valley or Kern County, perhaps the political pushback would have been overwhelming. But the community here is small enough that neighbors talking to neighbors is how things get done.
“I knew there would be opposition to what we were doing,” says Els Cooperrider, co-founder of the Mendocino Organic Network and owner of the Ukiah Brewery, the first organic brewpub in the country, “but I had no idea of the level of national attention it would bring.” A small group of the Ukiah Co-op board—Johanna Cummings, Dave Smith, and the late John Milder—had originally proposed a GMO labeling initiative, but Els, in a pique of frustration, said “Why can’t we outlaw the damn things!” And the group agreed, forming the Mendocino Organic Network in 2002. Johanna sold organic tea and snacks at the farmers markets to help raise $1,700 to file the initiative so it could be added to the ballot.
Around this time, the USDA was put in charge of the National Organic Certification standards, and the changes suggested to the program were alarming. The USDA wanted their organic standards to allow GMOs, as well as the use of sewage sludge and radiation of crops. So the Mendocino Organic Network decided to craft their own—beyond organic—standards that local farmers could adhere to if they chose.
Working with farmer Tim Bates from Anderson Valley, Thurston Williams from Lake County, and other local experts, they unveiled Mendocino Renegade, a certification based on the CCOF organic guidelines from 1994. The Mendocino Renegade group soon turned their attention to preserving the agricultural purity of the county’s crops. Others joined in, like Janie Shepard, Bill Radtkey, and Lee Rossavick. Mendocino Renegade is still going to this day, and over sixteen entities have been certified.
“We knew it would ruffle feathers,” says Els. “We kept it very quiet while we strategized and came up with the language.” They had it vetted by lawyer friends and scientific colleagues. Els was a cancer researcher in a previous career, so she knew a lot of experts. Marc Lappe and Dr. Ron Epstein came on board to help. Els continued, “Some of the best advice Marc gave us was to keep the ballot language very simple. It could fit on one page. It was really straightforward.” Janie Shepard is an attorney and translated the measure into legalese. The group knew that the ban would likely be challenged in court, and simplicity offered fewer vulnerabilities.
Once the papers were filed to put the measure on the ballot, the group began to organize in earnest, talking to prominent community members like Sheriff Tony Craver and Dr. Marvin Trotter, who then signed their names to the ballot statement. Word began to get out, and the David versus Goliath battle had begun.
Allen Cooperrider began tracking the committee funds; Laura Hamburg and Sid Cooperrider coordinated media; Steve Scalmanini was the secretary; and Katrina Frey took on fundraising. Doug Mosel came on board to be the campaign coordinator when it became clear there were not enough hours in the day for Els to be campaigning, fielding phone interviews from all over the country, and running a business. “We were grassroots. We had field coordinators in each part of the county, and they had a lot of autonomy,” adds Els. “We could not have done it without them. They gathered their own signatures, ran their own ads, hosted events, and we would send them support.” Ree Slocum remembers, “In Willits, as in other communities, we set up ironing boards at Safeway and the Post Office for months, passing out information, explaining the issues, and getting thousands of signatures.” Many people who had never before been engaged in a political effort signed on.
In their review process, the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors asked Els to explain the difference between plant hybridization and genetic engineering. “One has to do with plant sex and the other one never did,” she laughingly clarified. “Hybridization and plant selection has been going on for thousands of years, but you leave it up to the plants, through cross-breeding, to make the changes. Genetic engineering involves scientifically inserting or altering the genes and chromosomes, putting in genes from other organisms.”
There was a great deal of local concern that genetically altered plants could pollinate or cross-contaminate organic crops. GMO seeds are patented so that if, for example, pollen from RoundUp Ready Corn drifted into your field, Monsanto could sue you for infringing on their property. Many European countries had already banned the import of GMO crops. While the impacts of GMOs continue to be studied, Measure H sought to preempt unknown consequences from occurring locally.
The court victory gave a boost to the extensive grassroots organizing already underway by the committee. The field coordinators included Liz Haapenen and Gail Daly in Mendocino and Fort Bragg, John Spitz in Laytonville, Ellen and David Drell in Willits, Tim Bates in Anderson Valley, Steve and Gloria Decater in Covelo, and Marc Lappe and Britt Baily in Gualala. Each community was hustling to get the word out in their networks. Church groups got involved because they had concerns about scientists “playing God” in an agricultural context. The Measure H committee printed full-page ads in the Ukiah Daily Journal, covered in ten-point font, listing thousands of names of individual and business supporters.
The story of this tiny community in northern California winning a lawsuit against a massive biochemical company was big news. Articles and interview requests started pouring in from around the globe. “That lawsuit ended up being one of the best things that could have happened for our little measure. They sued us just before Christmas, and the election was in March. We talked to NPR and the AP. The Boston Globe sat in the Ukiah Brewery and interviewed us! The timing was perfect.”
The election fundraising broke county records, bringing in $145,000. The CropLife International conglomerate raised over $700,000 in opposition to Measure H, dwarfing the local efforts. Yet when election day arrived on March 2, 2004, Measure H passed with 57% of the vote. Organizers were seen whooping with joy, especially in the brewery, which served as “election central” that night and held a standing-room-only crowd. The pride felt by the community was palpable on the streets, at the post office, and in the grocery stores. Our sparsely populated county had passed the first ban on GMOs in the nation. And the victory was, in large part, due to the commitment and hard work of participants like Doug Mosel, who reminisces, “My motivation had a lot to do with my friendship with the Cooperriders and my confidence in their integrity, along with my gut-level aversion to casual tampering with Nature’s genetics.”
In the years since the passage of Measure H, several other areas, like Humboldt and Sonoma counties, have tried and failed to replicate Mendocino County’s success. And technology marches onward.
CordovaCan, a Canadian cannabis company with property in Covelo, recently announced plans to use the gene-editing system CRISPR to enhance their cannabis products. Activists quickly cited Measure H as prohibitive to such a process. The Board of Supervisors has put an additional moratorium on this type of activity as they review the legal status of the new technologies.
“We were elated,” says former field coordinator David Drell, speaking of the original campaign’s success. “I don’t think we would be able to do the same thing today. I worry that, as Baby Boomers are getting older and passing on, the younger generation does not have the same level of civic engagement.” He worries that, though he sees glimmers of hope in the high school-age children getting involved in climate action, it will take people of all ages, particularly those who can vote, to step up.
Measure H is an example of successful self-determination, and newcomers to Mendocino County may not be aware of this activist history which caused people from opposite sides of the political spectrum to form coalitions. The diversity in the types of community members working toward a shared cause was part of its strength. The small Measure H committee was underestimated by the opposition. The intrepid band of organizers out-strategized them at every step. It remains to be seen if a similar result will come from the political actions of the future, but the residents of Mendocino County have shown they can rise to the challenge.
Holly Madrigal is a Mendocino County maven who loves to share the delights of our region. She’s fortunate to enjoy her meaningful work as the director of Leadership Mendocino, a North Coast Opportunities program, and takes great joy in publishing this magazine.
