Psu Votes - What's at stake? why vote? 9/26/12

[ Music ] >> [Background Music] Because I'm responsible. >> I'm responsible. >> I'm responsible. >> I'm responsible. >> I'm responsible. >> I'm responsible. >> Making a difference. It's your turn. You choose. [ Music ] >> Tonight, we're going to spend a little more than four seconds. We're going to spend about 60 minutes talking to you about the importance of your vote and what's at stake. So good evening, welcome. My name is Chris Arbutina and I'm pleased tonight to be the moderator of this very first forum in the "What's at Stake Series". You know the series has been planned by a group called PSU Votes and this is a town-gown nonpartisan initiative that's just gotten started. And they have two goals in mind. The first is to help students become more engaged in the issues in this year's Presidential Election. And the second is to inspire students to get out and vote. To accomplish these goals, PSU Votes has identified four topics that will be at the center of this series of forums that will be held between now and the end of October. And tonight, we'll begin the series with the discussion on, "Why vote". Now, I'd like to gather all of you who are here in the Hetzel Union Building on Penn State's University Park campus along with those of you who were viewing on the web, courtesy of WPSU. And before we begin at this time, please stand and join with members of the Penn State Glee Club in the National Anthem. [ Background Sounds ] >> Oh say can you see by the dawn's early light. What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming? Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight. O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming? And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave. O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave? [ Applause ] >> Thank you, very beautiful, beautiful rendition. So, let's get started. In just six weeks from today, you're going to wake up, it's going to be the first Wednesday of November. And it will be the day after something extraordinary has happened. It will be the day after the citizens of the United States will have elected someone to serve as President for the next four years. And the question you will have to ask yourself that morning as you look in the mirror will be this, "Did I participate? Did I make a decision and cast a vote?" In 2008, during our last Presidential Election, just over 57 percent of the voting age population cast ballots, which means that more than 42 percent did not. So, again, the question, which side will be-- you be on when you look in the mirror that morning six weeks from now? The fact that you've shown up here tonight is a good sign. It's a good sign that you plan possibly to cast your ballot. And hopefully, the information you hear tonight from our panelists will affirm that your vote will count and will further your understanding of what's at stake. In a moment, I will introduce our panelists for tonight, but first some information about our format. Tonight's discussion is being patterned after the National Press Club. Now, those of you who have attended the Penn State Forum here on the University Park campus might be familiar with this. You should have received a card or two when you walked in this evening. We asked that if you have questions to ask our panelist that you will fill out that card and then pass it to the aisle, and we-- wave the person on the end of the aisle, you've got a job tonight, it will be to wave that card in the air and our volunteers will circulate, they will collect the cards and then bring them forward. Each of our panelists have been given an allotted time to speak. And then at the end of tonight's presentations, as time permits, we will present the question and answer period. Now that we have the ground rules established, I would like to introduce the first of our three panelists. Jay Paterno, Jay spent 22 seasons coaching college football including 17 years on the Penn State staff. In 2008, ESPN.com named him one of the country's best offensive coordinators. And in 2011, Rivals.com named him the Big Ten's Best Quarterbacks Coach. At Penn State, Paterno coached three all Big Ten quarterbacks and two Big Ten MVPs. In his ninth season as recruiting coordinator, Penn State earned eight top 20 national recruiting rankings with two national number one rankings. Off the field, Jay has been involved with the Centre County Youth Services Bureau and has served on the Boards of the Central Pennsylvania National MS Society in the Mount Nittany Conservancy. In 2008, he worked on the Obama Presidential Campaign as a Surrogate Speaker making appearances around the state and he campaigned with Vice President Joe Biden in 2010. Jay is a Columnist for StateCollege.com and has written pieces for the Daily Collegian, USA Today, The Penn Stater, Sky News in London, and the Centre Daily Times. His columns have been cited or reprinted by Sports Illustrated, ESPN, the NCAA, and translated into Chinese for the Epoch Times. He was named to the 2011 Sports Illustrated Twitter 100 recognizing the world's best sports tweeters. You could tweet tonight [laughs] if you'd like. Jay has also lectures at university classes and makes speeches on leadership and team building for private industry groups. Jay Paterno. [ Applause ] >> Thank you. It's great to be here for such a -- an occasion that is so important. What I want to say to students, if you were given a treasure with amazing value, incredible power and infused with the force of centuries of struggle, would you just toss it aside? If I told you that men and women had fought and suffered, and even died to possess such a small slice of this treasure's power, would you let it lay dormant or unused? That is your