report cover featuring a group of diverse youth in a civic engagement program from Power California
Social Movements and Governing Power

By Veronica Terriquez and Steven Carmona Mora
September 2020

Between the 2014 and 2018 elections, Los Angeles County experienced a fourfold increase in turnout among the youngest voters, those aged 18-24. National political dynamics and youth-led calls to mobilize in response to gun violence undoubtedly contributed to this upsurge in youth electoral participation.  However, the extraordinary increase in turnout in Los Angeles county can also be attributed partly to the LA Youth Vote, a multi-sector collaboration that centered youth leadership in registering, educating, and mobilizing young voters. Initially launched by the United Way of Greater Los Angeles and currently spearheaded by the Power California youth civic engagement network, the LA Youth Vote is further supported by grassroots youth organizing groups, the County Board of Registrars, the State Secretary of State, the Los Angeles Unified School District, individual principals and teachers, and philanthropic organizations. The initiative represents a model for how agencies can work together to promote young and racially diverse residents’ informed engagement in government elections.

 

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The LA Youth Vote and the Activation of a Young and Diverse Electorate
Op-Ed

“To beat Trump, Democrats must mobilize young people”
By Veronica Terriquez, The Hill

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    ERI’s work in the area of governing power includes: conducting cross-disciplinary studies of today’s social movements, supporting learning and strategizing efforts to advance dialogues among organizers, funders, intermediaries, evaluators, and academics, and developing research-based social change frameworks and tools to inform—and be informed by—real-world, real-time efforts towards a vision of deep change.

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    In 2020, the USC Program for Environmental and Regional Equity (PERE) and the USC Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration (CSII) merged to form the USC Equity Research Institute (ERI).

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