The 23-page issue guide, Coming to America: Who Should We Welcome, What Should We Do? was published in January 2018 from National Issues Forums Institute and Kettering Foundation. The issue guide offers participants three options to use during deliberation on how to address current immigration to the US. The issue guide is available to download for free on NIFI’s site here and is also available in Spanish here, and there is a post-forum questionnaire for both languages.
From NIFI…
The immigration issue affects virtually every American, directly or indirectly, often in deeply personal ways. This guide is designed to help people deliberate together about how we should approach the issue. The three options presented here reflect different ways of understanding what is at stake and force us to think about what matters most to us when we face difficult problems that involve all of us and that do not have perfect solutions.
The issue raises a number of difficult questions, and there are no easy answers:
Should we strictly enforce the law and deport people who are here without permission, or would deporting millions of people outweigh their crime?
Should we welcome more newcomers to build a more vibrant and diverse society, or does this pose too great a threat to national unity?
Should we accept more of the growing numbers of refugees from war-torn regions, or should we avoid the risk of allowing in people whose backgrounds may not have been fully checked?
Should our priority be to help immigrants assimilate into our distinctively American way of life, including learning English, or should we instead celebrate a growing mosaic of different peoples?
The concerns that underlie this issue are not confined to party affiliation, nor are they captured by labels like “conservative” or “liberal.”
The research involved in developing the guide included interviews and conversations with Americans from all walks of life, as well as surveys of nonpartisan public-opinion research, subject-matter scans, and reviews of initial drafts by people with direct experience with the subject.
This issue guide placemat presents three options for deliberation:
Option 1: Welcome Immigrants, Be a Beacon of Freedom
This option says that immigration has helped make America what it is today- a dynamic and diverse culture, an engine of the global economy, and a beacon of freedom around the world. It says that part of what defines America as a nation is the opportunity for all to pursue the American dream. We should develop an immigration policy that builds on that tradition by welcoming newcomers, helping immigrant families stay together, and protecting those fleeing from war and oppression.
Option 2: Enforce the Law, Be Fair to Those Who Follow the Rules
This option says we need a fair system, where the rules are clear and, above all, enforced. With an estimated 11 million people living in the country illegally, our current system is unjust and uncontrolled. In fairness to the long lines of people who are waiting to come to America legally, we must strengthen our commitment to border security, crack down on visa overstays, and introduce more stringent measures to deal with immigrants living here without authorization.
Option 3: Slow Down and Rebuild Our Common Bonds
This option recognizes that newcomers have strengthened American culture in the past. But the current levels of immigration are so high, and the country is now so diverse, that we must regain our sense of national purpose and identity. We should have a measured immigration policy—one that reduces the rate of immigration and assists newcomers as they become part of the American community. We need to find ways to accommodate newcomers without compromising our sense of national unity.
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About NIFI Issue Guides
NIFI’s Issue Guides introduce participants to several choices or approaches to consider. Rather than conforming to any single public proposal, each choice reflects widely held concerns and principles. Panels of experts review manuscripts to make sure the choices are presented accurately and fairly. By intention, Issue Guides do not identify individuals or organizations with partisan labels, such as Democratic, Republican, conservative, or liberal. The goal is to present ideas in a fresh way that encourages readers to judge them on their merit.
Follow on Twitter: @NIForums
Resource Link: www.nifi.org/en/issue-guide/coming-america
CIRCLE has released a new report entitled “Millennials’ Diverse Political Views: A Typology of the Rising Generation.” From the summary:
Millennials are already the largest group of potential voters and are destined to dominate American politics in decades to come. As a demographically and economically diverse generation, they naturally hold a wide range of opinions. In the 2016 election, for example, voters under the age of 30 split their support: 55% percent for Hillary Clinton, 37% for Donald Trump, and 8% for other candidates.
We use recent data to identify clusters of Americans between the ages of 18 and 34 into five groups:
The two egalitarian groups are concerned about social, political, and economic inequality, and they tend to support government action to combat it. The two libertarian groups are concerned about individual freedom and are more skeptical of government. These orientations characterize some, but not all, core characteristics of young people’s beliefs about the size and responsibilities of government, and whether inequality is seen as a major barrier to progress.
