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 Claire Scheuren Is Working Hard To Ensure An Informed Electorate. By Jim Nintzel CLAIRE SCHEUREN remembers the early days of Project Vote Smart, when volunteers raced around a small Tucson office with a duct-tape-covered red telephone, flipping though files while trying to brief callers from far-off Nebraska and North Carolina about their political candidates. Now, less than a decade later, the 50-year-old Scheuren has been elected chairwoman of the board of the organization, which boasts hundreds of volunteer interns at two universities who answer a never-ending stream of requests for information. Project Vote Smart was established in the wake of Democrat Richard Kimble's failed 1986 U.S. Senate bid. After losing to Republican Sen. John McCain, Kimble was so dismayed by the political process that he dreamed up the notion of a national clearinghouse where citizens could do their own research on candidates rather than depending on the superficial media, mailed hit pieces and televised attack ads.
Call they did--the project caught fire, earning the endorsement of politicians on both sides of the aisle. Today, the Project Vote Smart board features dozens of political veterans, including Barry Goldwater, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, Newt Gingrich and George McGovern. Hundreds of volunteers now staff the group's two headquarters at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon, and Northwestern University in Boston, answering calls to 1-800-622-SMART. And last year, the group launched a web site (www.vote-smart.org) that has put a wealth of information about voting records, campaign finance reports, biographical information and other data within reach of an Internet browser. Scheuren played a key role in getting the organization off the ground, remembers Adelaide Elm, a former Tucsonan who also helped launch Project Vote Smart. "Claire started out with Project Vote Smart as one of the original board members when we were just talking in a living room, so she was in on the initial planning," says Elm, who now works at Vote Smart's headquarters in Oregon. When Project Vote Smart got its first nationwide test in 1992, Scheuren "was the press department singlehandly," remembers Elm. "We got a tremendous amount of national attention that year. Claire set up a multi-state press tour, where we did 45 or 50 press conferences across the country to announce the project. She ran the media outreach from Tucson. Her office was in her laundry room. She had her computer, phone and fax machine right next to her washer and dryer." Project Vote Smart has come a long way in the five years since then. The organization, with an annual budget of $1.5 million (funded through individual memberships and foundation grants), is made possible through the work of the volunteer interns. "We consider our organization kind of the Peace Corps of politics," Scheuren laughs. "People do work with us for a few years and get a tremendous amount of experience."
Along with politics, education is a passion for Scheuren, who's developed several curriculum workbooks to teach kids how politics can make a difference. And, as the community-relations manager of the Pima Prevention Partnership, she works as the manager of Pima County's teen court program, which she says is "working out great." A diversion program for juvenile offenders, the teen court program puts teenagers into their own courtroom, overseen by a county judge. Teens play the remaining roles in the courtroom, from prosecutor to defense attorney to jury members, in the hopes of teaching kids a sense of civic responsibility. "After two-and-a-half years, we have an 8 percent recidivism rate," she says. "It's usually 35 to 40 percent. It's even better than we thought it would be.
"If I didn't have to have a real job, I would spend my entire
life talking to kids about politics," Scheuren adds. "They're
the next generation of people who are going to say, 'This is where
we want the country to go,' and steer it in that direction. We
want to encourage and develop that next generation of voters."
Photo by Desirée A. Riós
Find out all about your elected reps by calling Project Vote Smart at 1-800-622-SMART. High-tech citizens can do their research at the Vote Smart Web: www.vote-smart.org. |
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As he tossed the idea around with other people, Kimball hit upon
the idea of a toll-free hotline where voters could find reliable,
non-partisan information. Bankrolled by a few small grants, a
handful of Tucsonans hooked up a 1-800 number to see if anyone
would call.
Scheuren hopes to move Project Vote Smart into classrooms and
libraries during her two-year term as chair of the board. "We've
had a lot of requests for information from schools and students
doing research projects," she says. "We want to and
intend to focus a lot in education."
