Civic Engagement

 On January 21st, 2017 I went to our nation’s capital to join over 3 million people worldwide in protest against the previous administration and the Republican-led Congress we feared--rightly, as it turns out--would roll back reproductive-, civil-, environmental- and human rights. We arrived in cars, buses, and airplanes from across the country and around the world, and brought the main arteries of downtown Washington to a standstill. While the concerns and issues raised were many, the speakers were all united by a single message: go home, get involved, act. One speech in particular struck me, and I haven’t forgotten it. Rabbi Sharon Brous said, "Once it happens in a generation that a spirit of resistance is awakened. This is one of those moments. Our children will one day ask us ‘where were you when our country was thrust into a lion’s den of demagoguery and division?”

So on March 20th, 2018 I turned in 64 signatures for a nomination for the Truro Select Board. From March to May I knocked on hundreds of doors and sat in Truro’s living rooms and at kitchen tables listening to people share their hopes and fears and ideas with me--getting to know the community I loved and wanted to serve. In the time I spent talking to Truro residents, I saw the one thing that unites us all, and that's the love that we share for our little coastal town. Now, I think the best way to love anyone is to plan for their future—and that's just as true for a town as it is for a person. There are some big challenges for Truro on the horizon. Here on the outer cape, our beaches aren't the only things that are eroding; we’re losing industry and population too. Just as our land is vanishing into the sea, our population and economy are creeping back to the mainland. We all live here because we love our home. Nobody who calls Truro home should ever feel they have to leave because there just aren't any jobs, because they can't find an affordable place to live, or because a lack of elder care forces them out of their homes. If Truro is going to stay the charming town that we all love, we need to come together right now with energy and ideas—not to transform Truro into something different, but to shore up our home against the rising tide. We need to promote better infrastructure, affordable housing, more local jobs, ecological sustainability, and improved child and elder care--and the key to all of these things is a revitalization of civic engagement. For our community to survive it’s going to need everyone to participate.

There are many today who see the government as something external--something imposed on a people by remote, faceless bureaucrats to limit their freedoms. This is pessimistic, and it is scared, and it is small. More importantly still, this attitude flies in the face of the very thing that made our Republic revolutionary in the first place. It forgets that the American government was created to be, to paraphrase Lincoln, of, by, and for the people. If you think the government is something run by other people, then you’re helping to make it that way. Civic engagement, on the other hand, is the defining attitude of those who see the government not as something external to be feared and opposed, but something that we have instituted among ourselves to secure our life, our liberty, and our pursuit of happiness. Civic engagement is our right as American citizens, and our duty as people who wish to build a better world both for ourselves and those we care for.

Civic engagement has three dimensions: civic, electoral, and political. The first, civic, refers to things like regular volunteerism for non-electoral initiatives, active membership in a group or association, or participation in fundraisers for charities or nonprofits. Local civic associations once held a much more conspicuous place in American public life, and their decline is in part responsible for the growing polarization in our communities. These civic associations once were --and can still be--crucial arenas where people of differing ideologies and beliefs can come together to work out joint solutions to very real and pressing problems close to home. Rather than segregating ourselves to the company of like-minded individuals to seek the affirmation and comfort of our ideological echo chambers, we need to start engaging again with people who hold dissenting viewpoints. And I don’t mean people hundreds of miles away in a different state who may be facing a different set of challenges that we can’t understand, and not anonymous commenters on the other end of a computer screen, but our real, living, breathing neighbors, whose communities are our communities, and whose trials are our trials, and whose challenges are our challenges. By building tolerance for peaceful disagreement we strengthen the trust our civic institutions as a force for the common good where we all have a seat at the table.

The second dimension, electoral, involves registering voters, volunteering with electoral campaigns, contributing financially to a political campaign, running for electoral office--and, of course, the act of voting itself. Voting isn’t just important to democracy--voting IS Democracy. You can’t have a successfully run democratic system without the support and votes of its citizens. And not just some of its citizens, but all of them--citizens of every gender, ethnic background, orientation, and point of view, many of which groups are still lagging behind in participation rates. For example, it wasn’t until 1980--a hundred years after Seneca Falls and sixty years after women gained the right to vote--that female voter turnout equaled that of men. Today, 107 women hold seats in the United States Congress, comprising 20% of the 535 members; 23 women (23%) serve in the United States Senate, and 84 women (19.3%) serve in the United States House of Representatives. Our country’s rank for women’s political representation, is 102 in the world. Too often, discussions of gender equality have focused on what women need to do differently: But driving real change is going to take the best actions taken by both men and women, with a focus on engaging men to support women’s political participation. Gender balance in politics can only be achieved if men work side by side with women to share the responsibility in breaking harmful cultural norms and practices, as well as the institutional, structural and legal barriers that hinder women’s equal and influential political participation. It requires men to question and challenge the status quo, to change practices, and to lead other men in doing the same. It also requires a normative shift for women who may contribute to sustaining gender stereotypes and narrow gender identities regarding leadership roles for women as well as men. The law is not stopping us from equality. Equality is set back every time a woman acquiesces to the demands of a cultural system that still tells us to sit down, be quiet, and let the men make the important decisions. We as women need to learn to silence that inner critic that keeps us from full participation in our government, yes, but it’s not up to us alone to fix this imbalance. Our men--and particularly fathers and fatherly figures--need to step up and work with us to raise a generation in which little girls are not asked to silence themselves in the first place, and are never made to question whether their voices and opinions are welcome. And as it is with women, so too should we support every other group of citizens whose voices and opinions have historically been underrepresented by our democratic system. It is the responsibility of the powerful and well-represented to work to help ensure that marginalized voices find the strength and means to be heard.