challenge. That is your treasure, the voice of your vote. Let's go back to the early days of American Democracy into the words of the Declaration of Independence which said, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Famous words indeed. Perhaps the most famous in our history. But let's read on to the next segment, "That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." "The consent of the governed". Now when our nation first started, let me illustrate what that means as we took a few timid first steps into a brave new world of self-government. All white men in this room that own land please raise your hand. Okay. To everyone else, if you lived in those early days, you could not vote. So the people with their hands up represented the consent of the governed and what that meant then. Across the centuries, men fought and died in Civil War for freedom and ultimately, the right to vote. Jim Crow laws and poll taxes took that right away. Susan B. Anthony spearheaded a movement for women's voting rights in 1869. But it wasn't until 1920 that an Amendment to the Constitution was ratified by an upstate so that women nationwide could vote. In 1965, a century after the Civil War ended, men and women marched from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery to grasp the reins of their rights to vote. A right given them in theory, but denied them in reality. Across the South, men and women, blacks and whites, withstood clubs, fire hoses and attack dogs, all trying to stand up for the right to vote. The right to vote cost Revolutionary War soldiers their lives on fields across the 13 colonies. Cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of men in the Civil War. In the Civil Rights Movement, it left many bruised, beaten, battered, and bloody. It caused Martin Luther King Jr. and many other leaders their lives. All to bequeath a right to you, a right you have to vote, a treasure. Look around the world. Look at people fighting and dying in Syria, and you see how much they value a right that you already have in your hands. Look at other nations where voters face threats and intimidation, yet still participate in their elections. It is a treasure. When you line up at your polling place, on Election Day, your vote is no less valuable than the President of the United States, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, or the Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In the eyes of the law, on voting day, we are all equal with an equal say and an equal voice. So stand next to a multimillionaire or someone who has no money, there is no monetary value attached to your vote. In the voting booth, we find our most cherished founding belief that all men are created equal. It is an amazing gift, but it only has value if you use it. Elections matter. It is how we grant the power to govern, the consent of the governed. Ultimately, your chance to either grant or withdraw your consent comes only in the voting booth in America. If you choose to turn from the power, you relinquished your claim to the outcomes of government. If you don't think elections matter, think about all the hurdles that have been thrown up by the new Pennsylvania voter ID law, an idea favored by a Legislature and a Governor elected by the people of the state in 2010, the people who turned out consent of the governed. There are issues that will impact your life now and issues that will impact it decades from now. healthcare, Social Security, tax policy, the war in Afghanistan, jobs, the economy, energy policy, foreign policy, and the fundamental philosophy of the role of government in our society. Many of you will graduate in the next year or two. When you go to grad school or get an internship under current law, you can go on your parent's health insurance. The outcome of this election may change that. Maybe you agree with that idea. Maybe you don't. But if you don't vote, they will govern without your consent. Years from now, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security maybe different, maybe not. You may think it is not important now. But years from now, you want to look back and wish you had voted. How should we react to Iran's attempt to attain nuclear weapons? There is a distinct choice in foreign policy goals of the candidates in which ever way you fall on the issue, and I cast no judgment, which ever way you fall on that issue, you must vote, or the winner of the election again will govern without your consent. Everyone focuses on the Presidential Election and rightly so. But there are also issues in other races and those elections matter too. There's a Congressional race, a Senate race. We have a statewide Attorney General's race that all Penn Staters should closely follow. We have learned the importance of that office in a very real way over the past year. In 2008, the nation looked at a map of Pennsylvania, and amid all the election results, there was Centre County in the middle. It stood out from the surrounding counties in this respect, voter turnout. At the hub, here in this building where 11,000 students were registered to vote, 8,000 showed up. I know, because I was here. And I know because I was inspired. For years, politicians could ignore voters and pay special attention to older voters. Why? Because their perception was that young people were apathetic and didn't vote. Four years ago, that myth was shattered. The question now is will you keep that up. The question is, now, will you continue to keep the voter turnout of Penn State strong? If you look at some of the things that have happened for young people from this government since 2008, there's a definite focus on issues, student loans, Pell Grants, healthcare, education for people your age. The votes of college students across the country command