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13 tapped for prizes to boost local democracy reform campaigns

Reform winners

Representatives of democracy reform groups show off their Accelerator Awards given out late last week by Unite America and RepresentUs. The groups received a total of $250,000 in grants as part of the awards to promote their work on redistricting reform and expanding voting.

Courtesy of Unite America
Our Staff
By Our StaffDec 09, 2019
Our Staff
The Fulcrum staff.
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DENVER — Thirteen local good-government groups across the country have been awarded a combined $250,000 to advance their causes.

The money is going to the inaugural winners of the Accelerator Awards, chosen from 115 applications around the country. The prizes are the creation of Unite America in partnership with RepresentUs. The two are among the most prominent non-partisan groups advocating for fixes to the problems of dysfunctional democracy.

The money was awarded to both fledgling and established organizations to advance their work in three areas: ending partisan gerrymandering, giving voters more power in elections and getting more citizens involved in elections.

The winners were:

  • Change Illinois, which is working to establish an independent redistricting commission.
  • League of Women Voters of Nevada, which is pushing an independent redistricting commission ballot measure.
  • Unite America Wisconsin, which is focusing on ending gerrymandering by placing referenda on municipal ballots across the state.
  • Common Cause North Carolina, which is working to pass a bill to establish an independent redistricting commission.
  • Ranked Choice Tennessee, which is trying to establish ranked-choice voting in local and state elections, starting with attempting to place an initiative on Nashville 2020 ballot.
  • FairVote Minnesota, which is working to advance ranked-choice voting throughout the state, for efforts to get measures on the ballot in Bloomington, Minnetonka, Rochester and Red Wing.
  • RCV for Colorado, which is pushing ranked-choice voting throughout the state.
  • The Committee of Seventy, which is leading a coalition of groups pushing to open Pennsylvania's primaries to independent voters.
  • New Mexico Open Elections, which advocates for open primaries in the state.
  • Civic Nebraska, which is working to expand use of vote by mail in the state.
  • Common Cause Maryland, which is working to expand vote by mail in the state.
  • Bridge USA, which is working on 25 college campuses to develop future leaders for the democracy reform movement.
  • New Hampshire Ranked Choice Voting, a new effort focused on getting ranked-choice voting in the state.

The winners were announced here last week at the annual summit of the National Association of Nonpartisan Reformers. The prize money, awarded by a panel of five judges, ranges from from $10,000 to $25,000.

Disclosure: One of the judges was Betsy Wright Hawkings, whose husband, David, is The Fulcum's editor-in-chief.

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Your Take: The Price of Freedom

Your Take: The Price of Freedom

Our question about the price of freedom received a light response. We asked:

What price have you, your friends or your family paid for the freedom we enjoy? And what price would you willingly pay?

It was a question born out of the horror of images from Ukraine. We hope that the news about the Jan. 6 commission and Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Supreme Court nomination was so riveting that this question was overlooked. We considered another possibility that the images were so traumatic, that our readers didn’t want to consider the question for themselves. We saw the price Ukrainians paid.

One response came from a veteran who noted that being willing to pay the ultimate price for one’s country and surviving was a gift that was repaid over and over throughout his life. “I know exactly what it is like to accept that you are a dead man,” he said. What most closely mirrored my own experience was a respondent who noted her lack of payment in blood, sweat or tears, yet chose to volunteer in helping others exercise their freedom.

Personally, my price includes service to our nation, too. The price I paid was the loss of my former life, which included a husband, a home and a seemingly secure job to enter the political fray with a message of partisan healing and hope for the future. This work isn’t risking my life, but it’s the price I’ve paid.

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Given the earnest question we asked, and the meager responses, I am also left wondering if we think at all about the price of freedom? Or have we all become so entitled to our freedom that we fail to defend freedom for others? Or was the question poorly timed?

I read another respondent’s words as an indicator of his pacifism. And another veteran who simply stated his years of service. And that was it. Four responses to a question that lives in my heart every day. We look forward to hearing Your Take on other topics. Feel free to share questions to which you’d like to respond.

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