By Morgan Stephens
Chauncey McNeill ultimately plans to run for president, but he'll gladly accept campaigning for local office first.
"It's baby steps along the way," he said.
The 25-year-old Los Angeles Urban League of Young Professionals Committee Member organized an event to teach LA residents what it takes to run for office and maybe also learn a few things for himself in the process.
A dozen potential public office holders from Leimert Park gathered on Friday in South Central Los Angeles to learn the basics of campaigning and also about LA county's new electronic voter system that will roll out in the 2020 election.
With presidential hopefuls already making headlines, locals from Leimert Park are considering what it would take to run for office themselves. They are considering positions such as school board, neighborhood council or community liaison. This comes on the heels of the midterm election in 2018, when women and people of color ran for office- and won- in greater numbers than ever before. And the LAULYP is ready to provide those who are interested in becoming public servants the knowledge and tools they need to navigate through a bureaucratic and often intimidating process.
The LAULYP is a community group for and by young professionals age 21 to 45 who have a commitment to "corporate, social, and community contributions to enhance the African American business climate in Los Angeles."
"Choosing a life of public servanthood is not for the glamour," said LA County Registrar Recorder and panelist Philip Verbera. "It's because there is a passion for serving your community and helping those in need."
Jeff Klein, Civic Engagement and Community Relations in the county clerk's office, stresses the importance of making sure that even "the minutia" of running a campaign is not overlooked.
"I see too many great candidates slip through the cracks because they make mistakes on the more tedious details of running a campaign," said Klein.
These details are things like filing paperwork with the county registrar's office by the deadline and making sure the candidate has more than the minimum requirement of 1,000 signatures, establishing their eligibility to run. He insists that because some signatures might not, in fact, be eligible voters or the signers are simply afraid to admit their party affiliation is differing from the candidate's, it's safer to get more than enough to take the place of those who won't end up being counted.
The panelists also addressed financial concerns when running for, and holding, public office.
"I've seen what I call professional candidates," said Klein. "I don't always see the sincerity from some of those candidates. . . I've also seen first-time candidates who really want to make a difference, but they sometimes confuse that with that's going to be their day job."
The divergence of socioeconomic status in political campaigning is stark. To run a campaign that has a realistic viability of competing against other candidates, the bare minimum investment is at least $2,000, said Klein. This includes social media outreach, voter flyers, and developing a tight-knit committee that will help reach voters on the streets and knock on doors. However, this doesn't include the additional hundreds of dollars in campaign fees to the county clerk's office. The majority of candidates have hopes of making a difference in their community, however choose not to run not only because they can't afford to campaign, but because they cannot take time away from their jobs.
"One of the reasons why I admire elected officials is because they speak for those who cannot speak," said Klein. "You have children or grandchildren who cannot vote. You desperately want a park or a safe place for them to hang around. They aren't of voting age, so you're doing it because you truly have that kind of servanthood."
For local office holders, such as neighborhood council or community liaison, the pay is meager if existent at all, meaning holding public office has to be something an individual does on the side of a day job. Positions with larger constituents, such as city council, offer a median salary of $40,000 per year, according to PayScale. This also depends on the size and demographics of the municipality. For example, Los Angeles city council members, spanning all of LA county, take home a staggering $178,000 per year, whereas Harrisburg city council member's annual salary is $20,000, and a Reading city council member is $5,000.
In addition to advising potential candidates, Verbera used this opportunity to talk to participants about LA county's new voting system. The most exciting- and controversial- feature: an all-electronic voting device.
"It will cannot, and will not, be hooked up to any internet, I can assure you," said Verbera, addressing a question concerning the 2016 Russian election hacking and the risk of establishing an e-voting device.
The system has been 8 years in the making and will include a new digital "ballot marking device" that is disability friendly, where voters interact with the screen and print their verifiable paper ballot after placing their selections. Verbera also reassured the audience that the device does not store any voter data or tally votes. In addition to the new voting system, logistical changes are coming to election day with same-day voter registration, and with 11 days to cast ballots instead of one. There will also be new voting centers across the county that any registered voter can access and 150 vote-by-mail drop-off centers. This means that the days of hurrying to your single designated polling place that corresponds with your address are a thing of the past.
McNeill organized the event with the goal of combating ignorance and getting information on how to run for office out to the public while also empowering those in his community.
"We want to get people active in their democracy because everything we do politically has an effect on us locally", said McNeill.
There are still 18 months until the election day, but McNeill said he learned things from the event that he plans to apply to his own campaign and he hopes the participants can also.
"More than anything I just want people just to know, to understand, what goes into these everyday things we forget about," said McNeill. "It doesn't even cross some people's mind like how you get on the ballot. You never know planting the seed, what will grow from that seed."