Young political activists get lesson in organizing from some high-powered Democrats

Tennessee state Rep. Justin Pearson speaks at VoteFest Chicago. (Photo by Ross Williams | Georgia Recorder)

CHICAGO – In the sanctuary of a historic church converted into an event space, not far from the hustle and bustle of the Democratic National Convention, a group of young people with a passion for politics met.

The Youth VoteFest, hosted by University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics, aimed to provide lessons in political organizing with topics like how to run a high school voter drive building inclusive campus voting coalitions.

The young attendees heard from a series of high-powered speakers, including U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg; Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson; Florida Democratic U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost, the nation’s first Gen Z member of Congress, and Tennessee Rep. Justin Pearson , who gained national attention when he was expelled from the House and later reinstated for participating in a protest over gun laws on the House floor.

Pearson told the participants about his first foray into public policy, when he spoke out to members of his local school board about a lack of adequate textbooks.

“If you use your power, you shame a couple people, things start to happen,” he said. “We have to remember that we are powerful. And we have to show other people their power. We don’t have to have fancy suits and fancy titles. All you have to do is use your voice, use your vote, use your power. We are powerful, and our power scares people.”

Organizers emphasized that the fest was nonpartisan, though several of the speakers and attendees indicated support for Vice President Kamala Harris for president. The Institute of Politics hosted a similar event featuring a conservative slate of speakers in Milwaukee last month to coincide with the Republican National Convention.

The IOP was founded by former Obama strategist David Axelrod, and its director is former Democratic U.S. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, who opened the program encouraging the youngsters in attendance.

“I want you to imagine, just look around, and every state legislature, you take 10 people out of the state legislature, and you replace them with 10 of you,” she said. “I want you to think about your city council, and you replace that city council with three of you. And I want you to think about Congress, and you replace congressional people with 20 of you. Do you think you would talk about other things in the legislature, at city council?”

“Your voice in the room matters, especially right now. And if young people, young people voted at the same percentage as people over the age of 65, the priorities of public policy in this country would change dramatically,” Heitkamp said.

Some members of the audience had already thrown their hats into various state and local rings. At 25, Ashwin Ramaswami is running for a seat on the Georgia Senate as a Democrat. His opponent is state Sen. Shawn Still, a Republican first elected in 2022, who was indicted in the Fulton County election interference case against former President Donald Trump. Still has pleaded not guilty and denied any wrongdoing.

Ramaswami said campaigning as a Gen Zer comes with challenges – it’s tough to raise funds when all of your friends are recent college graduates – but with opportunities as well.

“When I’m canvassing, people that initially first see me, the first thing that pops out is my age, because they see me, they’re like, ‘Oh, my kids are your age,’ or they don’t know how old I am,” he said. “I think after talking to me, they start to realize that I have a lot of experience, I have a lot of things I bring to the table. In a way, that’s an advantage, because then people start thinking about me in a different way.”

Other attendees, like Joseph Rice, student government president at Chicago’s Kennedy King College, said they were looking for pointers on increasing engagement on their college campuses. The sophomore finance major said he hopes to use what he has learned to make voter registrations drives more efficient.

“Me personally, I’m a blue guy, but I’m moving toward bipartisan, you know, just not to get the students to vote for who I want them to vote for, but for the students to vote for who they want to vote for, if that makes sense,” he said. “So I’m coming as a bipartisan approach, just so they can vote, just so they can have their information. Whether they vote for red or blue is their decision, and I respect that just as long as they get to vote.”

One of the guys was a red guy – former Illinois Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger, who broke ranks with his party by voting to impeach Trump over the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol and later sat on the House committee investigating the Capitol attack.

“People disagree on issues, all of us,” he said. “A hundred years ago, we were having the same debate about taxation and everything else. And in 100 years, we’re going to be having the same debate. But we’re facing a specific moment in this country where the question is, are you, as young people, when you get to be my age – I’m old, I’m 46 – when you get to be my age, are you going to have a democracy that works as well as I was able to have when I was your age?”

This story was originally produced by the Georgia Recorder which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network, including the Daily Montanan, supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.