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Stopping the Descent Toward Banana Republic Elections
Apr 18, 2025
President Trump’s election-related executive order begins by pointing out practices in Canada, Sweden, Brazil, and elsewhere that outperform the U.S. But it is Trump’s order itself that really demonstrates how far we’ve fallen behind. In none of the countries mentioned, or any other major democracy in the world, would the head of government change election rules by decree, as Trump has tried to do.
Trump is the leader of a political party that will fight for control of Congress in 2026, an election sure to be close, and important to his presidency. The leader of one side in such a competition has no business unilaterally changing its rules—that’s why executive decrees changing elections only happen in tinpot dictatorships, not democracies.
The Constitution is very clear: the states and Congress determine the time, place, and manner of elections, not the president. Trump’s decree will almost certainly be overruled in court. If not, America is in deep trouble.
Last week, Republicans in the House voted unanimously to pass the SAVE Act, which contains key elements of Trump’s order. The Act requires documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote, meaning significant hassles for citizens who lack passports and birth certificates. The goal is to prevent voting by noncitizens even though manystudies have found it’s vanishingly rare.
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The full impact is hard to assess but certainly some citizens—of both parties—will lose their ability to vote. In other words, Republicans have chosen fealty to their leader’s false narrative over the rights of their own voters.
The Senate will likely stop the SAVE Act, just as the Supreme Court will likely overturn Trump’s decree. But it won’t be so easy to contain the downstream impact of what’s going on in Washington on state elections and the people who run them.
The oversight and management of state elections are in the hands of secretaries of state, county clerks, and state and county election board members. In nearly every state, these people are deeply connected to—and exposed to pressure from—one competing party or another.
America has long been able to trust that these individuals will abide by the norm of country over party and act with neutrality, even when laws don’t explicitly require they do so. But they now face major political pressure—and political incentives—to put their party first, not their country.
We’ve already seen the downstream impacts on this vulnerable election system of dangerous ideas at the national level. Following Trump’s assertion that the 2020 election was stolen, local officials in eight states baselessly refused to certify election results. Counties imposed deeply flawed ideas like hand-counting all ballots.
The secretary of state position, now a magnet for the politically ambitious, is most deeply vulnerable to the new distortions arising in our politicized election world. In 2022, thirty candidates ran for secretary of state while refusing to accept lawful presidential results. In 2023, eight secretaries of state took their states out of ERIC, the interstate data-sharing system critical to election integrity, just to win points with partisans and conspiracy theorists.
On both sides of the aisle, some secretaries of state have completely abandoned the neutrality their job requires. Ohio Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose probably changed the result of an anti-gerrymandering ballot initiative by imposing deeply deceptive ballot language. Colorado Democratic Secretary of State Jena Griswold acted with such overt partisanship during the presidential campaign that an impeachment resolution was filed against her.
Next year, elections will take place for secretary of state in 26 states. We shouldn’t be surprised if Republican candidates insist that elections can’t be legitimate without documentary proof of citizenship for registration, deeply undermining trust in the laws of their own states.
We need a huge neutrality campaign to ensure that secretaries of state and others in charge of elections act with strict public neutrality toward all candidates and referenda they oversee and with strict obedience to the rule of law. For the time being, this campaign will need to rely on voluntary commitments—but with enough persistence, maybe the question of “Are you committed to neutrality?” could factor into press coverage of secretary of state campaigns.
Next, we should move beyond voluntary commitments to enact state laws that explicitly require neutrality and enact state constitutional amendments that restructure key positions like chief election officer, election board member, and canvass board member to be less exposed to political pressure. Bipartisan public support is there to make this happen: voters on both sides strongly support impartiality from the people who run elections.
The bottom line is clear: we don’t need banana republic diktats from President Trump or banana republic loyalty from state election officials. But we do need a recommitment across the election ecosystem that puts our country before a party.
Kevin Johnson is the executive director of the Election Reformers Network, a national nonpartisan organization advancing common-sense reforms to protect elections from polarization.
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Congress Bill Spotlight: Donald J. Trump $250 Bill Act
Apr 18, 2025
The Fulcrum introduces Congress Bill Spotlight, a weekly report by Jesse Rifkin, focusing on the noteworthy legislation of the thousands introduced in Congress. Rifkin has written about Congress for years, and now he's dissecting the most interesting bills you need to know about but that often don't get the right news coverage.
