“16 Is The New 18”

Leah Gimbel is now a wise old 18 in the eyes of the country’s voting-age laws. She argues that by 16, she already had a stake in decisions affecting her community and the intelligence to participate in decision-making.

“At age 16, it’s common that kids are given a lot more rights,” said Gimbel, who recently graduated from the Cooperative Arts and Humanities High School. ​“Sixteen-year-olds have the rights to have a say in the community.”

Gimbel and around a dozen of her peers gathered Monday evening at the New Haven Green for a rally promoting The New 18, their advocacy group, a largely student-run campaign to have the voting age in Connecticut lowered to 16 (making it ​“the new 18”).

Coop student Carlee Carvalko (who’s 16) read a statement declaring that ​“we ARE independent enough to participate.” Students handed out posters and discussed their ideas with passersby.

The idea for The New 18 was born last year in a constitutional law class taught by Nic Riley. Riley, 25, recently graduated from Yale Law School; he taught the class as part of the Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project, which sends law students into public schools as teachers.

Describing civics education in the United States as ​“failing,” Riley said he believes the way students are exposed to the democratic process is wrong.

“We tell young people they need to know how the government works, but they’re not allowed to participate,” Riley said.

When Riley discussed this with his students he got a passionate response. One compared it to teaching drivers’ education in the eighth grade.

The organization that Riley’s students formed has spread to interested students at other schools, including New Haven Academy, where 17-year-old Tatiana Fountain heard about it through participating in a constitutional law program.

“They give us information and it’s like, ​‘What good is this to us now?’” Fountain asked.

Henry Murphy Jr., 17, another of Riley’s students, said that the purpose of Tuesday’s gathering was to ​“inform people on what we’ve been doing in the last few weeks and hopefully get them to support us.” Their next step involves lobbying the Board of Aldermen. Though changing the voting age would require action at the state level, not the city level, The New 18’s members want the support of local politicians in an effort to make their voices heard at the state level.

The New 18 has met with Aldermen Marcus Paca and Justin Elicker as well as Deputy Secretary of the State James Spallone. All three talked with students about what changing the voting age would entail.

Though Murphy said The New 18’s current goal is to convince the state to delegate responsibility for the voting age to municipalities, students also voiced their desire to see the voting age lowered throughout Connecticut. This would require either a supermajority vote in one session of the legislature or a majority in two sessions, followed by a ballot resolution, according to Lew Button, an attorney at the Office of the Secretary of the State. While this process takes years, Connecticut did it recently when granting 17-year-olds who turn 18 by the date of a general election the right to vote in corresponding primary elections.

Button said that this and the ​“New 18” proposal would apply only to state and local elections, as federal law sets the voting age for federal elections at 18. Riley disagreed. He pointed to the 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which does not explicitly state that people under 18 cannot vote. It merely gives the right to vote to those 18 and up.

Whatever the fate of their proposal, Riley said that the students involved in The New 18 are gaining valuable experience in lobbying elected officials as well as in speaking out for their beliefs.

“Worse comes to worse, no one hears about it, but at least you tried,” 17-year-old Robert Durant of Coop High said of the rally.

Former Alderman Robert Lee, who is seeking to face Mayor John DeStefano in a Sept. 13 Democratic primary, stopped by the rally Tuesday evening to offer his support for The New 18’s goals. He spoke enthusiastically about young people as the future of politics.

Pointing at City Hall across the street, Lee declared, ​“If I’m mayor, that’s your office.”

Lee also proposed a potential joint event between The New 18 and his own team.

Tatiana Fountain, for one, intends to continue her effort. Though she plans to attend West Virginia University in the fall, Fountain said, she hopes to participate in any trip to Hartford if she can — and possibly even convert other WVU students to her ideas. Continuing to support her friends in their movement is still ​“very important” to her.