Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

GOP plans to compete on ballot-harvesting in California

Republicans continue to suspect they lost several close House races in California last fall because a new state law permits campaigns to collect mail ballots directly from voters, suggesting the system is ripe for fraudulent abuse. But now the GOP is quietly working on plans to improve their own ballot-harvesting operations in the nation's most populous state, hoping that helps grow their portion of delegation in 2020 from only seven of the 53 seats.

"We got our clocks cleaned," Minnesota's Tom Emmer, the new chairman of the House GOP campaign operation told GOP donors in a private conference call last month, according to a recording obtained by The Washington Post. "While the Democrats had an operation on the ground that was actually doing the ballot-harvesting, we did not have a corresponding organization that was doing that," Emmer said, promising: "That won't happen again."


That GOP vow to fight back is complicated by a significant public relations problem – the exposure of an illegal 2018 ballot-harvesting scheme on behalf of a Republican candidate that has prompted North Carolina to keep one House seat vacant until a special election this fall.

The suspicions about what happened in California centers on the potential for nefarious behavior when ballots completed and sealed in envelopes by voters are then put in the hands of partisan operatives with the promise of a safe delivery to election centers. The alleged ballot tampering in North Carolina includes filling out, or forging, ballots without the voters' knowledge or consent.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

Read More

The Evolving Social Contract: From Common Good to Contemporary Practice

An illustration of hands putting together a puzzle.

Getty Images, cienpies

The Evolving Social Contract: From Common Good to Contemporary Practice

The concept of the common good in American society has undergone a remarkable transformation since the nation's founding. What began as a clear, if contested, vision of collective welfare has splintered into something far more complex and individualistic. This shift reflects changing times and a fundamental reimagining of what we owe each other as citizens and human beings.

The nation’s progenitors wrestled with this very question. They drew heavily from Enlightenment thinkers like John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who saw the social contract as a sacred covenant between citizens and their government. But they also pulled from deeper wells—the Puritan concept of the covenant community, the classical Republican tradition of civic virtue, and the Christian ideal of serving one's neighbor. These threads wove into something uniquely American: a vision of the common good that balances individual liberty with collective responsibility.

Keep ReadingShow less
We’ve Collectively Created the Federal Education Collapse

Students in a classroom.

Getty Images, Maskot

We’ve Collectively Created the Federal Education Collapse

“If we make money the object of man-training, we shall develop money-makers but not necessarily men.” - W.E.B. Du Bois

The current state of public education has many confused, anxious, and even fearful. Depending on the day, I feel any combination of the above, among other less-than-ideal adjectives. Simply, the future is uncertain. Schools are simultaneously cutting budgets and trying to remain relevant, all during an increasingly tense political climate.

Keep ReadingShow less
Recent Republican policies and proposals limiting legal immigration and legal immigrants' benefits and rights

An oversized gavel surrounded by people.

Getty Images, J Studios

Recent Republican policies and proposals limiting legal immigration and legal immigrants' benefits and rights

In a recent post we quoted a journalist describing the Republican Party as anti-immigration. Many of our readers wrote back angrily to say that the Republican party is only opposed to immigrants who are present illegally.

But that's not true. And we're not shy of telling it like it is.

Keep ReadingShow less
The Importance of Respecting Court Orders
brown wooden chess piece on brown book

The Importance of Respecting Court Orders

The most important question in American politics today is whether Donald Trump will respect court orders. Judges have repeatedly ruled against his administration.

But will he listen?

Keep ReadingShow less