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With COVID-19 vaccines going into the pipeline, it’s reasonable to be optimistic about our collective health scenario for 2021. Unfortunately, Pfizer doesn’t seem to have an antidote for the ills that plague the body politic. Pardon my pessimism, but partisanship feels pricklier than ever. The presidency notwithstanding, the preeminent political players have primarily preserved power. With that depressive thought in mind, here are 10 reasonably bipartisan political predictions that don’t bod

OPINION: While a party that reflects progressive values would warm my heart, now is not the time to add another source of partisan divisiveness in the form of a political party.

This is an independent opinion. Have one of your own? Email it to sandiego@ivn.us Bernie Sanders’ loss of the Democratic Party’s nomination for president prompted some voters to cry out, as they have in the past, for the creation of a new party. There is merit to this idea, given that repeated attempts to fashion the Democratic Party into a force for progressive change have failed. While a party that reflects progressive values would warm my heart, now is not the time to add another source of

US voters and reform practitioners had an opportunity over the weekend to wrap up 2020 celebrating the success of historic proposals for better elections and discuss future endeavors to give the American people a fairer, more empowering, and more accountable political process. Leaders in the nonpartisan reform space gathered together Friday and Saturday for the National Association of Nonpartisan Reformers’ virtual conference, “Winning Reforms: Wrap Up & Gear Up for 2021.” The event featured p

Before Social and Emotional Learning became widely recognized as a critical component of teen lives, Marisa Fogelman was well ahead of the curve. Fogelman spent two decades developing a curriculum that integrated SEL with California state standards for traditional subject matter, and put her holistic academic philosophy into practice as co-founder of the School of Universal Learning (SOUL), a charter school for students in grades 6-12. SOUL was perhaps the first school in San Diego County to

Momentum continues to build for broad systemic changes to how US citizens elect their public officials. Reforms like ranked choice voting and nonpartisan primaries are growing in popularity as voters look to solutions to make the political process fairer and voter-centric. With 2020 near its end, political reformers are looking toward the future, and what proposals are working and what proposals need more attention. One proposal that is getting more attention from some reformers is proportiona

This is an independent opinion. Have one of your own? Email it to hoa@ivn.us The year of 2020 has been one of the most challenging in recent memory. While our society was, and continues to be, devastated by COVID-19, our nation experienced a moment of reckoning regarding racial justice. In November, voters persevered to defeat one of the greatest threats to our democracy in electing Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to lead our nation. This victory was hard fought and is owed to the multitude of volu

It’s been a month since Election Day, and we still don’t know who won the 2020 election! While it’s looking more and more clear every day that Joe Biden will be inaugurated in January, Donald Trump has yet to concede. At least the president has confirmed that he will step aside if the Electoral College votes for Joe Biden. Looks like we dodged WWIII and Civil War II this year: ‍ ‍ Adding to the confusion, is the fact that a 73,700 vote swing Trump’s way in AZ, PA, and GA would have changed th

If $800 million wasn’t a sufficiently appetizing carrot to get his audience to buy more motels, Gov. Gavin Newsom could dangle a more spiritual enticement: less time burning in the afterlife. At the California State Association of Counties’ annual conference in mid-November, more than 200 county supervisors and other officials awaited answers via Zoom for how the governor was planning to ward off all manners of local government armageddon — pestilence, wildfires, budget deficits. When asked ab

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared on The Fulcrum and has been republished on IVN with permission from the publisher. ‍ Next year's redistricting landscape is, at best, a mixed bag for good-governance advocates. Although the mapmaking process has become fairer and less politicized in a handful of states over the past decade, partisan gerrymandering will still have a profound impact on representation across most of the country. Democrats had high hopes of taking back enough power