Jason Grumet) Twitter Gets Very Angry When You Keep It Waiting
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Panel III – Obstacles to public services at state and federal levels. 00:00:01 (Jason Grumet) Twitter gets very angry when you keep it waiting. (laughter) 00:00:10 (Jason Grumet) Well good afternoon. At the very outset of this morning’s conversation I mentioned that the purpose of this effort the Commission on Political Reform was to really start to think about the interactions between leadership and citizenship, not to simply focus inside the beltway or outside the beltway but recognize that we have a large and diverse country with leaders of all types that have to be part of the solutions we’re interested in finding. And this last panel really starts to bridge that discussion. We are now going to spend some time thinking about the incentives and obstacles to public service. We have before us a terrific panel of elected leaders, former White House officials and some real innovators in the non-profit space who have created opportunities for people to lead and contribute. The panel, led by our very own John Fortier who directs the Democracy Project at the Bipartisan Policy Center, John is a political scientist with expertise in government institutions and particular electoral reform. He is widely published and has really been the brain trust behind the boiler room of the Commission on Political Reform as we move forward through the process a lot of the efforts that you see will be driven by John and his team. So John. 00:01:29 (John Fortier) Thank you Jason and thank you again to the Reagan Library. I’m here to introduce a really stellar panel of people who’ve thought about and been in public service and really to think about the question of are there obstacles we are throwing up to people who want to serve in government, who want to give back in a way and what sort of institutions we might create going forward. I too have a couple of duties to do here, so first we are going to look to make sure that our online audience gets going with a poll question which we have and that poll question which we’re going to put up on the screens is, “Would you consider running for political office in the future?” And that’s a yes or no question. So during the session as in the earlier sessions we’ll be reporting your results on the screens here. And the whole forum is being live-streamed on the Bipartisan Center’s website which is bipartisanpolicy.org and you can send us a tweet using the hashtag #EgageUSA. Later during the session we’ll read some of your twitter comments and questions, actually some of them have already come in and we will also be taking some questions from the audience for the final part of the session. I’m going to introduce the panelists and then we’re going to get to the questions. To my left here Mark Gearan, Mark Gearan is the President of Hobart William Smith College also was colleges was also the head of the Peace Corp in the Clinton Administration. Chris Marvin is the founder and the head of the Got Your Six campaign and organization that connects veteran’s to public service in a number of ways. Governor, Governor of California Gray Davis, we’re going to go down to another governor, Governor Kempthorne who also served in the cabinet and the Senate, and Antonia Hernandez the President and head of the California Community Foundation, Governor Jennifer Granholm and Ambassador Bob Tuttle who was Ambassador the United Kingdom as well as the Head of Presidential Personnel in the Reagan Administration in whose library we sit as we speak. I’m going to turn first to a question to Mark Gearan and one 1 Panel III – Obstacles to public services at state and federal levels. has come in from Twitter already and that is a question from Arianna from Simi Valley right in the neighborhood, and it is, “How can young people contribute to government and politics in an uncertain future.” If I can just elaborate on that question and ask you a little bit more directly, you are the President of a college and you see our younger generation today and at least our sense is that when you ask people if they want to serve if they want to give back they say yes, they say they want to do good things but they often are more attracted to non-profits and they’re not as interested especially in running for office, is that your sense or what do you see in the younger generation? 00:04:14 (Mark Gearan) Well I would say more broadly it’s a great question that was formulated but I am very optimistic about the millennial generation. They are the most civically engaged, service oriented generation arguably since the greatest generation. You see it with the numbers interested in the Peace Corps, and AmeriCorps, Teach for America all the various streams of service so amidst our many and varied problems that we have which this great effort is addressing I come to this with great optimism about this generation. I would say that it is a generation that brings a sense of idealism as other generations but a very pragmatic sense of that, what they can do in their neighborhood, hence Habitat or AmeriCorps or Peace Corps ways to very tangibly make a difference. The political space, I think for all the reasons we’re discussing and the genius of this Commission on Political Reform I think does not attract some of the very talented students. I think that can change, I think there are pathways for this but at the front end I come to it with great appreciation for the millennial generation and great optimism for their commitment, their service and their sense of civic engagement. Colleges can do more, the political space can do more, innovative programs like what Chris has created all of that can add to the future which in my perspective is bright. 05:42 (John Fortier) I’m going to turn to Antonia Hernandez, we had a little conversation yesterday and you have younger people and people wanting to do good works with the foundation and supporting good works, what’s your sense of the young generation, where they are maybe compared to what it was a generation ago. 00:05:59 (Antonia Hernandez) Well I agree with Mark there is a great deal of caring in this young generation. They want to address the difficult issues that is facing the world. They volunteer, they want to work in the non for profit sector, they want to volunteer in the food bank, you know working with youth but politics has turned, they’ve turned off of politics. They don’t see politics as a place where they can make a difference, where they are heard. And they don’t see the current elected officials behaving in a way of role modeling what good government is. And so they are turned off of politics but they are very much turned on to doing good. 2 Panel III – Obstacles to public services at state and federal levels. 00:06:50 (John Fortier) I know Jennifer Granholm as Governor you wanted to weigh in on this you see young people, can you give your perspective? 00:06:57 (Jennifer Granholm) Yeah, I actually was so encouraged by the number of young people who are here in this room who raised their hands when they were asked the question would you consider serving and in fact the poll number reflects that 58% would consider serving. I would just say this, you know, we’ve got a veteran up here and many people think of service as a form of giving to our country the way our veterans do when they go fight for us overseas and that is a hugely and wonderfully honorable thing but we all have a duty as citizens to serve too. And the duty is that you are here on this planet on this in this country to make it better than when you arrived and the duty of service is not just some it is for all and the question for you is you have heard all these political challenges that we’ve discussed today that that not deter you from serving but in fact that fuels your desire to serve so that you can come and make the changes that are necessary for the reforms that we all know need to happen. I teach at Berkley in the Graduate Schools of Law and Public Policy so perhaps my view on this is a little bit warped but because I’m teaching people who want to serve. But I’m really encouraged even, even in the political side by those are willing to raise their hand and say send me. My one piece of advice for you though is to recognize that in running it’s not about you. That it’s not about you, it’s about the changes that you want to make in the world. And if you run with that in mind then it becomes your focus and your vision and your clarity and it becomes much more, easier for you to raise your hand in fact when you realize that it is not about you. So go forth and change the world. 00:08:58 (John Fortier) Well I knew we wouldn’t have a shy panel and I know Governor Kempthorne and Ambassador Tuttle want to jump in so Governor Kempthorne 00:09:05 (Dirk Kempthorne) John between breaks I’ve enjoyed talking to these young folks here.