Things are definitely in flux but they are slowly starting to come into focus. I spent last week responding to Erica Williams thoughtful post on where we are as a "movement," (or rather, as an increasingly important part of the progressive movement). Today I thought I'd spend some time outlining what's happening now, where we are all headed in the immediate future, and some things I'd like to see accomplished this year. These are all still imperfectly formed ideas, and I'd love feedback from anyone and everyone as to what sounds right, what needs to be tweaked, and what is totally off base.
We are shifting from a focus on elections to policy. We spent the past 5 years focused primarily on building an infrastructure to support increased young voter turnout and the production of skilled leaders to organize our generation and to merge into the general progressive movement. As Erica rightly pointed out in her piece, policy still remains our Achilles heel, and we have a number of short and long-term challenges ahead of us in overcoming that weakness. During the next two months we need to:
- Produce a list of policies we'd like to see included in the President-Elect's 100 Days Agenda.
- Begin to open communications channels and create working relationships between our groups, the White House and the Chambers of Congress.
These are not either/or propositions. In fact, working on the first will require that we make headway with the second.
With regard to policy and the First 100 Days, I think we have a few questions to consider. To what extent is it wise/strategic to have a separate "youth agenda" instead of joining a broader "progressive agenda" and lending our support to coalitions and organizations already working on those issues? To what extent are the policies that we want to see already being proposed by the administration? If they are, how do we effectively put our wind at Obama's back to help encourage passage of that legislation? To what extent should we be thinking about large scale projects and themes vs the knitty gritty details? Stated another way, will we be for "a just and equitable energy economy that creates green jobs, protects our environment and strengthens our national security," or should we be prepared to present the President with highly specific proposals and tweaks to existing laws that could have a real, demonstrable impact on the lives of our generation?
Whatever our answer is to the above questions, we're going to need some help accomplishing our goals - both in the administration and in congress.
Two weeks ago the Obama Transition Team appointed Lily Rothman, a Pennsylvania youth organizer for the campaign, as Youth Liaison for the transition. I've spoken with Lily and my understanding is that she is on staff to consult with youth advocates in order create the job description for the eventual White House youth liaison. To the extent that she can help, we need to be working with Lily not only on ensuring that the eventual WH Youth Liaison is an effective partner and advocate for our work, but that we are properly navigating the channels in the Administration that will let us put specific policies into consideration for the first 100 Days. In particular I see the liaison helping set up meetings between youth advocates and the appropriate policy teams within the Administration and perhaps on the Hill.
In the House we have some amazing connections to the Leadership - people who really get the dynamics of our organizations - our strengths and our weaknesses. In the coming months we are going to rely heavily on them to help guide us not just through the first hundred days, but the entire congressional session. I see this taking a number of forms - acting as liaison between youth advocates and specific lawmakers and policy committees; offering important background knowledge on committee dynamics; providing information on process and rules of the House. Unfortunately, we have no such connections to the Senate Leadership.
Forging strong working relationships in the White House and Congress - and strengthening existing ones - should be a high priority between now and the start of the next legislative session. It is these congressional liaisons that can alert us when specific bills we want to track move through committee, or are held up by opponents. They can keep us informed about what is going on behind the scenes, and it is to them that we will look for advice on how best to move those bills through committee, onto the floor, and eventually to the President's desk.
On a more long-term note, it's important to recognize that some organizations will necessarily take the lead on specific bills, and it will be quite easily to establish a few gate keepers with whom these working relationships with the administration and congress are built. In fact, it is probably inevitable that such a situation will arise. Unfortunately, it will also mean that valuable new institutional knowledge within the policy arena will remain locked away in only a few people's heads. To disperse that knowledge as widely as possible, we're going to need a new vehicle to aggregate and distribute information about bills we are tracking, who is sponsoring them, who opposes them, where they are in the process, when it is appropriate and most helpful to run campaigns in support of (or occasionally opposition to) a specific bill or amendment, etc. Creating and sharing such institutional knowledge is key not only to passing legislation early in the Administration, but in making our collective groups more strategic legislative advocates on any and all policy matters, and I think it's vitally important for the long-term success of our organizations.
