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Alaska's Constitutional Convention spending spree & the first step in dumping Trump

Welcome to The Fulcrum’s daily weekday e-newsletter where insiders and outsiders to politics are informed, meet, talk, and act to repair our democracy and make it live and work in our everyday lives.


Part I: Alaska's Constitutional Convention spending spree

This is the first part in an exclusive weekly series of articles in The Fulcrum by J.H. Snider on Alaska’s 2022 periodic constitutional convention referendum divided into four parts. Part I describes the spending spree over the referendum. Part II will propose a deterrence theory to explain the extraordinary amount the no side spent. Part III describes the failure of the referendum’s marketplace for campaign finance disclosures. Part IV will provide recommended reforms to fix this broken marketplace.

In 2022, Alaska’s periodic constitutional convention referendum had blowout campaign expenditures compared to all other referendums on the ballot across all fifty U.S. states. Surprisingly, a large fraction of that spending can best be explained not as a means to defeat a specific referendum, which was handily done by a 40% margin, but to preserve convention opponents’ reputation for political invincibility, thus enabling the defeat of future convention referendums in Alaska and other states without bearing the costs of a fight.

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The first step in dumping Trump

Former President Trump has been called many things from a would be tyrant to an alleged sexual predator. In the aftermath of the 2022 elections, a new moniker may sound his death knell– a loser. He lost in 2020, as did his party. With inflation running high in a midterm election, he led his party to vastly underperform. Many Republicans are now advocating ditching him but no plan has emerged as to how to do so given Trump has a loyal base in the party.

The first step Republicans should take to distance themselves from Trump is to back the Protecting Our Democracy Act, which outlines roughly a dozen ideas to reduce the ability of future presidents to weaken democratic institutions through the abuse of power. Doing so would provide cover to Republican politicians still hesitant to publicly repudiate Trump because the act supports executive reform that would apply to all future presidents, irrespective of party.

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Podcast: McCarthy’s headaches & what rebels want

There have not been multiple ballots in a speaker election in 100 years, as Kyle Kondik wrote for the Crystal Ball earlier this week. On Thursday, January 5, Representative Kevin McCarthy of California offered new concessions to a group of conservative Republicans that have prevented him from winning the majority of votes needed to secure Speaker of the House. Mr. McCarthy has not yet been able to lock in the 218 votes he needs to win the Speakership. In the seventh, eighth, and ninth rounds of voting, held on Thursday, 20 Republicans voted for other candidates, and one voted “present.”

Listen.

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Defining the Democracy Movement: Karissa Raskin
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Defining the Democracy Movement: Karissa Raskin

The Fulcrum presents The Path Forward: Defining the Democracy Reform Movement. Scott Warren's interview series engages diverse thought leaders to elevate the conversation about building a thriving and healthy democratic republic that fulfills its potential as a national social and political game-changer. This initiative is the start of focused collaborations and dialogue led by The Bridge Alliance and The Fulcrum teams to help the movement find a path forward.

Karissa Raskin is the new CEO of the Listen First Project, a coalition of over 500 nationwide organizations dedicated to bridging differences. The coalition aims to increase social cohesion across American society and serves as a way for bridging organizations to compare notes, share resources, and collaborate broadly. Karissa, who is based in Jacksonville, served as the Director of Coalition Engagement for a number of years before assuming the CEO role this February.

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“Draining” refers to sapping interest in these extreme possibilities of authoritarianism and censorship. In practical terms, it comes from reducing an overblown sense of threat of fellow Americans across the political spectrum. When there is less to fear about each other, there is less desire for authoritarianism or censorship.

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“Too many Americans have no real say in their democracy,” said Unite America Executive Director Nick Troiano. “Every voter deserves a ballot that not only counts, but that truly matters. We should demand better than ‘elections in name only.’”

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