Civics lesson. More than once, I’ve been told that “they” ought to teach more civics. What the heck IS civics? Wikipedia suggests it is “the study of the civil and political rights and obligations of citizens in a society.”
Maybe it was the way I was raised, but I feel as though I have almost always had a decent grasp of the importance of the concept. My parents consistently voted. I remember when my maternal grandmother finally registered, or reregistered to vote; it might have been in 1964, for the Presidential election between President Lyndon Johnson (D-TX) and US Senator Barry Goldwater (R-AZ). Regardless, it was the first time I learned that she had been born in 1897, rather than 1898, as she had consistently said for as long as I could remember.
My father’s activism in the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s highlighted the precarious condition of the franchise for black people, how the 15th Amendment to the Constitution (1870), which allowed the right to vote regardless of color, had to be fortified by the 24th Amendment (1964), which prohibited the poll tax, and the Voting Rights Act (1965).
Polly ticks
I also used to read the political columnists in the newspapers, even as a kid. William F. Buckley’s labeling of Robert F. Kennedy as a Massachusetts carpetbagger in the 1964 US Senate race in New York led me to favor the incumbent, Kenneth Keating; RFK won. (interestingly, Buckley’s brother James, running for the very same seat in 1970, was a Connecticut carpetbagger who nevertheless won.
This, in retrospect, is likely how I ended up involved in student government in high school, becoming the president of the General Organization. It definitely made me decide to become a political science major when I went to SUNY New Paltz in the early 1970s.
Lunch and Learn
On Sunday, November 16, there was a discussion, Voting Rights and the Church, led by two women from the League of Women Voters, Erika Smitka, the state’s Executive Director, and MaryKate Owens, president of the Albany County group.
It may have been mislabeled because it surely felt like an advanced civics lesson. In April 2025, the LWV declared that our country is in a constitutional crisis. They are hardly the only ones coming to that conclusion this year.
It is a function, Ms. Smitks noted, due to the specter of loss of due process, the rise of mis-, dis-, and malinformation, attacks on media, and the failure of civics education in the schools.
Executive orders and policies have directly attacked the traditional election process by limiting the registration of new voters at naturalization events, requiring proof of eligibility at the polls, and attacking vote-by-mail, creating fear of participation in the democratic process.
An example: Court Strikes Down Key Part of Unlawful Voting Executive Order, Blocking Show-Your Papers
Voting rights have been undermined by the current push to redistrict between decennial censuses. (Note: I’ve been appaled by what happened in Texas and elsewhere. California’s response to it, Prop 50, is likewise problematic, though, had I lived there, I might have voted for it,which is inconsistent, I know.)
Some of the solutions offered by Ms. Owens included becoming a poll worker or an observer; I worked as an election inspector in 2021. She also recommended working the 2030 Census as an enumerator; I had worked the 1990 and 2020 counts, the latter being far more difficult because COVID had delayed the process.
Links
She recommended some helpful links:
League of Women Voters of New York
League of Women Voters of Albany County
Vote 411 – committed to ensuring voters have the information they need
Brennan Center for Justice; this is a great site, including an explanation of gerrymandering
In 1977, at my alma mater, I was tutoring non-political science students for the intro course, American Politics and Government. I was gobsmacked that, six weeks into the semester, many of my tutees did not know that there were three branches of the federal government. Never mind them trying to identify them.
So I’m thinking that, in some fashion, I should find a way to engage in civics education.