Within both the libertarian and the egalitarian sides, there are disagreements about civic engagement. Millennials of all political stripes differ on whether it is useful for people like them to engage with fellow members of their community or with institutions—or both—to change society. Meanwhile, the Lost and Disengaged do not seem sure where they fall, are disconnected from news media, and largely disengaged from civic life.
The largest group, Activist Egalitarians fit an influential stereotype of Millennials. However, they number less than two-fifths (39%) of all Millennials, and are themselves not monolithic. Less than a third (28%) see themselves as liberal or extremely liberal, and 14% see themselves as conservative or extremely conservative. More than half (54%) of Hillary Clinton’s Millennial voters came from this group, but they have mixed feelings about the Democratic Party.
There are important demographic and social differences between the groups, particularly related to education and income.
Participatory Libertarians are almost three times as likely to have a college degree as the Lost and Disengaged.
Among the two Egalitarian groups, the Activists are almost twice as likely to have completed college as the Disempowered, more than half of whom have no college experience at all. That a lack of civic efficacy and confidence correlates with these disparities only exacerbates political and social inequalities.
Those who do not believe in the power of people’s collective work in communities and society vary not only on their Egalitarian-Libertarian polarity, but also on why they may not believe that people can make a difference:
Disempowered Egalitarians acutely feel social inequities but may be hopeless that anything could change.
Alienated Libertarians appear to worry about individual prosperity first and foremost and believe that everyone should look out of themselves rather than work with institutions or with each other.
It is encouraging that a majority of young people of diverse ideologies believe that they should work with others to benefit society and communities, and that civic institutions can play a positive role if they are kept accountable. Still, a troublingly sizable minority are unconvinced that they and their fellow citizens can effect change, and/or feel unqualified to contribute to civic life. Engaging these young people will be challenging, but it is not impossible. We must implement multi-pronged, short- and long-term strategies for engagement that support all young people as they develop their civic and political identity. And we must ensure that Millennials have the resources and opportunities to express their identities with a loud and clear voice, and to turn that voice into effective action.
The National Issues Forums Institute – an NCDD member organization – recently awarded their annual Taylor L. Willingham Legacy Award given in loving memory of our friend Taylor and her work in the field. We’d like to invite you to join us in congratulating Matt Miller, the recently re-elected mayor of Ashland Ohio. The award is given to those who are working to advance deliberative democracy in their communities, and you can read more about Matt’s work in the NIFI announcement below or find the original here.
Matt Miller, of Ashland, Ohio, is this year’s recipient of the Taylor L. Willingham Legacy Award. The award, which is administered by the National Issues Forums Institute (NIFI), is intended to help people who are interested in promoting deliberative forums in their communities as a way to help people talk about difficult public issues.
Miller, the recently-elected mayor of Ashland, Ohio, is especially interested in helping the community talk about the opioid epidemic, among other issues.
The following is more information about Miller’s interest in deliberative forums and his plans for using the Taylor L. Willingham Legacy Award:
Matt is a new member of the Advisory Committee for the Center for Civic Life at Ashland University. In November, he was elected as Mayor of Ashland, Ohio, and he is enthusiastic to learn more about the deliberative process and to use it to gain a public voice on major issues in the city. Additionally, people in the community will have a chance to learn about the power of democratic deliberation to engage them as citizens.
Matt’s plan for becoming involved in democratic deliberation is to host a moderator training for himself and other city officials to learn how to moderate forums, followed by forums on city issues. Grant money will be spent on the moderator training, as well as the first deliberative forum.
Click here for more information, or to contact Miller about his work.
You can find the original version of this NIFI blog post at www.nifi.org/en/matt-miller-2018-recipient-taylor-l-willingham-legacy-award.
Very exciting news from NCDD member org – the Participatory Budgeting Project, Mayor Bill de Blasio recently announced that participatory budgeting will soon be happening in all NYC public high schools. With over 400 high schools, this is bringing PB to schools in a way that sets a powerful precedent for youth engagement and participation in democracy. Friendly reminder about the Innovations in Participatory Democracy conference happening next week and we encourage folks in the NCDD network to attend!
For those that will be at IPD, NCDD will be co-presenting a session on the first day which you can learn about in our blog post here and we also plan on having an NCDD meet up on Friday night – which we would love for you to join! You can read the PBP announcement below or find the original here.
