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The COVID-19 pandemic has had a dramatic and devastating impact on American society and the economy. All 50 states and the president have declared a state of emergency, and over 100 million Americans now live under stay-at-home orders. Meanwhile, Republican and Democratic lawmakers in Congress continue to squabble over a relief bill that the US desperately needs. Both sides failed to strike a deal on a multi-trillion-dollar stimulus plan over the weekend and on Monday, which prompted two parti

Illinois should host the first presidential primaries if the goal is to pick a state that most closely matches the demographics of the country. And Vermont, the home state of Democratic front-runner Bernie Sanders, should have minimal influence over the process because its makeup is least similar to the entire United States — meaning the results from that state would be hardly at all predictive of the nation's views. Those are among the conclusions out Thursday from the personal financial ser

Seven score and sixteen years ago, President Abraham Lincoln delivered one of the most memorable speeches in all of human history in his Gettysburg Address, though he wrongly presumed the world would not “long remember what we say here.” His triumph was to clarify just what was at stake in such a devastating internal war that killed around 750,000 Americans. “We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and

A Roadmap to A Better Democracy By: Wes Messamore Reform activists from around the country gathered in the Country Music Capital of the World –– Nashville, Tennessee –– over the last weekend in March to celebrate an absolute tidal wave of policy victories in 2018; listen to inspirational speeches; share and learn the nuts and bolts of policy reform; and even to air fierce differences of opinion over the best way to reform elections in America and over other areas of public policy. How they buz

I’ve got some good news and some bad news. And once we put it all together, it’ll be news you can use — an easy way to join the Second American Revolution, now in progress. First, the bad news: You are being violated by your own government. Hustled and conned. We all are. Our voices and our votes. Our tax dollars, too. On a piece of parchment that birthed this country, our founders emphasized that lawmakers would derive “their just Powers from the consent of the governed.” That’s us. But those

There are hundreds, literally hundreds of organizations and individual campaigns working right now to fix the myriad of problems that face our political and electoral processes -- from the local to the national levels. The organizations tackle voter rights, primary election reform, ballot access, gerrymandering reform, campaign finance reform, alternative voting methods, electing candidates outside the two major parties, and more. The following are 10 of the biggest organizations working to ref

Perhaps it is not surprising that Friday’s vote on HR1, the omnibus election reform bill, broke strictly along partisan lines...

As the new year begins, state legislatures around the country are convening to tackle the issues of the day. After seeing pro-democracy measures surge on the ballot in the 2018 midterms, it’s no surprise that efforts to address our broken elections continue to dominate discussion among the public and in the halls of power. Coming off of its historic first statewide implementation in Maine, ranked choice voting (RCV) has been a key part of this conversation in state legislatures from Massachuset

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWUXpMO3-88 Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the USC Schwarzenegger Institute convened the Terminate Gerrymandering Summit on January 10 at the University of Southern California. The Summit brought together campaigns, academics, activists, and redistricting commissioners to celebrate the victories of the 2018 midterms. The first panel from the Terminate Gerrymandering Summit and Fair Maps Incubator Launch featured Arnold Schwarzenegger and le

Abuse of power stopped by citizens, that’s a good sign of the health of our democracy, and it happened in New Jersey this past weekend when state legislative leaders were forced off a plan to permanently gerrymander Democratic control. It’s an even better sign that the citizen groups doing the stopping were on the side that would have benefited politically from the power grab. The same thing happened in Utah this past election day, when the mostly Republican electorate approved an initiative or