Student PIRGs

At 2:30 this afternoon, the Student PIRGs will hold a rally in the "Senate Swamp" next to the Russell Senate Office Building. The rally will be in support of Obama's 2010 budget, highlighting the investments it makes in priority youth areas including energy, education and health care. They will be joined by Senators Durbin, Whitehouse, Casey and Cardin. Here's a preview of the statement that Laura Kim, National Student Forum Chair, will make at today's event:

Statement of Lauren Kim, PIRG National Student Forum Chair

April 1st ‘Rally for the Budget’

Hi my name is Lauren Kim. I’ll be graduating in a few short months from the University of Maryland College Park. I’m going into community organizing when I graduate. But I’ll face a huge barrier, and that is my student loan debt.

The vast majority of college students across the country now graduate with enough loan debt that we are being squeezed out of careers and getting married and having kids. Worse, qualified high school graduates are dropping out of the college application process due to cost. As states have cut college budgets and grant aid has decreased, students like me are shouldering massive loans to pay for our education.

I wonder if the loans are worth it as I look at the financial uncertainty and shrinking job market. But I know our country needs us to get educated. The problems of the 21st century require solutions that my generation is getting trained to deal with in college.

So that’s why the budget plan being put forth by President Obama, Senate Leader Reid, and the House is crucial. It reinvests billions of dollars in student aid so we can have higher Pell grants and less loan debt. And the plan pays for this reinvestment by cutting excessive subsidies used to support banks like Sallie Mae. This money should go toward supporting students like me, who plan to make a difference, rather than supporting the banks, which seem to have different plans.

Let’s increase student aid! Let’s pass this budget!

This Monday, the Student PIRGs submitted a host of policy recommendations to President-elect Obama’s Transition Team. Our top recommendations included:

Ensuring at least $64.2 billion in renewable energy investments in technologies such as wind and solar and in green job training that will play a crucial role in repowering America with clean, homegrown energy;

Making college more affordable by lowering the interest rate on the PLUS loan, increasing protections for students who borrow from private lenders, and working with the Department of Education to ensure full participation in a new law to disclose textbook prices to faculty; and

Protecting basic voting rights by passing legislation to implement a system of automatic and permanent voter registration that ensures students and others are registered at their current address.

Full memos submitted are posted at studentpirgs.org/transition.

A new study conducted by Credo Mobile and the Student PIRGs during the 2008 primary season confirms data from 2006: text message reminders to go vote can increase voter turnout 4.6 percentage points when they are delivered on election day, and 2.6 points if delivered before election day.

You can read both the 2006 and 2008 studies here.

Why does this matter?

Young voters matter and are a very mobile population that is increasingly difficult to reach by traditional campaign outreach channels such as telephone calls to landlines.

• A quarter of Americans under the age of 25 used a mobile phone as their only telephone in the first half of 2006
• The mobile-only population is projected to reach 30 percent of the entire American public by the 2008 election
• Text/SMS messaging is already widely used among young
  people as a form of communication

Here's how they conducted the study:

On February 5th, 2008 (Super Tuesday) researchers sent text message reminders to 3600 mobile phone numbers chosen at random from a pool of 5400 mostly young people who had completed voter registration applications. Afterward, participants were matched to voter records to determine if they had voted in the election.

To spread the use of text message election reminders, Credo Mobile just launched Text Out The Vote, a service that lets you pre-load your friend's cell phone numbers into a website and have Credo text them on election day. Unfortunately, it looks like it also signs your friends up to receive SMS spam from Credo, or anyone Credo gives their list to.

A press release from the Student PIRGs just hit my inbox. In the next week, 29 states will reach their voter registration deadlines. As we know from previous elections, at least 70% of registered youth will actually cast their ballots on election day. Getting a high young voter turnout/share of the electorate depends on making sure as many youth as possible are registered now, before those deadlines hit.

