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Rutgers Student Voting Rates Increased Three-Fold in 2018
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Rutgers-New Brunswick student voter registration and voter turnout rates nearly quadrupled in the 2018 midterm elections, announced Eagleton's Center for Youth Political Participation (CYPP). The data is from a new report from the Institute for Democracy & Higher Education at Tufts University's Tisch College of Civic Life.
According to the report, Rutgers' student voting rate outpaced other comparable higher education institutions. In the 2018 midterm election, Rutgers-New Brunswick's student voting rate was nearly 43 percent - a 32 percent increase from the student voting rate in the 2014 midterm election, which was just 11 percent. Rutgers' student voter turnout in 2018 (52.4 percent) also surpassed the nationwide average for youth voter turnout during the 2018 midterm elections (31 percent).
The new data was released just in time for Constitution Week. Eagleton's Center for Youth Political Participation, established in 2017, marked the week by organizing
multiple voter registration drives throughout the Rutgers-New Brunswick campus as part of its RU Voting initiative. The increase in Rutgers student voting underscores the impact active civic engagement efforts, like RU Voting, can have on student voter registration and turnout rates.
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Fellows Explore Legislative Policymaking and Redistricting
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"The Legislative Policymaking seminar at Eagleton focuses on the dynamics of how policies are enacted in the states by governors and legislatures, combining readings, case studies, guest speakers, and assignments grounded in experience with practitioners. The course provides academic and practical preparation for Eagleton Fellows' placements with the New Jersey Legislature during the spring semester and potential careers in public policy," said Richard Bagger, who teaches the course and is a Visiting Associate. Bagger is a former New Jersey state senator, mayor, and chief of staff to former Governor Chris Christie.
The course offers students the opportunity to analyze emerging political topics with practitioners who speak about their first-hand experience in government, politics, and policy. This week, Eagleton director John J. Farmer, Jr. spoke with Fellows about the congressional and legislative redistricting process. In 2011, Farmer served as counsel to the commission that redrew New Jersey's legislative districts and, later that year, was appointed the independent, tie-breaking member of the commission charged with developing New Jersey's congressional district maps.
The Eagleton Graduate Fellowship Program offers Rutgers graduate students from all schools, departments, and campus locations the opportunity study American politics and government by linking its day-to-day practice with their subject area through coursework, experienced practitioners, and a placement in government.
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ECPIP Launches New Digital and Interactive Poll Archive
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The Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling (ECPIP) launched a digital poll archive to make five decades worth of data easily accessible to policymakers, scholars, and the public. The interactive online platform provides access to all survey data, questionnaires, and press releases from Rutgers-Eagleton statewide polls of New Jersey residents on matters of political and social interest since 1971. The interactive archive was made possible by a grant from the Fund for New Jersey.
The new online archive also houses questionnaires, datasets, and reports from 19 iterations of The New Brunswick Community Survey, a time series study of residents of the City of New Brunswick with data from 1976-2016. A 2018-2019 Rutgers Community-University Partnership Grant supported this addition to the archive.
Rutgers-Eagleton Polls are now also archived with the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research at Cornell University as part of their statewide poll archiving initiative.
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CAWP: Some Progress with Women's Representation; Substantial Opportunities to Improve
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In a report about women's representation in New Jersey, Eagleton's
Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP)
analyzed the membership of the top 58 most powerful NJ boards and commissions and found that although there has been some progress with women's representation on New Jersey boards and commissions during the Murphy administration, there are still substantial opportunities to improve.
"Murphy's appointment of a majority-women cabinet is important in and of itself," said CAWP Director Debbie Walsh, "...For instance, because of the governor's appointment of Elizabeth Maher Muoio as the State Treasurer and Diane Gutierrez-Scaccetti as Commissioner of the Department of Transportation, there is a woman serving on the New Jersey Lottery Commission and on the Turnpike Authority, respectively, for the first time in years. However, among the public member seats on these boards and commissions, there is room for significant improvement. With 82 vacancies, the potential is there."
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"
We, the People: A radical idea that must persist"
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Eagleton director John J. Farmer, Jr. published an op-ed in
The Hill in recognition of Constitution Week.
"Constitution Week, which we celebrate this week, is our best opportunity to re-ask the question that has haunted our nation from its inception: Who are 'we'? The first question the Framers of our Constitution had to answer was one of the hardest: Who matters? Who or what would be the source of legitimate power in their new nation?
Because it has become a commonplace of American political culture that legitimacy is conferred by 'We the people,' it is easy to forget how radical that idea seemed when it was included in the preamble to our Constitution."
Read more.
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