a respect and produce results. The results of the power to influence government policy by voting and voting in numbers. One of the great challenges in life is at the age of 18, or 20, or 22, to try and look at the decisions you make and the actions in your life now that will impact your life when your 40, or 50, or 60. When you choose to vote, you will never regret taking a step to voice your consent or withdraw your consent from those who will govern you. Rest assured, the results of the past few elections have altered the course of this state and this country. Whether you like those results or not, only by voting can you impact the future course of this country. The election is less than six weeks away. It will be here before you know it. The deadline to register is less than two weeks away. That date is October 9th. There are people who can help you here and people that will be around campus over the next two weeks to help you register. Thomas Jefferson once said, "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Get educated on the issues that matter to you. Get registered. Think about your decision. And then show up and vote. It is a mighty gift to passed down to you over the ages. A gift that is in your hands. Use it and get your friends to use it. Don't look back and say, "I wish I had." Thank you very much. [ Applause ] >> Thank you very much Jay. Our next speaker whom will also be familiar to Penn State sports fans. Coquese Washington was introduced as the 5th Head Coach of the Penn State Women's Basketball Program in April 2007. Coquese is the first female African-American Head Coach in Penn State's history. In her fifth season, she returned the Lady Lions to Big Ten prominence as she guided Penn State to the Big Ten regular season title with a 13-3 record in conference play. Additionally, the Lady Lions advanced to the NCAA Tournament's Sweet 16 with wins over the University of Texas, El Paso and LSU, en route to a 26 to 7 overall record. The Lady Lions were ranked throughout the season and finished 9th in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll. For her efforts in rebuilding the Penn State program, Coquese was honored as the 2012 Big Ten Coach of the Year. Coquese was a four-year starting point guard for Notre Dame and the Team Captain on Notre Dame's first ever NCAA tournament team. The epitome of a student athlete, Coquese graduated from Notre Dame in 1992, a full year ahead of schedule with a Bachelor's Degree in History. She went on to attain Double Domer Status in 1997 after earning her Juris Doctorate from the Notre Dame Law School. This is someone who can make her case on and in court. May I present Coquese Washington. [ Applause ] >> Good evening everyone. Man, that light is bright, right in my face, but, you know, Jay's remarks were really passionate and inspiring. And I'm not going to, you know, replicate and repeat everything he said. But what I would like to share briefly with you on my time here is I'd like to talk to you about my father. And my father is the man who they declared to be why it's important to vote. I grew up at Flint, Michigan in the '70s and, you know, I had a pretty -- from me, in my opinion, I had a pretty cool childhood and got to do a lot of things. My father grew up in Mobile, Alabama. And every summer, we would go down and visit my grandmother. And I had aunts, and uncles, and cousins, a lot of family that still lived in Mobile. And every summer, we would go down and, you know, hangout with my grandmother, and, you know, I have to go to bed at 6 o'clock and, you know, wake up to gospel music at 8 o'clock in the morning in the summer. So it was a typical southern two weeks every summer. And one particular summer we went down there and I think I was at fifth grade, I was going into fifth grade, and my Dad grew up with Hank Aaron [phonetic]. They all grew up in the same neighborhood. So my Dad played baseball on the same high school team and he grew up with the Aaron family. So, you know, every summer we would go down and, you know, we would drive by the -- drive by the field where they played baseball. And, you know, he would say, "That's where, you know, me and Hank Aaron and his brothers played baseball." And I was like, "Yeah, yeah Dad. You were a great baseball player, I know." And one -- this particular summer, after, you know, we went by the baseball fields, you know, we went by these pools, some public pools. And my Dad pulled over and he said, "You see these pools?" A bunch of kids were in there playing. We're like, "Yeah." He said, "When I was growing up, I couldn't swim in those pools." And I was like, "Well why not?" He said, "Black people weren't allowed to swim in those pools." I said, "Well, where'd you swim?" "We had to go on the woods and find a creek or a pond or something to swim in but we weren't allowed to swim in those pools." And I was like, "Man," you know, because that wasn't my experience growing up. Then we drove some more and we drove downtown and we stopped by the Woolworth and there were water fountains on the outside. And he said, "Coquese, when I was growing up, I couldn't drink at that water fountain because it had a sign over it that said whites only. And I could only drink at the water fountain down on the other end that said 'colored'." And I was like, "Man, that's, you know, that's pretty messed up." And then he took us to another -- little farther down downtown to another restaurant. And he said, "You see this restaurant," there's like a lot of people going in and out. He said, "I couldn't eat in this restaurant because I was black." And that was the first time for me that I understood what I'd been studying about in school. And he talked to us, me and my brother, he talked to us about how he, in the '50s and '60s, he