Rutgers alum Heather Taylor aims to create leaders on the municipal, county and state fronts
On a Tuesday in April, 1999, two seniors at Columbine High School in Colorado embarked on a shooting rampage that left 12 fellow students and one teacher dead.
The massacre left Heather Taylor, then a first-year Rutgers student, with two imperatives: Her country needed stricter gun-control laws and she needed to become a catalyst for political change.
Today, the Pennington native spends her working days – and many of her nights – arming New Jersey’s residents with the tools to make the kind of difference she could only dream about more than a decade ago.
As communications director for The Citizens Campaign, Taylor is both spokesperson and policymaker at the nonprofit, which aims to create a new generation of leaders on the municipal, county and state fronts.
“Our motto is, ‘You don’t have to be an elected official to get things done,’ ” says Taylor, who graduated from Rutgers’ School of Communications, Information and Library Studies (now the School of Communication and Information) in 2002.
“Because of all the negativity about government, individual people believe they can’t make a difference," she says. "We say they can.”
And they have.
Founded in 1998, the nonpartisan Citizens Campaign offers workshops and online classes along five distinct tracks, designed to turn out citizen journalists, citizen navigators and citizen legislators, among other non-elected leadership positions.
Taylor estimates that 5,000 Garden State residents – from Tea Party members to progressive liberals – have come through the organization’s programs, collectively influencing the passage of at least 300 laws.
“We’ve developed a series of model government reform laws on such topics as transparency, accountability, cost-cutting and the environment,” she notes. “Our volunteers and staff teach people how to construct a proposal for their communities and work to get it adopted.”
She’s proudest of multiple pay-to-play measures Citizens Campaign “graduates” have had a hand in, attacking an entrenched system under which companies making hefty political contributions walk away with equally hefty public contracts.
In an April 23 story, NJ.com reported that the statewide good-government group “has helped prod some 100 municipalities across the state into enacting local pay-to-play laws. Many of these laws are based on the Citizens’ Campaign’s own model ordinance… ”
Taylor also cites her organization’s efforts toward reforming the way a municipality obtains insurance, encouraging competition and requiring that if a city or township engages the services of a broker, that individual be paid by the township, not by the insurance company he/she represents, in order to avoid any possible conflict of interest.
Residents of Paterson, Toms River, and Cherry Hill have benefitted from these mandates, she says. Under the guidance of The Citizens Campaign, 30 residents of Cherry Hill banded together to enact an ordinance that ultimately saved their township’s board of education $6 million.
“That’s money that would have come out of taxpayers’ pockets,” Taylor notes.
Taylor, who double-majored in political science and journalism and mass media studies, has a special place in her heart for the group’s citizen-journalist track. At a time when traditional news outlets are cutting way back on both staff and editorial hole, these classes provide resources and assistance to individuals to improve coverage of local government
Emphasizing the importance of “hyperlocal” news sites – online community platforms covering a particular township – Citizens Campaign volunteers teach participants the basics of reporting on the nitty-gritty of school budgets, zoning law and campaign finance, offering tips on how to get their stories published.
Taylor’s travels around the state often take her to Trenton, where she testifies on bills such as the Party Democracy Act. Co-sponsored by Sens. Diane Allen (R-Burlington) and Loretta Weinberg (D-Teaneck), the measure increases the transparency of government and enhances the role of county committee members.
She also returns to Rutgers frequently to share her experiences with political science and journalism classes.
The self-described “political junkie” considers herself fortunate, at the age of 32, to be in a position both to turn her passion into her profession and to make an impact on the legislative landscape.
“A lot of my friends in corporate settings are not so happy,” Taylor acknowledges. “When people come up to me and say, ‘Thank you for giving us the resources, the tools,’ – that’s the most fulfilling thing about my job.”