Dear CCEP colleagues, partners and friends:
Welcome to the April edition of Engage!
There are some exciting changes coming to California! The California Motor Voter program will be launching next week on April 16th, and soon the Voters Choice Act will be implemented in five California counties.
In this month's Engage you will also learn about an upcoming webinar on the Motor Voter program, as well as other events on democratic reform, the 2020 U.S. Census, and the California ballot initiative process. You will also hear about some of the latest research in the field of civic engagement, and will read the story about an East LA publication, La Raza magazine, and how it grew to become one of the Chicano movements most important news publications during its time.
In partnership,
Mindy Romero, Ph.D.
CCEP Director
Follow us on:
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Tuesday, April 10th
Warren Room, Berkeley Law
Making Democracy Reform a Reality
UC Berkeley's Boalt School of Law will be hosting its 2nd annual Election Law Symposium on April 10th from 12:45pm-6:30pm.
This event will discuss how the United States can make democratic reform a reality. Topics will also include how the courts addressed partisan gerrymandering, how California advocacy groups have worked to expand language access at the ballot box, as well as electoral participation. CCEP director Mindy Romero will be a panelist at this event, and will discuss expanding access to the ballot box.
Follow the event along on Twitter using the hashtag:
#berkelectlaw
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Thursday, April 12th
Informational Webinar on California's Motor Voter Program
The Future of California Elections (FoCE) will be hosting a webinar on April 12th from 11am -11:30am (PST).
This webinar will discuss the California Motor Voter program that launches April 16th and will be hosted by:
- James Schwab, deputy secretary of state, policy & planning for the California Secretary of State
- Lori Shellenberger, voting rights strategist
- Astrid Ochoa, executive director of FoCE
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Tuesday, April 24th
Preparing California for Census 2020
The Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) will be hosting an event, "Preparing California for Census 2020" on April 24th from 12pm-1:30pm.
This event will discuss the critical role the U.S. Census plays in California's future.
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Monday, May 7th
Examining the Effects of the Ballot Initiative Transparency Act
The California Civic Engagement Project (CCEP) at UC Davis and the UC Center Sacramento will be cohosting a presentation and panel discussion on May 7th at the UC Center Sacramento. During this event, CCEP director Mindy Romero Ph.D. will present new CCEP research on the Ballot Initiative Transparency Act of 2014 (Senate Bill 1253, or BITA). This new research will examine the impact BITA had on the 2016 ballot initiative process.
Following the research presentation, a panel of state leaders who advocated for the passage of this important reform will be assembled. The panel discussion will be moderated by Kathay Feng, Executive Director of California Common Cause.
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Civic Engagement Featured Story
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Photo Credit: La Raza photograph collection. Courtesy of UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center |
La Raza: The Community Newspaper That Became a Political Platform
La Raza Magazine was one of the Chicano movements most important news publications from 1967 to 1977. The magazine started in the basement of a church in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood of Eastside Los Angeles by a priest, a Cuban refugee, and a female Stanford graduate.
In its early days, La Raza was influenced by the growing underground press movement and the growing tensions brought about by the Vietnam War activism. But it differentiated itself from the other underground press reporting, by reporting from the Chicano perspective.
La Raza Magazine provided some of the first opportunities for young writers and photographers to report on their communities, and it helped serve as a voice for young people. La Raza targeted high school students and brought to light the connection between the education of Chicano students and larger political agendas that disproportionately recruited young black and brown men. This led to a string of school walk-outs that later came to be known as the East L.A. Blowouts.
Soon La Raza and other Chicano publications became the voice of the Chicano civil rights movements. In its later years, La Raza became a source for political mobilization, and became the platform for the La Raza Unida Party to disseminate its message. The final magazine issues were published in 1977. It's legacy, however, continues to live on.
An exhibit of La Raza photographs are on display at the Autry Museum of the Southwest where the 50th anniversary of the East L.A. blowouts are being commemorated. In addition, the UCLA Chicano Studies Resource Center is now housing thousands of La Raza photographs, negatives, and issues.
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New Civic Engagement Research
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Wide Gender Gap, Growing Educational Divide in Voters' Party Identification
A new report from the Pew Research Center, released March 2018, examines political party identification as the nation's demographics continue to change and have a profound impact on the makeup of the Democratic and Republican parties.
Pew data from 10,000 interviews of registered voters shows that 37% of registered voters identify as independents, with most independents leaning toward one of the major parties. The study also examined party identification as it related to other trends such as: the gender gap, education level, racial divisions, and Millennials.
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| Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons |
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University of Chicago Sociologist Examines Impact of Gerrymandering on Violence in Chicago
University of Chicago sociologist Robert Vargas examined how redistricting can affect violence rates. According to Vargas, if residential blocks are redistricted, it can lead to the redistribution of access to power and city government resources.
