For the Architect Behind Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Green New Deal, Policy Is Personal

From Marie Claire

In late 2018, Rhiana Gunn-Wright, a designer of the Green New Deal, discovered her work push into the spotlight by a demonstration at Nancy Pelosi's office. In her job as approach chief at the D.C. research organization New Consensus, Gunn-Wright had been investigating how to "put meat on the bones" of the omnibus arrangement that intends to at the same time check environmental change, make employments, and address pay disparity.

Photo credit: Sean David

Suddenly, on November 13, her phone and email started pinging with the news that the Sunrise Movement, a youth-led climate-change activist organization, and the progressive Justice Democrats—two groups she’d been working with on the proposal—had taken over the speaker-elect’s office, urging Pelosi to create a select committee to draft an action plan. When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, fresh off her surprise win in New York, joined the protest, media attention skyrocketed.

Gunn-Wright had just joined the months-old nonprofit. Until then, it had been hard to get her phone calls returned; few had heard of the Green New Deal, and those who had thought it was an unattainable dream. “None of us expected the sit-in to blow up the way it did,” says Gunn-Wright, 29. Just like that, she says, “everything changed.”

The Rhodes scholar and former intern to Michelle Obama had just wrapped up a stint as policy lead on former Detroit Health Department head Abdul El-Sayed’s unsuccessful campaign for governor. When El-Sayed asked her to join his campaign, she joked, “Are you sure? Because you’re very Muslim and I’m very black, and this is Michigan.” He said yes, and Gunn-Wright went on to win attention in the role for churning out 250 pages of bold and detailed ideas, including one for state-funded Internet access.

After the loss, Ocasio-Cortez’s then-campaign manager Saikat Chakrabarti (who Gunn-Wright had met when AOC stumped for El-Sayed) connected her with New Consensus. Before long, Gunn-Wright was drawing on her Oxford master’s degree in comparative social policy to sketch the framework for how the country could shift away from fossil fuels.

Despite its name, the Green New Deal does not focus solely on environmental policy; it intends to transform the economy by investing in clean energy and infrastructure—creating millions of high-paying jobs—but its commitment to social justice is just as important to the framers. As Gunn-Wright wrote on Twitter, “Folks may be mad that the GND is not all about climate. In any case, this is the thing that a pledge to equity and value implies!" To that end, the approach's aggressive objectives of changing the nation to electric autos, rapid rail, and 100 percent sustainable power source while carefully lessening emanations will be advanced close by dynamic social strategies like government-subsidized childcare and all inclusive medicinal services.