A Crash Course in Making Political Change | Katie Fahey | TED

When the Flint water crisis happened in Michigan, I was already feeling pretty disillusioned with the state of the world. As 27, I had an hour-long commute to work. I worked in the recycling industry, which I liked, but I spent most of my day crawling around a garbage can. And I would listen to the radio on my hour-long commute and hear about how there were all these bills that the people of Michigan wanted to see passed, yet our legislature wasn't doing anything about it.

当密歇根州发生弗林特水危机时，我对世界的状况已经感到相当幻灭。作为一个27岁的人，我每天要坐一个小时的通勤车去上班。我在回收行业工作，我喜欢这个行业，但我大部分时间都在垃圾桶周围爬行。在我一个小时的通勤时间里，我经常听收音机上说有很多密歇根州民众希望通过的法案，然而我们的立法机构却对此毫无作为。

And I found out that the reason they weren't was because of a thing called gerrymandering, which basically meant that when voting districts were being drawn, our politicians would pick and choose which voters they wanted voting for them to all but guarantee that they were going to win the election or that their political party was going to win an election. I kept thinking, like, how is this the world we live in? Kids don't have clean water, politicians aren't doing anything and aren't afraid of our vote. Like, doesn't anybody care? And why doesn't somebody do something about this?

我发现他们没有被选中的原因是因为一种叫做操纵选区的手段，简单来说，当划分选区时，我们的政治家会挑选哪些选民可以投票支持他们的候选人，以几乎保证他们能赢得选举，或者确保他们的政党能赢得选举。我一直在想，这难道就是我们所生活的世界吗？孩子们没有干净的水可喝，政治家们对此无动于衷，也不怕我们的投票。好像没有人在乎吗？为什么没有人采取行动改变这一切呢？

And I didn't realize that soon, by accident, I would figure out that actually a lot of people do care. That next morning, before going to work, just kind of a frustration, I made a post on Facebook. And I said, hey, I want to take on gerrymandering in Michigan. If you want to help, let me know. Smile your face. And the emoji was very key. And I didn't think that this would actually do much of anything. I thought maybe if I had a couple other friends who thought this was a big deal, maybe we'd volunteer somewhere. I certainly didn't think that it would lead to a political movement of over 10,000 people that it would lead to amending our state constitution or actually restoring faith in democracy in our state in general.

然后我没有意识到很快，偶然间，我会发现实际上有很多人在意这个问题。第二天早上，在去上班之前，我有点沮丧，我在Facebook上发了一个帖子。我说，嘿，我想解决密歇根州的选区划分问题。如果你想帮忙，请告诉我。微笑你的脸。而这个表情符号非常关键。我并没有想到这实际上会有太大的影响。我以为也许我还有一些其他认为这是个大问题的朋友，也许我们会去某个地方做志愿工作。我当然没想到这会引发一个拥有超过10,000人的政治运动，也没想到这会导致修订我们的州宪法，或者实际上在我们州恢复对民主的信心。

But, when I went to work and then at lunchtime, checked social media, I started to see that people were responding. And they were saying things like, I've cared about this issue for such a long time. I'm so glad you're doing something about it. Please let me know how I can help. Katie, let's do this thing. And that's when it struck me like, oh no. These people think I know what I'm doing. And I did not. So I quickly Googled, how do you end gerrymandering? And it turns out that it's all related to a process called the redistricting process. And if you wanted to end gerrymandering, you had to get the politicians to stop being the ones getting to pick and choose who their voters were. And that made a lot of sense.

