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“This campaign has achieved remarkable results.”
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Beyond the Ballot |
The Trenton Times While our current and serious economic difficulties have many causes, it is clear that one of the major contributing factors is the failure of government at all levels. From the highest office in the land to previously obscure regulatory bodies, it seems that no one was minding the store. One of the hard but important lessons of this unfolding economic crisis is that government and politics are too important to the quality of our lives to be left to career politicians and interest groups. We citizens must play an active role in the governance of our nation, state and communities. And that role does not end when we walk out of the voting booth.
It is time for all of us to step up and contribute beyond the ballot. That is why the Citizens' Campaign has launched a comprehensive New Jersey Call to Service. We are working to reach beyond the political establishment and draw on the deep pool of talent, energy and ideas that exists in our state to generate new leaders. The plan is to tap this potential by giving people who have only a few hours a week to devote to service an opportunity to exercise their skills and ideas to improve the governance of their hometowns and state. We have identified three major paths to service and leadership that give people the power to make positive changes in their town and state. These paths are: 1) serving on a state or local board or commission, 2) serving as an elected neighborhood party official, and 3) becoming a citizen legislator by devising a constructive common-interest proposal and presenting it to the appropriate government body. We give citizens interested in taking the next step and pursuing one of these paths the tools they need to succeed. These include a five-course training series, available online (jointhecampaign.com) or through live forums held around the state and the provision of a coach with government and political experience to guide citizens along their chosen path to service. The results to date are encouraging. For example, in Paterson, citizens have stepped up and made a constructive proposal for a youth commission to gain valuable insights from the city's young citizens and to better shape school programs. Now, some of our state's smartest business leaders have come forward to serve on a state commission designed to promote job growth. And a citizen in Middletown took our appointments course online and then applied to and became a member of the town recreation commission. And these are just a few of many examples. Over the next several months, a major focus will be assisting citizens in devising constructive proposals to cut government waste at the local, county and state levels. Given the serious budget problems New Jersey faces, it is essential that citizens put forward their own ideas for how to save tax dollars and offset service cutbacks. The extensive entrepreneurial energy and business expertise that exists throughout our state must be tapped to bring new common-sense cost-saving ideas into government at all levels. Our experience to date tells us that when citizens are given the knowledge and power to exercise their responsibilities, they respond, and the results are often impressive. After all, it was the efforts of citizens who passed more than 120 local pay-to-play reform laws that provided the leverage that resulted in New Jersey adopting the strongest state-level anti-pay-to-play law in the nation. This cost-saving government contracting reform was based on a model developed by citizens -- the volunteer attorneys who comprise the Citizens' Campaign legal task force. If our history is any guide, it is precisely in times of crisis that new ideas and new leaders emerge to make us stronger than ever before. That is the purpose of the New Jersey Call to Service, and this is the time for all New Jersey citizens to answer it. Harry Pozycki is the chairman of the Citizens' Campaign, a nonpartisan organization that devises innovative government reforms and promotes citizen leadership. |
