How students can take over City Hall

Part 3

by Michael Crowley

It's true that political campaigns at all levels have long relied on the energy, ambition, and dedication of student activists and young volunteers. But except for a burst of activity in 1972, and a slight spike in voting numbers that appears with presidential elections, polls show that students and young people have had almost no electoral impact.

A survey of local and national political junkies turned up no dramatic electoral coups staged by students or young voters. A few minor insurgencies, however, do stand out.

In the antiwar days of 1972, when "the youth vote" was the country's hottest political fad, 25-year-old Walter Shapiro, now a political columnist for USA Today, ran for the Michigan congressional seat representing the Ann Arbor area, which was then home to 50,000 college students. On a $7000 budget, Shapiro came within 1300 votes, or four percentage points, of beating a State House leader and winning the primary.

(In a subsequent article for the Washington Monthly, Shapiro described his joy at learning that "a leading political reporter" was stopping in town, presumably to cover his race. "Then we discovered that his reason for coming was to buy several ounces of marijuana.")

Also in 1972, two members of a radical-left student-activist group in Ann Arbor were elected to the city council. And Madison, Wisconsin, mayor Paul Soglin, a former student radical, was first elected on the strength of the student vote in 1973.

Just a year ago, residents of Washington, D.C.'s tony Georgetown neighborhood went to court to challenge the seats of two Georgetown University juniors on the city's Advisory Neighborhood Commission.

The students were elected on a wave of angry protest over recent antistudent proposals, such as new restrictions on student-parking privileges and a zoning change that would have limited occupancy in Georgetown's sardine-can group houses to three tenants. Before the election, local residents tried to block the Hoya insurgents, and even distributed a threatening flier warning students of the bureaucratic implications of registering locally. That didn't work, the court challenge failed, and the students were finally seated.

And in May 1996, an 18-year-old Boston University freshman ousted a 30-year school-committee incumbent in Littletown, Massachusetts.

But ask a few old hands of Boston city politics, and not one of them can recall an instance in which kids have made a difference here. Expressing the view of the city's political establishment, seen-it-all Boston Globe columnist Alan Lupo likens the possibility of a student awakening to that of a Martian landing.

Many students might not even realize they can vote in Boston elections. In fact, registering and voting is easier than what a lot of them will go through to get, say, Foo Fighters tickets. Anyone with an address in the city of Boston can register to vote here. Even a student who goes home during the summer months can, for political purposes, declare himself or herself a Bostonian. All you need to do is stroll into City Hall and sign up. They'll send a card to the city where you used to be registered (if you were) so you won't vote in two places. As long as you've registered 20 days before an election, you can vote in it.

From time to time, a left-leaning local pol will sign up a bunch of students to gain an edge in a tight race. During his 1995 reelection campaign, for example, City Councilor Brian Honan, who represents the Boston's student-swarmed Allston-Brighton district, registered 75 BU students. His ultimate margin of victory: 250 votes.

City Councilor Keane, of Back Bay and the Fenway, might ponder Honan's example. He was last reelected by a margin of 27 votes.

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Michael Crowley can be reached at mcrowley[a]phx.com.