Friday was Citizen's Day on Utah's Capitol Hill. I don't think I would have known about it, except that I helped campaign for Pete Ashdown for US Senate last year, and I still occasionally get Google Alerts, when his name appears in the news. Pete was scheduled to give the first speech of the day, and so he was mentioned in the local newspaper, and I got an alert. I signed up, and sent information about it to several of my friends. One of them decided his schedule would allow him to go, so I didn't even have to go it alone. We got there just before 8:30, when registration began, not knowing what to expect. I found a table up front, right in the center, and sat down. A gentleman named Witt (no clue if I'm spelling that right!) sat down and introduced himself, and we got an interesting conversation going. 3 other ladies ended up joining us at our table, but I don't recall their names. Only one of the people at my table had attended Citizen's Day before, so I didn't feel like I was a total newbie.
After starting late, due to a lack of a projector, Pete finally began his speech about 10 minutes late. His topic was "Democracy 2.0". He compared democracy to software. The Greeks had Democracy Beta, the US Founding Fathers had Democracy 1.0. We're now (after many revisions) at Democracy 1.0903848459202 (or so). Often in software, you'll find that after too many revisions, the product isn't quite the same thing it started out to be. Pete then talked about Democracy 2.0, with the idea that the people can now use the tools available to have say in the government. We don't have to fill out our ballot and hope for the best. We're at a point where the people can demand to be listened to, demand to know things like the schedules of our legislators, why they voted a certain way - basic accountability. Pete also talked about tools such as Wikis and blogs, and how they could work both ways to bring government and the people together. He brought up the Utah State Senate Majority blog, and State Rep. Steve Urqhardt has both a blog, and started Utah Politicopia, a wiki designed to get Utahns to voice their opinion on current issues in Utah.
After Pete's speech, I asked him whether there was a movement to make governmental blogs and wikis and other tools more official, and if not what could be done to make that happen. He said it was slowly but surely starting, and that legitimizing them with an official recognition from the government would take time. He mentioned that the Sunlight Foundation has been mildly successful in this pursuit. From Pete's speech, I took away that I now have a goal of bringing these tools (and technology in general) to my legislators, even the ones who are Republican. I happen to have both my state Senator and Represenatative be Democrats, but honestly, I just moved to the district, and don't have a clue what they're all about. More on that later.
Next was Robert Huefner, Professor Emeritus in Political Science, University of Utah. His topic was "Government Transparency, Public Policy, and Utah Issues". I must admit, I found him very hard to follow. He had a lot to say, but not much of it was personally applicable, at least not in the way he presented it. Perhaps I just felt like I was in school again. Since I didn't actually take notes, I couldn't tell you much of what he said, so I won't try.
Next up was Frank Pignanelli. I must admit, I had a lot against him when he came up on stage. For starters, we have a very progressive Mayor (Rocky Anderson) here in Salt Lake City, who has achieved a sort of hero status (much like Obama seems to be getting) among other progressives, and even some not-so-progressives. I didn't know much about Mr. Pignanelli, other than that he ran against Rocky a few years back. This was before I moved to Salt Lake City, so my prejudice was simply that he ran against Rocky. Well, that and the fact that he writes for the Deseret News, a very conservative newspaper, that he's an attorney, and now a lobbyist. His only redeeming quality was that he's a Democrat who served in the UT House for 10 years, 6 as the Minority Leader. But that didn't redeem him much in my eyes. His topic was "How to Lobby - and Open Government".
His purpose was to show us how to get to our representatives, how to convince them to listen. He spoke of the need to click with them on an emotional level, not just present facts. In fact, I think he started out by saying "Reason and logic have no bearing in the Senate." He talked about his years in the Utah House, and how the reason lobbyists were so influential is that when a subject that is very specific comes up, their most informed, and outspoken, resource was a lobbyist. He encouraged us to try to become a "resource" on a specific subject, that we care about and know about, to our representatives. He said "If you're intimidated by the money spent by lobbyists, you'll never get anywhere. You have to give your opinion." That made a lot of sense to me, given the context he was speaking in, and I hope to be able to do that. After his speech, I asked for examples of how to go about becoming a resource, as he mentioned, in the area of technology. He told me to contact my Senator, as well as another Senator that isn't my representative, but who has influence in this area.
We also heard from Gigi Brandt, President, Utah League of Women Voters. She spoke a lot about certain issues, and the need to protect voting rights, but there wasn't a lot of information about how to be effective at relaying our opinions to representatives, so I won't go on about her presentation.
After this, we had a choice between three different sessions before lunch. Funding for CHIP (Children's Health Insurance Program) by Nate Checketts from the Utah Department of Health, Writing Effective Letters to Legislators by Tiffany Rousculp, Director of Community Writing at Salt Lake Community College, or Mobile Home Solutions by Tara Rollins, Executive Director, Utah Housing Coalition. I ended up in the writing letters session, but it was rushed, and the most useful thing turned out to be a handout with a guide to making your point short and sweet when writing a letter.
To wrap up, we were supposed to have lunch with our State Senators and Representatives. My Senator is Gene Davis, and my Representative is Tim Cosgrove. The tables were seated according to the Senate districts, so some of the Representatives were assigned to multiple tables. I'm not sure why, but Davis didn't show up. Tim Cosgrove sat at the other table, and sent his intern down to my table. There were two girls who said they were interns, but never said what they were interns for, so it might have been Davis, but I had initially gotten the impression they were with Utah Issues, the organization sponsoring the event.
I think Cosgrove's intern said his name was Michael, I am not entirely certain. But I'll call him that for now. We talked a bit, and he told me that Cosgrove's motivation was children's issues. Apparently, there was a town hall meeting hosted by Cosgrove in my area last night, but I hadn't heard about it. Maybe I should read those community advertisement journals, after all. I asked Michael if there was an online signup to get email notification of these sorts of things. He didn't think so. We talked a bit more, then I excused myself to head to work. I mentioned that if Cosgrove wanted advice on using web technologies, such as email lists or whatever, to contact me, and left my information. I guess it's a first step in bringing technology to my representatives, huh?
The other thing I came away from today with, was the determination to find out more about what's going on in Utah politics, besides the reports on my local NPR station. And that with my main political focus being Obama's presidential candidacy, being involved in local politics can help.
I must say, I was rather disappointed in the turnout of my fellow citizens. The room wasn't filled to capacity, so well under 100 people attended, I think. When signing up, I noticed that the registration limit was set to 1,000. Which tells me that there's a lot of room in Utah to get people involved in Obama's campaign, and maybe even local politics, eventually, if we can get them past the apathy.