and his friends and his family and his brothers, they "sat in" at that very same Woolworth for equality and they marched in Alabama for equality. And at that time, you know, there was a lot of stuff for TV about, you know, the '60s and how violent it was and, you know, I was asking. I was like, "Dad so, you know, did you get hosed down? Did you get attacked by dogs?" And he said, "No. In Mobile, the protests weren't as violent as they were in Selma. They weren't as violent as they were in Birmingham." But he had relatives and he said, "My cousins in Birmingham, my cousins in Selma absolutely had to deal with that stuff." So for me, that was the first lesson in what voting means because my father went on to tell me that we changed, we changed our society because we understood. There were two things that needed to happen. We needed to have access to equal education and we needed to be able to exercise the right to vote. Without those two things, things were not going to change. So I vote because of my father. I vote because of my uncles and because of my cousins. And because of all that they went through to allow me to have the opportunity to be on this stage right now and to be able to be raised where I could swim at any pool that I wanted to and I could go into restaurant that I wanted to and sit down and eat and I could go to any water fountain that I wanted to and have a drink. And I could be the Head Coach of the Penn State Lady Lion Basketball team. [ Applause ] He made it crystal clear for me that voting changes things and your vote matters. And he would always say to me, "Coquese, one vote makes a difference. Your vote can change anything." So, as Jay said, there's a lot of reasons and a lot of history to why voting is important. But the past is simply a bridge to the present. And we are here where we are, and all of you are fortunate to be in this position because of other's sacrifice. And it's important that we respect that sacrifice. And it's important that we honor those sacrifices by going out and participating in the most important political event that we can participate in, and that's' the right to vote. So I encourage you all to register, vote and participate and honor all the people who sacrificed to give us the opportunity to live in what I think is the greatest country in the world. It's that important. So make sure you do it. My dad would be proud if you did. Thank you. [ Applause ] >> Thank you very much Coquese. Before I introduce our final speaker, a reminder about questions and cards. Please be thinking about questions that you'd like to ask our panelists, then pass them to the center aisle or to the far aisle and the people on the end, please wave them in the air and our volunteers will pick them up and bring them forward. Our final speaker tonight is David Brinker, a PhD student in the Department of Communication Arts and Sciences in the College of the Liberal Arts. He's actually filling in for a professor and we appreciate him stepping in and in Dr. Gastil's absence this evening due to a family emergency. David completed his MA degree at Marquette University where he was recognized upon graduation with the Dean's Award for Graduate Excellence. His thesis looked at how people from different cultural backgrounds vary in what they value about public deliberation. This interest in the social scientific study of deliberation led him to Penn State where he has assumed the role of Co-Principal Investigator for a grant funded evaluation of an innovative citizen discourse program called Face the Facts. Please welcome David Brinker. [ Applause ] >> Okay. Good evening and thank you very much for that introduction. Oh, can we - -I mean, there is someone -- yeah, there we go [laughs], someone to make this work. I am representing, in part, John Gastil who couldn't be with us but our thoughts and our prayers are certainly with him. He notified me that he'd be leaving town at about 6 this morning. So, I'm filling in on somewhat short notice but I will do my best. And if we can pull this up. John has a flair for provocative titles. I'm not sure whether you'll find -- this to be quite this provocative. I want to start by thanking you for coming. And not just coming as bodies in the chairs but for coming as citizens, people who are concerned with politics. This is an important thing to me and to anyone coming from the social scientific perspective of studying, citizenship. In particular, it strikes me that in social science, we have this item, this measure that we use in surveys. It's just called political interest and it's what you'd think it is. It's a 1 to 5 or 1 to 7 scale that just asks how interested are you in politics and civic life. This item is a blessing for social scientists because it produces quite a bit of variance. That is, you get quite a bit of people who are at the high-end of this scale and say, "I'm very interested in politics. Politics are great, count me in." We also see quite a few people who are very low on this scale, "Politics aren't for me. Civics, not really my thing." To a social scientist, this is great. But as citizens, this is a little concerning. I think we can agree that if we are interested in our democracy and the health of our democracy, we should also hope that people, in general, are interested in being citizens of the democracy. And yet, to those who are skeptical of politics, you're justified in your skepticism. We have a term for this it's called "rational ignorance", right? It's the idea that the cost of being a politically active person is too high, right? This is thinking like people who think, "My vote doesn't really count. Politicians are dishonest, and I want get the truth from them. If I become politically active, I'll just be sucked into arguments with my friends