When looking at the accomplishments of these mayors, what sticks out as a throughline? A focus on infrastructure and public safety. Filling potholes, hiring police officers, and building houses. Efforts to bring disparate voices together, and a focus on acting transparently.
A California court’s ranked choice voting remedy is about Latino representation. But it also reflects a larger reality: election systems built around narrow political coalitions routinely leave independent voters outside the room.
A bipartisan House caucus wants to stop politicians from redrawing congressional maps whenever the next partisan power grab comes along. The question is whether Congress is ready to regulate itself.
Is this an effort to minimize the independent vote? It sure feels like it. It is already very difficult for independents to vote in the primary—this is just further muddying the waters.
The court struck down a post-Watergate limit on coordinated party spending, clearing the way for Republican and Democratic committees to pour unlimited money into races—and making it even harder for independents to compete.
Term limits for Supreme Court justices may be popular. But imposing them would require Americans to confront the part of reform nobody likes: changing the Constitution—or gambling that the Court will let Congress change the rules itself.
John Oliver’s redistricting warning is blunt: escalating partisan map wars may win seats now, but it destroys the basic idea that voters choose their representatives.
Matt Shinners
Dan Schnur
Shawn Griffiths
Sherry Harrison
Irwin Nowick
Cara Brown McCormick
Chad Peace