Did you hear? Just this week Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the launch of Participatory Budgeting (PB) in all public high schools in New York City!
That’s over 400 schools in total!
In his State of the City address, Mayor de Blasio emphasized:
“We’ve got to prove to our young people that they’ve got the power to change the world around them. When people feel empowered they participate. When they can see the impact they’re making they come back for more. So starting next school year public school students will learn how to stay civically engaged and to fight for the future they believe in with our Civics for All initiative.”
At the Participatory Budgeting Project (PBP), we’re fighting for this future alongside young leaders like Jacinta Ojevwe and Vanessa Gonzalez – two of our youth scholarship recipients for the Innovations in Participatory Democracy Conference.
To continue growing this work, we’re hosting many conference sessionson how to engage, support, and empower youth leadership in reimagining democracy. I’m especially excited to open our conference at Phoenix’s Central High School during their PB vote – where we’ll hear from students and teachers and see nearly 3,000 students cast their ballots on how to spend part of the school district budget.
We’re eager to continue scaling and deepening the impacts of PB because, as Mayor de Blasio said:
“We know that when students feel that opportunity to make a difference it will be the beginning of a long lifetime of participation.”
Will you join us in empowering even more young leaders, and celebrating with them at our Innovations in Participatory Democracy Conference?
For a preview of the PB vote in Phoenix, see (and share!) our PB in Schools Video.
Hope to see you there!
You can find the original version of this PBP blog post at www.participatorybudgeting.org/big-news-pb-schools-big-invitation/.
(Washington, DC) I just signed a contract with The Florida Review so that they can re-publish my interactive novel, The Anachronist. It should appear there in July 2018, and it will reside on their digital platform, Aquifer. It also remains, at least for now, on my site. Four reviews are collected here.
What’s Next, Alabama? is an issue guide created by the David Mathews Center for Civic Life in 2017 for Alabama Issues Forums 2017 – 2020. The issue guide provides a brief overview of economic issues facing Alabama and outlines three approaches in addressing economic infrastructure over the course of three forums. The David Mathews Center—a non-profit, non-partisan, non-advocacy organization—does not advocate a particular approach or solution to economic issues, but rather seeks to provide a framework for citizens to carefully examine multiple approaches, weigh costs and consequences, and work through tensions and tradeoffs among different courses of action.
The issue guide, authored by Justin Lutz, Program Director at the David Mathews Center, outlines what “the economy” means to a community:
When we talk about “the economy,” we don’t just mean jobs and unemployment or the stock market. We define the economy as any issue that is important to your community on its quest to achieve a better life. Perhaps it’s ensuring quality schools in your community, or expanding broadband internet access, or having an educated and sober workforce, or a thriving downtown area—the economy is the community you live in, and your capacity to thrive and prosper as a part of that community.
The issue guide outlines three types of economic infrastructure: physical, human, and civic. These are used to examine the current state of a community, assess what the community would like to change, and map out a way to make those changes, over the course of three forums:
Forum One: Where are we now?
The first forum addresses the current state of economic issues in a community. Participants are introduced to both local and statewide economic data and are asked to reflect on both the assets and challenges within their community. The objective of the first forum is to allow the participants to become familiar with all aspects and concerns of their community and their fellow citizens before deciding on a direction in which to take their community.
Forum Two: Where do we want to go?
The next step is for the group to decide, together, what they want the future of the community to look like. Participants are asked to identify and examine issues impacting the economic infrastructure of their community, and to then consider the strengths, opportunities, resources, and trade offs associated with each option. The goal of the second forum is for the community to identify and prioritize an issue or set of issues in which they would like to affect change.
Forum Three: How do we get there?
In final forum community members must take the components of the previous forums and decide what issues to address first and what actions to implement. Participants must consider who to involve, what challenges may arise, what work is already being done and can it be built upon, what actions are the most doable, and what are the next steps. At the end of the forum the community should walk away with a clear idea of what changes they can make together and where to start.
Watch the introductory video below about What’s Next, Alabama?
About DMC Issue Guides…
David Mathews Center issue guides are named and framed by Alabama citizens for Alabama Issues Forums (AIF). Alabama Issues Forums is a David Mathews Center signature program designed to bring Alabama citizens together to deliberate and take community action on an issue of public concern. Digital copies of all AIF issue guides, and accompanying post-forum questionnaires, are available for free download at http://mathewscenter.org/resources/
For further information about the Mathews Center, Alabama Issues Forums, or this publication, please visit http://mathewscenter.org/.