但是，当我去上班并在午餐时间查看社交媒体时，我开始看到人们的回应。他们说一些像这样的话，我长期以来都很关心这个问题。我很高兴你正在采取行动。请告诉我如何帮助。凯蒂，我们一起来做这件事。那时我突然意识到，哦不。这些人认为我知道我在做什么。但实际上我并不知道。于是我迅速谷歌搜索了如何结束选区分割问题。结果发现这与一个被称为选区划分过程的过程有关。如果你想结束选区分割，你必须让政客们停止选择他们的选民。这很有道理。

When politicians would draw these lines instead of keeping communities together, we would get districts that look like this. In no way does that represent an actual group of people. And why this is particularly important in Michigan is we're a pretty purple state. And what I mean by that is that about half of us vote for Democrats and about half of us vote for Republicans. And that should mean that about half of our representatives should be Democrats and about half of them should be Republicans. But depending on which political party would be in charge of that redistricting process, they would actually have a majority of the elected representatives or sometimes even a super majority, even though they might have received less than half of the votes or exactly half. And that would then mean that they don't even have to talk to anybody on the other side of the aisle when passing any kind of laws. And the other important part is that redistricting only happens once every 10 years. So you have half of the state being locked entirely out of the decision making process for 10 years at a time. It did not seem like a good way to be doing democracy.

当政治家们划定这些界线时，他们并没有将社区保持在一起，结果我们得到了这样的选区。这绝不代表一个真实的人群。而在密歇根州，这一点尤为重要，因为我们是一个很红蓝交错的州。我的意思是，大约一半的人投给民主党，另一半投给共和党。这意味着大约一半的代表应该是民主党人，另一半应该是共和党人。但根据主导地图重绘过程的政党不同，他们实际上可能会占据多数席位，甚至是绝对多数，即使他们得到的选票可能不到一半，或者恰好一半。这就意味着他们在通过任何法律时甚至不必与其他党派进行任何对话。另一个重要的问题是，地图重绘只发生一次，每隔10年才会发生一次。这意味着半个州在整个10年的决策过程中被完全排除在外。这看起来并不是一种很好的民主运作方式。

So we went to the politicians and were like, you guys should change that. And they were like, no. What? They didn't mean. They were not interested in giving themselves less power. But thankfully, we figured out that in Michigan, we had a form of direct democracy. And it was called the ballot initiative process. And so I turned to my coworker, Kelly. We were at our recycling job and we started getting to work to figure out, okay, what is this ballot initiative process? What can this actually do? And we broke it down into three different steps. One, we had to write constitutional language. Didn't know how to do that. Two, we had to gather a lot of signatures and we didn't know how to do that either. Three, we had to get about half of our state to vote yes on wanting to amend the constitution to end gerrymandering. And guess what? We didn't know how to do that either.

于是我们去找政客，告诉他们，你们应该改变这个情况。然而他们却说不行。什么？他们并不是真心的。他们对减少自己的权力并不感兴趣。但幸运的是，我们发现在密歇根州，我们有一种直接民主的形式。这就是选票提案程序。于是我转向我的同事凯利。我们当时正在我们的回收工作中，开始着手研究，好的，选票提案程序到底是什么？它到底能做些什么？我们把它分为了三个不同的步骤。第一，我们得写宪法的语言。我们不知道该如何写。第二，我们得收集很多签名，而我们也不知道该怎么做。第三，我们得让我们州大约一半的人投票赞成修改宪法来终结选区规划。你猜怎么着？我们也不知道该怎么做。

But we had this Facebook post that then we turned into a Facebook group. And we started seeing all these people coming in who were absolutely amazing. A lot of them were just like me. They voted consistently. They cared about the world's problems. But they weren't really interested in volunteering for a political campaign or one party or the other. But these people are amazing. I mean, we had veterinarians, doctors, birthing doulas. We had butchers and veterans and even 16 year old kids who couldn't vote yet but wanted to be a part of creating a change so that by the time they could vote, it would actually be legit.

