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Fall’s election season ad campaigns will inaugurate another year of political debate on university campuses, but only for the limited number of college age Americans who actually know what a midterm election is. The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) reports that “One-third of high school seniors were found to lack a basic understanding of how American government works.” A poll by Zogby International revealed that, while three-fourths of Americans can name two of the seven dwarfs, only one-fourth can name two Supreme Court Justices.Not only is this embarrassing, it is symptomatic of a larger problem. We are the generation of Bush v. Gore, the Supreme Court case that decided an election. Never has politics seemed so thoroughly out of the hands of the electorate, and young people have responded with a staggering degree of political apathy. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, only 19 percent of 18 to 24-year-olds voted in 2002.Students see, in the staid ramblings of aging pundits and the partisan bickering of guests on “Crossfire,” little that pertains to them. The Youth Vote Coalition stated that 32 percent of respondents in a focus group of 18 to 24-year-olds believe young people do not care about voting or think voting does not matter, when asked why our generation’s voting numbers are so low.And so, while we turn a blind eye, America’s political agenda is crafted with little regard to college age voters. Kentucky has pared down funding for higher education, while at the same time tuition at the University of Louisville has risen at a wallet-busting 15 percent per year. All the while, any one of the 2,500 Americans lost oversees since the beginning of the conflict in Iraq is much more likely to have been 18 than 28.Politics should matter more to the young than the old. President Bush’s two Supreme Court appointees, Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito, will, barring anything unforeseen, both still sit on the bench when our generation turns 40. The national debt, a distressing $8 trillion, is roughly two-thirds of our Gross Domestic Product. In any given year, our nation pays more in interest to holders of the national debt than it budgets for the Departments of Energy, Transportation, Agriculture and Education combined.These are issues that can be addressed. Many college students take part in protests and sign petitions. So-called “direct action” campaigns were bold innovations of earlier generations and continue to be effective in many ways. But in the end, only a threat to job security will get a politician’s attention. No mechanism of political empowerment works more quickly and more cost-efficiently than an increase in voter turnout.What’s more, young people respond well to low-cost forms of voter mobilization. According to CIRCLE, studies show that young people are particularly swayed by door-to-door canvassing, the least expensive of voter mobilization tactics. Few issues in politics are reducible to slogans gleaned from MTV’s Rock the Vote campaign, but this might be an exception. In 2002, the race for Kentucky’s 3rd Congressional District was decided by roughly 8,000 votes. On this small scale, an individual vote matters a great deal. While most problems in politics are defined by nuance and confusion, for once the solution is simple: just show up.
Jason Schwalm is a first-year law student at the Brandeis School of Law. E-mail him at opinion@louisvillecardinal.com.
