Using the bully pulpit
Calling the police to stifle political expression was an odd way for the Boston City Council to mark the upcoming holiday celebrating American democracy.
Accusing a neophyte city councilor of ``grandstanding" for bringing young people into a political process they are usually criticized for shunning was a curious way to commemorate the 330th anniversary of American independence.
In any week, a packed council chamber ought to be cause for celebration, not alarm, no matter how many homemade protest signs the visitors are carrying. That should have been especially true in the days before the Fourth of July, replete with its reminders of the roots of our political freedom.
``The ironic thing is that people always complain that teenagers are apathetic," Councilor at Large Sam Yoon noted in the aftermath of the ejection of dozens of teenagers who had filled the chamber to appeal for more money to combat rising gun violence in the city. ``Here they are coming to City Hall to participate, to talk about matters of life and death, their lives and deaths, and we throw them out."
The teenagers, who came from across the city, had run afoul of Rule 43, the council's less-than-democratic prohibition against any public demonstration of ``approval or disapproval" in the chamber.
Their ``disruption" involved asking for the councilors to support new funding and then turning their backs when it was clear that the vote on Mayor Thomas M. Menino's $2.14 billion budget would carry.
``They came hoping to win but expecting to lose," said Yoon, who had urged the city to tap emergency funds for $5 million for youth workers and violence prevention programs. ``You never hear the word `violence' without the word `youth' in front of it. Here we had a gallery full of young people interested in being part of the solution, and they are told they can only be silent observers. I'm an immigrant. My parents came to America because we can express our ideas here freely."
If that sounds like grandstanding, as Councilors Stephen J. Murphy and Jerry P. McDermott suggested, isn't grandstanding pretty much the only power the Boston City Council has? The councilors, after all, were debating the mayor's budget because the city charter does not grant them authority to draft a spending plan of their own.
What the council does have is a bully pulpit, and Yoon, elected six months ago as the first Asian to serve on the body, decided to use it. That does not make him young and naïve; he's 36, not 16, and veteran councilors Felix Arroyo, Chuck Turner, and Charles C. Yancey voted with him.
If the council used its bully pulpit more often, open and spirited debate might compensate for the City Council's lack of legislative power.
On the same day that Yoon's youthful supporters were hustled from the City Council chamber, Governor Mitt Romney filed a request with state lawmakers for $3 million more in state funding for antiviolence programs in the city. On Friday, Yoon wrote to the governor urging him to fight hard for that money.
``I am aware that the city has limited resources," he said, adding that fiscal restraint has to be weighed against what he described as a public safety emergency. ``One of the good things that happened is the kids got to see how what we do in the City Council affects them. Isn't that what we want, young people who are more engaged in the civic life of the city?"
Last November, more minority voters cast ballots in Boston's municipal election than at any time in recent memory. Voting was up in Roxbury, Mattapan, Mission Hill, Fields Corner, and Chinatown. Those voters helped elect Yoon.
Many of the teenagers who packed the City Council chamber last week are not old enough to vote, but they are old enough to speak, old enough to demand to be heard. As one of their posters said, ``Don't Wait Until We're Dead."
Eileen McNamara is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at mcnamara@globe.com. 