但我们有一个Facebook帖子，然后我们把它变成了一个Facebook群组。然后我们开始看到一些非常了不起的人加入进来。他们中的很多人跟我一样，他们始终投票。他们关心世界的问题。但他们并不真正有兴趣为一个政治运动或一个政党做志愿者。但这些人真的很了不起。我是说，我们有兽医、医生、产婆。我们还有屠夫、退伍军人，甚至还有还不能投票的16岁的孩子，但他们希望成为创造变革的一部分，这样到他们能投票的时候，一切都能合法化。

So what we started to do was figure out, okay, what are all these campaign tasks and then what are all these skills we have and how do we start bringing them together? For example, we had a woman who had been in charge of the Renaissance Festival for years in Michigan. And she actually started creating our first fundraising plan. And the reason she did that is because she had experience raising money for kind of weird stuff.

所以我们开始尝试找出，好吧，所有这些运动任务是什么，然后我们有哪些技能，怎样把它们联系起来？比如，我们有一个女性多年来一直负责密西根州文艺复兴节的人。她实际上开始制定我们的第一个筹款计划。她之所以这样做，是因为她有为一些奇怪的事情筹集资金的经验。

And we had another woman who was absolutely amazing. Her name was Jamie. She was an engineer and a retired high school math teacher. And she was basically the only person who had actually volunteered for a political campaign before. So she had gathered signatures. She had knocked on doors. And using her skills in engineering and math, she figured out how could we take thousands of us to actually end up reaching millions of voters.

我们还有另一个女性，她真的是太了不起了。她叫Jamie，是一名工程师和退休的高中数学教师。她基本上是唯一一个之前真正自愿参加过政治活动的人。因此，她曾收集签名，上门拜访，利用她在工程和数学方面的技能，她弄清楚了我们如何将成千上万的人真正地影响数百万选民。

And that all was really exciting. And then I had a volunteer, Rebecca, and she came up to me and she's like, I really want to volunteer. I have time to do it. But I just don't think there's any way I can contribute. I was like, all right, well, what do you do? And she said, I'm a stay at home mom. And I said, first of all, that comes with a lot of skills. So we've got a lot to work with. But what are your hobbies? She said, well, I'm a jazzercise instructor and a woodcarber. Great, great. We're going to find a place.

那一切真的很令人兴奋。然后有一个志愿者，Rebecca，她走到我面前说，我真的想要做志愿工作。我有时间可以做。但是我觉得我无法做出贡献。我说，好的，那你平常做什么呢？她说，我是个全职妈妈。我说，首先，那需要很多技能。所以我们有很多可以利用的。但是你的兴趣爱好是什么呢？她说，我是个爵士运动指导员和木雕工。太好了，太好了。我们会找到适合你的地方。

So we started thinking, how could we apply these skills? Well, it turns out, in order to gather a bunch of signatures, you actually need a bunch of clipboards. And buying clipboards, even in bulk, is super expensive. And we started from Facebook posts. So we did not have a lot of money. And when we went to our Facebook group and we said, hey, can you guys help us figure out what we might be able to do, it turns out we not only had one, but several woodcarbers. And the woodcarber said, hold on, give us a second. They went away, they made a plan, and came back. And they had decided to create gift registries at home depots and lows across the state, reserving wood so we could cut our own clipboards. Then they found warehouses where we could then cut those clipboards and start assembling them.

所以我们开始思考，我们怎样能应用这些技巧呢？嗯，事实证明，如果要收集一大堆签名，你实际上需要一大堆剪贴板。而且即使是大量购买剪贴板，也非常昂贵。而我们当初只是凭借Facebook发帖起步，所以没有太多钱。当我们去我们的Facebook群组上寻求帮助，问他们是否能帮我们想出一些办法时，结果我们不仅找到了一个木雕匠，而是好几个。那个木雕匠说：“等一下，给我们一点时间。”他们离开了一会儿，制定了一个计划，然后回来了。他们决定在全州的家居装修市场和低价建材市场创建礼品登记，预定木材，这样我们就能自己切割剪贴板。然后他们找到了一些仓库，我们可以在那里切割这些剪贴板并开始组装。

Then they were thinking a lot about these clipboards. So they started to think about, like, how do we make them longer so they can hold both a petition as well as gathering contact information from people? And then they wanted all of us to be able to be recognized as volunteers. So they added a nice little red stripe so that people could know that we're part of the ending jury-mandering campaign. And they even thought about how could we turn this clipboard itself if we're going to make such an investment in them into an actual tool to educate people on the process in general. They ended up being able to make these clipboards for only $0.33 each instead of $11. Yes. And the only reason we were able to do any of that so that everybody could have a professional tool that made them feel confident when talking to strangers about civics was because we had a woodcarver as a volunteer.

