The following is an edited, abridged transcript of a presentation hosted by NCoC at the National Association of Secretaries of State Summer Conference 2012. Kristen Cambell, Chief Program Officer for NCoC, hosted a workshop about the role that Secretaries can play in being champions of civic health in their communities. She facilitated a conversation with Secretaries Mark Ritchie of Minnesota and Denise Merrill of Connecticut, two lead partners on state Civic Health Index projects. Learn more about NCoC's civic health initiatives here.


Kristen Cambell: You both have chosen to take on very visible roles as champions of increasing civic health in your states. What compelled you to do that and why do you think it's important?

Sec. Denise Merrill–Connecticut: For me this was natural because, originally, I got into politics through a project I did on civic engagement and civics––I was a teacher. I spent about ten years working with the state Department of Education developing a project to deal with law–related education for kids of all ages, right down to kindergarten. You'd be amazed at the ability of a kindergartener to understand what is fair and not fair; they learn that very quickly.

I worked on this project for a very long time. I was in the Legislature for 17 years and during that time I became concerned about what was going on educationally about civics as a topic, and I felt that it was disappearing from the curriculum as pressure came on from all other subjects, specifically those tested (civics is not tested). So it's really increasingly an issue. I passed a bill in 2003 that required that every student graduating from high school in Connecticut to have a course in civics to graduate. What that did was spark a lot of discussion on the curriculum, so for the last 5 or 6 years we've given time to implement the bill and teachers have been looking for ways to involve civic education, which is a good thing.

So for me, this was an easy topic. There was a group called Everyday Democracy which was sort of a think–tank based in Connecticut that deals with these issues. They came to me and said, “We produce these reports, but we need a visible champion.” I think that is exactly why this is appealing for Secretaries of State. It's natural because we're involved with elections and participation already, and it's natural to encourage citizen participation at all levels and broaden that definition beyond just voting. It's really about all the different ways people interact with their government. I think that's why I thought it was great that we could bring this to other Secretaries. It's a natural fit.

I selected about 20 people to steer the project. Everyday Democracy helped by doing all the organizing for things like meetings, and all I really had to do was show up and give it some spark. So it was a great thing for me, a good thing for them, and we've done a lot reports since then.

Sec. Mark Ritchie–Minnesota: Well for me in Minnesota, the initial motivation or initial guiding principle has evolved. In the beginning, it was the overall kind of anxiety that we feel out there in the middle of the country, near Siberia, that while we're number one in voting and a whole lot of other indicators around civics, underneath that there are different kinds of disparities and weaknesses that we need to do something about. We can either rest on our laurels or do something about it.

One example: we're very high in organ donation but underneath it, ethnic minorities are quite low– what's that about? Volunteerism––we're very high in the country; the Twin Cities are number one. But some other states, Nebraska and Utah, are higher. Voting is a similar thing, we're six points higher than the number two state, but when you look underneath it, you see within the state there are disparities. I took this as an opportunity to engage people on some of those questions.

Some of those questions are easier to ask than others. But, I had a particular experience on the question of voting and voting disparity because I was really concerned about trying to get to 80%. We're currently at 78%. I was up in northern part of the state at Red Lake Indian Reservation. It's located very far north, with very low per capita income, and often in a big struggle with the federal government. But anyhow, Red Lake Indian Reservation votes in the 90% range. So I was at a big public committee meeting in the town center in the reservation and I took the opportunity to ask the question to a big group of people, ‘'How is it that you are so high in your voting?” and it got dead silent.

At some point, a young woman said, “In this hall is very long list for all the heroes who have given their lives for this country,” she pointed at the ground and said, “we love this earth, we are very patriotic and we vote.” The whole room silently nodded and she sat down.

There is a town called Hermantown that is right next to Duluth. I was at the Hermantown Rotary luncheon, and I'm sitting with the Chamber of Commerce president. I asked him, “Hey, how do you all vote so high up here? You know 94%,” and he said “We're very patriotic, we love this place, and we take care of the things we love, and that includes voting.” I realized that he and the young Native American woman had the same message, which is that we love this place, we take care of the things we love.

So let's get underneath the disparity that is present–– in the big political cities we vote 50–60% range and in the country they vote 80–90% range. So by looking at the numerical averages, you begin to develop information that can help drive continuous improvement.

There is a climate out there now that makes what is good, things like civic engagement, out to be something bad or negative or illegal. So with the use of the Civic Health Index and the fact that Congress and other people have affirmed this, we have become a lot more interested in how to counter the assaults on public service, whether they are assaults on people in the military or teachers or ambulance drivers, or firemen. We've begun to use the civic indicators as something a part of our culture or heritage to confront the assaults that have been increasing on public service. So there is a new intensity to what we do that has less to do with continuous improvement and more to do with responding to those assaults.


Cambell: Secretary Ritchie, I'm very glad that you mentioned the need to look beyond the indicators and really look deeper into the disparities. And, Secretary Merrill mentioned her commitment to make sure this report is not something that just sits on the shelf. I'd love for you both to address what you hope this work accomplishes for your states.

Ritchie: I think quantitative indicators that give trend lines can at least expose some places that are more problematic than others. But also trying to monitor and track civic health in general can indicate that you have a particular problem in a particular area. For example, service–learning or the cut back on the teaching of civics in public schools.

I think for us, being able to have some data documented by an outside source indicator that ‘such and such' needs attention because the trend line is downward gives us a lever in making the argument that scarce resources should be devoted in a conscious way. But I also have hope that it helps to expand people's consciousness about what it means to say ‘we take care of this place that we love.' Being able to constantly refresh how we define ourselves can give us some sort of signals on things to put more ‘oomph' behind or things to address.

