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Archive for July, 2010
I Define Me
July 28th, 2010
By Elizabeth Munguia, Campus Progress
Before the 2008 election, it was perceived that young people did not care about issues in this country and voting in elections. A 2004 USA Today article suggested that young people didn’t vote because “they don’t have the time, they don’t have the knowledge,” and “they don’t have the passion.” The fact of the matter is that voter registration rates, and youth voting trends among young people have been increasing since 2000. In spite of that reality, one of the outstanding questions for the midterm elections is focused on whether young people will vote.
The fact is that our generation is impacted by the economic downturn, the rising costs of college, loans upon graduation, and an unemployment rate of 18.5%; the economic crisis is hitting us the hardest. This may not be a presidential election but the votes of our generation are just as important. Members of Congress may decide which bills get passed, but we decide who those members of Congress are.
So will we vote? Well, I’ll tell you this- I am a young person who voted in the 2008 presidential election because I had the time, I had the knowledge and I certainly had the passion. Now that- is something that hasn’t changed.
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Back to School
July 27th, 2010
By James Dubick, Student PIRGs’ New Voters Project
It might still feel like the middle of summer, but across the country students are getting ready to go back to their colleges and turn out the vote.
Just in the past few weeks, the Student PIRGs’ New Voters Project has hired 160 student interns who will be running voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives on their campuses this fall. Those interns are now beginning to plan out their voter registration drives, build campus Vote Coalitions, and recruit volunteers.
Campus voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives like these are crucial to turning out the student vote. In 2006, research by CIRCLE (the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement) found that targeted voter mobilization campaigns in 36 student-heavy precincts increased voter turnout by an average of 156% compared to the previous midterm election. That’s a big impact!
If you’re interested in working with the Student PIRGs’ New Voters Project to turn out voters this fall, sign up here.
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The Past Decade by the Digits
July 27th, 2010
By Abby Kiesa, Circle
For five election cycles in a row, a particular group of young people has showed up to cast votes more than the previous year. You got that: every two years for a whole DECADE straight.
Since the 2000 election, young people who don’t have any college experience have increasingly been showing up to cast votes and have their voices heard. (This group of young people makes up roughly half of the 18-29 population in the U.S.) The largest jump was from 2000 to 2004, when the voter turnout rate rose by nine percentage points for those youth 18-29 who have never been to college. It rose again in 2008 to make the increase for Presidential elections over eleven percentage points since 2000.
2010 is an opportunity to keep this going!
For too long, 18- to 29-year-olds who don’t (yet) have college experience have been under-represented in making critical decisions about our cities and communities. What matters in voting is getting your voice heard about what’s going on in your community and around the country. Without the voices of ALL young people (not just those with the privilege of going to college) U.S. democracy suffers from a lack of information – information about people’s experiences and what’s going on in communities, neighborhoods and families across the country.
Join us in keeping the ten-year upward trend going.
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Strategists from the Left and Right Discuss Youth Vote Tactics
July 26th, 2010
by Tobin Van Ostern, Campus Progress
A few weeks ago Campus Progress, Rock the Vote, American University, and Student PIRGs hosted a day-long nonpartisan training for candidates, campaign staff, and media on how to effectively engage, utilize, and mobilize young voters. Attendees learned the characteristics of the Millennial Generation (those born after 1980), the issues that matter most to them, and the best ways to engage them in the political process. Participants attended workshops and discussions that focused on outreach, issues, branding, and fundraising.
The closing panel in the afternoon, Millennials and the Midterms, was moderated by Erica Williams (Progress 2050). Panelists included Steve Hildebrand (Fmr. Deputy Campaign Manager, Obama for America) and Robert Willington (Fmr. Senior Strategist, Scott Brown for Senate). The panel discussed whether young voters could be won or lost by the quality and quantity of a campaign’s efforts to engage them. Discussion also focused on what candidates and parties have done so far to mobilize young voters for the potentially game changing midterm elections, and what more can be done.
Check out some highlights from this closing panel below, or watch the full panel on CSPAN: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/294166-1
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John Legend & The Roots “Wake Up Everybody!”
July 20th, 2010
By Jennifer Suh, HeadCount
In the lead up to the Midterm elections, John Legend and The Roots are dropping an album of covers called “Wake Up Everybody!” with the explicit intention of encouraging civic awareness amongst young people.
People interviewed John Legend and reported:
“It says it all in the title,” John Legend says. “It’s saying we can’t depend on the older generation to fix everything for us; we gotta educate ourselves, empower ourselves and use the power that we have to make the world better.”
“If you can kind of transport your mind to what everyone was feeling at that time, there was a lot of energy in the country, a lot of feelings that we could all do something to make the country better and the world better,” says Legend. “So we went back to music from the 60s and 70s where again, there was this feeling that young people were empowered and could do a lot in the world.”
John Legend and The Roots have a record of social consciousness and are ushering in the next wave of youth awareness with this release, due out September 21.
