Representative Diane Russell is a connector.
Long before assuming office in 2008, Russell had a fundamental belief in connecting one-on-one with her community. After college, she worked full-time as a cashier at Colucci's, a local Italian deli in Portland, Maine. Her approachability and multi-disciplinary engagement won Russell her campaign for Maine House of Representative in 2008 and reelection in 2012. Today, she continues her presence at Colucci's, working behind the counter once a week to keep a local presence.
Since taking office, Diane's organizing savvy has expanded her influence way beyond the boundaries of her district.
Russell embraces online communities to help promote her message near and far, staying active on Twitter, Reddit and various other social media platforms. She blogs regularly on her personal website and uses news sites such as Huffington Post to leverage her voice. She's even been mentioned in Rolling Stone and Glamour. As an elected official, she works to consistently remain transparent.
Russell is known for speaking up for controversial legislation. She uses petitions to help solidify and disseminate the hype around issues important to her. In the midst of the recent NSA leaks, Russell added a petition to her website to rally support around stopping NSA spying, which garnered 21,000 petition signatures in just 24 hours and beating her goal of 20,000 signatures. Prior to that, she visited a cannibus forum on Reddit under the pseudonym MissWrite, engaging in first-hand testimonials on marijuana regulation. This followed up a public town forum she had on the issue, which was supported across parties.
Similarly, Russell used her NationBuilder site to gather thousands of petition signatures for the CHIP IN (HR 398) Congressional Pay Act, which seeks to decrease Congressional pay by 10% and repeals the automatic pay increases currently taking place in Congress. The bill is backed by President Obama and U.S. Senate democrat from Iowa, Daver Loebsack. Before NationBuilder, Russell doesn't use the email marketing approach to engage people. More than anything, she listens and responds. Her success really comes back to a key principle of the work we do at NationBuilder: organize, communicate, cultivate relationships and people will respond.
