Henry Milner's response (2004) to our original article (2003) is typically thorough and thoughtful, raising a number of new (and testable) hypotheses in the process. He mounts a robust defence of the civic literacy argument and takes us to task on two grounds. First, he challenges our modeling strategy. Second, he mounts a defence of aggregate level analysis of civic literacy, and points to the limitations of individual–level models. In this brief reply, we take up the challenges he sets.