Here's what the student PIRGs are doing this week:

The Student PIRGs are running student voter mobilization efforts on 150 campuses in 24 states this fall. Campuses that will see a last push this week to register student voters include:

University of Colorado (Boulder, CO)
University of Colorado (Denver, CO)
Colorado State University (Fort Collins, CO)
University of Northern Colorado (Greeley, CO)
University of Florida (Gainesville, FL)
University of Southern Florida (Tampa, FL)
Florida State University (Tallahassee, FL)
Temple University (Philadelphia, PA)
Ohio State University (Columbus, OH)
University of Cincinnati (Cincinnati, OH)
Oberlin College (Oberlin, OH)
Indiana University (Bloomington, IN)
University of Arizona (Tucson, AZ)
Northern Arizona University (Flagstaff, AZ)
Arizona State University (Tempe, AZ)
Arizona State University – West (Phoenix, AZ)
Northwestern University (Chicago, IL)
Meramec Community College (St Louis, MO)
North Carolina State University (Raleigh, NC)
University of Washington (Seattle, WA)
Green River Community College (Auburn, WA)
University of Montana (Missoula, MT)

What are you doing?

With registration deadlines, early voting, and election day fast approaching, there are a lot of concerns about protecting the voting rights of students. We've already seen some attempts at disenfranchisement in Waller County, Texas, and at Virginia Tech, and a new report - Vanishing Voters - put out by the PIRGs this week gives us even more cause for concern.

Considering the recent history of young voter disenfranchisement, I thought I'd highlight a few projects that are hoping to protect the vote.

Tomorrow, staffers from Student PIRG and SAVE, along with supportive elected officials, will be testifying before congress on the issue:

On Thursday, September 25th, the Committee on House Administration will hold a hearing – “Ensuring the Rights of College Students to Vote.” The purpose of the hearing is to hear from a range of expert witnesses about the challenges that face students when they vote and solutions that will overcome those barriers.

Sujatha Jahagirdar, Program Director for the Student PIRGs' New Voters Project, will testify about the barriers to student voting we have encountered in our decades of work on the ground to register young voters. Additional expert witnesses will include Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL); Sheri Iachetta, Deputy Registrar, Charlottesville County, Virginia; Marvin Krislov, President, Oberlin College; and Mathew Sagel, Executive Director, SAVE.

In an attempt to democratize the process, SAVE and the PIRGs are asking young people to submit their own questions to congress about student voting rights.

SAVE has also partnered with Campus Advantage to create a one-stop-shop for Student Voting Rights.

The New York Times blog The Caucus has an interesting story up on the Republican Party, its failure to reach out to young voters, and the feelings of frustration young Republicans have about it.

Check it out.

One comment I have is a general observation of all of these pieces that tend to be published every few weeks or so: those young Republicans that are interviewed are always ignoring reality. They feel like eventually there's going to be this gradual shift toward Republicans as the voters get older.

Some young Republicans seemed unsure of how to assuage their peers’ concerns. Asked how to respond to a younger generation that tends to be more supportive of gay rights, a young social conservative said that when people “become older” and have their own families, they will start to take social issues more seriously.

Mr. Black, a fiscal conservative who is openly gay, said almost the same thing about taxes: “When you get older you experience some of those issues that Republicans deal with.”

Still, he said, Republicans should not just wait for young Democrats to grow up. Republican activists “can’t just assume that they’re eventually going to come through. They need to be the alternative at the time they’re making the decision.”

The bit about taking social issues more seriously is simply not true. Research shows that those youth voting for a particular party for three straight elections typically develop a bond with that party for the rest of their lives. This myth has actually been shredded several times on this blog in the past.

Now, these younger Republicans do seem to feel the urgency a bit more than the old, white, male crowd. I actually commend them for looking for ways to reach out to youth. And there seems to be some acknowledgment early in the article that the way to do this is peer-to-peer interaction, so they're on the right path.

But this means we need to get our own act in order. Mike has discussed the atrophy of the youth infrastructure this election cycle due to the severely limited funding. It might be a while before the Republicans get the hint that an aggressive outreach toward youth will pay huge dividends in the future, but I don't want to be in a position where we're standing still until they do.

Republicans have a long way to go with youth, but we have lots of work to do too.

UPDATE: A Josh Marshall summation of Palin's comment last night in her speech makes it crystal clear why Republicans aren't successful with young voters.

Palin: Community service is for losers and freaks.

