Home  About  In the News  Publications  Blog  Join  Donate  The Roosevelt Institution's second conference in Hyde Park, NY: 2006. Photo by Nick Bradley. Announcements National Expo: July 11th Hyde Park Summit: August 14-17 Essay Winners Announced in The Nation On Campus Iowa Chapter Holds Forum Zach Hindin in the GW Hatchet Coverage of the Johns Hopkins Chapter Launch > More "Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground." — Teddy Roosevelt    Making Democracy Work > Roosevelt Home > Roosevelt Challenges > Making Democracy Work By Kai H Stinchcombe Categories: Government reform, Voting rights The Challenge: restore government of the people, by the people, and for the people in America and vindicate the untrammeled rights and responsibilities of the citizen in our democracy Important Progressive: accomplishing this challenge will contribute directly and specifically to the progressive values embodied by Roosevelt's Statement of Principles Meaningful: our contribution to this challenge will produce a real change in the lives of our fellow human beings. One can imagine a world in which the challenge is solved, and such a world is better than the one we live in today. Underpinning all other progressive policy in America -- and the core of our statement of principles -- is the idea that citizens can and should reshape their government for the better. Unfortunately, many barriers today stand in the way of political participation, turning people away and shutting them out of the political process. Confronting this challenge will allow us to make better progress on every other policy issue we set for ourselves. Innovative We're looking for policy challenges where innovation is needed: where there isn't already a clear solution or best practices, but solutions can be developed creatively. Our goal is to develop options, not to lobby or advocate for a solution that is already known or to debate among several yes or no outcomes or pre-defined policy choices. Other organizations do the important work of debating and lobbying, that's just not our place in the process. Typically if you're looking at a standard policy debate you can apply what's known as the "Roosevelt Reframe" to develop new strategies to advance shared values. So rather than "should we engage in race-based affirmative action in college admissions" to which the potential answers are "yes" and "no", you can ask "how do we make our colleges more diverse", a goal we hope is shared by those on both sides of that debate. New technologies have to a large extent driven this -- new voting machines, new fundraising and targeting and districting techniques -- and the simple scale of money in politics. There is a widespread belief that politics has gotten dirtier and it has gotten harder to participate. But the stakes couldn't be higher than they are today. Feasible Approachable: given the level of research and discourse already available and given who else is working on the issue, college students with a range of experience levels and with varied types of expertise can contribute meaningfully to the debate and are likely to think of good ideas. We don't want something so technical only engineering majors can contribute to it, or something that is already dominated by another think tank or advocacy organization. Practical: the challenge is stated as a specific, measurable, and achievable goal, incremental progress toward which could be made by chipping away at the problem at various levels of government. The statement is not too broad or too narrow. One good way to make sure something is a good policy challenge rather than a debate or advocacy problem is to think of what sorts of innovative ideas might be produced for the 25 ideas publication series on that topic. Potential ideas include: Voting technology reform - VVPTs - secure vote my mail - distribution of voting machines Voter registration - Motor voter - Same day registration - reducing disincentives (e.g. jury selection from drivers' licenses) Campaign finance - Public financing - Democracy dollars - Other campaign finance reform Lobbying and ethics reform Fair legislative districting Other elections - better information about local offices - money out of judicial elections Turnout - Why tuesday? - Voting holiday or guaranteed leave - Mandatory voting? - The arizona voting lottery proposal Media ownership and other media regulation   The Roosevelt Institution is a nonpartisan, nonprofit national think tank devoted to bringing students' policy ideas to the policy process. The opinions expressed on this site are exclusively those of its members. DC Headquarters: Roosevelt Institution / 2100 M St NW Suite 610 / Washington, DC 20037 || (202) 833-1359