Get Out of Work with This Civics Note
Give your boss a civics note (like a doctor's note, but for the Republic), and come to the NYC City Council Tech Committee with me
New York State election law [§ 3-110 of the Election Law] requires all employers to give their employees sufficient time off to vote, with as many as two hours of paid leave as needed.
The opportunity cost of voting gets even lower if your employer gives you more time off, with fewer administrative requirements, than the state. You can check this list to see where your employer stands on the matter.
And while I think it’s a fine idea to increase people’s opportunity to vote, the movement to do so has a strange asymmetry: you get time off to vote, but no time off to learn what you’re voting for. A bit of the cart before the horse.
This isn’t to say that companies will do nothing to help their employees learn about government. Some of them will permit employees to use corporate continuing education budgets on civics classes, and even more will match employee donations to non-profit civics schools (ask me how I know).
But even assuming that their employees know about these benefits—and that’s an unreliable bet—companies that tout their dedication to civics through voting do not give comparable attention to their employees actually attending government proceedings.
And if there’s one thing I regularly go on about, it’s that witnessing government, in person, with a knowledgeable guide, is a vital component of civics education. In New York City, that means something like attending a City Council committee hearing. I’ve taken many students to these, and each time is generally transformative.
There is a fundamental difference between reading about a hearing, watching it remotely, and actually being in the room. Politics is social, and being in-person allows to you plug into the higher-bandwidth information transfer of physical humans: body language, facial expression, nervous tics, their energy in the room, when they play on their phone, who they talk to before and after formal business ends, etc.
This post shall serve as a general “civics note,” comparable to a doctor’s note. Present it to your manager and/or Human Resources to request time off to attend an efficiently educational government meeting with your guide, and founder of Maximum New York, me.1
I’m taking a group to see the NYC City Council Technology Committee on February 27. You can RSVP here! Please leave a comment indicating that you found out about the event through this post (“MNY post” will be fine). If you attend, have a good time (I’m not asking)—it’s a tactical advantage.
If someone gives you time off to vote, they should give you at least as much time off to go see the government in person.
Maximum New York is a civics school and a duly created, fiscally sponsored, 501c3. I will be happy to furnish HR with whatever legal documentation they need to confirm that.