SF Gate
November 26, 2010
by Pete Peterson Friday, November 26, 2010 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 (Los Angeles County). 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 was 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. 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. On most activities surveyed, Californians rank among the 50 states 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 1 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.” All of these activities have been positively correlated to improved overall ”civic health.” If Californians continue to build on the positive trends, we will prove worthy to ”keep” our ”California Republic.” Pete Peterson is the executive director of the Davenport Institute at Pepperdine University. To see the rankings, go to www.sfgate.com /blogs/opinionshop.