Hundreds of people from a wide variety of progressive interest groups rally at the Kansas Statehouse to advance a unified 'Kansas People's Agenda.'

The Capitol rotunda in Topeka was packed and loud Wednesday as a diverse group of liberal and progressive organizations banded together to advance what they called a “Kansas People’s Agenda.”

The list of causes includes, but is not limited to: environmental justice; health care access for all; LGBT rights; immigrant rights; “responsible” gun policy; and anti-corruption reform, just to name a few.

What was interesting about the rally, at least from a tactical sense, was the bringing-together of so many interest groups that don’t always have a lot in common.

The issues have been around the Statehouse for years and in some cases decades. And what typically happens in a conservative state like Kansas is that whenever a bill comes up dealing with only one of those issues — say, a bill scaling back clean air requirements on coal-fired power plants — only the environmental advocates show up. Advocates for LGBT rights, child welfare, education funding are usually not present, as such.

Rabbi Moti Rieber, a Lawrence activist who lobbies on environmental issues, called it an example of “fusion” politics — bringing diverse groups together under one umbrella, mainly for the purpose of opposing a common foe, which in this case is presumably Gov. Sam Brownback and the socially conservative Legislature that has dominated the Statehouse for the past six years.

Fusion politics has been around for some time, and it has taken many forms over the years, but it would seem that the phrase is just now coming back into vogue.

A 2005 article in the magazine The Nation described how it works in New York State, where there are more than two major parties, and candidates for state and local office can run under multiple party banners at one time.

In that way, a minor party like the Working Families Party in New York can curry favor with both of the major parties while also maintaining a core base of support of its own.

Although fusion politics today tends to be linked with liberal and progressive causes, it can also be used just as effectively from the right.

In fact, last year at the Kansas Statehouse, a crowd that dwarfed the Kansas People’s Agenda rally in terms of size rallied in favor of so-called “religious freedom” legislation. It was made up of people from a wide range of religious faiths — although probably not as diverse as the People’s Agenda crowd — whose main theme was to push back against same-sex marriage and anti-discrimination laws that they viewed as a threat to their core religious beliefs.

But as in any other kind of political mobilizing activity, the success of the movement will not be measured by the number of people organizers can bring together for a one-day event. The measure will be how many they can bring out to the polls on Election Day.