Pathways…to Democracy: Public Voice

by Doug Garnar –

A different way to engage elected officials

Essential to any democracy is the opportunity for citizens to talk with their elected representatives.  The 1st Amendment to the Constitution ensures the right of petition, the right of public assembly and freedom of the press among other things.

Yet many elected officials at the Federal, State and Local levels often pay only lip service to listening to their constituents.  A call to an elected official’s office rarely will result in a conversation with them.  Written letters still can have an impact on one’s representative even at the Federal level (if there are enough of them).  Petitions may also influence an elected official along with letters to the editor of a newspaper.  These more traditional means of engaging one’s representatives seem to have less influence today.

At SUNY Broome Community College, we have, for the past four years, begun to use “Public Voice” events, which allow citizens to directly, engage their representatives.  For the past four years we have asked citizens to weigh in on what the top three legislative priorities should be at the state and county level.

We do this by:

• Asking state./county officials (e.g. our two Assembly reps/one state senator; the county executive and the majority/minority leaders of the county legislature) to provide us with their top three legislative agenda goals.

• We then schedule a two hour session where citizens can come to the college in the evening to share their top three agenda items for each level of government.  They are allowed 90 seconds to identify each of their goals.  They are also encouraged to bring a written copy to leave with the moderator and if they can not be present they may email our Center for Civic Engagement with their ideas.

• Citizens are reminded that this is not a debate but rather an opportunity to let their elected officials know what citizens want the respective legislatures to grapple with in the coming legislative session.

•Elected officials or their representatives may attend, but they are not permitted to speak–they are there to listen.  The Center provides each elected official with a summary of what citizens have to say.  Each year the state elected officials and the county executives have made a point of attending and usually stay around to talk with citizens after the formal session has ended.

•This year’s event has been expanded to have citizens provide their top three legislative items for the US Congress, and our newly elected Congressman will have an aide attend the session.

This same approach was used in August 2017 to solicit citizen input as to how Federal legislation would be impacting them.  The last person to speak suggested that monthly public voice events be held on a variety of issues.  Our institutional capacity is limited but we are exploring how more of the public voice type events can be offered, We are also looking at churches, libraries, senior citizen centers, veterans hall, and volunteer fire halls as a more varied set of venues.  We do partner with the League of Women Voters, the local chamber of commerce and some media outlets.

The Broome County Executive used a similar format to solicit input from local citizens focusing on a proposed drug treatment facility.  Two such meetings drew over a hundred to each one and the majority on the county legislature finally agreed to put partisan differences aside and accept a major state grant to establish such a center.  In one year, heroin deaths have dropped by over 50%.  This year’s Public Voice event (1/17/2019) saw the County Executive and two of the state elected officials once again listing the heroin epidemic as a major concern.

Another facet of using the Public Voice format will be our effort to use a new type of political forum for the 2019 election cycle,.  We plan on inviting those running for multiple seats on a legislative body to come and sit in the back of the venue.  For the first 45 minutes, citizens will be given 30 seconds to provide their top two political issues.  Several recorders will take notes.  Candidates, during this 45-minute period, can only listen. Then, after a short break, the moderator, drawing on what citizens have said, will ask candidates to respond to the top issues raised by the citizenry. This approach has been done with fair success in Arizona and we will experiment with it later this year.

We are reminded of what *Charles Kettering meant when he said “to fail intelligently…is one of the greatest arts in the world.”  The struggle for a citizen-based democracy is not easy, but the alternative has led us to begin to question if our democracy might be in a death spiral.  In future columns of Pathways to Democracy other examples of “deliberative democracy” will be offered for citizens to think about.

*Kettering amassed a huge fortune which has been used to fund health research and civic engagement activities for over 90 years.

Any questions about the Public Voice strategy maybe addressed to Professor Doug Ganar – NIFI Ambassador – at garnardc@sunybroome.edu.