Trump reportedly tips his Mar-a-Lago groundskeepers with $100 bills. What if his own face appeared on them?
What The Bills Do
Two different proposals in the House would put Trump’s face on money.
The Donald J. Trump $250 Bill Act would create a new $250 bill, tied to the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence signing in 2026. It was introduced on February 27 by Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC2).
The Golden Age Act would replace Benjamin Franklin with Trump on the $100 bill starting in 2029. (All existing $100 bills depicting Franklin would still be legal but the government just wouldn’t print any more.) It was introduced on March 3 by Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX26).
Neither legislation appears to have a Senate companion introduced yet.
Context
Seven prominent Americans are depicted on the main U.S. bills: George Washington on the $1, Thomas Jefferson on the $2, Abraham Lincoln on the $5, Alexander Hamilton on the $10, Andrew Jackson on the $20, Ulysses S. Grant on the $50, and Benjamin Franklin on the $100.
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The last personnel change to one of those bills was in 1928 when Jackson replaced Grover Cleveland on the $20.
Since then, Congress has named or renamed various things after living ex-presidents, like renaming the D.C. area’s Washington National Airport as the Ronald Reagan Airport in 1998 or renaming the EPA’s headquarters as the Bill Clinton Federal Building in 2013. But none of those were renamed after incumbent presidents.
In this digital age of credit cards, plus apps and websites like Venmo, PayPal, and CashApp, cash transactions represent a sharply declining share of monetary transactions: plunging from 31% of payments in 2016 to 18% in 2022.
What Supporters Say
Supporters argue that Trump deserves his spot alongside the seven prominent Americans, five of them former presidents, currently appearing on paper money.
“President Trump is working tirelessly to fight inflation and help American families. This achievement is deserving of currency recognition, which is why I am grateful to introduce this legislation,” Rep. Wilson said in a press release. “The most valuable bill for the most valuable president!”
“President Trump… took a bullet for this country and is now working overtime to secure our border, fix our uneven trade relationship with the rest of the world, make America energy independent again, and put America first by ending useless foreign aid,” Rep. Gill said in a press release. “Featuring him on the $100 bill is a small way to honor all he will accomplish these next four years.”
What Opponents Say
Obviously, Democrats oppose putting Trump’s face on money at all. But other opponents counter with alternative points.
For example, some say the U.S. should eliminate the $100 bill entirely. “Let’s abolish the $100 bill,” Timothy Noah wrote in the New Republic. “Benjamins are the favorite currency of criminals and almost no one else—and there’s no good reason to go on printing them.”
“Since 1980, the proportion of $100 bills that reside outside the U.S. has risen from 30% to nearly 80%,” Noah added. “The overwhelming majority of those who possess these bills are criminals of one kind or another who want to stash their money overseas.”
(Presumably, the same argument could be used against creating a $250 bill too.)
Another argument: an 1866 law prevents people from appearing on U.S. money while they’re still alive. Congress passed the law after Spencer Clark, superintendent of the National Currency Bureau, put his own face on the five-cent note.
The $250 legislation would also repeal that 1866 law, though the $100 legislation would not.
Odds of Passage
The $250 legislation has attracted three Republican cosponsors. It awaits a potential vote in the House Financial Services Committee, controlled by Republicans.
The $100 legislation has also attracted three Republican cosponsors—though, interestingly, completely distinct from the three who cosponsored the $250 legislation. It also awaits a potential vote in the House Financial Services Committee.
Perhaps a more likely outcome: the Treasury Department may just unilaterally make such a decision, rather than Congress.
In 2016, President Obama’s Treasury Secretary Jack Lew announced Harriet Tubman would replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill. Due to a combination of slow-walking and bureaucratic delays by the Trump administration in the production design process, though, the Tubman bill isn’t expected to debut until around 2030.
Jesse Rifkin is a freelance journalist with the Fulcrum. Don’t miss his weekly report, Congress Bill Spotlight, every Friday on the Fulcrum. Rifkin’s writings about politics and Congress have been published in the Washington Post, Politico, Roll Call, Los Angeles Times, CNN Opinion, GovTrack, and USA Today.
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Introducing The Expand Democracy 5
Apr 18, 2025
In March, Rob Richie and Eveline Dowling launched a new Expand Democracy publication: The Expand Democracy 5. Each week they lift up five stories connected to their core belief: if democracy is not expanding, it is shrinking. They’re on the lookout for informative articles and timely news associated with a pro-democracy proposal that they believe warrants greater public awareness, often with links allowing readers to go deeper and connect with those advancing the idea.