You can take it to the next level. If you haven’t yet, take HeadCount’s Pledge to Vote and you can get a call from Questlove of The Roots (or other artists, like Bob Weir or Yim Yames) reminding you to vote before this year’s midterm election.
Listen here to the album’s title track:John Legend & The Roots – “Wake Up Everybody” f. Common & Melanie Fiona
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This Fall, We Vote Again.
July 19th, 2010
By Sara Haile-Mariam, Campus Progress
Since 2000, young people have been hitting the polls in increasingly unprecedented numbers. Yes, since 2000. Despite what you may have heard, youth turnout wasn’t an unexpected consequence of one election cycle, inspired by any one person, or party or policy. The fact of the matter is that elections provide us with an opportunity to alter our circumstances. To take the opinions that we discuss with our friends, the policy positions that we hold to be true, and to advocate for them in a significant way.
Since the last major election cycle, we’ve seen the toxicity of our partisan politics. We’ve witnessed the complexities of government institutions. We’ve seen progress on some issues but we’ve also seen really important bills- bills that would have provided assistance to thousands, die in the halls of Congress.
This summer is different- so different that over 30 youth organizations are banning together to demand different, from all of us. Welcome to Voteagain2010.com. This site is our vehicle to make the case that we should vote again acknowledging that our vehicle to actually do something that changes the course of history exists in every ballot box that springs up this November 2nd.
Members of Congress might have the power to vote for or against legislation- but we have the power to vote for or against every one of them.
Don’t let that power go to waste.
Vote Again 2010.
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Iller
July 18th, 2010
Campus Progress created a video to push back on the notion that politically active young people are Zombies.
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History, Repeating
July 13th, 2010
By Emily Goulding, Voto Latino
American Latinos are new to some parts of the U.S. Like Iowa. Or Wisconsin.
But in certain parts of the U.S. – like California, Arizona, and Texas – we aren’t new at all. And neither is legislation like SB 1070.
Although it is currently being challenged by the Department of Justice, and organizations like Voto Latino have been speaking out against it since April, SB 1070 is unfortunately just one of many iterations of divisive legislation aimed at a demographic that politicians think either isn’t voting, or at least isn’t voting every time.
During the Great Depression of the 1930’s, law enforcement carried out “the Mexican Repatriation Act” in the Southwest, which much like SB 1070 claimed to enforce immigration law but instead only violated constitutional law. In Mexican-American neighborhoods, police attempted to identify undocumented immigrants by rounding up people who “looked mestizo”, and deported them with no due process. 60% of those deported were American citizens; Tuscon-born Lalo Guerrero, the father of Chicano music, was one of them.
In the 1950’s, Ike Eisenhower enacted “Operation Wetback”, which consisted of police raids and deportation, and in the 1990’s, former Governor of California Pete Wilson signed Proposition 187, which sought to establish a citizenship ‘screening system’ in order to determine which Californians could use public services.
Proposition 187 instigated reels of copy-cat legislation in 12 different states, and a lawsuit from MALDEF and the ACLU.
Sound familiar?
It should. Latinos lived through all those decades. And had every last one of us voted in those decades, this blog post might have told a different story.
And now maybe our grandparents didn’t vote in decades past due to intimidation at the polls. But today, we know how to call people out for that – hey, even take people to court for that!
So vote every time.
If politicians know that we’re voting, and that our vote can sway electoral outcomes, they are less likely to keep passing laws like these. In the past ten years, the number of Latino voters has increased 64 percent, from 5.9 million to 9.7 million voters. During the same time period, the number of general population voters increased only 16 percent. One out of five millennial Americans is Latino, and fifty thousand of us turn turn 18 each month – we have power in numbers, so let’s exercise it.
As Woody Guthrie sang in the 1930’s and Lila Downs adapted for a 2001 recording, “This land is your land, and my land, and your land/From California, to the New York Islands.”
Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise – this is YOUR country. On November 2nd, represent.
Vote Again 2010.
Stay Forever Young
July 13th, 2010
Andy Bernstein, Executive Director of Headcount, recently penned an Op-Ed on how his experiences at Bonnaroo speak to the challenges, and the very real opportunity, to turn out the youth vote. Check out the excerpts below. Read the full post on The Huffington Post.
“As you can see in this crude video clip shot from the crowd at America’s most acclaimed music festival, Jay-Z credited his audience for their role in electing the first black President. “Our generation changed the world,” he said. “We absolutely changed the world. So it just goes to show anything is possible as long as you fight for what’s right. Fight for what you believe in, and stay forever young.”
For me, executive director of a youth-oriented voter registration group called HeadCount, this was the most seminal moment of the 9th annual Bonnaroo Music and Art Festival, as it embodied both the potential and the challenges of the youth vote in 2010. Jay-Z’s message of empowerment was timely, inspiring and historically accurate.
“The solutions to this problem are not obvious. But what is obvious is that we are in need of bold ideas. We need game-changing plays. And we need spokespeople like Jay-Z with the power to make young people feel good about their role in America. We have to do more than spin a positive story about the youth vote. We have to create the story from the ground up, and make it a living truth. America needs young people to be engaged and hold elected officials accountable, and we as leaders of the youth movement need to find ways to inspire during challenging times.”
