Citizen Engagement in California

Debra Bowen

Debra Bowen was elected to be California's 30th Secretary of State in November 2006, making her only the sixth woman elected to a statewide constitutional office since California was admitted to the Union in 1850.

Born in Rockford, Illinois, Bowen graduated from Michigan State University in 1976 and earned her law degree from the University of Virginia in 1979. In 1984, she started her own California law firm specializing in small business start-ups, tax law, land use, and environmental issues. Her long history of community activism began in the 1980's when she became involved with her local Neighborhood Watch program. Bowen was elected to represent the 53rd Assembly District in 1992 and served three two-year terms before being elected to represent the 28th Senate District in 1998. Bowen served two four-year terms in the Senate before she was elected as California's Secretary of State.

Secretary Bowen's Comments before the Pepperdine Conference

"If you don't like the way the furniture is arranged then move it!" is a lesson Bowen told us to apply to democracy. Seeing that the current level of citizens' participation in politics is below the standard that Thomas Jefferson espoused, Bowen implored us to make his experiment in educated deliberation survive in today's society.

Bowen asks us to remember the history of our country which only recently featured voting rights for women and minorities. By remembering this past, Bowen hopes that those in the deliberative democracy field realize that the fight for equal citizen participation in government is not going to be over anytime soon. She noted that though 15.8 million Californians are registered to vote, only 8.9 million voted in the last election. She went on to state that this means less than 25% of the eligible citizenry is participating in the decision making process in California. "We still have a long way to go," Bowen said, mentioning a number of specific issues to be addressed including campaign financing and redistricting.

Bowen hopes that deliberative democracy methods can help fill the huge gap between who votes and who should vote. She observed the somewhat ironic circumstance where non-voters are much more likely to disapprove of elected representatives than voters, and in many cases are the people most affected by the decisions of elected officials. She would seek to change California to a place where those that are most affected are those deliberating and participating. Bowen hopes that the tools of deliberative democracy can make serious progress in this direction. She stated, "Politics is the art of figuring out what our values are and what values take priority at any given time." Perhaps deliberative democracy is a way for us to involve the citizens most affected and a way to identify the values should take priority in California.