SEQUIM — She’s a woman who’s fired up about democracy.
Nancy Amidei, daughter of immigrants, staffer in the Jimmy Carter administration, National Public Radio commentator and now the director of the national Civic Engagement Project, will seek to set fire to her audience during the Hot Topics luncheon next Saturday, Nov. 13.
This is the first Hot Topics hosted by the nonpartisan League of Women Voters of Clallam County.
League President Lounette Templeton is delighted to have Amidei as the speaker.
Her talk, “Reclaiming Democracy,” will start at noon at the SunLand Golf & Country Club, 109 Hilltop Drive just north of Sequim. Tickets are $25 per person.
“But we’re encouraging high school and college students to come,” Templeton said, “so the league will cover their cost.”
To make reservations — which she urges people to do by today — phone 360-504-2060.
Amidei grew up in northern Illinois, where many of her neighbors were immigrants, new Americans “who just felt passionate about the fact that in this country, you can have a voice, you can speak up, you can be involved.
“It meant so much to them to be a part of this country. So, from the time I was little, I was listening to conversations about candidates, elections and voting.”
Amidei has spent her career speaking up for the poor and disenfranchised.
She taught in the University of Washington’s School of Social Work from 1992 to 2008 and worked with the U District-University Partnership for Youth, an initiative for homeless youth.
Before coming west, she served as a deputy in Carter’s Department of Health, Education and Welfare, and as executive director of the Food Research and Action Center.
Amidei believes in participatory democracy and is tireless in urging all people to speak out, even — and especially — when they meet resistance.
When a UW student asked her why she doesn’t get discouraged, she responded:
“When I graduated from college in 1963, there was no Medicare, there was no Medicaid, there were hardly any women in sports because there was no Title IX, and there was no Title IX because there was no Civil Rights Act . . . there was no elementary and secondary education act, there was no Head Start, there were no legal services for low-income people, there was no WIC program, there was no food stamp program.”
And, Amidei added, there were very few women in Congress, law and medicine in 1963.
“Changes were made not because the guys in Congress decided on their own to change, but because people like us called up, spoke up, wrote up and voted up . . . until the guys in Congress said OK.
“If enough of us make noise, we can outnumber the people writing the big checks.”
So “use your voice,” Amidei tells people of any age. “Be an advocate for the things you care about.”
For information about the Hot Topics lunch and other league activities, visit www.LWVcla.org.
