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After 26 years as a registered Democrat, Andrew Yang has announced he is breaking up with the party. Yang published a statement Monday that says he wants to be a catalyst for change and advancement in the US political system, but sees that he cannot do it from the inside. “There are phenomenal public servants doing great work every day – but our system is stuck,” he said.   Yang first garnered national attention when he ran for the Democratic nomination in the 2020 presidential election.

California is now the largest state to permanently adopt universal mail-in ballot distribution. Governor Gavin Newsom signed the measure into law Monday. While it goes a long way to increase voter participation in the Golden State, public officials are still not doing everything they can to give all voters a level playing field in elections. California, like many of the other states that expanded access to mail-in ballots as an emergency change in 2020, saw record turnout in November. The state

On September 6, 2021, Alan Braid, a seventy-six-year-old OBGYN in San Antonio, Texas, performed an abortion on a woman in her first trimester. A few years ago, this procedure would have attracted little attention. This time, however, Dr. Braid became a national headline. In an op-ed for the Washington Post, he wrote, “I acted because I had a duty of care to this patient, as I do for all patients, and because she has a fundamental right to receive this care.” What made Dr. Braid’s decision notew

It’s January 2021, there’s a new president in D.C., a new Senate majority and a Democratic majority crowing about how voting rights is their top priority, even making the For the People Act their first bill (H.R. 1 in the House and S. 1 in the Senate). Cut to nine months later. It’s now September 2021. President Biden has spent more time focusing on an Afghanistan withdrawal than on pressuring Congress to pass voting rights legislation. The For the People Act has been passed by the House of Re

Could ranked choice voting soon come to the nation’s most populous state? That is the goal of a new coalition that officially launched on Tuesday, September 21. The California RCV Coalition introduced itself to the public during a public Zoom event at a point when ranked choice voting (RCV) is having a moment. RCV is the fastest spreading voting reform in the country, and coalition members hope California will build on both the popularity and success of reform efforts. “There has been a lot of

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared on The Fulcrum, and has been republished on IVN with permission from the publisher. ‍ The Republican and Democratic parties have dominated politics for decades, with alternative parties occasionally sprouting up but rarely having a significant impact on elections. Political reformers will be closely watching the latest attempt to break that two-party system. Andrew Yang, who unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for president and then

On September 1, the United States Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, refused to prevent new, draconian Texas abortion legislation from taking effect. The Court’s tentative acceptance of that law, which among other provisions, only allowed a woman to seek an abortion before she likely knew she was pregnant, provoked outrage not only among pro-choice advocates, but also from many legal scholars deeply disturbed by the majority’s seeming abandonment of accepted jurisprudence. The proper course with

Maine has long been at the forefront of political innovation, from the way its ballots are designed, to its clean election funds program, to same-day voter registration and no-excuse absentee voting, to implementing ranked choice voting. Yet, it bolstered its reputation even more when it passed semi-open primary reform in 2021. Open Primaries, which partnered with Open Primaries Maine to move the needle on primary reform in the state, released a new report on the multi-year process that culmina

Toppling the Duopoly host Shawn Griffiths is joined by Tom Charron, who is representing a new group called the California RCV Coalition (Cal RCV). At a time when ranked choice voting is having a moment, the group is set to officially launch on September 21 during an online Zoom event that is open to the public. Charron explains why more California cities and the state as a whole need ranked choice voting for their elections and the benefits it would bring to bolstering representation across soci

It's easy to empathize with Republicans living in California. For a long time, the state has been dominated by the Democratic Party, and Democrats are quite willing to exercise their influence in self-serving ways. No doubt California Republicans feel as though they cannot get a fair shake or even be heard. Unfortunately, this frustration seems to have led some to desperation when it comes to the upcoming recall election for Governor Gavin Newsom. Most of us were taught that the "founding fathe