Ctrl-Alt-Del: Rebooting Democracy

By Tara Sulzen and Nolan Lienhart of Portland, Oregon. Tara is a board member and Nolan is the board chair of the Bus Project.

After a year of frustrations and hard-fought victories, we in the public interest movement have learned this simple truth: to make any progress, we have to perpetually revitalize, remake and renew our efforts to meet our new challenges. Much as we'd like to, we just can't relax.

With that in mind, nearly 400 of Oregon’s most energized students, community organizers and advocates joined last weekend with elected officials, candidates and business leaders for the 2010 Rebooting Democracy conference. The conference, organized by volunteers and staff from the Bus Project, brought together a diverse group of people to talk about improving the future of our state through hands-on democracy. Thanks to the passion, commitment, and energy of conference organizers, volunteers and attendees, Rebooting Democracy was bigger and better than ever before.

We heard from five engaging (and at times, challenging) keynote speakers, including Heather Smith, Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Dave Frohnmayer, Larry Lessig, and our own Congressman Earl Blumenauer. In an example of the collaborative nature of the conference, Lessig reworked his Saturday night presentation (watch the video) in response to ideas delivered by Rev. Yearwood on Friday night.

But the greatest value came from the hundreds of attendees who will take the energy from the conference and use it to power hands-on democracy in the new decade. Attendees represented communities from all across Oregon: water activists from the Klamath River Basin and equal rights activists from Portland; business leaders from Eugene and community leaders from the Warm Springs Tribe; high school students who have yet to cast a ballot and political veterans who've appeared on countless ballots. This truly was a cross-generational, cross-community conference, and we believe that the future of the public interest in Oregon is immeasurably stronger because of it.

It’s hard to say whether what happened was a conference, a summit, a meeting, or a party. The intimate Riverhouse Conference Center provided space and time for listening, learning, dialogue and building relationships between organizations and individuals.

We actively engaged in over 40 different workshops, panel discussions and presentations. Despite the full buffet of issues on the menu, conference attendees were united in the belief that through partnership, we are a stronger progressive coalition, capable of leading a new decade of innovation in our state.

In addition to the listening, thinking and strategizing, we focused tangible energy around the the full slate of Shovel-Ready Policies presented at the conference, ensuring that we will carry the energy generated at the event through the next two years. All in all, we pledged over 778 volunteer hours towards the full slate of policies, including the contest winners: Farm to School and Voter Registration Modernization.

We look forward to working with our fellow conference attendees on many of these Shovel-Ready Policies, on electing new progressives to local and state offices, and on recruiting an even broader, more diverse group of people towards these objectives.

Rebooting Democracy 2010 was a great event, and it is a harbinger of a great year for Oregon.