Not Just the Presidency

"It’s not just the Presidency, stupid." This phrase carries as much importance today as its economic counterpart did 16 years ago.

In the thrilling environment of the national election, the nation is reveling in the wave of new voters. Yet at least two questions linger: (1) Can we leverage this involvement for big participation in state and local elections today?; and (2) Can we keep the historic energy from evaporating tomorrow morning? If we cannot meet these challenges, we will miss perhaps the largest civic opportunity of a generation.

We know that the electorate is excited this year, and that youth in particular are finding new entry points into the system—from colossal voter registration numbers to iPhone-app organizing phenomena. We’ve already seen encouraging signs: for instance, youth turn-out for the primary hit multiples of 2004 levels. Still, the central challenge of democracy is not whether a citizenry can make a few binary choices once every four years. The challenge of democracy is whether a populace of divergent interests can come together to accomplish common goals. How can we be sure that this organizing power and creativity can be funneled beyond a single (admittedly critical) race in 2008? How can we encourage the millions of new young voters to become life-long political participants?

We write not to add to the myth of youth ineffectiveness on the political process. We won't add to the chorus of "sure, they'll register … but will they vote?" with an equally curmudgeonly, "okay, they'll vote, but will they vote the whole ballot and stay involved after the election?" Without doubt, an engaged Millennial Generation will change the face of American politics for the better.

They were awakened by 9-11, by Katrina, by Iraq, and by the collapse of our economic house of cards. They will grapple with global warming, the redesign of governmental mechanisms, education policy for this century, foreign policy in an interconnected world, and the glories and excesses of global turbo-capitalism – and these are just the challenges we can predict.

We can meet these challenges if we funnel this energy into a new activist generation.

The opportunity in considering the whole ballot does not lie in winning or losing any particular races, although the impact would be undeniable. The true virtue of this project is the chance to build a culture of participation. An individual has a greater impact on a local race than national one. Indeed, a single person can be decisive on a local race, a race that have direct impact on an average young voter’s daily life. An example, to pick a state: the current Oregon Legislature voted to approve renewable energy standards, domestic partnerships, land use reform, a rainy day fund, substantial increases in school funding, and early voter registration for eligible 17-year-olds. Passing these bills was contingent on a one-seat majority in the State House. One of those seats is occupied by Jeff Barker, who won it by forty votes. Groups like the Oregon Bus Project sent hundreds of young people to walk in his district, each knocking on more doors than Barker’s margin of victory. The end result? Those young people got to go home and say, “Look Ma, I helped change history.”

And you can be sure many came back to participate again.

It’s time to begin building a lasting constituency for the public interest, and the best engagement we can have is at the local level. We are stronger together than we are apart, and to ever get public policy to yield to public interest, we’ll have to move not just to the left or to the right, but forward.

Jefferson Smith, Bus Project Executive Director
Garrett Downen, Bus Project Political Director