and my families and that cost is too high." I hope that the two presentations before me and this presentation will help make the case for why we should be engaged as citizens. And I want to do this by making two basic points. First, that our differences are not as deep as we might think they are. And particularly, that partisanship is not an impenetrable barrier. And second, and then a related point, that it's realistic to believe in civility. This is kind of a hard sell. You look around at, not only the mass media, but if you are an attendee of local political events, you see, anecdotally, times when civility does not seem to be the priority. So I hope to layout for you are a little bit of realistic empirical evidence that civility can happen. And finally, as a broader point, I hope to convey the idea that bipartisanship is not just something we should call for in our legislatures. It's something that we should strive to make part of our job as citizens, part of the work that we do as citizens. It should be with a mind towards crossing party lines, leaving our ideological comfort zones. So I'd like to start with kind of a conceptualization of deliberative incivility. What do we mean incivil? We'll start with the point that incivility is not a new thing. It is in fact a familiar thing to the American political system. This is a cartoon from 1884 depicting Grover Cleveland, sometimes called "Grover the Good". After it was revealed that he was involved in a scandal in which he fathered a child out of wedlock. Now when this information became public, the supporters of James Blaine, who was running against Cleveland, began a chant at rallies saying, "Ma, ma, where is my pa?" And in rebuttal after Cleveland had taken the White House. Cleveland supporters said, "Gone to the White House, ha ha ha." Clearly, incivility is not a new thing. It's also worth mentioning the close elections aren't a new thing. That election was won by a margin of 48.5 percent of the popular vote to 48.2 percent of the popular vote. Also, not new news is the geographic divide in our country. We have been there before. So I want to start by laying out a case for deliberative civility or really is a set of standards for deliberative civility. These are pointed support of vision of light at the end of the political tunnel of bad behavior. But they also create quite the burden of proof, right? They seem rather idealistic. And John is certainly aware of that and I'm aware of that. And so, I hope that we can accomplish kind of an addressing that. But first, let's layout what do we mean by civil deliberation. First, we talk about appreciating the idea that there are professionals, people with practical knowledge, people with experiential knowledge, all knowledges should be subject to the public critique. But this should be embraced as the seminal components of discourse, right? If we make this kind of useful knowledge, the foundation of our discourse, we will have a stronger discourse compared to starting discourses with ideological or political grounds. Second, refraining from manipulative, blatantly illogical, knowingly inaccurate arguments. Not so much because it's bad, to say things that are intentionally manipulative. But because we should be able to trust that the discourse we engage in is a productive enterprise. Thirdly, the idea that we listen carefully, and this is kind of sloppy phrasing, but that we consider diverse view points with respect to points one and two. And to me, I'm not in Dr. Gastil's head, but to me what this means is that rejecting a perspective requires more than the mere fact that you subscribe to the opposite perspective. And finally, respect for persons, right? An affirmation of the value of all the persons in a society. And again, not so much because of the inherent goodness of people but because of a sense that we're all in it together, that we have a network of relationships and we're bound by our citizenship together. So we have a framework for incivility. What -- why does incivility happen? And we start our model of incivility with the general public, not because the general public is necessarily the genesis of instability but it is our focal point. It's the point that we're concerned with. The general public provides a certain appetite for conflict and negativity. And, for media entities, this is not a bad thing because it contributes to audience segmentation, right, which is a desirable thing for a media corporation. The net result is that we end up celebrating partisan extremes, right? The gasps and the moments of tension. And we kind of relegate the boring cooperation stuff to C-SPAN, right? At the same time, we have a set of election laws, laws and customs. The law component that is referred to here tends to relate to campaign finance, right, which encourages the development of strong ideological groups. The custom portion is the two-party system. The idea that when we have a two-party system, we have no a la carte option for expressing our views about policy opinions. And instead, we gravitate towards parties to do that for us. The combined result is a partisan political divide. And the result of this divide is that the nature of elections and of people who run for office tends to be guided by this partisan idea, because those candidates who are able to capitalize on things like mobilizing the base, right, the party base, or who are able to think in terms of capturing key battleground states and in fact key districts, these are the kinds of people who are rewarded. The general public sees that and assumes that this is the order of things. This is how politics works. Oh, I'm sorry. So John was good enough to give me a little video on how this incivility manifests in our political discourse. I will note here that there's