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"The challenge is to define an elevated vision and purpose that everyone can rally around, setting personal agendas aside," says Kristin Hansen, executive director of the Civic Health Project.
Meet the reformer: Kristin Hansen, moving from Silicon Valley to civic ed
After earning a bachelor's and two master's degrees from Stanford, Kristin Hansen spent nearly two decades at Silicon Valley software startups and in executive roles at both IBM and Intel. While teaching at Stanford's business school, she gave up the corporate life last year to become the founding executive director of the Civic Health Project. Her answers have been lightly edited for clarity and length.
What's the tweet-length description of your organization?
We aim to reduce polarization and create healthier civic discourse in our citizenry, politics and media. We partner with academics and practitioners to design and execute projects that deliver improvements in rationality, empathy and decision outcomes for a healthier democracy.
Describe your very first civic engagement.
As a high school senior, I represented my local Rotary chapter at California Girls' State. After serving as the Whig Party leader there I was elected as one of two senators to represent California at Girls Nation in Washington. These back-to-back, immersive experiences of civic learning set me on a lifelong path of political study, inquiry and action.
What was your biggest professional triumph?
My happiest professional moments have involved bringing people together across diverse opinions, perspectives and priorities. The challenge is to define an elevated vision and purpose that everyone can rally around, setting personal agendas aside. In the private sector, this typically means convincing people to unify around a plan to build a better product, generate more revenue or delight more customers. In the nonprofit sector, we can articulate similarly bold, elevated ideas that inspire us to overcome our differences and pursue better societal outcomes for all. I firmly believe we can transcend this current, hyper-polarized chapter in American history and embrace a shared obligation to nurture our fragile democracy back to health.
And your most disappointing setback?
I wish I had applied to work at Zoom Videoconferencing back before the IPO! Amazing technology, fantastic company. I am a passionate believer in the power of videoconferencing to transcend distance and connect people, both personally and professionally. Civic Health Project is proud to sponsor Mismatch, which uses videoconferencing to connect middle school and high school classrooms across the U.S. to engage in respectful civil dialogue across distance and divides.
How does your identity influence the way you go about your work?
Having spent many years in marketing roles in the tech industry, I'm now applying these professional lenses to the challenges of reducing polarization and improving civil discourse. At Civic Health Project, we are exploring ways to harness technology, marketing and social media in support of depolarizing interventions. For example, we host an online clinic full of simple, everyday tools individuals can use to reduce their own polarizing attitudes and behaviors. And we invest in innovative technology projects, such as one being spearheaded by team members at the Center for Humane Technology, which aims to offer YouTube users the option to choose less polarizing, radicalizing content than what is all too frequently served up by YouTube's default recommendation engine.
What's the best advice you've ever been given?
Keep your options open. My mother told me that, back when I was still single. I eventually failed to heed her advice!
Create a new flavor for Ben & Jerry's.
Civanillaty? Mis-Matcha? I'll admit I also thought of Impeach Cobbler, but that's way too polarizing.
What is your favorite political TV show or movie?
This will sound cliché, but just the other night I overheard a TV retrospective about "The West Wing" and it made me feel briefly nostalgic for both the show and the era. Season after season, the show portrayed characters who — in the main — fulfilled their civic roles not with cynicism or irony, but with honor and integrity. As many have noted, it was a "love letter" to American democracy.
What's the last thing you do on your phone at night?
Play Boggle. I'm hopelessly addicted, even though my scores have recently flatlined.
What is your deepest, darkest secret?
I voted for Arnold Schwarzenegger. For a bodybuilder, he was a pretty good governor of California.
- Young people aren't the problem with civic participation. We're the ... ›
- Time to boost conversations that create local and national connections ›
The House on Friday passed legislation to restore a provision of the Voting Rights Act struck down by the Supreme Court in 2013. The bill would require advance approval of voting changes in states with a history of discrimination. Here President Lyndon Johnson shares one of the pens he used to sign the Voting Rights Act of 1965 with civil rights leader the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Passage of historic voting rights law takes a partisan turn
In a partisan vote on an issue that once was bipartisan, House Democrats pushed through legislation Friday that would restore a key portion of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
The Voting Rights Advancement Act passed the House 228-187, with all Democrats voting for the bill and all but one Republican, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, voting against it.
