Photo courtesy of Trevor Jung
Alderman Trevor Jung shakes hands with a constituent while campaigning to represent district 9 on Racine's Common Council.
With an April 7 election now looming over Wisconsin, take a minute to consider elected officials from across the state currently fulfilling their terms. What do they look like?
In Wisconsin, it’s a bit of a mixed bag. As home to the nation’s oldest elected official—92-year-old state Sen. Fred Risser, D-Madison—and one of its youngest— 20-year-old state Rep. Kalan Haywood, D-Milwaukee—Wisconsin runs the gamut on age representation.
In fact, across the state, young lawmakers are making a difference in their communities. And with next month’s elections on the horizon, many of them are starting to turn their attention to energizing their peers and getting them to the polls.
Racine Alderman Trevor Jung, 24, is among those young legislators. He says he is evaluating how, as a policymaker, he can empower other young people beyond the walls of Racine’s City Hall—as well as how to get them to the polls. Jung says his primary focus is disseminating information about issues that are especially pertinent to young voters, such as environmental sustainability and racial justice.
“If you're a young person and you don't know what's going on right now that's a problem,” Jung says. “You have to make it part of the culture to [talk with people about these issues]. So that's what I try to do.”
But he recognizes that he can’t take on all this work alone. In fact, as a part-time lawmaker, he believes his role is to support the efforts of the Racine County Democratic Party and other activists to energize young voters.
Project Oriented Generation
Jung says that he is a part of a “project oriented generation.” Accordingly, he is working on initiatives he says will have an immediate, tangible impact on people’s lives.
“At the end of the day, when you are picking up garbage in a neighborhood or cutting down invasive species with a local environmental group, those are going to be the people who are going to change the electorate,” Jung says. “It's not going to be the pundits who are talking about what the mood of the country is, it's going to be the people who are out there getting their hands dirty. And that's young people.”
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Jung is not the only young lawmaker in Wisconsin pushing his peers to the polls. In Madison, Alder Sally Rohrer, 22, who represents a large portion of UW’s campus on the Madison Common Council, has committed to giving students the information and tools they need to vote in April.
Photo courtesy of Sally Rohrer
Alder Sally Rohrer poses for a photo at her desk in the Madison Common Council chambers.
Rohrer, similar to Jung, is supporting the voter registration efforts of other organizations in the Madison-area.
“There are people who are doing this work very well,” she says. “We don't need to reinvent the wheel, we just need more people to join in and help out.”
The District 8 alder says she will volunteer with the League of Women Voters of Dane County to register students to vote on UW-Madison’s campus, as well as answer calls from the Dane County Voter ID Coalition’s voting information hotline.
Rohrer says that she has also been grappling with the most effective ways to reach students with voter information. She says she is considering using targeted digital advertisements to reach students living in her district to encourage them to check their voter registration and provide them with information on how to register to vote and where to obtain a voter ID.
The 22-year-old says that during her time in office she has “focused on creating more space for students in local government,” something she believes will have a “ripple effect on voter engagement.”
Gaining a Voice
“When young people see themselves represented at the city level, and feel like they have a voice in local government … you have more optimism about national and state government as well,” Rohrer says. “It's not as immediately gratifying as running a voter registration drive, but it's the little things about representation and [making students] feel like they have an impact in their community that can create long-term voter engagement as well.”
Elsewhere in the Madison-area, Dane County Board of Supervisors chair Analiese Eicher, 32, is also pushing young people to the polls. Eicher, whose district primarily includes Sun Prairie, was first elected to the board when she was 22, representing UW-Madison’s campus from 2010-2012.
Almost a decade later, now serving as chair of the Board of Supervisors, she says her role in energizing voters has changed. Eicher says her job is to help guide the board to make voting as accessible for Dane County residents as possible, rather than using her time focused on individual efforts.
“Voting is something that is incredibly important to me as an individual,” Eicher says. “I care deeply about it. [It's] at the heart and the base of everything that we do. It's something that I take very seriously.”
Eicher says that the Board of Supervisors is going to be increasing its public communications in both social and traditional media channels, pushing out voter information such as where to obtain a voter ID, how to register to vote, how to find one’s polling place and, simply, reminders to get out and vote.
She also said that Dane County is deeply committed to making sure that its elections are secure, and it has IT staff “who are completely dedicated to making sure that when people vote they can trust that our system is counting their vote and doing it accurately.”
Energizing Young Voters
State Rep. Greta Neaubaeur, D-Racine, is also committed to energizing young voters. The 28-year-old legislator traveled to Iowa for the state’s primary caucus in January to meet with college students and reassure them that their voices matter.
“Whoever wins the presidential primary, it will be in part because of young people,” Neaubauer says. “I think we forget that sometimes.”
Neaubauer says she visits with students—ranging in age from elementary school students to college students—as much as she can. And even though some of them may not be eligible to vote, she says, their engagement and voices are still an important part of the democratic process.
Photo courtesy of Robin Zigas/Jefferson Lighthouse Elementary School
State Rep. Greta Neubauer, D-Racine, facilitates a mock government session with fourth graders at Jefferson Lighthouse Elementary School in Racine, Wisconsin.
She is also involved with the Young Democrats of Wisconsin, an organization that works “to amplify the voices of young folks” in the state. Neaubauer says that the members of the Young Democrats have been out canvassing on issues such as Medicaid expansion and gun safety legislation in an effort to show that “Democrats care about these things year round.”
“If we only show up around elections, people are going to be frustrated,” she says. “They're not going to feel like we actually care about what they think. We have to show up all the time, in every neighborhood, to make clear that we are always fighting for these things that are important to our community.”
The state representative says that it’s not easy to be involved in politics, but it’s critical that people buy into the democratic process and engage. Neaubauer also says most people who are not currently engaging “have not been brought into the process and have not been given ways to meaningfully express their views on issues and to participate in our democracy.”
“I know people want that, and my job is ... to help people find meaningful ways to engage in this process,” she says. “That is an exciting thing.”
