05/01/14: How to help voters and candidates learn

This op-ed appeared in The Virginian-Pilot on the date shown.

ATTENDING CANDIDATE forums, as I have over the past few weeks, is one way to measure the health of our democracy. The candidates’ answers are often revealing: Incumbents demonstrate knowledge gained from having served, while challengers often struggle to compose a coherent response.

It’s no wonder, then, that incumbents get re-elected at such a high rate.

Candidates at levels beyond that of local offices can afford staffs to compile briefing books that cover nearly all the issues. I’ve watched state and federal candidates evolve on the trail as they spend time studying . I’ve also watched them fail miserably when they don’t.

Local candidates generally don’t have that kind of support. They may have a passion about a particular issue, but too often they lack the broader knowledge of how government works. Essentially, they are asking the voters to hire them in order to obtain on-the-job training. Ultimately, voters choose the one they think is the most trainable.

It shouldn’t be this way. Candidates and voters need to be better informed.

Over the years, I’ve watched elected officials patronizingly respond with “you just don’t understand” when a citizen questions their actions. The better answer, of course, is to explain , even if it is true that the citizen doesn’t understand.

I’ve watched elected officials ignore constituents — rarely visiting our communities, rarely engaging us in conversation — until Election Day approaches. Sometimes not even then, as absences at forums will attest. I’ve no doubt, though, that they have had little trouble finding time to meet with contributors and those of influence. After all, voters are needed only on Election Day, right?

For years, I have urged elected officials to take Thomas Jefferson’s admonition to heart: “I know no safe depositary of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education.” Use the power of the elected office to educate and enlighten.

So far, there have been few takers.

The responsibility, then, falls on the candidates and us voters to educate ourselves, a difficult task. What we really need is a civics education academy, one that takes over where high school leaves off, specific to Virginia’s often unique way of operating.

There are a number of groups out there dedicated to civic engagement. A civics education academy would be a great way for them to work collaboratively on a common goal. Perhaps they could do this online, with self-study modules for citizens to access at their leisure. Start with the big stuff — the core functions of government, for example — and go from there.

If such a resource existed, perhaps the candidates would have known about — and had an answer to — the question of the expansion of the BPOL tax exemption to new Norfolk businesses that came up in a forum last week. Or how funding for education — a combination of federal, state and local resources — works, a question that came up in last Tuesday’s forum.

It certainly would make answers a lot less cringe-worthy.