some profane language because it's a video on political discourse so be warned. >> The reforms-- [Background Music], the reforms I am proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally. [ Music ] >> Okay, so one of my medications is 389 dollars every two weeks. >> [ Inaudible Remarks ] >> And I'm afraid I might not be able to afford my property taxes and I'll lose my home. >> [ Inaudible Remarkss ] >> Please hear this voice of the disabled. >> [ Inaudible Remarks ] >> Don't let the insurance lobby win this fight. >> So get over it? >> Get over it. >> Get over it. >> How much is that -- [ Multiple Speakers ] >> Oh yeah. >> Really, get over it. >> I guarantee she didn't pay 50,000 dollars in taxes. [ Multiple Speakers ] >> [Background Music] It doesn't matter when I pay. I pay -- I pay taxes. That's the -- that's the problem. Everyone keeps worrying about what so and so paid. What so-- [ Multiple Speakers ] >> [Background Music] You know, you again. Identify yourself and the way you think as another obstacle all the rest of us face for our freedom. You're just a glittering jewel of colossal ignorance. You're an arrogant snob. An arrogant, full-fledged snob and you don't know 10 percent of what you think you know, because you've been ill-informed, misinformed by a faulty education system or whatever it is. But, people like you, you're just part of the pack we're going to have to run over. You're just part of the pack we're going to look at and smile in the rear-view mirror in November 2012. Take care Kevin, have a great day. >> Suicide is rampant in this family. And given his alcoholism and his tendencies towards self-destruction, I am only hoping that when Glenn Beck does put a gun to his head and pull the trigger that it's on television. >> So this is fine anecdotal evidence of incivility. But do we have data to back it up? In a sense we do. This is a chart where the Y-axis represents perceptions. Perceptions by people in Congressional Districts about the political orientation of their Congressional Representative on, you know, just a basic liberally conservative ideology scale. Along the X-axis is a composite item that reflects that person's actual voting record having to do with more liberal or more conservative voting behavior. And we see that these cluster rather nicely as we would expect. What doesn't quite match up with this is how this perception of strong left and strong right pans out in the general population. This is the weaker of two slides. So this first slide could be argued to mean two things. It could be argued to mean that there are fewer Liberals than Conservatives in the United States, or it could mean that more Liberals are inclined to call themselves Moderates than Conservatives. But within parties, we see that Democrats don't really like to identify as far left. You look at this breakdown and 65 percent of Republicans have no problem calling themselves Conservative or very Conservative. And yet it's a much smaller proportion of Democrats who want to strongly identify with a left philosophy. And we see here again that overtime, we've grown more partisan, right? So these are -- the colored lines are best fit lines that suggested over the past few decades, people have grown more inclined or more willing to identify further -- to a further extreme on the political ideology chart. This is not necessarily an inherent problem because Republicans and Democrats seem to do this more or less equally. But it's a problem when we talk about how voters perceive other voters and other voting groups. So this is -- really, if you're a data person and a graph person, this is a very cool study that Pyu [phonetic] did which asked voters in particular groups to categorize themselves and then categorize the other parties. Categorize the Democratic Party, Republican Party on a fairly simple like 1 to 7 political ideology chart. And we get some pretty predictable baselines. And it turns out that Independents are pretty good at matching up to this overall expectation. What's interesting is what happens when Democrats and Republicans start charting the other groups. You see here that Democrats place themselves considerably closer to moderate than the general population places the Democratic Party. The Republican, members of the Republican Party tend to place the Democratic Party way out in left field in terms of what they think that they should lie. Now, this is a conversation about deliberation. So at some point, we have to talk about discourse. How does this manifest in discourse? And we can see that there are the civility violations from both the left and the right. They kind of match up to our categories of deliberate incivility. People on the right for example accuse those on the left of an anti-economic basis, right? This violates our appreciation of information. They say, "Why should we subordinate economic knowledge to social knowledge or to other forms of knowledge?" Those on the left accuse those on the right of the kind of anti-intellectualism, right? Why should Joe the plumber be more credible than a Harvard economist? And as we go down to the list, I'll just talk about this kind of bottom category for a time, respect for person is violated, right? Those on the right say that those on the left are claiming the moral high ground. They portray themselves as kind of the moral party whereas the Republicans are the cold meanies. And the people on the left accuse people on the right of religious intolerance, right? Why should Christianity be our default religious assumption? So the question for us is, is this incivility intractable? Is this just the way that things are? And this is where Dr. Gastil's work over the past several years comes into play. He's been involved with a program called the Oregon Citizens