Straight out of Cape Cod: The origin of community choice aggregation and its spread to other states

Abstract

This policy history describes how community choice aggregation was created in Massachusetts by a small group of advocates and subsequently spread across the US. Twenty-one interviews with key participants, primary materials from government and personal archives, and newspaper articles were used to attribute and corroborate these events. A new finding is that community choice aggregation was created as part of electric sector restructuring efforts in Massachusetts in 1997, but that this new policy was barely perceived by many stakeholders in the larger restructuring process, and was included by legislators in response to advocates who organized local governments through direct democracy strategies. Kingdon’s multiple streams approach provides a useful framework to understand how organizing by advocates led to successful passage of legislation in Massachusetts. The spread of community choice aggregation to other states occurred through organizing that combined advocacy with policy learning and emulation. CCA has since been adopted by more than 1800 local governments that represent more than 36 million people in six states. This article concludes by discussing the early outcomes, current status, and some prospective implications of community choice aggregation.