Merrill: I would use the same description. I was thinking about what it really meant to take care or something, be involved, or be civically engaged. So the questions you're asking and the way we're defining civic health is making a difference. I say it's making a difference, because the 20 or so people who were involved on our committee got so excited about it. It's rare that you have a committee that just wants to keep meeting.

The first thing they wanted a list of all the organizations and things that were going on out there in the state that no one had put together in quite that way. Some of them are directly pertinent to the civic problems and disparities we uncovered in our report.

We have a large Puerto Rican population in Connecticut, and saw there was a big disparity in the number that actually registered and or voted. What we found was that 46% of the entire Hispanic population were registered to vote; that is much lower than the white population. In fact, it's lower than every other group that we surveyed. Of that 46%, only 23% actually voted. Then we found out that when they are in Puerto Rico, 90% of them turn out to vote. These are actually the same families, so we started asking questions.

When we asked the Puerto Rican people around the table, they said “In Puerto Rico, election day is a big celebration. You go out, there are parades, election cake, and everyone goes to vote.” It got us thinking. Why don't we do that? Why has our culture developed in such a different way that we vote on Tuesday? I don't know why, does anyone else?

We ended up establishing subcommittees that are still meeting, and one of them is on civic education. Everyone always agrees that education is where we need to start. We now have a new generation of citizens who don't really relate to their government in the same way like the WWII generation did. They thought it was their duty to vote, not just their right. So this group is now meeting and what they found out is that we have the civics requirement, but we don't really know what is going on. So, they want to survey the school and find out what actually is being taught around this, and go to the state board of education and make some proposals.

There's a lot of activity that has resulted from this. We now have a resource list that is online and on my website, about all the organizations that are reaching out to people at a local level.


Cambell: So, I actually do know why we vote on Tuesdays... to help the 19th century farmers. There is an organization called ‘‘Why Tuesday?” that is raising this question. The reason is because in the 1800's you couldn't travel on the Sabbath, so on Mondays you would take one day to travel by horse and buggy to your polling station, and then you'd vote on Tuesday, and then you'd be back the next day. So that is why we vote on Tuesdays.

But I wanted to dig in a little bit deeper, you mentioned your work with Everyday Democracy, your advisory council, and how a lot of citizens have come up and said “we need this info, and know what's going on in our communities.” I would love for you to speak a little bit about how your work in this initiative has helped improve your role as a convener and potentially forged partnerships between businesses, local nonprofits, and citizens themselves.

Merrill: Well I think the very act of forming this large committee, seeking out people who were interested, and figuring out who the partners are helped establish and position me as a convener.

People are now coming to me saying ‘can you do this and that' and there is a sustainability question... who is going to do all the work for this? Fortunately, there is my partnership with Everyday Democracy and it has helped. We are getting a very large grant from another institution to do some work on tracking higher education and the success of students who vote versus those who don't, and that sort of thing. So it's launched us in a number of directions and it's true–– I am now seen as the convener of record for all these things and it's great because that means there are a lot more of these questions being asked.

I've also facilitated a lot around membership of minorities and women on boards and commissions of the state. That's an area we've identified as an area of disparity, so I've been working with various commissions around this question. That's put me in a great position to decide what we want to work on.

Ritchie: In our work with on civic health, it became clear that people were hungry to meet and to define something of a sector. There's an education sector, and there's environmental education, and there's conferences. So one of the outcomes of that was the idea of holding the National Civic Summit which was alongside the NASS conference that we held in Minneapolis, and it was a blast.

There were conversations about how we could continue this practice––moving it around the country wherever the NASS conference happened to be, and that allowed for the creation of bigger databases and all kinds of things. But the point for me was that I still believe that there is a high hunger at all levels to define a sector and it's related to this idea on the emerging commons and movement.

Once you are introducing this data, you start to meet new organizations and you also start to find out about other groups. It turns out there are hundreds of groups in terms of education and you uncover entirely new treasure troves of civically engaged stories, examples, analogies, that then you link up with your school and national guard. So you figure out how to tie it together with other things.

Each of these things loops back to answer questions that leads us to believe that the system we have comes to us as a gift. So the question on how are we doing to recognize those gifts, are we maintaining them, investing for the future? Are we taxing ourselves and investing for our future? Are we respecting our history? Are we taking good care of ourselves, and our roads and our schools? I'm not sure. So it allows for a public conversation for the correct way for public civilization to continue itself and convening these discussions gives you opening to raise these kinds of questions.


Kristen: I have one last question: I think it's important to acknowledge that you are both Democrats, but civic health is not a partisan issue. I know we have had some Republican Secretaries, as well as governors and Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle.

What can be done to help ensure that civic health doesn't become a partisan issue, but will continue to be a priority even when administrations may change?

Ritchie: Well this is just one thing, and I pass it on to everybody. But, take a look at some of the states that have very high civic health indicators. Utah has many things that can work for other states––they've done many things at the legislative level, and in policy, and in practice. But as a practical matter, the leadership entity in some of these things is that people can be from a different political party but are making a real conscious effort to call out, acknowledge, and then provide opportunities to learn from a variety of different people. It's kind of a special opportunity.

Merrill: I don't see this as a partisan issue. When I passed the civics law, it was a unanimous vote in both houses and the governor cheerfully signed it. It's one of those issues that everybody gets together on. I think that's one of the great things about it. Everyone claims the heritage of the country and it's something that brings people together.