Presidential Transition

As many of you probably know, Change.gov launched a new feature in the last week called the Citizen's Briefing Book. Much like Change.org's Ideas Competition (which ends today - go vote), everyday citizens can submit their policy ideas for the Obama Administration. All ideas can then be voted up or down by members of the community. The top rated ideas will be bundled into a physical book that will be presented to the President for consideration once he takes office.

It's another excellent experiment in participatory governance from the folks at the transition, and an excellent (and perhaps final) chance for youth organizations to draw some attention to our issues before the new administration takes office.

Rock the Vote is all over it. Today they submitted an entry calling for the modernization of our voter registration system, notably through the adoption of a National Automatic and Permanent Voter Registration:

A system of automatic voter registration should contain five components:

Affirmative registration - States automatically or affirmatively add people to registration rolls. Similar to the selective service, upon reaching the age of registration, the state will automatically add any eligible citizen to the voter rolls and notify him or her. (He or she can opt out if so chosen)

Permanence - Once a voter is on the rolls, s/he will remain permanently on the rolls even if s/he moves. (Currently, a voter must re-register every time s/he moves, even if it's just across town.)

Failsafe – The system should include an Election Day registration component so that eligible voters mistakenly left off the rolls can register and vote on that same day.

Funding – Sufficient money must be appropriated and allocated to states taking steps to implement this system.

Pre-Registration - Include a system whereby eligible 16-17-year-olds may be "pre-registered" to vote. This would bring young people into the voter registration system before they leave public school to begin work or college and are more difficult to track down. Upon turning 18, they would receive a notice they had been added to the voter registration rolls.

Automatic, permanent voter registration will make our electoral system more inclusive, efficient, and accurate. Now is the time to modernize our voter registration system to ensure that all eligible citizens have the opportunity to exercise their right to vote.

This is so right-on on so many levels.

First, let's remember that voter registration is primarily a barrier to political participation, created to keep some constituencies (african americans, women, the poor) from voting. People often refer to voting as our civic duty, so it is both ironic and tragic that our government erects and automatic barrier to fulfilling that duty. Automatic Universal Registration permanently destroys that barrier to participation.

Second, we've twice mentioned on this blog that fact that non profits may be about to go through their own recession as foundations and major donors react to the economic crisis and the decline in value of their own access. Voter registration is hugely expensive, and it is a big chunk of what a whole lot of youth organizations do. Universal registration could theoretically free-up a lot of financial resources in the nonprofit space and allow organizations to focus their work on more substantive programs like involving their membership in policy and service projects.

Third, we know that among youth in particular voter registration is the primary reason that voter turnout remains lower than that of the rest of the electorate. When young people are registered, they participate in numbers on par with those of older voters. Automatic Universal Registration can help ensure that the high rates of young voter turnout we saw this year continue in years to come, regardless of how exciting the race is or whether President Obama is on the ballot.

Go vote now and make sure that when President Obama receives the Citizen's Briefing Book, one of the top items is Automatic Universal Voter Registration.

In his weekly address released Saturday, President-elect Obama spoke about the need to not only solve the problems in the here and now, but also proactively and simultaneously confront the problems of the future.

Economists from across the political spectrum agree that if we don't act swiftly and boldly, we could see a much deeper economic downturn that could lead to double digit unemployment and the American Dream slipping further and further out of reach.

That's why we need an American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan that not only creates jobs in the short-term but spurs economic growth and competitiveness in the long-term. And this plan must be designed in a new way – we can't just fall into the old Washington habit of throwing money at the problem. We must make strategic investments that will serve as a down payment on our long-term economic future. We must demand vigorous oversight and strict accountability for achieving results. And we must restore fiscal responsibility and make the tough choices so that as the economy recovers, the deficit starts to come down.

After Obama expounds on the necessity of thinking long-term, he explains how his administration will be doing this.

To put people back to work today and reduce our dependence on foreign oil tomorrow, we will double renewable energy production and renovate public buildings to make them more energy efficient. To build a 21st century economy, we must engage contractors across the nation to create jobs rebuilding our crumbling roads, bridges, and schools. To save not only jobs, but money and lives, we will update and computerize our health care system to cut red tape, prevent medical mistakes, and help reduce health care costs by billions of dollars each year. To make America, and our children, a success in this new global economy, we will build 21st century classrooms, labs, and libraries. And to put more money into the pockets of hardworking families, we will provide direct tax relief to 95 percent of American workers.

One thing I took away from this week's address is the number of times Obama points out the prudence of thinking long-term on a plethora of issues.

In the middle of our $4.00/gallon summer, Sen. Obama took flak from many brainless conservatives for suggesting that we all take a look at our own lifestyles in order to make a difference in the level of energy consumption, such as making sure one's tires are filled with air to save gas. Instead of simply embracing the "Drill here, drill now" short-term gimmick, Obama showed the kind of leadership we haven't seen in at least eight years and re-framed the conversation to focus on long-term solutions.

In the middle of our economic recovery, instead of staying with what's come to be the politically safe choice of strictly worrying about the present, the Obama administration will focus on the future, re-building important infrastructure and changing spending habits.