Initiative Review. And to understand this, I'll need to give you a little bit of background on what is called the Oregon System. In the Oregon System, initiatives can be proposed by any citizen, right? Any voter in Oregon can propose something for the ballot. All they need to get a measure on the ballot is six percent of voter's signatures, right? Six percent of the population has to sign off on it. This is a good thing from a direct democracy prospective. People are able to circumvent the legislature and go straight to the populous with things they want to see passed. But, there's a problem of information. Generally speaking, all voters get for these referendums or for these ballot items is a pro-argument, in paragraph form, a con-argument, and then a little bit of fiscal implications. This is not, generally speaking, enough information to make an informed decision on whether a ballot item is a good or a bad idea. And so in 2009, the Oregon Legislature introduced the Citizens' Initiative Review and they passed it kind of on a provisional trial basis. The CIR is a five day review process, where randomly selected but demographically balanced citizens come together to deliberate on particular initiative measures. And their purpose, their goal is to create an additional statement. A one-page statement to go in the voter's guide to help people decide how to vote. So John was good enough to also provide me with a little video on how that process works. [ Pause ] >> [Background Music] Test of this innovative idea. Panels of randomly selected voters, demographically balanced to reflect the entire state electorate met over five days to review a measure on the ballot. >> Through the process, I never knew who was a Republican or who was a Democrat. >> We had all ages, all educational levels. Everyone was committed to the process in contributed in powerful and valuable ways. >> All we deliberated were the facts and the issues. >> For each five day review, a panel directly questions the campaign's for and against the ballot measure. Heard from background experts. And then deliberated together based on the facts. They issued their findings to every voter in the state through a prominent new page in the statewide voter's pamphlet. >> Video now. Oh it would be nice if we had the remainder. But I can just tell you without slides I suppose. So we're talking about specifically the results from one of these CIR panels who deliberated on Measure 73. Measure 73 was introduced to extend the minimum sentences for certain repeat criminals, namely, sex crimes and drank driving incidences. And most people accepted this without too many questions. This seems like a good law to pass. But the CIR panel met for five days to discuss it and concluded that it was in fact an overbroad criminal statute. And the way they did this was by asking judges, lawyers, prosecutors about the full extent to which this law might be applied. And what they found is that their own children, many of the people on the panel had teen children, could be prosecuted and held to sentences of a 25-year minimum for sexting, which as you know is the transmission of illicit photographs over text message systems, right? 25 years for sexting. This is not something that had come out in the pro-con arguments or in the physical impact study. This is something that people found out by coming together on a nonpartisan basis and talking about it with each other and really kicking around the implications. And I wish I had the image because this is not really that impressive if you can't see it. But essentially, before reading the CIR, or before the election, or the vote, John set out to do a little social scientific experiment. So he gave three groups. He asked three groups how they would vote on Measure 73. The first group received to no treatment, right? They just saw the text of Measure 73. The second group got a letter from the State Attorney's Office about something unrelated to Measure 73. The third group received the pro and con summaries, and the fiscal statement. All of these groups returned over 65 percent voting "yes" on Measure 73. But what happened when they saw the CIR statement was that 60 percent of people, all of a sudden, said "no". And only -- and less than 40 percent of people said that they would vote for it. This is a radical change in opinion and, you know, John very carefully experimentally manipulated this to show that it was the result of reading the CIR. So my message, right, though couched in dry social scientific talk, is that this is a testament to the power of people of diverse backgrounds working together, blind to ideology, who can successfully affect a neutral and credible change in public opinion. This is great news for those of us who want to believe that civil discourse matters. So in conclusion, I want to leave you with three general ideas. The first is that our stiff ideological divides are more the result of social and media influences than they are a bona fide inability to work with somebody who doesn't think like you do. Second, working together towards a productive end is not just a pipe dream. And finally, you may say, "Okay, that's great." You set a group of people down in a room for five days. And after five days, they came up with something that citizens who only looked at a ballot measure for a few minutes didn't see. This is true. And the lesson we can draw from it is that civility requires that we take a personal responsibility for our citizenship. That we don't define our citizenship in terms of party affiliation. We don't define citizenship as just casting a ballot. But we see our citizenship as work to be done through our discursive tools by talking to other people. And when we think about citizenship this way, those rules for deliberative