In Vargas's 2016 book
Wounded City: Violent Turf Wars in a Chicago Barrio
, he found that violence in one Chicago neighborhood was concentrated on blocks historically gerrymandered by the city council. When he compared gerrymandered neighborhoods to non-gerrymandered neighborhoods, he found the murder rate in gerrymandered areas to be two-and-a-half times higher.
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California Civic Engagement News
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California's new voter registration card.
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California updates voter registration card to reduce errors
On April 5th, California Secretary of State Alex Padilla unveiled the new California voter registration card.
According to election officials, this new card will make it easier to register without a political party preference - a problem faced by many who intended to register as independent, but accidentally registered with the American Independent Party.
In addition, the new registration card has design improvements that make it more logical. Some of these changes include the use of more conversational, less formal, language, a larger section to sign up for Vote-By-Mail, and design changes to make the form less complicated.
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National Civic Engagement News
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Felony Voting Laws Are Confusing; Activists Would Ditch Them Altogether
An estimated 6 million American adults are not allowed to vote due to a felony conviction on their record. Data shows that 50.6% of disenfranchised felons are no longer incarcerated, on probation, or on parole. Disenfranchised felons make up 2.5% of the general voting population, however, African-Americans make up three times that number according to the Sentencing Project.
Across the country, there is wide variation when it comes to state voting laws for felons. For instance, only Maine and Vermont have no voting restrictions on felons, while other states place voting restrictions on felons in prison, on parole, on probation, and post-sentence.
This has led advocacy groups and nationwide law suits to call for ending felony disenfranchisement laws.
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Photo Credit: Danny Howard
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Goodbye, neighborhood polling places - 5 counties switch to mega-vote centers
This election season, Vote Centers are coming to five California counties: Madera, Napa, Nevada, Sacramento, and San Mateo. Vote Centers were established under the 2016 California Voter's Choice Act, and will replace neighborhood polling places.
CALmatters spoke with CCEP director Mindy Romero on this topic.
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Assistant Director Opening | UC Santa Cruz
The Santa Cruz Institute for Social Transformation at UC Santa Cruz (UCSC) is looking to hire a full-time permanent Assistant Director.
This position combines program development with institute administration work. Applicants with a Ph.D., organizational development or non-profit work experience would be ideal for this position.
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Share Your Civic Engagement Research with the CCEP
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Are you working to promote inclusive civic engagement? Do you have a civic engagement success story to share? Share your story with CCEP and you could be featured in an upcoming issue of Engage! Please send your short write-up to Jennifer Puza at [email protected] for consideration. Thanks for reading and staying engaged!
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UC Davis California Civic Engagement Project
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Kim Alexander
President and Founder
California Voter Foundation
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Matt A. Barreto
Professor, Department of Political Science
Professor, Department of Chicana/o Studies
University of California, Los Angeles
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Jonathan Fox
Professor
School of International Service
American University
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Luis R. Fraga
Arthur Foundation Endowed Professor of Transformative Latino Leadership
Professor of Political Science University of Notre Dame
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Lisa Garcia Bedolla
Chancellor's Professor of Education and Political Science
University of California, Berkeley
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Bruce Haynes
Professor, Department of Sociology University of California, Davis
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Jongho Lee
Professor
Department of Political Science
Western Illinois University
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Peter Levine
Associate Dean for Research
Lincoln Filene Professor of Citizenship & Public Affairs
Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life
Tufts University
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Matt Mahan
Cofounder and CEO
Brigade
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James Muldavin
Executive Director
California Center for Civic Participation and Youth Development
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Karthick Ramakrishnan
Professor of Public Policy and Political Science
Associate Dean, School of Public Policy
University of California, Riverside
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Ricardo Ramirez
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science
University of Notre Dame
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Jason Reece
Assistant Professor,
City and Regional Planning Program
Interim Director of Research, Kirwan Institute
Ohio State University
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David Campbell
Associate Dean for Social and Human Sciences
College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences
University of California, Davis
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Dan Schnur
Director
American Jewish Committee
Los Angeles Region
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Shakari Byerly
Partner and Lead Researcher
EVITARUS
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Cruz Reynoso
Professor of Law, Emeritus
University of California, Davis
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Samuel Molina
California State Director
Mi Familia Vota
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California Civic Engagement Project
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The California Civic Engagement Project (CCEP) is housed at the UC Davis Center for Regional Change and was established to inform the public dialogue on representative governance in California. The CCEP is engaging in pioneering research to identify disparities in civic participation across place and population. It is well positioned to inform and empower a wide range of policy and organizing efforts in California to reduce disparities in state and regional patterns of well-being and opportunity. Key audiences include public officials, advocacy groups, political researchers and communities themselves.
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UC Davis Center for Regional Change
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The UC Davis Center for Regional Change (CRC). The CRC is a catalyst for innovative, collaborative, and action-oriented research. It brings together faculty and students from different disciplines, and builds bridges between university, policy, advocacy, business, philanthropy and other sectors. The CRC's goal is to support the building of healthy, equitable, prosperous, and sustainable regions in California and beyond.
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