In keeping with The Fulcrum’s mission to share ideas that help to repair our democracy and make it live and work in our everyday lives, we intend to publish The Expand Democracy 5 in The Fulcrum each Friday, beginning today.
If you want to suggest a pro-democracy idea for coverage in The Expand Democracy 5, please use the contact form at Expand Democracy.
Turnout in Off-Cycle Elections: News from Florida, Wisconsin, and West Virginia
Recent nationally prominent elections in Florida and Wisconsin, along with legislative developments in West Virginia, offer valuable insights into strategies that can enhance voter turnout during off-cycle elections.
Florida's Special Elections: In April 2025, Florida conducted special elections for two congressional seats. Despite the Republican Party retaining both seats, Democratic candidates Gay Valimont and Josh Weil significantly narrowed the margins by collectively raising over $16 million, compared to the Republicans' combined $3.1 million. This financial advantage enabled Democrats to mount robust campaigns, contributing to unexpectedly competitive races in traditionally Republican strongholds. Voter turnout was relatively high - indeed higher in one race than any of the 12 special elections for the House in 2022-2024, as reported in an important CNN story on”off-cycle” turnout.
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Wisconsin Supreme Court Election: On April 1, 2025, Wisconsin held a Supreme Court election that garnered national attention. Liberal candidate Susan Crawford defeated conservative Brad Schimel, maintaining the court's 4–3 liberal majority. The election saw unprecedented spending, totaling nearly $100 million, making it the most expensive judicial race in U.S. history. Voter turnout was exceptionally high for a spring election, with nearly 70% of the participation level seen in the November presidential election. This surge in turnout, particularly in Democratic strongholds like Milwaukee, where some polling stations ran out of ballots, highlights the impact of voter mobilization efforts and the electorate's responsiveness to high-stakes judicial contests.
It is important to clarify that Wisconsin did not hold a special election; instead, it was off-cycle. High turnout in such an election can be misleading, as more normal is the low voter turnout this month in mayoral elections in Oakland and St. Louis. What might be effective strategies to increase turnout in elections not held in November of even-numbered years?
West Virginia's Election Consolidation Effort: In a move to enhance turnout and reduce costs, the West Virginia Senate unanimously approved legislation: requiring municipalities to hold their elections concurrently with statewide elections by 2032. Proponents argue that this alignment will increase voter awareness and turnout, as citizens are more likely to participate when multiple significant races are on the ballot. However, some local officials express concerns that municipal issues may be overshadowed by state-level contests, potentially diminishing the focus on local governance.
Sightline Institute has been a leading advocate for aligning local elections with state and federal contests - a reform known as election consolidation. Their research underscores that this shift can significantly boost voter turnout, often doubling participation rates in local elections. For instance, in Washington state, Sightline found that even-year elections attracted 62% more voters compared to odd-year elections, translating to an additional 1.2 million ballots cast statewide. In the context of West Virginia's recent legislative move to require municipalities to hold elections on the same day as statewide elections by 2032, Sightline's findings suggest that such consolidation could enhance democratic engagement and ensure that local governance more accurately represents the electorate's will.
These developments underscore the importance of election timing and structure in influencing voter engagement. As states and municipalities consider reforms to boost participation, the experiences of Florida, Wisconsin, and West Virginia offer valuable insights into the challenges and opportunities of fostering a more inclusive democratic process.
Resources:
- The Bipartisan Policy Center examines the potential impact of election consolidation in South Carolina on turnout and demands on election officials.
- As reported in last week’s Expand Democracy 5, voting by mail can lead to higher turnout in off-cycle elections.
Surging Use of Ranked Choice Voting on Campus - and What It Says About the Future of Democracy 🎬
Ranked choice voting (RCV) continues its steady march across American campuses, with over 100 colleges and universities now using RCV to elect student leaders - representing nearly every state in the country. Elections just this week included wins by Andrew Boanoh at Yale, Ethan Lynne at George Washington, Jack Steffen at Emory’s Oxford College, and Abigail Verino at UC-Berkeley (with nearly 10,000 votes cast) and current elections at New Jersey Institute for Technology.
