This episode of Next Gen Voter challenges the typical behaviors of the American voter and their willingness to check out of the political process in between Presidential Elections. How can you make a difference by staying engaged?
This episode of Next Gen Voter challenges voters to not check out until the next Presidential Election. Democracy does not work when people only light the torch every four years.
Highlights include:
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Welcome to the next gen voter podcast-the only podcast of the next gen, by the next gen, for the next gen. Wow! It feels like for the first time in forever there’s nothing gigantic going on in Washington. There are no elections, or insurrections or impeachments to breathlessly watch like a horror movie. So maybe it’s time to kick back, relax and ignore politics until the midterms, right? WRONG. That sort of attitude is very-much prevalent among our generation, and it has very dangerous consequences, mainly due to the fact that while you take a break, others don’t, which means that others get to influence the conversation while your voice is left out of it. But there are no elections, you might be thinking, What can I do? Today, I’ll be looking at ways of staying politically engaged outside of the fall of every even-numbered year, so that you can make a big difference when an awful lot of the decisions that will influence your life the greatest are made.
The first place to look at when thinking about staying politically active is in your own town or city. After all, one of the most important debates that is raging right now is about the process of getting more children back into classrooms. Some schools right now, as you probably have experienced, are at home, with more yet being in a hybrid model where students are given the opportunity to come for in-person learning a couple of days a week while remaining at home on the other days, with only a select few schools having returned to full-time in-person learning. As hybrid and remote learning has gone on, studies have shown just how tragic the consequences of this extended time out of the classroom has been, from students who normally get As and Bs getting Ds, to 20% of the Cleveland Metro School District getting an “incomplete” during the first quarter, to a massive acceleration in the learning gaps between affluent suburbs and less well-funded schools. Equally tragic has been the rise in mental health problems among students as they have been isolated from friends, teachers and counselors. As a result, many school districts have looked at revisiting their plans, to possibly open up schools or increase the number of people who can be in the building. This has been really spurred by online movements of parents and students, working together to put pressure on the school boards to hear their concerns, and as a result, many school districts, especially around me have begun to bring more students back into the building, give kindergartners the in-person learning they so desperately need, and prioritize the mental health needs of their students. I am 100% certain that this change would not have happened, so if you happen to be one of these students who gets to return to school, remember that it wasn’t luck, but rather the hard work of citizens like you and me.
The next place to look to be politically active during the off-season would be with issue-based campaigns. One of the surprisingly effective, and yet criminally unknown ways that pivotal change is enacted in our democratic system is via ballot initiatives that are voted on statewide, which become law if they garner support of enough voters. Some of the most important changes to state and local governments this century have been done via this method, especially those related to marijuana. Starting in 1996, with California voters voting to legalize Medical Marijuana for those with specific conditions, under the supervision of doctors, states have begun to gradually move toward easing or removing restrictions on cannabis use. Over the last decade, these proposals have been passed all across the country, allowing for treatment of people with severe anxiety, PTSD or depression, in 44 states and the District of Columbia, with recreational use of marijuana having been legalized in 15 of those states, and decriminalized in another 11 states. Oregon has even gone further with this citizen-driven movement to end the war on drugs, passing a ballot measure decriminalizing the possession of multiple other types of recreational drugs, choosing to give people treatment instead of jail time. In fact, this movement has been so successful that the federal government has begun to look at removing Marijuana from the list of class one drugs, a rare instance of the people speaking, and the government listening. However, ballot measures aren’t just limited to Marijuana, as they have been used to increase the minimum wage in 18 states during the past two decades, including an increase in Florida to a $15 an hour wage in 2020, which passed with 60% support, overturn laws banning gambling leading to the supreme court striking down a law that banned it federally, and even remove jim-crow era felon disenfranchisement laws that denied citizens their voting rights. None of these changes were coming via state or federal legislation, but groups of citizens who felt impassioned about them put them on the ballot, and fundamentally changed people’s lives for the better. So if there is an issue that is particularly important to you that is not being given adequate focus in government, create a ballot initiative. If someone has beat you to the punch, sign their proposal to help get it on the ballot. Although it might take a little bit of effort, your signature could be the one that gets it on the ballot, and makes your state, or your town, a little bit better.
Another way to stay involved is by joining or volunteering an advocacy organization. These organizations may not be as flashy as a campaign, or as easy to see direct results as work with the local government, but their work can be even more important. I think that the clearest example of how an organization can fundamentally change a state, I would look at the work done by Stacy Abrams and her Fair Fight Voting rights organization both nationally and more specifically in Georgia. After she lost the governor’s race to Brian Kemp in 2018, Abrams set out to reverse the voter suppression that had led to her loss, specifically the purging of 1.6 million voters, disproportionately those of color, from the voting rolls. In just the last two years, they have registered over 800,000 new voters, which led to the dramatic wins for Joe Biden as well as the two democrats in the senate runoffs in January. Thanks to all of these volunteers, Georgia was able to represent its fundamental electorate for the first time in a long time.
Lastly, I think the most important thing that you can do is stay awake. Keep reading the news, both on a national level as well on a local level, so that you can keep knowledgeable about what’s going on, and so that you can hold your representatives accountable. A lot of the ill-fated decisions made by our leaders happen when they believe that they can do whatever they want, because their constituents are not paying attention to their actions. A democracy works as a system of government when its citizens are engaged, aware and willing to fight to save it, so that the people are the ones in charge, no matter what.