The third dimension, political, involves things like speaking out at government meetings, bringing issues of community concern to the attention of the media and our elected representatives, and if necessary protesting, demonstrating, and boycotting. Individual citizens can hold power to account by bringing new and relevant facts into the public light. People can serve as watchdogs, activists for truth, and monitors of governance. Individual people can serve as more credible truth tellers than other parts of society that are viewed as beholden to special interests or lobbying. From photographing injustices to tracking public documents online (e.g., through the Freedom of Information Act) to ensuring that elected officials maintain their campaign promises, individuals can become guardians of truth and hold their institutions and elected officials accountable to the people by whose trust they serve.

Strengthening the relationship between citizens and their government requires vigilance and creativity. I am passionate about improving governmental and citizen communication because when people can see their government working, they are more willing to participate and be more likely to see that it's there for their benefit. By design this requires new experiments in communication between the citizens and its government. In a representative democracy, citizens make their voices heard. We, the people, elect representatives to speak for us in the halls of power. Modern communication technology makes it easier than ever for citizens to speak directly to our government: we can call or e-mail representatives directly, tweet at them, leave comments on their Facebook pages, and gather signatures for online petitions. But communication is a two-way street. Just as governments need to hear from citizens, citizens need to hear from governments. Government agencies produce essential data on everything from their communities housing and senior needs assessments to zoning bylaws for medical and adult use marijuana. Citizens need to understand and measure the outcomes of policies they vote for.

So how can modern governments cut through the noise and speak effectively to the citizens they represent? Never before has government had so many tools to communicate to citizens: through print, television, and online media, through social media feeds, through e-mail and text notifications, through a mobile app ecosystem that seems to change by the day. There is no one-size-fits-all strategy for government communication. The task will vary greatly across agencies and localities, by platform and channel, and ultimately depending on what the message is and who needs to hear it. I believe that the same considerations for interpersonal communication apply broadly to government-to-citizen communications. If you seek to earn trust, show respect, and speak with an authentic voice, citizens will listen. Providing citizens with adequate information on priorities, programs, and activities ensures the legitimacy of the government and therefore stabilizes the political situation. In contrast, when governments face a crisis of legitimacy, they are vulnerable to disruptive forces and may not be able to effectively carry out their mandates. It is therefore in the interest of our government to communicate effectively about the work they do on behalf of their constituents. As legitimate players in evolving public spheres, governments benefit from developing and maintaining effective communication capacity with citizens, to better take stock of their needs and preferences, and to foster a more deliberative public space for multi-stakeholder participation, informed policy debate, and development effectiveness. Enhanced citizen engagement is a key indicator of effective government communication.

In conclusion, Citizen participation in a representative republic matters. As stated earlier, the right of citizens to participate in government is an important principle of representative government. The purpose of voting–and other forms of civic engagement–is to ensure that the government serves the people and not the other way around. The pluralist theory asserts the republic cannot function without active participation by its citizens. Awareness is the first step toward engagement. Representative government cannot work effectively without the participation of informed citizens. Engaged citizens familiarize themselves with the most important issues confronting the country and their community, and with plans different candidates have for dealing with these issues. They vote for the candidates they believe will be best suited to the job, and they may join others to raise funds or campaign for those they support.  They inform their representatives how they feel about important issues. Through these efforts and others, engaged citizens let their representatives know what they want and thus influence policy. Only then can government action accurately reflect interests and concerns of the people. Voting is a fundamental way to engage with government. Individual votes do matter. And as your newly selected Truro Select Board Member I am eager to work to make a difference in collaborative governance and encourage civic participation in local governance, through the enhancement of citizen voices and the construction of civic practices focused on the concept of the common good.

Celebrating Women in Politics

(Recent speech given at the Cape and Islands Democratic Council: Kennedy Legacy Dinner - Honoring Our Women in Politics)

The most essential function of democratic government is to prevent the strong from using their strength at the expense of others. Now, there is nothing wrong with the quest for better things—more security, more resources, more comfort. This is the American dream, to be free to seek one’s own betterment and the betterment of those we care for through hard work. Indeed, this desire to work for better things is what brings ALL of us here to this room: better schools, better healthcare, better opportunities – a better life. These Democratic values that the Cape and Islands Democratic Council promote are American values, and the candidates they endorse work to uphold these values.

But when the quest for the ever-elusive more leads one to cross the line from personal betterment to exploitation, and when one believes that getting more means that somebody else has to get less. When some members of the American establishment start including among their freedoms the freedom to exploit their fellow citizens and to exploit our shared resources for personal gain…that’s where a government that is…of, by, and for the people is duty bound to step in and say “no”.

Children have a word for people who think that freedom means the ability to push others around for your own profit or entertainment: Bullies. I got into politics to stand up to bullies. Bullies think only of themselves. They don’t play fair. They intimidate. They lie. They cheat. They obey the rules only when it suits their ends, but they are the first to insist on the letter of the law when they think the law might be in their favor.

Standing up to bullies as an elected representative has a special meaning for me, because I am a woman. For centuries we have borne more than our share of the bully’s wrath. Throughout history we have been spoken for, dismissed, brutalized, raped, bought and sold. Who better to understand the destructive power of the bully, than his perennial victim?

We have been raised in a culture that has historically constructed successful leaders as male. The "great man" theory of leadership prevails in the western world heralding male leaders as charismatic, commanding, competitive, and cut throat. Women face a double standard when it comes to public scrutiny in politics. Currently we have a record number of 6 female candidates running for president and they consistently poll below the popular male candidates. But we have not found the winning traits of a female candidate. There is simply no room yet for women to fit into masculine archetypes of leadership.

Yet whom do we say we trust the most? Most of us will say our mothers, wives, sisters.

Whom do most of us look to for compassion? Wisdom? Comfort? Where do we turn for the strength to endure things that can’t be endured?... Women.

So why can’t we translate that into politics?