While a student at Brown, Joshua Segall '01 used his organizing savvy and penchant for policy to build support for Al Gore, among others. Now, he's putting that skill to more personal use.
On Feb. 7, Segall, a 29-year-old lawyer, announced he is running for the U.S. House of Representatives.
If he wins the seat in Alabama's 3rd Congressional District, he would be the only alum currently serving in Congress. Segall, a native Alabaman, is currently the only Democrat in the race. If he wins the June 3 primary, he will run against the Republican incumbent, Mike Rogers, on Nov. 4 for the seat, which represents east-central Alabama, from the suburbs of Montgomery northward along the Georgia border, past Talladega and into rural Cherokee county.
After Segall formally announced his candidacy, he immediately garnered the support of Alabama Democratic Lt. Gov. Jim Folsom Jr. Folsom's support is significant, Segall said, because there is still time for other Democrats to enter the race, yet Folsom has already chosen to throw his support behind a young candidate.
Beyond building support among Alabama's political elite, Segall's history as an organizer and "policy wonk" at Brown have helped him build a network of supporters - many of whom have more ties to College Hill than to rural Alabama.
An organizer at Brown
As head of the group of Democratic students on campus, called the College Democrats, Segall was able to generate a new level of political interest in the student body, those who knew him at Brown say. Mushtaq Gunja '00, who was on the board of the College Democrats with Segall, said the group was not particularly active before Segall's leadership, but "he really spent a lot of time and energy trying to make it a big deal."
During the 1998 midterm elections, he set up canvassing trips to Massachusetts and New Hampshire. And, in what Christopher Hayes '01 called a "triumph of organizing," Segall convinced a large number of students - Hayes remembers about 60 - to travel to Pennsylvania to canvass for Al Gore in the 2000 presidential elections.
"It was a tremendous trip that Josh singlehandedly put together," Hayes said. "Everyone (who canvassed) was so happy they had allowed Josh to cajole and bully them into coming."
As leader of the College Democrats and a member of the Brown Lecture Board, Segall brought a number of prominent political speakers to campus, including former Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., and Morris Dees, founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, according to Gunja.
Segall also organized multiple debates on campus between the College Democrats and the College Republicans and put together "issue-based focus groups," where 10 to 20 people would gather to discuss readings on topics like Social Security or trade policies, Gunja said.
Segall said that his goal was to make Brown students more politically active. "The ability of your average college students to get involved in politics in a substantive way is enormous," Segall said. "Students have a big impact on the process."
"It was all (Segall's organizing) and it was a lot of fun," Gunja said of the reading groups. "At heart, he's a policy wonk."
Building an agenda
Segall's next organizational challenge came when he started a local-food movement at the University of Alabama School of Law, from which he graduated in 2006. He called the group "Homegrown Alabama" and created a farmers' market that still comes to campus once a week in the spring.
After working for several political campaigns, including that of Gov. Mark Warner, D-Va., and observing many others, "you get a sense you can do a little better," Segall said. This mind-set pushed Segall to run for Congress himself.
Moreover, he said he believes in the ability of politics to make a difference. "I feel strongly that there are things government can do for people: it can create jobs (and) help provide opportunities," Segall added.
Segall's interest in farming extends past the farmers' market to the wider political issues of his state's agriculture. He said Alabama is in the midst of its worst drought in 100 years and is in a "water war" with Georgia. The drought was so extreme at one point that only 120 days' worth of drinking water remained in some counties.
Another crucial issue on Segall's platform is employment, specifically the 10,000 jobs that have left his congressional district in the past five years - and "that's a conservative estimate," Segall said. The movement of textile plants overseas, mostly to Central America, has caused most of the job loss, Segall said, and plants in Alabama just can't keep up.
"Essentially, we've signed a free trade agreement with no protection in it for us. (The other countries) allow child labor and have no working wage requirements," Segal said. "It's impossible for us to compete."
Segall is positioning himself as the candidate who can solve these problems. On the water issue, Segall said he would want the government to fund more reservoirs in Southern states like Alabama. "It may not excite the average person, but the economic impact ... would be billions of dollars."
As far as creating new jobs and stopping the disappearance of existing ones, Segall proposes investment in the state's basic infrastructure: "roads, sewer systems, office parks."
"The most important road in the district is two lanes, but should be a four-lane highway," Segall said. "Lacking that, we don't have an environment where we're likely to bring in business."
Segall said he often gets asked about his age and level of experience. He is not worried that those factors will dissuade voters, though. "For the most part, I think people are willing to give you an opportunity ... Being young is in many ways a real advantage these days. I'm not beholden to my party or to my donors."
Furthermore, Segal said, voters in Alabama are "ticket-splitting voters (who) vote for the best candidate. They're open to change right now, much more than they have been in the past."
"For the most part, people are so disappointed in what we have in Washington right now," he added. "We have an incompetence problem these days. Wars have been run very poorly, (the administration has been) terrible stewards of the economy, bankruptcy reform - all of that has been a problem."
Support from alums
Segall's former classmates and fellow College Democrats remember his enthusiasm. Hayes, who half-jokingly called Segall "my first friend from the South," said he is a "very effective organizer" as well as "one of the greatest conversationalists that anyone will ever meet."
Segall's former friends and acquaintances from Brown are now helping with the campaign. A growing network of young Brown alums has been donating money, hosting fundraising dinners, making phone calls and creating Web pages with the site ActBlue.com, which allows users to fundraise and generate support for political candidates, Molly Tack '02 said.
Tack added that Segall will often personally call individuals who are unsure if they will support him and discuss his stance on policies with his friends "to make sure he has all the bases covered" and receives maximum input.
Segall's old friends and acquaintances say they are not surprised he has gone into politics. "The question was always when it would happen," Tack said.
"I expected he'd be involved in public service," Hayes said. "That was incredibly evident."
"A lot of us would basically do anything for Josh," Hayes said. He admitted "personal loyalty" to his friend, but added, "to the degree you can have a disinterested perspective, this is someone with boundless energy, judgment, smarts, the sort of integrity and qualities you'd want to have in an elected official."
