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A woman timing another women in the military as she does push ups.

Hegseth Made the Fitness Test Harder for Women in Combat Roles. Most Female Marines Are Passing.

​Paintings of Stalin

The Stalinization of America

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee speaks as Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter, U.S. Vice President JD Vance, U.S

Trump's Sale of Arms to Israel Violates U.S. Law

people filling out their ballots at voting booths and submitting their vote.

Swinging Outcomes Is Not Enough

Cinderella bracket continues in Democracy Madness

Cinderella bracket continues in Democracy Madness
The Fulcrum
By The FulcrumApr 27, 2020
The Fulcrum
The Fulcrum staff.
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The Final Four in the Elections quarter of our Democracy Madness draw is upon us — and it turns out only one top seed has made it to the regional semifinals.

Turning redistricting over to independent commissions, our No. 2 seed, advanced by cruising past the call for congressional term limits.

The biggest upset in the weekend voting: The idea of electing several members to represent each U.S. House district, our No. 9 seed, snuck out a win over the top-seeded proposal of presidential elections simply by popular vote.

Multimember districts now face Supreme Court term limits (No. 13), while anti-gerrymandering commissions confront the No. 11 proposal, states promising to award their electoral votes to the national popular winner.

Press the Vote Now button to make your two choices. (You can click the matchups, then each label, for more on the proposals.)

We're hoping to learn what readers think is the best of 64 ideas for reforming our governing systems and putting voters back at the center of things. The money in politics "region" starts next.




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U.S. Rep. David Valadao (R-CA)

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(Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Democrats Gerrymandered David Valadao’s District. Did It Backfire?

GOP US Rep. David Valadao has never won his seat in Congress on Republican votes alone because too few Republicans live in the district where he was raised, lives, and runs his family farm.

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Getty Images

Birthright Citizenship Explained: History, SCOTUS Rulings & Executive Orders

Birthright citizenship has been part of American law for more than 150 years. As the American public continues to see challenges against its constitutionality, brought on by the Trump administration, it is important to remember why.

After the Civil War, Congress adopted the 14th Amendment in 1868 to overturn Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), which had denied citizenship to Black Americans, dampening their federal protections. While the 13th amendment had abolished slavery a few years earlier, Free Black Americans were considered noncitizens by many, and thus had to work around a separate set of laws, meaning they could never be fully integrated as members of American society. In response to this issue, the 14th Amendment declares that all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to its jurisdiction, are citizens of the United States.

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Photo by Nellie Adamyan on Unsplash

A Real Test for “Lawfare” Must Protect Allies and Enemies Alike

“Lawfare” is becoming a word that ends arguments instead of clarifying them. When Donald Trump or his allies are prosecuted, many on the right call the case political. When the Trump administration investigates critics, many on the left call it retaliation or “score-settling.” Sometimes those accusations are justified. Sometimes they are partisan reflexes. A label that changes with the identity of the defendant is not a rule of law.

The hard cases are not the ones with a public order to punish an enemy. They are cases with mixed facts: a real investigative predicate, a politically active target, disputed timing, later changes in treatment, and no contemporaneous record the public can inspect. Those cases require something better than “trust the prosecutors” or “trust the accused.” They require an auditable standard.

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