The Young Civic Journal - Why Young People Should Care About Local Government
Updated: Sep 21
I just graduated high school, and one of the last classes I took was AP U.S. Government and Politics.
As someone as passionate about civics and government as I am, being in that class was, honestly, a little depressing.
Based on a very informal, surface-level poll of my classmates, the general feeling seemed to be that the government was some kind of distant, existential institution. Something that existed somewhere out there, completely separate from the everyday world of high school drama, friendships, college applications, and other "kid stuff."
And then I started noticing things.
I had classmates call the Declaration of Independence the Declaration of Rights. I had classmates who couldn't explain the difference between the House of Representatives and the Senate. And while I don't blame any of them individually, it made me wonder:
Why doesn't the government connect with young people?
Maybe part of it has to do with the fact that we don't even start voting until we're 18. And at 18, most people aren't sitting around thinking about primaries and runoff elections. They're thinking about college. Moving away from home. Getting their first job. Figuring out what they're going to do with their lives.
I know people who skipped voting because there was "too much reading." I've heard people say they were "too busy."
And I know this problem doesn't stop with young people. The habits we build when we're young can and do follow us into adulthood.
I mean, just look at the facts. The 2024 election had a voter turnout rate (percentage of all eligible voters who actually voted) of just 64%.
And that’s in a good year, a presidential election year. If you go back just 2 years, the voter turnout rate in the 2022 midterm election was just 46%.
Less than half of all eligible voters voted.
The deeper question is: Why don't young people, or even all people, care about government, especially local government?
I think I have an answer.
They don't know enough about it, they don't see enough of a reason to care about it, and sometimes, it's simply not easy enough to participate in it.
I'm a strong proponent of making voting more convenient and accessible. If we're going to ask people to participate in our democracy, we should make sure they actually have a reasonable opportunity to do so. Everyone who is eligible to vote should have a voice.
Otherwise, we start drifting toward that old American idea and call to action:
No taxation without representation.
But let's go deeper.
Why should young people, and really, people in general, care about government?
Well, here's the thing:
The government is already affecting your life.
It works in all kinds of ways, some obvious and some almost completely invisible, to shape the world around you.
When we think about the government, a lot of us immediately think about the big stuff. The federal government. The President. Congress. Maybe the state government in Sacramento.
But a huge amount of what affects your everyday life happens much closer to home.
Your sewage. Your trash. Your water. Your roads. Your public safety. Your parks. Your libraries. Your schools.
These things are affected by local government, whether that is your city, your county, your school district, or a special district.
Let's start with your city.
You have your mayor and your city council. But you also have your city manager, public works department, finance department, engineering department, fire department, police department, and hundreds of other people working behind the scenes to keep your city running.
And every year, or every two years, you have decisions to make.
You vote for people, on measures, on propositions.
And these decisions have real, measurable impacts.
Take Measure Q, a tax measure in my hometown of Manteca. The measure increased the sales tax rate from 8.25% to 9% for 20 years, raising millions of dollars intended to support public safety and other city services.
Sounds pretty important, right?
Well, it passed by just 489 votes.
Four hundred and eighty-nine.
A decision that could affect the city for 20 years came down to fewer than 500 votes.
That is local government.
Now, I know what some of you are thinking.
Local government just doesn't have the same pizazz as national politics.
And honestly, I get it.
Humans love drama. Just look at Grey's Anatomy, which somehow keeps getting renewed for another season. Seriously, that hospital has been blown up like three times
already.
Local politics might not have the same drama as national politics, but it does have something that national politics often doesn't:
You can actually see the impact.
Local government is where you can see the connection between a decision and your everyday life.
You can go to a city council meeting, speak during public comment, call your council member, organize your community, vote on a local measure, and even run for office yourself.
The closer the government gets to you, the more directly you can participate in it.
And that's why I think young people should care about local government.
Not because we're supposed to care.
Not because it's something we learned about in AP Government.
And definitely not because someone told us we should be interested in politics.
We should care because the government is already working around us, whether we pay attention to it or not.
If we want young people to become more civically engaged, we can't just tell them to care more. We have to help them understand what they're actually caring about.
We have to make the government easier to understand. We have to make civic information easier to access.
And we have to show young people that the government isn't some distant institution that exists somewhere far away.
It's right here.
It's in the roads we drive on, the schools we attend, the parks we visit, the water we drink, and the communities we call home.
Voting matters. Staying informed matters. Local government matters.
And if we want young people to participate in civic life, the first step isn't telling them to care.
It's giving them a reason to.
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