It’s 3:27 a.m. in Hartford, Connecticut. 25-year-old Matthew Lesser folds his arms across his chest, slumps low in his chair, and struggles to keep his heavy eyelids open. Most other twentysomething college graduates are out on the town, drinking at their favorite local bars, or sleeping for work in the morning. Lesser, however, has more responsibility than that. He knows that if he lets his guard down for a few minutes, even for a quick nap, he could miss a crucial legislative vote, ensuing harmful ramifications for his constituents. The citizens of his district are counting on him.

Lesser is a State Representative in Connecticut, and at age 25, the youngest elected legislator in the state. Elspeth “Elsie” Flemings is also a State Representative; she works for the thirty-fifth district in Maine. They characterize a revived trend of youth involvement in politics, acting as two of the 12 representatives under the age of 30 to hold public office in states with publicly financed elections. Lesser and Flemings prove that with passion, determination, and “Clean Election” laws, anyone, even young people can hold influential positions in government.

Flemings, described by The New York Times as a “quiet powerhouse” in 2007, had no idea where her degree in human ecology would land her. After graduating the College of the Atlantic with concentrations in public policy and community organization, she said she figured she would continue doing organizational work for her “community and issues I cared about.” She modestly describes her efforts after college, saying “I worked as a fair trade organizer on a Congressional campaign, then as a Legislative Aide.” In reality, Flemings stayed busy drafting statewide legislation, participating in national policymaking in Washington, and serving on the Board of the Maine Trade Fair Campaign.

Her hard work paid off. After what she considers “a hard leap,” Flemings decided to take her political experience to the next level and run for the Maine House of Representatives. “I got a lot of encouragement to run, and I thought, ‘Is this a way to be effective, to play a positive role and serve my community?’ I ended up taking the plunge. I decided this was a way I could serve well,’” said Flemings.

Although she admits that it took some constituents “a little bit longer to see that I was qualified and had experience to do the work and serve in that way,” Flemings achieved the general election endorsement of Representative Ted Koffman, who Flemings eventually replaced, and the endorsement of Maine State Employees Union, who only backed seven out of 25 contested primaries for the State House and Senate. The endorsements paid off, as Flemings beat Republican nominee Rick Savage (ironically, a businessman in his 60s) by a nearly 30 percent margin.

In her first few weeks of elected office, Flemings has already taken an active role in serving her constituents.

“I hit the ground running with the budget crisis. $150 million was cut between now and June. The governor proposed a budget, the legislature looked at it, and now we’re seeing how to deal with it,” said Flemings. She also serves as a freshman on the tax committee, where she says reform is “long overdue.”

Flemings has introduced several bills that directly benefit the citizens of Maine, including an act that refunds credit to homeowners who produce their own electricity. She worked to keep funding for small rural hospitals and cooperated with the State Department of Agriculture to defend small poultry farmers. Flemings means it when she says, “I am committed to use all my energy to be an advocate in my community and to my community members.”

Matthew Lesser’s path to higher office wasn’t as easy or clear-cut. Lesser grew up in Washington, D.C. and says it wasn’t until college that he gained interest in politics. “I was not happy with the Bush administration. After fall semester I was asked to work on a campaign to help elect John Kerry. I took time off school to do that,” Lesser says.

When he returned to Wesleyan University, Lesser became involved with the College Democrats, and was elected President of College Democrats of Connecticut. According to the Democratic Party’s official website, Lesser hired staff and registered vast numbers of students across the entire state to vote, all while studying full-time. His efforts are said to have changed the outcome of the 2006 Congressional elections in Connecticut’s second district.

After his successes with the College Democrats, Lesser ran for his local Planning and Zoning Commission. “In my city of Middletown, a lot of local democrats saw how effective my campaign was and thought I could help on local races. They asked me to run for planning and zoning commissioner,” said Lesser. “It was a little overwhelming; until that point I had never thought about serving in elected office. But people took me seriously, and I took the job seriously, and that got me thinking that politics is where I could see myself.”

Lesser had been “freezing his butt off” working for the Obama campaign, but he eventually decided that the Obama team had enough momentum without his help. He cites discussions with friends and family as what finally convinced him to run for Connecticut’s House of Representatives. But it wasn’t an easy task.

“I was a college student at the time. People would post comments on newspaper sites, send harassing emails, mostly from the area, but also some from around the country,” said Lesser. One blog writer named Headless Horseman grouped Lesser with the “liberal post-college adolescents who aspire to political grandeur while living in their parents’ basement and wearing dad’s ill-fitting suit to work,” and a YouTube video entitled “Babyface Connecticut Rep. Gets Grounded” surfaced. But, Lesser admits, “for the most part, people were very supportive.”

“It was unbelievable. I had huge numbers of college kids, high school kids, and college graduates. I even had a seventh grader who would come after school to make phone calls. The parents had to limit the hours she could work on the campaign and would reward her A test scores with more hours,” said Lesser.

Lesser has accomplished great feats in his first few weeks of office. He serves on three committees: Education, Energy and Technology, and Public Health. In addition, he says he’s working on “interesting legislation,” such as eliminating mandatory credit checks by employers, finding cost-saving energy solutions, and fighting for funding on education. “The big issue is making sure programs aren’t cut because we have a budget deficit,” said Lesser.

It is undeniable that both Lesser and Flemings owe their campaign victories to the Clean Election system that currently exists in Maine and Connecticut, as well as Arizona, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Vermont. Under Clean Elections, candidates can opt into a system of public financing, or remain privately funded if they wish. To qualify as a candidate, the politician must raise a set amount of small donations–usually $5–to prove legitimacy as a candidate. The contributions are then put into a fund, and the candidate receives a grant from the state, while agreeing to forego private donations. If the candidate is outspent by a privately funded opponent, additional funding is available.

Dr. Joan Mandle, a former assistant professor at Colgate University, now serves as Executive Director of the non-profit organization Democracy Matters, a campus-based subsidiary of Common Cause. She works tirelessly to advocate students to rally for reform in the way state and national elections are run.

“Clean Elections have been very successful in the over 12 years they have been working in states. Candidates love the system because they can spend time talking with their constituents instead of attending big lobbyist fundraisers. And they can be responsive to the needs of the people they represent once they are elected, instead of having to ‘pay to play’ by voting for tax breaks and other advantages for big corporations,” said Mandle.

Lesser admits that one of two major factors allowing him to run for House elections was that “public financing eased the bar,” and Flemings has repeatedly gone on record to support the Clean Elections system. She only spent $3,300 in the general election—$800 less than the allotment given to her.

“I had known about our public financing system as long as I had been involved with our local politics, and it was so inspiring and heartening, as a citizen, that we had this [system]…that opens up the process to more people. There was no question about whether I would use the system–it definitely was something I always planned on doing,” Flemings told publiccampaign.org.

Mandle insists that Clean Elections have allowed for a broader range of politicians to be elected to higher office.

“Clean Elections has increased the diversity of candidates, giving voters more choice. Not only young people, but also women and minority candidates as well as those who are not wealthy can choose to run “clean” if they can

provide support from their own communities,” said Mandle.

New York State may soon find this out for itself. Mandle points out that the state legislature will vote on a bill that would offer public financing as an option for candidates, which she says will allow elections to “be about who has the best ideas, not who has the biggest bank account”

If such a bill were to pass in New York, many young people can find examples of genuine, well-intentioned politicians in Connecticut’s Matt Lesser and Maine’s Elsie Flemings. For as Lesser says, “A lot of little things that don’t cost a lot of money can make somebody else’s life that much better. And that’s what public service is all about.”