So where are we now on all of these items I've identified as "policy" priorities for the next year?
- On policy, the Generational Alliance has a proposed "Youth Agenda," though no group outside their coalition has signed on to support it and it remains in the realm of vague general principles. Most of the questions I raised above remain outstanding.
- A number of youth advocates, including Future Majority, have held discussions with Lily Rothman and others in the transition about longterm goals for youth advocates in 2009 and ways that a White House Liaison can help attain those goals. Currently there is no definitive process or timetable laid out as to when or how that liaison will be selected, or how influential our input will be in making that decision.
- In the House, many youth organizers have connections to the Leadership and we have an advocate that can help guide us through the policy process. This seems to be our strongest card at the moment and we're talking with the House Liaison about how we can best create those strong ties and communications channels to become more effective policy advocates.
- In the Senate, we have no such connection to help us navigate the ropes.
- Long-term, Future Majority and a number of groups and individuals involved in policy making are discussing the best ways to aggregate and distribute information about specific policy proposals and any information that would be useful in organizing for or against those proposals.
While the focus will shift to policy, we still have more progress to make when it comes to electoral politics. The Obama campaign remains anomalous among Democratic campaigns in the extent to which it relied upon and reached out to young voters. As we move closer to the 2010 midterms, we need to make sure that at least some of us keep a focus on convincing state parties, party committees (DNCC, DSCC) and the DNC that they need to continue to focus on engaging young voters every year and at all levels of the campaign trail.
Ironically, even though I think we are strongest when it comes to electoral politics, we are further away from attaining these goals than we are the policy goals I outlined above. The state parties and party committees have proven quite stubborn in refusing to validate a young voter strategy to their staff/members, and even more stingy in moving resources to support youth work. From what I've heard, only one state party - Ohio - designated any resources to a young voter strategy in 2008.
So what are our options here? How can we get the Democratic Party structures on board the youth train?
- DNC Youth Council - the council is an official body within the DNC, made up of all DNC members under 36, plus 12 At-Large delegates from around the country (disclosure, I'm one of those At Large delegates). The council's mission is to push for greater inclusion of youth within the DNC. The council doesn't have a whole lot of teeth when it comes to something as big as changing the way the DNC does business, but members can get the ear of people within the DNC and use those connections to find out who to talk to at the State Parties and Party Committees.
- White House Youth Liaison - The President of the United States is de facto head of their party, meaning that an Obama administration should have a lot of pull at the DNC. One of the proposed roles of the White House Youth Liaison is to act as a champion for a youth strategy within the Party structures. It's possible that this person could be more helpful/effective in this project than in helping youth groups navigate the policy world.
We need to continue forging ties with other youth groups. One thing I've noted recently is that we're all a little insulated. As I noted last week, when I refer to the term "youth movement," I'm referring to a number of groups primarily - though not exclusively - that began in the last 5 or so years to fill the gaps in the Democratic Party and larger progressive movement in engaging young people and developing young leadership. Largely, these groups might also be classified another way - institutions that by and large raise their budgets through a small and specific set of Democratic and Progressive donors. Over the last year, we've done a great job at networking and sharing information with each other (when legally appropriate). I think that was a huge step in the right direction for us in terms of efficiency and sharing best practices/institutional knowledge. At the same time, I think that in part in part due to that greater networking, we've formed our own little "clique" in youth organizing. A lot of us started as outsiders, but when it comes to youth electoral organizing, in many ways we have now grown into the new "insiders." That of course implies that there are "outsiders."
There are plenty of organizations out there that are engaging youth - nationally and globally (like the recent AYM conference I mentioned), but which I would not classify as "in our movement." Figuring out if and how we should work with them is something I'd like to see us tackle this year as well. If there really is a youth or at least generational movement afoot, we should be plugged into it, not separate from it.
These are just some very rough thoughts about where I think we are currently at as a movement, collective or whatever you want to call us. Throughout the rest of the week I'll try to flesh out all these ideas a little more on an individual basis.