然后他们开始思考这些剪贴板。所以他们开始考虑，比如说，如何让它们更长，这样它们既可以容纳请愿书，又可以收集人们的联系信息？然后他们希望我们所有人都能被认为是志愿者。所以他们加了一道漂亮的红色条纹，这样人们就可以知道我们是参与结束选区划分运动的一部分。他们甚至考虑到，如果我们要对这些剪贴板进行如此大的投资，我们如何能够将它们本身变成一个真正的工具，用来教育人们关于整个选区划分过程的知识。最后，他们成功地每个剪贴板只需花费0.33美元，而不是原本的11美元。是的，我们之所以能够做到这一切，以便每个人都能拥有一个让他们在与陌生人谈论公民事务时感到自信的专业工具，是因为我们有一位木雕志愿者的帮助。

And that was one of the first moments when I started to realize that, like, us not doing politics as our day job was actually our strength. We were looking at democracy as how we hoped it would be instead of the brokenness that it already was. And so when we were looking at writing the constitutional language, we wanted to take that spirit and apply it. At the time in Michigan, politicians were refusing to hold town halls. They didn't want to meet with their constituents because they were getting a lot of criticism because they were writing laws that nobody wanted. And so at a time when we weren't being listened to, we thought, okay, let's go listen to each other instead.

那是我开始意识到我们不以政治为职业的这种情况实际上是我们的优势的第一刻。我们把民主当作我们所希望的那种样子，而不是已经存在的破碎局面。因此，在撰写宪法的时候，我们希望借用这种精神。当时在密歇根州，政治家们拒绝举办市政厅会议。他们不愿意与选民见面，因为他们得到了很多批评，因为他们在制定不受欢迎的法律。所以在我们没有被聆听的时候，我们想，好吧，让我们去彼此倾听。

So we made a plan to go and ask people what would they want in a redistricting process? What would one that works well and that we could have trust and actually look like? We set a goal of going to every congressional district. And we weren't sure if people were going to show up because we were a brand new organization just starting. But to our surprise, it was standing room only at almost every single location.

所以我们制定了一个计划，去询问人们在重新划分选区过程中想要什么？一个能够运作良好、我们可以信任并且真实可信的选区行划重新方案是怎样的？我们设定了一个目标，要走遍每一个国会选区。虽然我们只是一个刚刚起步的全新组织，我们并不确定人们是否会参加活动。但令我们惊讶的是，几乎在每个地点都挤满了人，连站立的空间都没有了。

And we would hear all of these people saying, you know, I have lived in this community my whole life and a politician has never even visited our city once. And yet here you are a random stranger from across the state, not only listening to me but making sure that my opinion is going to be used in a constitutional amendment. And what my favorite part was is you would have people coming in really skeptical of each other, never having really had a conversation with a Democrat or a Republican or an independent. And they would kind of start to talk to each other and realize that we had a lot more in common and all of us just wanted a political process that worked.

我们听到很多人说，你知道的，我一直生活在这个社区，但政客从来没有来过我们的城市。然而，你这个来自州那头的陌生人不仅听我说话，还确保我的意见会被用在宪法修正案中。我最喜欢的部分是，人们开始相互怀疑，他们从未与民主党人、共和党人或独立人士进行过真正的对话。然后他们开始交谈，意识到我们有许多共同之处，我们所有人都只是希望一个能够实现政治进程的体制。

And so instead of focusing on those differences, we were able to focus on actual solutions. So once our beautiful language written by the people of Michigan was ready to go, we then got to gather those 315,654 registered Michigan voter signatures in 180 days. But thankfully we had that math teacher. So we figured out that if we could get about a thousand of us to gather about 17 signatures a day, we'd be able to meet this goal.

