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The Freedom of Information Act, passed in 1974, makes official state government records available to the public. It's one of the 150 state and city laws that the New York Public Interest Research Group, better known as NYPIRG, has helped pass. Tomorrow NYPIRG celebrates its thirtieth anniversary. WNYC's Alicia Zuckerman takes a look inside.


AZ: NYPIRG member Harmonico Kao, a 20-year-old sophomore at the College of Staten Island, is standing in Grand Central Terminal, yelling at the top of his lungs.

Kao: The thing that I find most rewarding is when people who just turned 18 come and register // this age group, we have the lowest percentage of people who do vote.

AZ: Voter registration is one of the cornerstones of NYPIRG s mission. Roughly have of the state s residents who are eligible to vote are actually registered. The organization has registered millions of voters. And in the month and a half before the deadline for this week s election, NYPIRG students helped register sixteen thousand voters statewide--most of them fellow students.

Kao is a finance major, and when he graduates he hopes to start a business that he says will be "socially responsible."

Kao: Activism is a 24-hour job (laughs), so you always have to be representing what your beliefs are every second of the day.

AZ: He was out that day from 6:30 in the morning until five at night. Then he headed to his job--as an overnight security guard.

AZ: It was Ralph Nader who came up with the idea for student-run Public Interest Research Groups, called PIRGs.

Nader: The atmosphere was still coming out of the energy of the Sixties. Anti-Vietnam War movement, civil rights movement, women s rights, environment. All this converged, and the very idea of a convergence just tends to make the sum of civic energy more than its parts.

AZ: In 1971 he and fellow activist Donald Ross wrote the handbook, "Activism for a Change." Ross went on to become NYPIRG's first executive director. Nader says the PIRGs were a more moderate way for students to let off their "civic steam" constructively--exactly the kind of thing Kao was doing in Grand Central Station.

Oregon had the first PIRG in the country. New York followed two years later in 1973. Founded by students from Queens College, Syracuse University, and Albany Law School, it quickly became, and still is, one of the largest and most powerful in the country.

The budget is modest--around $6 million dollars for the whole state, and partially funded by student activity fees.

While it s the thousands of students who bring new energy and enthusiasm to the issues every year, it s the 80 hired staff members who provide NYPIRG with its institutional memory and decades of experience.

Russianoff: Social change is slow, and if you have the nerve or the gall to think that you can make the subways better, or even more, reform the political system, you can t do it in two years or five years, or ten years.

AZ: Sheephead Bay High School graduate Gene Russianoff began his NYPIRG career in 1978. After finishing Harvard Law, he returned to his alma mater, Brooklyn College, as a campus organizer.

AZ: 25 years later, Russianoff is NYPIRG s senior attorney, and the bulldog behind the Straphanger's Campaign, the mass transit advocacy group. Anyone who s swiped an unlimited Metrocard, can shake his hand. It took twenty years to get the MTA to implement the money-saving measure, and now unlimited Metrocards are used for about half the bus and subway rides taken every day.

Russianoff's career path has been very different from most of his Harvard Law classmates. His salary is less than most first-year Manhattan law firm associates. Still, he and his wife own a home in Brooklyn. They have two kids. Thinking of activism a sacrifice, he says, is wrong. And it s something he knew early on.

Russianoff: I had some little sense then that I was not just taking a job but joining a community of like-minded New Yorkers, people who wanted to see the city and the state improve, it was pretty clear after just a short while being here I had found a home.

AZ: NYPIRG's current executive director, Chris Meyer, also started as a campus organizer, 20 years ago. At that point, the organization had been working to get the bottle return law passed for ten years.

Meyer: I couldn t believe it took this long. We did a walk across the state for the bottle bill. I had the Bikers United against Broken Glass together with hikers and environmentalists. It was just a very cool campaign, and after Gov. Carey signed it into law, I was just hooked on political action and NYPIRG.

AZ: Today it s the "Bigger Better Bottle Bill" that brings a smile to Meyer s face. If passed, it would extend refunds to non-carbonated beverage containers, and create a fund that would be earmarked for the environment.

Meyer: It was improbable. I mean the idea that college students could come together to become corporation directors and then hire a professional staff, is just amazing. And most people thought it would last about 30 minutes, and here it is 30 years later.

AZ: The concept is still the same today, roughly 40 students make up the board of directors. Of NYPIRG's 20 chapters, 18 are on State University and City University campuses. That the group is predominantly run by public college and university students maintains NYPIRG's proletariat sensibility.

Horner: You think about the world differently when you could get killed

AZ: Blair Horner is NYPIRG s legislative director in Albany. He s in charge of keeping track of relevant state laws and developing strategies for the organization's agenda. Starting when he was 18, he and his friends in North Merrick, Long Island would get together and watch the draft lottery, hoping their numbers wouldn t come up, hoping they wouldn t be sent to Vietnam.

CUT-Horner
When the policy choices that someone else makes has a direct impact on your life, and in fact may make the difference between whether or not you live or die. // 65: and to let other people make those choices for you seemed crazy.

AZ: In conversation, Horner is direct and measured. It makes sense, since his job requires him to deal with both Republicans and Democrats. He readily offers that he is not registered with any political party. And NYPIRG itself is non-partisan.

CUT-Horner
55: Since we're a non-partisan, not-for-profit, our cache in terms of power in Albany is limited in the traditional sense. We don t make campaign contributions, we don t endorse anybody, and that s normally how special interests influence the legislative process. We don t do that.

AZ: But New Yorker Magazine political reporter Elizabeth Kolbert says elected officials know NYPIRG is there.

Kolbert: I think they're perceived as a pain in the ass but I think there's a grudging respect for them, both in the state capital and at City Hall, because they really know what they're doing.

AZ: Especially when it comes to finding ways to engage the public. The tactics can be theatrical, and even funny, to make serious points: A staff person who juggles has stood outside public corruption hearings juggling the books. And then there was the "Transit Wheel of Misfortune," with wedges for "late," "very late," "tremendously late," and a very small wedge for "on time." The official name for NYPIRG s annual subway cleanliness surveys? The "Schmutz Reports."

AZ: At SUNY Albany recently, campus organizer Katie Nadeau was helping NYPIRG students develop public statements on issues like homelessness and hunger, sweatshops, and clean air. This is Albany junior Jamaal Cain's second year in NYPIRG.

Kane: We are kind of a generation without an identity. Before 9/11 we didn t have any crisis, and so people really took the me-first attitude. And the best thing about NYPIRG is that it s not me-first. It's about public interest.

AZ: Elizabeth Kolbert describes NYPIRG's staff as smart, savvy, and indefatigable.

Kolbert: They watch what goes on. The importance of that can t be overstated. I covered Albany for many years, and many things would just slip away unnoticed in the middle of the night if there weren t someone from NYPIRG paying attention. All of the legal requirements of democracy are not worth that much if no one is there making sure they're actually followed.

AZ: Jay Hershenson is a CUNY Vice Chancellor and the secretary of its board of trustees. Thirty years ago as a Queens College sophomore, he was one of NYPIRG's founding students.

Hershenson: People worry about whether or not they can fight City Hall or whether or not it s possible to be heard in a society that's so large and in many ways indifferent.

AZ: Just yesterday at city hall, the city council said it would back a bill to toughen lead paint laws. That's been one of NYPIRG's main issues for years.

For WNYC, I'm Alicia Zuckerman.