This surge isn't just a procedural change, it reflects a generational demand for more voice and more choice. Research consistently shows that young Americans are both more open to electoral reforms like ranked choice voting (RCV) and open primaries and more likely to support systems that reward collaboration over conflict. On campuses, students are embracing RCV as a way to avoid “vote splitting” and ensure winners have broad support - values that mirror growing national support for reforms like RCV in local and state elections.
Diagnosing Gerrymandering: Binghamton Researchers Propose Value-Based Approach to Fair Elections
In a recent study, Binghamton University political scientists Daniel Magleby and Michael McDonald liken gerrymandered electoral maps to a form of illness, suggesting that understanding the specific "symptoms" of a distorted map requires identifying the democratic values it violates.
Their study, published in the Election Law Journal, evaluates five analytical methods across 37 states' congressional maps post-2020 Census, revealing consistent partisan gerrymandering in four states, no evidence in 12, and mixed results in the remaining 21. The authors argue that effective diagnostics must be grounded in clear principles, specifically: ensuring minority voices are heard and that majority rule is upheld. They caution that redistricting commissions, while often seen as solutions, can still produce gerrymanders if not guided by these core values.
This research underscores the importance of value-driven frameworks in creating fair electoral maps, emphasizing that without clear standards, efforts to combat gerrymandering may fall short.
Resources:
- Groups playing important roles in raising awareness about redistricting reform and seeking reform include Common Cause, the League of Women Voters, and the Campaign Legal Center.
- FairVote and its allies lift up The Fair Representation Act as a sweeping remedy
States Drive Electoral College Reform💡
For many Americans, the current rules of the Electoral College represent the biggest eyesore in American democracy: candidates focus all their energy on seven swing states, presidential governance favors those states, and candidates can lose even after securing a majority of votes. Over the past two decades, 18 states (counting DC) have passed the National Popular Vote plan that, once adopted by states representing a majority of Electoral College votes, would guarantee the White House to the candidate who wins the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC. Maine is the most recent state to adopt it, with public opinion and good policy on their side. States with legislation seeking to adopt the National Popular Vote plan this year include Arizona, Florida, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Texas.
Maine and Nebraska are the only two states that don’t always award all of their electoral votes to one candidate, as they allocate some votes based on congressional district results. Nebraska’s governor has aggressively sought to repeal the district system in the wake of Democrats starting to win in the Omaha area, but his effort once again failed in Nebraska’s unicameral legislature. One factor may be that a Maine legislator introduced a bill designed to have Maine also move to statewide winner-take-all if Nebraska were to act -- with results in recent years conveniently providing partisan balance because Donald Trump has been winning Maine’s northern congressional district electoral vote even while losing the state.
In the long run, it is critical to discuss tactics for securing a national popular vote in tandem with a fully safeguarded right to vote and majority rule via a runoff or instant runoff system. Keep an eye out for more updates from Expand Democracy.
Resources:
- Advocates of National Popular Vote in Maine include League of Women Voters of Maine, with support from National Popular Vote and national groups like Represent.Us providing testimony this year in its defense.
- Rob Richie, in 2015, coauthored the Fuzzy Math report critiquing the congressional district allocation system as a national reform approach. He also is a coauthor ofEvery Vote Equal (2024 edition).
Timely Links
We will close The Expand Democracy 5 with notable links, including followups to recent topics.
- College Park expands voting rights: Following last week’s 5, the home of the University of Maryland has become the 9th Maryland city to expand voting rights in city elections to otherwise eligible voters who are 16 and 17.
- Only one in seven Americans casting meaningful votes: The Unite America Institute this week released important new research on the dominance of small primary electorates in our winner-take-all elections: Just 14% of eligible American voters cast a meaningful vote to elect the entire U.S. House and 13% of voters cast a meaningful vote to elect members of their state house of representatives.
- Trump’s Assault on Constitutional Norms: In the wake of last week’s 5, there is no shortage of relevant news about the Trump administration’s challenge to our constitutional norms Adam Serwer in the Atlantic suggests Trump’s defiance of the Supreme Court involving deportation without due process represents a constitutional crisis, as also addressed by Ruth Marcus in the New Yorker. Trump is also challenging academic freedom through freezing long-term federal research grants and threatening the nonprofit tax status of Harvard University.
- Our Politics Really Can Work – These Stories Show How: FairVote’s Meredith Sumpter and Sightline’s Alan Durning write for The Fulcrum on the impact so far on governance of forms of ranked choice voting in Alaska and cities.