所以，与其关注这些差异，我们能够专注于实际的解决方案。因此，一旦我们来自密歇根州的美丽语言准备就绪，我们就开始在180天内收集那315,654个在密歇根州注册的选民签名。幸运的是，我们有那位数学老师。因此，我们计算出如果我们能够找到大约一千人每天收集大约17个签名，我们就能达到这个目标。

But because we had gone around the state and we had listened to people about what they wanted, they all wanted to make sure that this constitutional amendment passed. We ended up having over 4,000 people who were willing to come and gather signatures. And they had tons of creativity about how to talk to people about gerrymandering. And they were willing to do anything to gather those signatures. They went into parades and even literal cow pastures in order to make sure that we were getting the people of Michigan to sign. And we ended up blowing that goal out of the water. We were able to gather over 442,000 signatures in only 110 days, may I add.

因为我们已经走遍整个州，听取了人们希望什么，他们都希望确保这项宪法修正案通过。最终我们有超过4,000人愿意来集结签名。他们在如何向人们谈论选区划分问题上有很多创意。而且他们愿意做任何事情来收集这些签名。他们参加游行，甚至到实际的牛圈里，只为确保我们得到密歇根州人民的签名。最终我们远远超过了那个目标。仅仅在110天内，我们就收集到了超过442,000份签名。

And although there was no geographic requirement of where those signatures came from, we actually gathered signatures in each of Michigan's 83 counties, truly making it four by and of the people of Michigan. So then, we just needed people to vote on the darn thing. And on November 6th of 2018, 2.5 million people, 61% of the state, overwhelmingly voted yes to end gerrymandering and to instate an independent citizen's redistricting commission.

虽然没有规定签名必须来自特定地理区域，但我们实际上在密歇根州的每一个县都收集到了签名，真正让这项建议得到了密歇根州人民的支持。因此，我们只需要人们投票表决。在2018年11月6日，250万人，全州人口的61%，压倒性地投票赞成终结选区划分操控，并设立一个独立的公民选区委员会。

Shortly after that, we got to see did this constitutional law written by a bunch of strangers actually work. And so our commission started to come together. 13 strangers were selected, four Democrats, four Republicans, and five independent voters. They couldn't be politicians. They couldn't be lobbyists. They just had to be regular people. Those people were then invited to represent the state. So there was a lottery to make sure that the demographics actually kind of matched who the people of Michigan were, making it one of the only decision-making bodies in Michigan that actually looks like the people of Michigan.

在那之后不久，我们看到了这部宪法法律的效果，它是由一群陌生人起草的。于是我们的委员会开始组建。选择了13名陌生人，其中四名民主党人，四名共和党人和五名独立选民。他们不能是政治家，也不能是说客，他们只是普通人。然后邀请这些人代表这个州。为了确保人口结构与密歇根州人民相符，进行了一次抽签，使其成为密歇根州唯一一个真正代表密歇根人民的决策机构。

They then had the task of going around the state and gathering input from people, asking them what they wanted to see in the redistricting process. And they held town halls that also had standing room only, even though it was only very shortly after COVID. This commission ended up passing maps that were the most fair maps that Michigan has ever had. In the first election they were used in, in 2022, how people voted was an exact match for how elected representatives were elected. This is my personal district in the before and after picture. And my favorite part about all of this is that because we actually changed the constitution, it means that in future redistricting processes, this is going to have to be the same process that's used, which means that future voters will be guaranteed to have fair elections from here on out.