Resource Link: http://mathewscenter.org/whatsnext
This resource was submitted by Cristin Brawner, Executive Director of the David Mathews Center for Civic Life via the Add-a-Resource form.
In the wake of the current gun violence, NCDD sponsoring organization Essential Partners recently shared this piece written by their executive director Parisa Parsa, on the urgency for people to come together and address how do we keep our schools and communities safer. She talks about the need to come in conversation with each other from a place of creativity and with the purpose of recognizing our shared values, and rise above the current polarization. These conversational practices are vital in order to deepen relationships and ultimately work towards preventing another mass shooting from happening again. You can read the Essential Partner’s article below or find the original version here.
The question was: what is at the heart of the matter for you when you think about the question of whether guns should be allowed in schools?
Seven people ranging in age from their 20’s to their 60’s, 4 women and 3 men, leaned in to listen closely to one another’s responses. They had many different views on the question of guns in schools, and guns in American life in general.
When it came time for him to speak, one man’s eyes welled with tears. After a long pause he said:
“Here is what is at the heart of the matter for me: I don’t want to be talking about this at all. I don’t want to live in a world where kids are not safe going to school. So when someone asks me what I think, all I can think is how can we make this stop?”
The simple recognition of our shared grief and anger brought more of the group to tears, and began a shift in the conversation. Person after person had already shared the values they learned growing up about guns, and now enriched by one anothers’ stories the sense of companionship led to a new entry point to thinking together. What would it take for our town prevent mass shootings?
The conversation later turned to social isolation and the need for folks to really look out for each other, to know each other’s’ children. And to offer services for those in need who might escape other attempts at outreach. And support for concerned parents.
The community still needed to talk about the issue at hand: the question of arming school personnel. But this small group was now also armed with the beginnings of a conversation that could help them work together on many of the other known contributing factors to preserve safety in schools. Perhaps, I thought, working on some of those other things together would help them deepen their relationship so that the continuing conversation about guns could have more creativity than the zero-sum perception both sides have been diving into. And which we dive into again and again.
Most recently, we’ve watched it in the wake of the tragic shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Social media has been awash, as ever, with people’s grief and anguish, fear and outrage. This time, the young people who survived the shooting almost immediately made a very pointed ask of our nation’s leaders. They asked the grown-ups in charge to sort out whatever needs sorting out to keep this from happening again.
The initial message they shared in the days immediately after the shooting was simple: as a nation we have to sort this out together. Their initial leadership was their refusal to accept that the current polarization in our conversation on guns is inevitable and permanent. And they are absolutely right to refuse the current story that this is an issue we cannot touch as a nation.
The students weren’t all, or even mostly, activists before the incident. Some were gun rights advocates, some gun control advocates, many more neutral and uninvolved. As the media conversation has continued, a predictable pattern has emerged: the loudest and most extreme voices have been amplified, put into debate mode with politicians at a Town Hall, lashed out on Twitter. And then came the responses: the kids are paid actors, being manipulated by left-wing interests, their Tweets analyzed and criticized for their violence and perceived extremism.
When the shouts begin, the door of possibility closes and we can’t figure anything out together. There is no listening, no further understanding, just suspicion and accusation. One “side’s” gains in activism get a counter-attack or build greater cynicism, driving the other “side” to feel justified in nasty rhetoric. So the win of one side becomes the rallying cry for the other, locking us in a battle few of us would have chosen. And the din leaves no space for the many folks who find themselves somewhere in the middle between the two defined “sides.”
The thing is, we can have sensible conversations with our neighbors who don’t agree. In our conversations about guns in Montana, Massachusetts, Colorado, New Hampshire, and Wyoming we have found some trends that are worth considering and also cause for hope.
Friends, there is no one but us, no time but now, and no way forward without turning to one another. Let’s start engaging in deep, honest, conversations about this violence in our nation. Our communities, and our lives, depend on it.
Here are three things you can do today to change the conversation:
You can find the original version of this Essential Partner’s blog piece at www.whatisessential.org/blog/if-our-lives-depend-it.