Obama's focus on the future is refreshing, and it could be one more reason why Millennials -- who stand to inherit this mess -- voted for him by a two-thirds majority.

Update: Kudos to Lily Rothman at the transition team for responding almost immediately to my final question. Any youth group who has such recommendations can submit them into the endorsement process by emailing their recommendations to Lily. Again, it's best to be super specific about the person and position involved. If anyone wants to do this and doesn't have Lily's contact info, email me.
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Yesterday, the Personnel Department and the Transition's Youth Liaison held a conference call with 15 or 20 youth organizers to go over the hiring process. My understanding was that this call was to help walk us through the process of submitting resumes and making personnel recommendations for the incoming administration. It ended up being more about general information about the hiring process and personal advice to any of us who have submitted applications. Here's what they had to say:

• Be patient if you haven't yet heard anything. There are 7,000 positions and they have yet to progress below cabinet level positions in their hiring. They are just beginning work on senior staff, and this process may take until June to fully play out.
• As you apply, be realistic wrt expertise and the level at which you can participate. The staffer on the call made it clear that this would likely be confined entry and middle level positions.
• There are over 300,000 resumes in the database at this point. The way they sift through them is data mining. The more specific you are about the position you desire, the more likely your resume will get pulled from the database.
• The best tool to determine what is available and feasible in terms of political appointee positions is The Plumb Book, an online book listing all the political appointee positions available, broken down by department.

These were all great tips - especially letting us know about the Plum Book - though the conversation left a little to be desired. Namely, there was no conversation at all. A staffer talked at us for 10 minutes and there was no time for Q&A. I have to admit I was a little annoyed by his confidence that we would all be applying for mid or entry level positions. No one expects to be running cabinet departments, or being the deputy in a government agency, but the message was pretty condescending and my own interpretation was that none of us should expect to be hired into a position with anything resembling a level of authority or power.

There was one question in particular that the call left unanswered. If we ourselves are not going to be hired into any positions that will give us a seat at the table, what can we do to make hiring recommendations or support the applications of more qualified people who we feel will represent us and our issues well in the new administration?

A number of youth groups that worked together in 2008 are in DC today to debrief on the election. We're all headed over to the Transition office at the end of the day to meet with Lily Rothman, the transition's youth liaison as well as some other members of the PTT. In preparation for that meeting, we were asked to submit a 1 page memo answering the question What are young Americans uniquely qualified to do to help meet specific national challenges, and how?

Here's the memo I submitted. I assume all of our memos and a list of those who met will be up on Change.gov in the near future.

Memo

To: Lily Rothman, Mike Lux, Office of the Presidential Transition Team
From: Michael Connery, Executive Director, Future Majority
Subject: White House Youth Liaison
Date: December 14, 2008

This November, the American public got its first taste of what many of us in the youth community have known for years; today’s young people – the Millennial Generation – are the most civically en-gaged generation in decades. During the last five years, Millennials have demonstrated a willingness to take the initiative and change our country. They created new organizations to engage their peers at the ballot box and participated in service projects in our communities. They organized online and marched in the streets to support immigrant and LGBT rights and a smarter, cleaner energy policy.

Even as the Millennial generation has emerged as a force at the ballot box and a leader on key issues, we have had few allies in government or within the Democratic Party. Young people (18 – 29 years old) are one of the most under-represented age demographics at the policy table, where we are often overlooked in favor of programs that benefit the (politically popular) very young, or the (politically savvy) very old.

It is not enough to ask about the particular issues in which young people are uniquely suited to assist the administration. Young people are already leading on a wide variety of issues, and our concerns stretch well beyond the single-issue silos (college affordability, service programs) that are so often pegged to our demographic. It is time that we have an administration that recognizes those contribu-tions and helps Millennials realize the change for which we have been fighting on all issues.

What is now required is a strong, independent advocate and ally to support the youth community within the White House. Operating out of the Office of the Public Liaison, this advocate would:

• Open doors to the administration and connect young advocates to the policy process above and beyond traditional “youth” issues like national service and college affordability.
• Fight for the inclusion of the perspective of the Millennial Generation in administration materi-als – talking points, speeches, etc.
• Publicize the contributions that Millennials and Millennial advocacy organizations make to solve the challenges we face as a nation (bill signing ceremonies, photo ops, etc.).

The Youth Liaison should also act as a strong advocate for young voters within the Democratic Party. President-Elect Obama secured his victory in large part through outreach to young voters, laying the foundation for a generational shift in party alignment. Despite that, Obama for America’s youth out-reach remains an anomaly, not the norm, within the Democratic Party. A strong advocate within the administration arguing on behalf of a young-voter strategy could shift thinking within the DNC, the DCCC, the DSCC, and the state parties as to the value of young voter outreach. Such a shift in strate-gic thinking could solidify political realignment that brought many of our candidates to power in recent elections.

Above all, the White House Youth Liaison must be someone who is intimately familiar with the many organizations and activists within the youth community. We face great challenges as a nation, and finding solutions to those challenges will require coordinated efforts among many organizations, citi-zens, policy makers, and legislators. The youth community will most effectively contribute to those efforts if we are able to hit the ground running on day one. A strong, independent advocate in the White House, familiar with the different facets of our movement and holding a position of real author-ity, is the surest way to make that a reality.