然后，他们的任务是走遍全州，收集人们的意见，询问他们希望通过重新划分选区流程来实现什么。尽管是在COVID疫情后不久，但他们召开了人满为患的市民大会。该委员会最终通过了迄今为止密歇根州最公正的划分选区。在它们首次被使用的2022年选举中，人们的投票结果与选出的代表完全一致。这是我个人区的改前和改后图片。我最喜欢的部分是，因为我们真正改变了宪法，这意味着在未来的重新划分选区过程中，将必须使用同样的流程，这也意味着未来选民将从今以后享有公正选举的保障。

I'm sure that each of you guys have something that keeps you up at night that makes you feel like, man, I really wish somebody would do something about this. And maybe you feel like you aren't qualified to be the one to do something, or maybe you feel like nobody's listening or cares about this issue. And I used to feel that way. One thing that I did not remember but ended up popping up on my social media is I made almost the exact same Facebook post about a year earlier. And it said like, hey, let's end gerrymandering, who wants to help? And nobody even liked it. And more importantly, I also didn't do anything about it.

我相信你们每个人都有一些让你们夜不能寐的事情，让你们觉得希望有人能够解决。也许你觉得自己没有资格去做这件事，或者你感觉没有人在听或在乎这个问题。我以前也有同样的感受。有一件事我一度忘记了，但最近在社交媒体上又冒出来了，我大约一年前发了一条几乎完全相同的Facebook帖子，说要结束选区划分造假，有谁愿意帮忙？可是没人点赞，更重要的是，我自己也没有采取任何行动。

And I think that's because I felt alone. I felt like, man, nobody's even liking this. Like I must be the only weirdo who wants to end gerrymandering. But by the time I made that second Facebook post, what I realized was that actually like a lot of us were feeling the exact same way. We were sitting feeling like nobody cared.

我觉得这是因为我感到孤独。我感觉就像是，唉，没人喜欢这个。好像只有我这个怪人想结束选区划分。但当我发了第二条Facebook帖子后，我意识到其实有很多人和我有同样的感受。我们坐在那里觉得好像没有人在乎。

We really wanted this issue to be dealt with. But we felt like there must be somebody else whose job it is. There must be an expert out there. But what I have completely learned is that you do not have to be an expert to get involved in democracy. You don't need a fancy title or a PhD. You don't even have to ask permission to try. You never know where one little step will end up leading you. It might change your entire life.

我们真的希望这个问题得到解决。但是我们觉得肯定有其他人负责这个工作。肯定有专家在外面。但是我完全了解到，参与民主并不需要成为专家。你不需要花哨的头衔或博士学位。你甚至不需要请求许可来尝试。你从来不知道一个小小的步骤会带给你什么。它可能会改变你整个人生。

And I think that's really important to remember. I mean, there's a place for experts too. I definitely should not perform open heart surgery on any of you. I would not be good at it. But we are the ones who are closest to these problems. Our communities and our kids are the ones who do not have clean drinking water. We have the most incentive to want to fix these problems because we live with its brokenness every single day. And we see our communities as actual communities. They are our homes. They aren't red or blue. They are just us.

我认为记住这一点非常重要。我的意思是，专家也有存在的地方。我绝对不应该对你们中的任何人进行心脏手术。我做不好这个。但是我们是与这些问题最接近的人。我们的社区和我们的孩子们没有干净的饮用水。我们最有动力想要解决这些问题，因为我们每天都生活在它所带来的困境中。我们将我们的社区看作真实的社区。它们是我们的家园。它们不是红色或蓝色的。它们只是我们自己。

So, I hope all of you remember that when it comes to democracy, all political power is inherent in the people. We all are those people. And this is our power. I hope you don't forget that. And you remain unafraid to create the world you want to live in. Thank you.

所以，我希望你们所有人都记住，在民主中，所有的政治权力都植根于人民。我们所有人就是那些人民。这是我们的力量。我希望你们不要忘记这点。并且你们要毫不畏惧地创造你们想要生活的世界。谢谢。