incivility that I laid out become less pie in the sky, right? And less wishful thinking. And more frameworks for using our deliberative tools to a productive end, to their full affect. This is promising not just for a democracy at large. But it also gives us the sense that this kind of richer discursive citizenship might also be a productive one. There might be a point to engaging in citizenship and in political talk and becoming politically active just -- not just for the sake of becoming politically active because it's interesting, but because it might actually produce better decisions. I hope that I've done John at least some credit. Thank you very much. [ Applause ] >> All right. Thank you very much David. We have a number of questions. We don't have a lot of time, so I am going to pose at least one. We might be able to get two to our panelists. Really interesting discussion that covered everything from a history lesson, a civics lesson, personal passionate statements. So I want to thank you each for that. I think the one question we'll start with is that, "how can we best inspire students who weren't here tonight to vote?" >> Oh, okay. [Laughter] It went on? Yeah. I think some of the arguments that were made tonight about the future of the country I think people have to talk to fellow students and say, "You either -- you're either in or you're out." And one thing about this campus is there is a tremendous sense of spirit on this campus, tremendous sense of unity. And I think that's one -- is you got to challenge them as Penn Staters. Challenge them as people that -- to show people around the country, around the world that you as a student body are engaged. You as student body are more intelligent than everybody else on the planet, which is true. And also, you want to have a say which President is in the White House when Coquese takes her national championship team down there in a couple of years, okay, [laughter] if not this year, okay? [Applause] No pressure. >> Coquese [inaudible]? >> I agree with Jay and -- but the last part, yeah, the last part is good. But in addition to that, I think making the election personal and you only have to find one issue that's personal to anybody to get engaged, just one issue. And there are a lot of issues that anybody can get passionate about, you know, from the economy to, you know, foreign diplomacy, you know, to Medicaid, Medicare, you know, health insu -- I mean there's a ton. So -- I mean, if you can just get one person passionate about one issue and they're making a decision on that one issue, I think that could inspire people to go out and vote, having discourse about, you know, one issue. >> Okay, thank you. David. >> Yeah. No, I would echo that sentiment and with a particular emphasis on the idea that discourse is really important. I think people learn to dislike politics actively. I don't buy that some people are just inherently more political than other people. And I hope -- oh, you can't. I'm sorry. Can you hear me now? No? >> Yeah. >> Yeah? Okay. I don't buy that some people are just inherently more political than other people. What I do buy is that in the course of having political conversations, people learn to really dislike talking to the really gung ho and politically active people who maybe are engaging on these conversations for the right reasons but to the wrong ends and in the wrong style. So I would encourage the people in this room to think of the kind of discussions that you want to have with your fellow students because I really think you can unlearn disliking politics if you learn this element of civility. >> All right. Thank you very much. Some closing comments, unfortunately, we only had time for the one question. There was a great comment that came forward, great way to get students more informed about voting. Really appreciate it being a first time voter. So first time voter out there, thank you for coming. And as you leave this hall this evening, the conversation doesn't have to stop. There are actually tables onto the side, the Involvement Fair, we have representatives of the College Democrats, the College Republicans, and the sponsors of tonight's program, PSU Votes, they'll be happy to talk with you and keep the conversation going. Again a reminder, three more remaining forums of the "What's at Stake" series coming up on Monday, October 15th at 8 o'clock right back here in Heritage Hall, will be a discussion on employment and student aid with panelist Paul Whitehead, Professor of Labor Studies and Employment Relations at Penn State Law, and Anna Griswold, Assistant Vice President of Undergraduate Education and the Executive Director of the Office of Student Aid. On Monday, October 22nd, tune in to WPSU to watch the Presidential Debate on Foreign Policy which shall be followed by a discussion led by Sociologist Sam Richards, a Senior Lecturer in the College of Liberal Arts and Director of the World in Conversation Program. He'll be sitting down with a group of Penn State students to gauge their reactions to that debate. And our final segment of this series will be held on Monday, October 29th, the topic will be the environment and our presenter will be Dr. Richard Alley, the Evan Pugh Professor of Geosciences in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences. Tonight's discussion will be rebroadcast on WPSU-FM on Sunday, October 7th during the Idea Hour. And again, special thanks to the Penn State Glee Club, WPSU for making this program available on the web. And please join me in thanking our presenters tonight. Jay Paterno, Coquese Washington and David Brinker. [ Applause ] And as we wrap up, we hope you remember what's at stake when you cast your ballot on November 6th. Thank you and good night. [ Silence ] [ Background Discussion ]