SFGate
November 24, 2010
By Pete Peterson
It was Ben Franklin who, upon leaving the Constitutional Convention in 1787, famously replied to Mrs. Powel’s inquiry regarding the product of those deliberations: "A Republic, if you can keep it." The response clearly illustrated the caution many of the founders possessed regarding the future of a nation, which extended unknown freedoms to many of its citizens. Implicit in Franklin’s statement, is the responsibility placed on its citizens to participate in the civic life of the country — from voting to volunteering.
Few stories have cast such a bright light on the consequences of disengaging from these duties as the fiasco in Bell, Calif. Most know by now, that while wrongdoings committed by the city’s staff and elected officials deserve condemnation and prosecution, the course toward the debacle was charted in a voting booth, where less than 1 percent of Bell’s population voted for charter status.
Until recently, evaluating California’s civic participation has been difficult, but in 2007, the congressionally chartered National Conference on Citizenship, following the release of its National Civic Health Index, produced the first edition of the report for California with the consultation of political scientists Robert Putnam, Bill Galston and Peter Levine. Now in its third year, the 2010 California Civic Health Index has just been published, and the results show that while Californians have some room for improvement in an array of civic activities, compared with other large states like New York and Texas we perform very well, and our trend lines since that 2007 report are very positive.
Divided into two main sections — social civic engagement — (volunteering, exchanging favors with neighbors, dining with family) and political civic engagement (voting, talking with neighbors about politics, attending meeting about local issue) — the results are derived from the annual Census Current Population Survey. This year’s study, like the 2008 edition, is sponsored by California Forward, and is written through a collaboration between the Center for Civics Education and Pepperdine’s Davenport Institute of Public Engagement and Civic Leadership.
On most activities surveyed, Californians rank between the low 30s and low 40s, but when compared to states like New York and Texas the results appear more golden. In political engagement, Californians continue to improve their participation at the ballot box. Both in voter turnout (63.4 percent) and voter registration (68.2 percent), Californians outpace New Yorkers and Texans, and comparing voting rates in the last two presidential elections, Californians surpass the national trend line.
In volunteering, about a quarter (24.6 percent) of Californians surveyed said they had done so at least once in the preceding 12 months. This result again surpasses Texas and New York, and the 2.1 percent improvement since 2007 is better than the national numbers over this period. And in working with neighbors to fix a local problem, nearly one in 10 (8.3 percent) of surveyed Californians responded affirmatively. This also exceeds the results from Texas and New York, and continues a better three-year trend than both of those states and the national average.
Still, Texas and New York did beat out California in talking about politics with friends and family and eating dinner with family at least a few times per week. And the percentage of Californians surveyed who are members of a civic/religious/sports group is one of the lowest in the nation at 31.5 percent. All of these activities have been positively correlated to improved overall civic health.
Given the scope of the current fiscal crisis in California — at both the state and local levels — the importance of civic engagement — from volunteering in our communities to participating in making increasingly difficult local policy decisions — has been rarely more important. If Californians continue to build on the positive trends, though, we will prove worthy to "keep" our "California Republic."
Pete Peterson is the executive director of the Davenport Institute at Pepperdine University.