Using Digg-style voting systems for organizing purposes is all the rage lately. The Obama Transition Team got in the game this week with the launch of Open for Questions, a Google-powered, Digg-lite service that lets supporters put forth their queries to the incoming administration in a forum where all users at Change.gov can rate them. Top-voted questions - supposedly - will be answered by the Obama team, though how and when that will happen is unclear. Needless to say, reviews so far are mixed.

At Tech President, Nancy Scola says "meh," noting that the system isn't all that well organized and will not likely scale. In the comments, Marc Laitin agrees that the service has a lot of problems - notably that questions are mostly unlinkable and therefore difficult to organize around, stymying any sort of grassroots multiplier effect from within the community - but he views the attempt itself is revolutionary and thinks it bodes well for the future.

At the Politico, Ben Smith notes that Obama supporters aren't having any difficulty organizing rapid response on the system. Since the service opened they have been actively voting down any question relating to the Blagojevich scandal. Smith's piece raises concerns as to whether Open Questions represents a real attempt at transparency, or will be a de facto fig leaf the transition team can hide behind while ignoring uncomfortable questions.

At Pushback, Jesse Singal has what I think is the appropriate answer to Smith. Jesse thinks that biased, community-moderation is just part of the game, and Smith's desire for "uncensored" or "unbiased" community voting are unreasonable and uncharacteristic of any social media community.

For myself, I'm with Nancy. This is kind of "meh." I agree that the idea is great, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. There's no good way to organize these questions (browsing and voting by topics would be nice) and there aren't even comment sections to allow users to discuss the merits of each question. The entire set up seems designed to discourage community formation and organizing, leaving participants isolated and atomized. The answering and accountability process - meaning how the Transition Team will answer high rated questions - is also unclear. Will they wait a month and then answer the top ten, or will they take the time to answer the top ten rated questions every day? Will answers be archived somewhere so they are easily found and referenced? Who knows . . .

I believe that the transition team had a great idea here, and are operating in good faith, but implementation problems at this point leave me worried that that the whole thing will be little more than window dressing.

By contrast, the new Ideas Contest sponsored by Change.org offers a much better model for how Digg-style social media filter to bring citizens into the governing/policy process. The rules of the contest are simple:

Here's how the competition works: anyone can go to www.change.org/ideas and submit a policy idea, discuss with others, and vote on the best ideas from around the country. On Inauguration Day we're going to host an event in Washington, DC and hand-deliver the top 10 rated ideas to a representative of the Obama Administration. We'll then launch a national lobbying campaign with the support of our nonprofit partners to ensure that each winning idea gets the full consideration of the Obama administration and the 111th Congress.

Ideas can be sorted into 29 different issue areas. All ideas are independently linkable and Change.org provides widgets for embedding your idea on your blog or on a variety of social networks, allowing participants to rally support around their idea (you can view a widget linking to my Idea in the sidebar). All questions contain a comment section to allow discussion around the proposed idea, and there are clear rules/guidelines so participants know what they can reasonably expect in exchange for their participation.

I take it on good faith that the Obama Transition Team had the very best intentions with the launch of Open for Questions - and I think Smith's comments of censorship are way off base. Nevertheless, I think Change.gov could learn a lot from Change.org when it comes to integrating this kind of voting system into their work.

When we've had a president as incompetent as George W. Bush has been for eight years, the thought of figuring out how many of his actions need to be corrected is probably intimidating. Luckily the Obama campaign, preparing for the win months ahead of time, stuck a few staffers in a room and had them sorting through the mounds of incompetent and ideologically-driven executive orders and policies written and approved by the Bush administration. From the Washington Post:

Transition advisers to President-elect Barack Obama have compiled a list of about 200 Bush administration actions and executive orders that could be swiftly undone to reverse the president on climate change, stem cell research, reproductive rights and other issues, according to congressional Democrats, campaign aides and experts working with the transition team.

A team of four dozen advisers, working for months in virtual solitude, set out to identify regulatory and policy changes Obama could implement soon after his inauguration. The team is now consulting with liberal advocacy groups, Capitol Hill staffers and potential agency chiefs to prioritize those they regard as the most onerous or ideologically offensive, said a top transition official who was not permitted to speak on the record about the inner workings of the transition.

While Obama's spokesperson for the transition does note that many of these "corrections" would need to be discussed with the appropriate cabinet nominees, there are a few that could be made immediately.

President Bush's executive order restricting federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, for example, would be overturned. In addition, President-elect Obama could also step in and overturn an order that prohibits the state of California from regulating carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles.

With the end of Bush's term approaching, it will be interesting to see what other nonsensical orders will be issued, as Bush staffers attempt to nail down loose ends prior to leaving the White House. You can bet that Obama won't put up with it, and the transition team will be ready to go come January 20th.

The "honeymoon" each new president enjoys could be strengthened for Obama (especially if he has his ducks in a row like this) given Bush's political toxicity.

(h/t SusanG)