The New Eighteen

Public Hearing on whether Connecticut’s voting age should be lowered to sixteen.

For more videos from the hearing, check out the New18 Campaign’s YouTube Page.

The New Haven Board of Aldermen’s Youth Services Committe held a public hearing on Wednesday, August 31st, to generate a public discussion about whether the State of Connecticut should lower its voting age to sixteen. The hearing was scheduled so that the Committee could decide whether to ask the full Board of Aldermen to place the voting age question on the November ballot as a non-binding advisory referendum. After hearing testimony from members of the community, the Committee voted to discharge the issue to the full Board of Aldermen at their meeting on Tuesday (9/6).

The public testimony was overwhelmingly supportive of the New18 Campaign’s goals. Several local high school students testified in support of the referendum as did a local New Haven public school teacher, Sarah Marchesi. In addition, several members of the New Haven community also testified in support of the referendum including Seth Poole, program coordinator at the New Haven Boys & Girls Club, Janis Astor del Valle, the executive director of Youth Rights Media, and Darryl Brackeen, Jr., a candidate for Alderman in Ward 26. Daniel Widrew, a Northeastern University law student and representative of the National Youth Rights Association, also testified in support while Peter Levine, a professor at Tufts University and director of the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, submitted written testimony in support of the New18 Campaign.

The New Haven Independent and the Yale Daily News both covered the hearing. The New Haven Register ran a story about the hearing earlier in the week.

Amend the Connecticut Constitution: Let 17 year-olds vote in general elections!

On Wednesday, July 27th, members of the New18 Campaign met with State Representative Roland Lemar and the New Haven Board of Aldermen’s Youth Committee at City Hall to discuss youth voting rights in Connecticut. Alderwoman Bitsie Clark, chair of the Youth Committee, placed the item on the Committee’s agenda after reviewing the policy proposal that the New18 Campaign submitted to the Board of Aldermen in late June. At the meeting, lawmakers discussed the campaign’s strategy for bringing youth voting rights to the attention of state policymakers.

Although the New18 Campaign has reached out several times to members of the Connecticut General Assembly over the past two months, Representative Lemar is the only state legislator who has responded to the campaign. The lack of concern that Connecticut’s other lawmakers have displayed, while unsurprising, underscores the importance of voting rights to youth-led political movements: elected officials have little incentive to address — or even acknowledge — the political wishes of disenfranchised groups.

New18 Youth Rally (July 5, 2011): Reflections on Independence Day (read the full text of the speech below).

For more videos of the New18 rally, check out the the campaign’s YouTube page.

On Tuesday, July 5th, the New18 campaign held a youth rally on the New Haven Green to show their support for lowering the voting age in Connecticut. After the rally, several members of the campaign attended the monthly Board of Aldermen meeting at City Hall to see whether the Board would discuss the policy proposal that the campaign submitted to the Board on June 30th.

Reporters from New Haven’s biggest newspapers — The Advocate, The Independent, and The Register — covered the rally. In addition, members of the campaign were joined by Robert Lee, a candidate for mayor in New Haven’s upcoming Democratic primary, and Darryl Brackeen, Jr., an aldermanic candidate from Ward 26.

Find a text of the campaign’s rally speech, Reflections on Our Independence, after the jump.

New18 Rally Speech: Reflections on Our Independence

July 5, 2011

Two-hundred and thirty-five years ago yesterday, our forefathers declared their independence from the British empire.

They were motivated by a lofty set of ideals that we have since come to recognize as core elements of America’s democratic culture: our deep resentment of tyranny, our faith in our ability to rule ourselves, and our firm belief that taxpaying citizens deserve a meaningful political voice within their government.

So today, with these same principles in mind, we declare our own independence as young people. But rather than declare our independence from government, we have come here to declare that we are independent enough to participate in government. We call on the New Haven Board of Aldermen to support a lower voting age in this City and in the State of Connecticut. Because not only are we smart enough, motivated enough, and independent enough to make our own decisions—but we also deserve the right to make those decisions and make our voice heard.

The New18 campaign thanks Inclusive Design & Development for designing its new campaign logo.

On Monday, June 20th, members of the New18 campaign spoke with New Haven Alderman Justin Elicker (Ward 10-D). Mr. Elicker - one of only four aldermen who have responded to the New18 campaign - suggested that members of the campaign speak with state legislators in order to spur greater statewide debate about the voting age. He also offered to provide members of the campaign with copies of old Board of Aldermen resolutions, which the New18 campaign might use to draft a resolution in favor lowering the voting age in Connecticut.

If the Board of Aldermen ultimately adopts such a resolution, expressing the City’s support for a lower statewide voting age, then New Haven would join other cities such as Cambridge, MA, and Lowell, MA, which have adopted similar resolutions in recent years.

                                             New18 Campaign Poster, by Ally Hansen (2011)

On Thursday, June 16th, the second highest ranking election official in Connecticut spoke with members of the New18 campaign at Cooperative Arts & Humanities High School in New Haven. Deputy Secretary of State James Spallone, an expert in election administration, met with students to discuss the legal and logistical aspects of their policy proposal. He explained that Connecticut state law would likely need to be amended before the City of New Haven would have the power to lower the voting age in local elections.

Deputy Secretary Spallone was one of the leading forces behind a 2008 state constitutional amendment that lowered Connecticut’s voting age in primary elections to seventeen for voters who would turn eighteen prior to the general election (Conn. Const. Art. XXXI). Although the Deputy Secretary has championed youth participation in state elections in the past, he declined to take a position on the New18’s specific policy proposal at this time.

On Wednesday, June 8th, the Hartford Courant published an op-ed written by three members of the New18 campaign. The authors are students at Cooperative Arts & Humanities High School in New Haven. Check out the op-ed here.

The New Haven Independent re-published the piece on Thursday, June 9th.

                                             From Left: Henry Murphy, Jr., Amber Corey, and Leah Gimbel

On Tuesday, June 7, members of the New18 campaign met with Marcus Paca (D-24) of the New Haven Board of Aldermen. Mr. Paca spoke about the importance of youth activism in local politics and recalled his own experience working on political campaigns as a high schooler.

Although the New18 campaign has now reached out to all thirty members of the New Haven Board of Aldermen to discuss youth voting rights, Mr. Paca is one of only two Aldermen who have responded to the campaign. The Board’s lack of responsiveness underscores the importance of youth voting rights: until young people achieve full political equality in the electoral arena, elected officials are unlikely to take them seriously.

On Thursday, June 2, 2011, members of the New18 campaign met with Kim Hynes, a senior organizer with Common Cause in Connecticut. Ms. Hynes visited students at Cooperative Arts & Humanities High School in downtown New Haven and discussed her experience working as an advocate for election reform at the state level.

On Friday, May 27th, a group of students from Cooperative Arts & Humanities High School met with members of the press on the steps of New Haven City Hall and announced their plan to advocate for a lower voting age in local elections. The New Haven Independent and the New Haven Register both covered the event.

Although both news outlets buried their coverage of the New18 event in larger articles about former New Haven Alderman Robert Lee — who appeared at City Hall to announce his mayoral candidacy — both newspapers were careful to note that the voting age campaign is non-partisan and unaffiliated with the Lee campaign. Members of the New18 campaign were joined by a handful of students from Yale Law School who came out to support their advocacy efforts.

Photos taken by the New Haven Independent