As we turn the final pages on a tumultuous 2021, all this week The Fulcrum will share a year-end series of guest commentaries from a distinguished group of columnists on the current state of electoral reform and what we may expect in the upcoming year.
Moore is executive director of the National Association of Nonpartisan Reformers.
Americans are tired. Yes, we’re tired of the pandemic, but I’m talking about something deeper, structural and core to our nation’s identity. Our collective malaise is rooted in the frustration and dissatisfaction that borders on despair we feel when we hear the words like “politics,” “government” or “vote.” We are tired because we feel like things are getting worse, our elected officials don’t care, and we are powerless to fix the situation.
Politics, it seems, has an acute sense of irony. Despite the many issues that divide us, it is this profound sense of demoralization on which voters of all parties agree. Regardless of income, education, race, gender, geographic location or party affiliation, an increasing number of voters look upon the American democracy with disappointment. This is not the republic we ordered.
The good news is: Change is coming.
A renewed sense of civic duty, purpose and honest-to-goodness excitement percolates in communities throughout the country. In every state of the union, from the harbors of Maine to the Missourian plains and from sunny California to the Alaskan frontier, American voters (even the tired ones) have declared an end to the business-as-usual, politicians-and-lobbyists-first style of government. In living rooms and Zoom meetings across the country, people are convening around shared goals, making connections with like-minded friends and neighbors, and catalyzing those relationships and their pooled resources into making structural reforms that benefit our democracy as a whole.
Four years ago, the National Association of Nonpartisan Reformers was born at one such convening. Leaders from several of the most prominent organizations focused on democracy reform gathered together in good faith with a shared vision and recognition of what was happening throughout the country. We believe that a more fair and competitive election system will not only strengthen our democracy but will also improve the responsiveness and credibility of the two major parties. We favor a robust competition of numerous political parties and independents and a level playing field on which that can occur.
Today our association has nearly 50 members, including organizations that are leading the way for pro-voter structural reforms like open primaries, ranked-choice voting, approval voting, anti-corruption measures, independent redistricting, and measures to close the loopholes and get money out of politics. We strive to convene the thought-leaders of the democracy reform movement, connect our members to one another and the resources they need to do their work more effectively and efficiently, and enable our members to catalyze their effort into positive, meaningful change for their communities.
As we move into 2022, we are launching new initiatives to promote these goals among our members. “Reformers Unite!” is a monthly education and networking series to help connect organizations and campaigns on common issues and in geographic regions. “Reformers Lead” is a masterclass series designed for executives and organizational leaders interested in honing their leadership skills. We are also refreshing our dues structure to ensure more organizations can join and benefit from membership in our association.
Why this is important: America can’t afford to be on autopilot; it demands our attention and our focus. The democracy of the United States has been a model for the rest of the world because of the diligent men and women who have shepherded it through history with grace, grit and persistence. I encourage you to become a member of NANR and join the family of democracy reformers your grandchildren will read about in their history books.
A view of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on June 25, 2026. President Donald Trump jolted Republicans during a fiery appearance at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, scrapping a housing bill signing ceremony and clashing behind closed doors with a party rebel who challenged him over the Iran war. Trump had been expected to sign the bipartisan housing.
Only Trump doesn’t care about housing
It was August 15, 2024. Then candidate Donald Trump stepped out of his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club’s columned clubhouse to a gaggle of reporters. He was flanked by tables of groceries and signs showing the rising cost of food. Also on one of the tables was a dollhouse, meant to represent the equally alarming rise in housing prices.
It was a speech about the economy, the single most important issue of the 2024 election cycle, full of promises that went right to the heart of Americans’ anxieties. While former President Joe Biden and then Vice President Kamala Harris were contorting themselves to posture a good economy that just needed more time to recover from the pandemic, Trump was preying on voters’ very real fears of unaffordable gas, groceries, and homes. It was obviously a winning message.
In that speech, Trump promised, “We’re going to open up tracts of federal land for housing construction. We desperately need housing for people who can’t afford what’s going on now.”
As of mid-2023, there had been a housing shortage of nearly four million homes, according to the National Association of Realtors. Americans all over the country were either priced out of buying new homes due to low inventory, trapped in their existing homes by sky-high mortgage rates, or facing exorbitant rent hikes thanks to corporate investors buying up rental properties. Americans needed help, and Trump promised it.
Cut to March of 2026, when Trump reportedly told House Speaker Mike Johnson, “No one gives a sh*t about housing.”
That kind of thinking may explain why Trump this week suddenly announced he was canceling a signing ceremony for the bipartisan “21st Century ROAD to Housing Act,” a housing bill co-sponsored by Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Tim Scott that passed the House 358-32 and was approved in the Senate on Monday.
Trump instead demanded Congress pass the SAVE America Act, his controversial election grievance bill that doesn’t have enough Republican support to get passed in the Senate.
It’s just the latest in a line of policy self-owns where Trump has seemingly intentionally made life more difficult for Republicans hoping to keep their majority. Despite midterm elections occurring in the midst of a blistering economy and an unpopular war, they were surely hoping the housing bill would give them something — anything — to brag about when they returned home to their districts.
And very much to the contrary, Americans do give a sh*t about housing. According to a recent survey by the Bipartisan Policy Center, a whopping 79% say the cost of housing is extremely or very important to them. Eighty-three percent say Congress should take action on the issue — like it just did. Eighty-nine percent say the House and Senate need to work together to pass affordable housing legislation — like they just did. And 63% say they would be more likely to vote for a lawmaker if they helped pass legislation to build more affordable homes and lower housing costs — like they just did.
There aren’t many issues that unite Americans like housing does, and very few bipartisan policy wins Congress can point to, and yet, Trump is holding that bill hostage in order to get his pet project — which doesn’t even have the support of his own party — pushed through.
If you’re trying to make sense of something so nonsensical, as I’m sure many Republican lawmakers are, it’s certainly sad but not actually all that complicated. Trump said what he needed to get reelected and then promptly abandoned his promises in order to pursue his own self-interests, even if those interests are bad for Republicans and bad for voters.
That’s just the kind of guy he is.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.