This article was featured in The Morningside Post.
Andres Chong-Qui Torres (MPA '19) arrived at SIPA in fall of 2017 eager to make a difference. Prior to attending graduate school, Torres had worked as an organizer for Obama's re-election campaign in 2012 and served three years as a White House Appointee at the U.S. Treasury Department. He wanted to continue that work at SIPA. The only question was how.
"I assessed what SIPA didn't have. We are a top three public policy school and we don't have organizing. We don't have civic engagement. We don't have a group addressing voter disenfranchisement and gerrymandering. We learn a lot in the classroom, but we're not doing enough to turn this into action on the ground." — Andres Torres, CIVEC Co-Founder
Torres co-founded SIPA's Civic and Voter Engagement Coalition (CIVEC) to fill that void. Working with Professor Michael Nutter, Professor Esther Fuchs, and others in the USP department, the group's mission became: "To empower an international student body with tools of democracy, an understanding of participatory government, and a pathway to political engagement."
In its first year, CIVEC reached over 100 members. Michelle Meza (MPA '20) joined after meeting Torres in their US–Latin American Relations course. "My experience working for the Peruvian government made me realize the power of politics and activism to produce transformative change," Meza said. "CIVEC was a great starting point to engage with local issues in the city, and to connect with students who shared my passion for civic engagement."
In 2018, with help from Professor Fuchs and a personal donation from Nutter, Torres secured a mini-grant from former Attorney General Eric Holder that allowed CIVEC to deploy volunteers to key midterm races — including Stacey Abrams' gubernatorial campaign in Georgia and Beto O'Rourke's Senate bid in Texas.
Torres saw the midterm work as a foundation, not a finish line. "Everything we did then was to build for this moment," he said, referring to the 2020 presidential race. "2018 was about laying the structure. We sent volunteers to Florida, Texas and Georgia. We built a following. Now, former CIVEC members are leading phone banks and helping new students get involved."
While COVID-19 hindered direct voter contact, CIVEC hosted phone banks to register voters and mobilize turnout in New York and across battleground states. On October 9, CIVEC and Columbia Law School Democrats organized a joint voter registration canvass in front of the Law School.
CIVEC President Jorge Jimenez (MPA '21) acknowledged that the organization's focus would depend on the election's outcome. "We may shift our attention to the NYC mayoral race in 2021, or focus on issue-based mobilization. But we're staring down the possibility of the end of democracy. It sounds crazy, but the signs are there."
Today, CIVEC has close to 200 members and many alumni continue to work in grassroots organizing. Meza became a Field Organizer with the Wisconsin Democratic Party and spoke at the 2020 Concordia Annual Summit on U.S. Elections and Civic Engagement. Torres, who consults for the State Department in his day job, led weekly phone banks to Hispanic voters in Florida and moderated a town hall with Dr. Jill Biden and DNC Chair Tom Perez.
"My message to SIPA students is: find your place to make a difference. We're living in special times. We have to fight for our democracy. Don't underestimate the power of a meaningful conversation with your family, a neighbor, a friend. It may seem like your grain of sand doesn't move the needle. But it does make a difference in the big picture." — Andres Torres