College Leaders Promote Political Involvement For Young Voters

From Rice University

HOUSTON —In Texas, 18 to 24-year-olds have the worst voter turnout of any age group. Six months ago, Sonia Torres, along with Meredith McCain and Carolyn Daly, wanted to help solve this issue. Torres decided to bring youth together for the first student-organized conference in Houston. The Rice University senior saw her vision come to life on Saturday, as students from Houston colleges and universities gathered on the campus of Rice University for the inaugural Houston Youth Voters Conference.

A nonpartisan group of student government leaders, civic organizations, and social entrepreneurs from Lone Star College, Rice University, Texas Southern University, University of Houston, and University of Houston-Downtown came together to discuss the pressing issues facing the greater Houston community and pledge to vote in the 2018 Midterm Election.

Conference speakers emphasized voting as not only a duty but a privilege. This was certainly the case for Norma Torres Mendoza, a Rice and Harvard Kennedy School alum, who was the first DACA-recipient graduate of Harvard University. Despite not being able to vote, she found her own civic niche at age nineteen by starting a non-profit, the Young Owls Leadership Program (YOLP).

“I didn’t choose politics,” she said. “My life is impacted by politics, and my life is impacted every time someone makes a vote for me. This is my life and my future.”

Participants were also encouraged to approach their ballots in a nuanced and thoughtful way.

“I do not advise straight-ticket voting,” said Nancy Sims, a longtime player in Texas politics and adjunct political science professor at the University of Houston.

Sims noted that party lines are often blurred at the local level, especially in judicial elections. Despite the possibility of a 40-page ballot in November, voters must critically examine candidates and issues, even those from their preferred parties.

To facilitate this examination, student participates in one of five policy breakout sessions. From gun legislation to LGBTQ+, the discussions sparked insightful dialogues reflecting a wide range of ideological leanings.

“Inter-institutional dialogues at HYVC were fantastic opportunities to get introduced to a wider perspective,” said Nick Jerge, a student at Rice.

During a lecture on Houston Voting Trends, Rice Professor Emeritus Stephen Klineberg talked about the results of his 33-year-long Kinder Institute Houston Area Survey. Dr. Klineberg discussed how civic trends prove that Houston has a unique opportunity to be a city with near equality between Anglo, Black, Latino, and Asian communities.

“Houston is where the four communities can meet with greater balance and greater equality, a truly successful, multi-ethnic society gathered together in one democracy. This,” he stressed,” is what Houston is called on to achieve.”

Invoking President John. F. Kennedy’s “We choose to go to the moon” speech, delivered almost exactly fifty-six years ago at Rice, keynote speaker Antonio Arellano gave a rousing call to action.

“We don’t often realize history when it’s happening,” he observed. “But what we’re doing here today is of historic proportions. It is your time to win our freedom.”

Arellano, a national social media specialist, a journalist, and a University of Houston-Clear Lake alum, closed by reminding participants that the 2018 Midterm Election is the first in history in which the youth voting bloc will exceed that of baby boomers.

“The future of our nation is literally in your hands."

Meredith McCain, president of Civic Duty Rice, expressed hope that the conference would encourage students to look ahead.

“While encouraging young people to vote is the short-term goal of our efforts today, we hope this turns into long-term action by the youth in attendance to become active members of the Houston community and to mobilize those around them to do the same."

As the leaders of each student government association pledged to register 3,300 voters by the October 9th registration deadline, TSU Student Government Association President Aaron Dallas closed the panel on an uplifting note.

“Being here at the summit, it reinforced that change still has a pulse. Social media and the news can make it seem like there are barriers and walls that hinder change, but talking to these change makers today reminds me that change will happen at every university.”