Politics

Against the Trend, Some Young NYers Get Political

Back when he was a 14-year-old Stuyvesant High School freshman, Gabriel Rosen accompanied members of his synagogue to a political conference in Washington D.C. That trip was Rosen’s first stop on his path to political involvement.

When he was 15, Rosen interned for New York City Councilwoman Christine Quinn‘s failed mayoral campaign.

At 17, Rosen applied to be appointed to a seat on Community Board 7 on the Upper West Side, knowing his age made him ineligible.

“I began attending meetings at my community board in December,” said Rosen, who turns 18 in December 2014.  “I noticed that there was no one present under the age of 35. There was a clear aesthetic dissonance … The youngest member of my local community board was the mother of two college-age students.”

Today, Rosen,  is a member of the Community Free Democrats‘ executive board, an intern at the New York City Council and a director for the New York State High School Democrats, where he recruits potential party members and leads discussions on local political issues. (National Teen Age Republicans also has a chapter in New York.)

Rosen’s civic engagement stands out at a time when youth participation in politics has been declining. In 2012, 41 percent of 18-to 24-year-olds voted, a 7 percent decrease from 200, according to an April 2014 U.S. Census Bureau report. During the 2010 primaries, only 24 percent of people in that age group turned out to vote, according the same report.

Amid that declining participation, there are young people like Rosen.

And there are young adults like Poy Winichakul, a 25 year-old native of Madison, Wisconsin, now living in Brooklyn. She co-founded the LaunchProgress Action Fund in August 2013, and the LaunchProgress Political Action Committee  in February 2014, with co-founder Luke Squire. Squire also is in his mid-twenties.

They started LaunchProgress to support candidates aged 18 to 35. “We want to go against the decline of youth participation in politics,” Winichakul said.

So far, the two groups have raised about $160,000 through fundraising and donations, she said.

So far, for the fall 2014 elections, LaunchProgress has endorsed 10 state legislative candidates in Michigan, Ohio and North Carolina, all of whom are under 35-years old.

Winichakul hopes her organization can expand to support young candidates in other states in the near future.

Rosen said he understands why it’s important for youth and young adults to be in the political mix. When he was younger, however, he cared little about politics, he said. He didn’t believe there was much he could do to influence government.

Rosen currently has no plans to run for public office but may eventually do so, he said.

It’s important for youth like him to share their views and show others that some youth have opinions about government and how it runs, he said. That’s why he applied for a seat on his community board.

“State law [used to rule that] no one under the age of 18 could be appointed to their local community board,” Rosen said. “I wanted to challenge the idea that someone has to be a legal adult to make a difference.”

In June 2014, the City Council voted to allow persons as young as 16 to community boards.