- Rolling Stone overview on federal and state challenges to voter access: Rolling Stone provides a comprehensive review of executive orders and legislation that threaten to weaken voting rights.
- Unlock Democracy has its 10 Year Anniversary: Rob was one of the sources for Michael Golden for his book making the case for structural electoral reforms, including the Fair Representation Act in Congress.
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Defining the Democracy Movement: Karissa Raskin
Apr 17, 2025
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.
I wanted to talk to Karissa as I feel that the bridging community within the democracy community has, perhaps paradoxically, become one of the more polarizing aspects of the field. Proponents of bridging make the case that American society is fundamentally polarized, and true change cannot happen without transforming political culture and building a vibrant, pluralistic society that can productively engage with and disagree with each other.
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But bridging has its fair share of detractors. Some argue that bridging work is fundamentally unscalable and caters to those already predisposed to engage in it rather than reaching those who are most polarized. Others argue that attempting to bridge with anti-democratic actors is not a useful tactic in the wake of the election, and so they are deprioritizing bridging within the broader democracy ecosystem.
I found Karissa to be deeply thoughtful about the moment for bridging, recognizing these critiques, but seeing the obligation to continue the work, albeit recognizing its need to transform in the moment. Her perspectives are critical to wrestle with for those who are advocates for and critics of the bridging movement.
Her main reflections included:
- Bridging work is long-term and foundational and needs to remain so: In the current political environment, there seems to be a level of urgency around everything in the pro-democracy field. Because bridging work is cultural, it is necessarily long-term. Karissa understands that some individuals will be engaged in short-term defensive work, which is important, but also feels the need for bridgers to stay long-term in their strategy and actions, as uncomfortable as that might be:
She notes, “I and my colleagues have to be really mindful (that) the role that we play is long term. We do not want to be absent minded in any way or feel like we're just completely closed off to what's happening, but also recognize that.. a truly pluralist, healthy pro-democracy future of social cohesion can only exist if we have created the space for all voices to be able to have representation."
So I think one of the biggest threats and challenges right now is...being swept away by the immediacy of the chaos, real or perceived, that has come into the pro-democracy space.”
- The bridging space needs to actually be bi-partisan: Often times when entering a bridging space, you’ll find a lot of left-leaning organizations talking about the importance of pluralism without necessarily engaging with conservatives. This challenge has become amplified in a post-election environment, in which many on the left feel that the Trump Administration, and Republicans in power writ large, pose an existential threat to democracy.
Karissa recognizes this reality, and pushed on her field. The organizations in her coalition, to speak truth to power in terms of their own work, even if it involves getting uncomfortable, saying:
“What do I think that bridging movement leaders need to be doing in order to ensure that we are reaching Republicans and Conservatives? My guidance would be swallowing a pill of humility and really own the fact that there are a large population of people who do not see what's happening right now in the way that more left leaning pro-democracy leaders do. We have to be able to check our own bias at the door.”
Karissa also warned that, “If we are not careful, may become even further left leaning as a result of where we're at right now.”
- Curiosity is Foundational: One of the challenges that I see in engaging in the pro-democracy field is a moralistic need to judge certain people, or candidates, as anti-democratic. Karissa pushed on the importance of engaging with curiosity. This may be quite challenging at the moment. Some may argue against being curious about why people hold views they see as antithetical to a democratic society. Still, Karissa would argue that leading with curiosity is more effective than leading with judgment.
To Karissa, this means not wading into the policy issues of the day, as tempting as that might be. To that end, bridge-building work can be seen as a vital foundational component of democracy, but it does not pretend to be a silver bullet solution in any way.
As she notes, “We aren't leaning in with curiosity. We aren't seeking to understand. There is a really important need to make sure that we are listening to and hearing from people who are happy with what's happening right now and truly get an understanding of why. I think you know one of the things that sometimes comes up that gives me pause is in pro democracy spaces-it's bridging to a point. But I really think that we need as bridge builders to be open to those conversations with everybody across the board.”
I appreciated Karissa’s honesty and real feedback on the bridging space. I think it’s necessary for all those advocating for pluralism and the entire field.
Scott Warren is a fellow at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University. He is co-leading a trans-partisan effort to protect the basic parameters, rules, and institutions of the American republic. He is the co-founder of Generation Citizen, a national civics education organization.
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