The bill faces virtually no chance of being considered in the Republican-controlled Senate.
TV stations fight FCC over political ad disclosure
Broadcasters are pushing back against the Federal Communications Commission after the agency made clear it wants broader public disclosure regarding TV political ads.
With the 2020 election less than a year away and political TV ads running more frequently, the FCC issued a lengthy order to clear up any ambiguities licensees of TV stations had regarding their responsibility to record information about ad content and sponsorship. In response, a dozen broadcasting stations sent a petition to the agency, asking it to consider a more narrow interpretation of the law.
This dispute over disclosure rules for TV ads comes at a time when digital ads are subject to little regulation. Efforts to apply the same rules for TV, radio and print advertising across the internet have been stymied by Congress's partisanship and the Federal Election Commission being effectively out of commission.
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"I also do this work because, as a white woman, I know that the exclusion of entire communities from our democracy was (and is still) led by my people and, often, in my name," says Laura Williamson of Demos.
Meet the reformer: Laura Williamson, sounding a progressive Carolina call
Laura Williamson says her career was shaped by growing up in North Carolina, which she describes as being historically at the center of the best and worst of American democracy. She spent seven years working with young people at progressive groups and got a master's in public affairs at Princeton before joining Demos in the summer of 2018. The think tank aims to combat "threats to democracy, racial equity and economic inclusion" and as a senior policy analyst she's focused on voter registration, voting rights, money in politics and civic participation. Her answers have been lightly edited for clarity and length.
What's democracy's biggest challenge, in 10 words or less?
Abolishing all disenfranchisement schemes and achieving an inclusive, multiracial democracy.
Describe your very first civic engagement.
Testifying at the North Carolina General Assembly against cuts to funding for vocational education. The woodworking classes I took throughout high school were among the most formative of my public school education, so as a high school senior I advocated for their continued funding to lawmakers in Raleigh.
What was your biggest professional triumph?
It's actually a triumph-in-progress. At Demos, we are privileged to work with powerful grassroots leaders redefining democracy and pushing the reform conversation across the country. Alongside these Inclusive Democracy Project leaders we are dreaming and scheming about what it would take to build a truly inclusive democracy — without limiting ourselves by what's perceived as politically feasible or reasonable — and to chart a radical reform agenda that meets the challenge. Our agenda is in progress and, like all real victories, is benefitting from the efforts of many smart and talented people. Stay tuned, it'll be ready for public consumption soon!
And your most disappointing setback?
They have always come after I've not listened well enough, have brought too much ego and taken things too personally, or not followed my gut about when a process or decision felt off.
How does your identity influence the way you go about your work?
I'm from North Carolina, where we pioneered multiracial, pro-justice fusion politics during Reconstruction, civil disobedience during the civil rights movement and franchise-expanding voting reforms since the 1990s. More recently, we have also been home to the vanguard of voter suppression and other democracy stifling tactics since the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act. I stand on the shoulders of giants and against the abdication of our identity as democracy leaders. I also do this work because, as a white woman, I know the exclusion of entire communities from our democracy was — and is still — led by my people and, often, in my name. I work every day to undo that legacy and ongoing reality.
What's the best advice you've ever been given?
Learn to simultaneously practice patience and show up with urgency in all the work I do.
Create a new flavor for Ben & Jerry's.
Impeaches and Cream
West Wing or Veep?
West Wing — for the sometimes-too-earnest belief that government can be a force for good, not the centrist politics!
What's the last thing you do on your phone at night?
Turn on do not disturb.
What is your deepest, darkest secret?
I'm deeply terrified by karaoke.
On TV, political ads are regulated – but online, anything goes
Lightman is a professor of digital media and marketing at Carnegie Mellon University.
With the 2020 election less than a year away, Facebook is under fire from presidential candidates, lawmakers, civil rights groups and even its own employees to provide more transparency on political ads and potentially stop running them altogether.
Meanwhile, Twitter has announced that it will not allow any political ads on its platform.
Modern-day online ads use sophisticated tools to promote political agendas with a high degree of specificity.
I have closely studied how information propagates through social channels and its impact on political messaging and advertising.
Looking back at the history of mass media and political ads in the national narrative, I think it's important to focus on how TV advertising, which is monitored by the Federal Communications Commission, differs fundamentally with the world of social media.