“As difficult as our prospects are this year, we can’t expect to motivate young people unless we ourselves are reaching deep within. To paraphrase Jay-Z “Anything is possible as long as you fight for what you believe in.”
Video of Jay Z’s remarks after the jump.
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We are young climate leaders-we vote!
July 13th, 2010
By Courtney Hight, Executive Director of Energy Action Coalition
When an oil rig exploded off the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, the country was startled out of inaction and we have all watched, day after day, one more example of the impact of reliance on dirty and dangerous sources of energy. Young people were ready to take to the streets, and Energy Action Coalition has since organized nearly 100 actions in response to the disaster.
Now, we’re ready to take that action to the polls.
This fall, Energy Action Coalition is launching Power Vote 2010 – working with Millennials who care about climate change and environmental justice to take their passion to the polls. Rahm Emanuel said just a few weeks ago what we’ve long known to the true – that young people who are passionate about energy issues and the environment will turn out to vote. Power Vote 2008 engaged over 350,000 young people around clean energy – and since I became the Executive Director of the Energy Action Coalition just last month, I’ve heard countless stories about the successes of the 2008 campaign. I am counting down the days until we launch Power Vote at our training camp next month in Chicago! We still have a few spaces available–apply today!
Young people are defining our decade, and standing up to the dirty energy corporations that are influencing our elections and our elected leaders. The Energy Action Coalition will continue to be the hub of this action – your home if you want to be trained, inspired, and supported to create a just and sustainable future. Today’s the day for you to take action! Sign up to run Power Vote on your campus or community on our brand new website – www.energyactioncoalition.org. We can’t wait for you to join us!
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What Health Care Reform Means for Us
July 13th, 2010
By Jennifer Mishory, Young Invincibles
The past year has brought enormous improvements for young Americans; specifically, the passage of health care reform will provide great benefits to our generation. The availability of subsidies for low- to middle income Americans to purchase insurance, the expansion of affordable coverage through Medicaid, the ability to stay on your parents’ insurance until 26, and the end to discrimination against those with preexisting conditions are all huge steps toward insuring young adults, the population with the highest uninsurance rate. Many of these provisions will roll-out in the next 3 and a half years, but one in particular, the ability to stay on a parents’ plan until the age of 26, goes into effect in September of this year. Indeed, our demographic will be one of the first to see the benefits of reform.
Young Invincibles, an advocacy group on issues that affect young adults, is now working to make sure that the implementation of the health care law works for our generation. Fifteen percent of young Americans have chronic health problems, and we go to the emergency room more than any other age group under 75. The traditionally high cost of coverage for the typical income level of a young adult means that we avoid seeking care, and when we are forced to get medical help, these expenses can lead to financial ruin.
The insurance companies like to say that young people think we are “invincible” and that is why we go uninsured. But we know the truth – that young adults go uninsured because we cannot afford insurance and because the old system put up barriers to coverage. YI wants to make sure that the benefits that increase access and affordability of coverage for our generation are administered wisely, and that young Americans take advantage of these new opportunities for coverage.
The health care reform law is for us, our generation. The law is not perfect, but it ensures that millions of young Americans will have the freedom and opportunity that comes from having quality, affordable health insurance. So let’s step up. Educate yourself and your friends on the new law. Be proactive and take advantage of the benefits that work best for you. Talk to your parents about making sure their employer and insurance company are making it easy to sign-up dependents under 26 as soon as possible. And let us know the issues you face in getting and staying covered.
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Vote Again 2010
July 13th, 2010
By Tom Yarnell, Rock the Vote
Cross Posted on Rockthevote.com.
To all the first-time voters in the 2008 election: Rock the Vote and over 30 youth organizations want you to vote again in 2010! Check out voteagain2010.com to hear from your peers on issues you care about and learn how you can get involved. You can even tell your friends to vote again in 2010 right there on the site.
Sara Haile-Mariam, a communications and outreach associate at Campus Progress, really believes in the idea behind the new website.
Here’s what Sara had to say about Voteagain2010.com:
“This site will make the case for midterm participation based on a simple truth, While members of Congress have the power to vote for or against legislation– we have the power to vote for or against every one of them. That’s a power that we can’t let go to waste… which is why we must vote again in 2010.”
Click here to check out Sara’s kick off Campus Progress’ 2010 National Conference.
Others organizations involved with Vote Again 2010 include: the League of Women Voters, the Energy Action Coalition, Voto Latino, and many more. There are just too many to list here, but we want you to join us! There will be opportunities to offer your input on everything leading up to the midterm elections and we’ll keep you up to date on unique events like Trick or Vote, a nationwide, costumed get-out-the-vote canvas held on Halloween. We’ll also have some more practical resources that can help you register to vote and find your polling place.
With Vote Again 2010, youth organizations are joining together to accomplish one goal – to make sure the voice of every young voter is heard on November 2nd.
Share the site today and help us get every young person to vote again in 2010.
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