Responses to Catherine Rampell's Op-Ed in the Washington Post, which trashed youth orgs - particularly Rock the Vote - were published in today's edition of the paper. My own LTE didn't run, but three others did - one from Rock the Vote, one from the Student PIRGs, and one from USSA:

Galvanizing Young Voters

Saturday, April 5, 2008; A13

Catherine Rampell's March 30 op-ed column, "Why Obama Rocks the Vote," falsely framed recent surges in turnout of young adults -- voters ages 18 to 29 -- and failed to recognize the important work done by nonpartisan organizations such as Rock the Vote.

Turnout of these young voters in fall elections increased by 4.3 million in 2004 and by another 2 million in 2006. Far from being an anomaly, 2008 is set to become the third major election in a row with an increase in turnout among young voters.

While Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign is doing excellent work engaging young adults this year, our research shows that registration is a major step toward participation. In 2004, 82 percent of registered young adults voted, up from 74 percent in 2000. In 2004, Rock the Vote registered nearly 1 million voters, and already in 2008, more than 500,000 young adults have used our online tool to register to vote. Like the Obama campaign, Rock the Vote's message embraces the hopeful spirit of the millennial generation, and our tested and proven strategies of peer-to-peer mobilization reflect youth culture.

We're seeing unprecedented engagement in the primaries and caucuses so far and are confident we'll see this continue through November.

-- Heather Smith

Washington

The writer is executive director of Rock the Vote.

·

Catherine Rampell's analysis of trends in youth voting was misleading. Youth voter turnout was on the rise long before the 2008 elections. In 2004 alone, turnout among those ages 18 to 24 rose at a rate nearly three times that of the general population.

Rampell also ignored a vast body of research that points to the efficacy of canvasses, phone banks and other on-the-ground grass-roots methods. It's likely that this research, combined with the increase in turnout, persuaded most of the candidates to pay more attention to young people this primary season, turbocharging the youth vote even more.

By ignoring this correlation, Rampell missed a chance to explain the exciting continued increase in young voter turnout.

-- Sujatha Jahagirdar

Los Angeles

-- Carmen Berkley

Washington

Sujatha Jahagirdar is program director for Student Public Interest Research Groups' New Voter Project, and Carmen Berkley is vice president of the U.S. Student Association.

Since the hold is now off, here's what I submitted to them for publication. I think I exceeded the word limit . . . :

In her recent Op-Ed on the youth vote (Why Obama Rocks the Vote, March 30), Catherine Rampell trafficked in some of the worst stereotypes about young voters and conveniently skipped over significant events in the last 5 years that thoroughly disprove the bulk of her argument.

Ms Rampell is right to note that Sen. Obama is playing a crucial role in increasing youth turnout this election cycle, but rising youth turnout is not a new phenomenon. It began in 2004 when young voters created dozens of new organizations – partisan and non-partisan – to target their peers. In 2004, voter turnout among 18 – 29 year olds rose 9%. In 2006, this trend continued and the youth vote rose for the first time during a midterm election sine the 1980s.

Before Senator Obama was ever on the ballot, organizations like The League of Young Voters, the Young Voter Alliance, Music for America and many more were driving young people to the polls in greater numbers. Senator Obama, whose youth operation is staffed with veterans of 2004 and 2006, is building on the successes of these groups.

Ms. Rampell’s piece neglected to mention any of this, preferring instead to repeat stereotypes about young voters and youth organizing that may have held true in the 1990s, during the reign of Generation X, but bear little resemblance to the realities of youth organizing today. In this, she is not alone. The revolution in youth politics I describe has gone largely unnoticed in the media.

As Senator Obama might say, it’s time the media abandoned the (youth) politics of the past and embrace the change that has occurred right under their noses.

Michael Connery
Author – Youth to Power: How Today’s Young Voters Are Building Tomorrow’s Progressive Majority

Couple quick items for those looking to build their resume or find gainful employment:

• For all you "post-partisans" out there, the Student PIRGs (aka The New Voters Project) is starting to staff-up for 2008. They're looking for new student organizers.
• Rick Perlstein wrote an essay in which he waxed-nostalgiac for the good old days of college. Now it's your turn. The New York Times wants you to write your own essay answering the question "What does college mean?" The winning essay will be published in the New York Times Magazine. Details here.