Barbara Richards has been active for many years in
community and labor organizing and electoral politics in Connecticut. In New Haven she
was one of the founders of People Acting for Change, Executive
Director of the Community-Labor Alliance (See her chapter in the book Building Bridges by
Jeremy Brecher and Tim Costello), Director of Research,
Communication and Computer Programming for the Hotel and Restaurant
Workers, Locals 34, 35 and 217, and a member of the Board of Alderman.
Recently she has worked on some election campaigns in other cities and
towns, especially in Bridgeport.
She has a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan and is a full-time
professor at a community college. All of her political work
is on a
volunteer basis.
For the past few years she has been a member of Unidad Latina in New Haven, and that involvement led to work with the coalition advocating for
state legislation to allow children of
immigrants to pay in-state tuition at public institutions of higher
education. In the course of that work she developed an email list
of over 600 people that sends out news about Connecticut
immigration issues. In the future that email list will also
include information
related to this website. If anyone would like their name added to
the email list please send an email to the address below.
She has traveled to many countries and often observed high levels
of
participation in electoral politics. She has been
searching for a way to contribute to more "participatory democracy" in
Connecticut - more voter knowledge about issues and
candidates, involvement in election
campaigns, and monitoring of incumbents. For years she could not
figure out how to develop a project on participatory
democracy without getting tangled up in
the complex regulations governing different types of political
organizations. She finally realized that thanks to changes
in technology she could
provide an important resource for voters by doing what any citizen has
the right to do: volunteer her own time, and create a website and email
list through her personal email account.
Although the website is a one-person project, she will constantly consult with people involved in the numerous great
advocacy organizations we are fortunate to have in our state. Already many wonderful people have been
generous in giving their advice.