Send Voters Back to Civics Class
To date, the 2010 midterm elections have offered very little reason for optimism on the part of those of us who consider ourselves centrists. Candidates and their campaigns seem totally vacuous or unbelievably nasty, or both. The growing left/right polarization has been on full display, with Tea Party activists and demagogues such as Glenn Beck getting the lion’s share of media coverage and commentary.
Many days, my attitude has hovered in the narrow range between total frustration and abject disgust. And I say that as someone who has been associated with politics and public policy for over forty years, starting in the late 1960s when I helped organize the national drive to lower the voting age to 18. I sometimes find myself thinking that my efforts have been largely wasted, that even extending the franchise to younger voters may turn out to have been a cruel hoax of sorts.
But every now and then something happens to get me reengaged, to cause me to think “What the hell….Let’s give it another shot!” In recent weeks a convergence of forces have once again lifted my spirits and convinced me that maybe one can still make a difference in the political life of our country, that perhaps the Republic can be improved, that I cannot give up, at least not yet.
First, recognizing that a citizenry that lacks basic knowledge about civic institutions---their history and their value--- can be too readily frightened and too easily manipulated, President Obama and key Congressional leaders such as Rep. George Miller (D-CA) have signaled their intent to breathe new life and bring additional resources into the field of civic education.
For more than a generation we have been short-changing civic learning. Although there are notable exceptions, what goes on in too many Civics or American History classes is dull, boring and irrelevant. The neglect has resulted in a populace that doesn’t know what it needs to know in order to be both engaged and responsible. When one in four Americans believe that Barack Obama is a Muslim, or think that former President George Bush had advance knowledge of 9/11, we have a serious problem. Ignorance breeds fear and hatred, and both reactions are harmful to a representative democracy.
Reinvigorated civic learning in America’s public schools is essential, and President Obama, Congressman Miller and others are to be commended for recognizing that fact, and for vowing to do something about it.
Next, I became aware of two separate movements, the Student Association for Voter Empowerment (SAVE), and Running to Govern, organizations which are picking up where I and my colleagues in the Youth Franchise Coalition left off once we passed and ratified the 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1971.
SAVE is dedicated to the recruitment and mobilization of younger voters in order to ensure that their interests are protected in the course of policy debates and decisions having to do with access to and the quality of higher education, employment for younger men and women, and entitlement reform, among other issues. SAVE’s founders, Matthew Segal and Jarrett Moreno, possess equal amounts of intelligence, reason, idealism and energy, and more than enough of each to succeed.
Ross Rocketto is a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon’s John Heinz School of Public Policy and Management. While spending a year studying at CMU’s Washington, DC center, Mr. Rocketto is also busily creating Running to Govern, an organization to be composed of young, skilled political organizers and policy wonks who will labor only for candidates---Republican or Democratic---who are pledged to work toward solutions to our nation’s most pressing problems. Running to Govern’s troops will avoid candidates ---incumbents or challengers---whose rhetoric and/or behavior puts a lie to their seriousness about governing, and of being civil in the process.
Then, just a couple of weeks ago, the core group of organizers from the 18 year old vote movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s gathered in Washington, DC to reminisce, to begin compiling a comprehensive history of that movement (surprisingly, it has not been done before now), and to lay plans for the commemoration of next year’s fortieth anniversary of the passage and ratification of the 26th Amendment.
In addition to the enjoyment derived from reliving old times and retelling old stories, each member of the group was struck by the fact that we have all remained active in the politics of our country and/or the lives of our communities. Although sometimes discouraged or disillusioned with what we see going on around us, not one person has either retreated from active involvement or turned his/her back on our civic institutions and processes. We think there is a valuable lesson in that observation and experience.
Finally, just this week another, larger and far more notable group of “gray hairs” did something that the rest of us---young and old alike--- should find heartening: Over one hundred and thirty former Members of Congress---men and women, Republicans and Democrats, conservatives, liberals and moderates---joined forces and issued both a warning and a plea to this year’s crop of candidates. The veteran politicians said, in effect, “Enough! Enough of the empty promises, the nasty rhetoric, the partisan posturing, the personal attacks and the avoidance of substantive debate! Enough of the needless divisions and the corrosive incivility!”
Led by David Skaggs (D-CO) and John Porter (R-IL), the group wrote to all Congressional candidates in next month’s election, saying that the former Members are seeking “Common Ground” on the major issues that confront America---budget deficits, entitlement reform, infrastructure, and national security, the threat of terrorism, global competition and education reform. Their plea and their promise are just what the young leaders of SAVE and Running to Govern are dedicated to pursuing. It is what we thought we were helping accomplish with the 18 year old vote. And it is what a vital and robust approach to civic learning today can help achieve for America in the future.