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Equal Citizens founder Lawrence Lessig said his organization will continue to push for the passage of HR 1.
This is the 10th installment of an ongoing Q&A series.
As Democrats take power in Washington, if only tenuously, many democracy reform groups see a potential path toward making the American political system work better. In this installment, Lawrence Lessig, founder of Equal Citizens and a Harvard Law School professor, answers our questions about 2020 accomplishments and plans for the year ahead. His organization promotes reforms aimed at fixing the political system so that all citizens are represented equally. Lessig's responses have been edited for clarity and length.
A bunch of us reform organizations were focused on getting every presidential candidate to commit to fundamental, HR 1-or-better-like reform. We organized a string of town halls to secure that commitment, beginning with Andrew Yang and ending with Bernie Sanders.
We also succeeded in getting the Supreme Court to clarify the power of presidential electors. That decision shut down any effort to get electors to vote contrary to their pledge and — more importantly in this election — provided a clear signal that the court would not tolerate any legislatures voting contrary to how the people had voted.
It seems strangely narcissistic to think about individual setbacks in the middle of a pandemic. The setback we suffered was the setback the world suffered, the U.S. more than it had to — the pandemic.
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The profound wisdom in Margaret Mead's words: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." Fundamental democratic reform has been elevated to the center of national political attention. We've been working with many others for more than a decade to make this happen. But "we" have not been millions; "we'' have just been those convinced and committed to making this happen.
We will continue to press HR 1 as hard as we can. But we're incredibly excited about a new project that we'll launch as a beta in the next few weeks: a massive virtual deliberation project. We hope it will enable hundreds of thousands to deliberate in small groups, first about the Electoral College, and then, if that's successful, about other issues of democracy as well.
After HR 1, we're shifting our focus to people, not Congress. We want to demonstrate broad and deep understanding of issues of democratic reform across America.
America has a media culture with a severe attention-span problem — easily distracted, not easily focused. But unlike an ADHD kid, there's no clear treatment. Somehow we need to figure out how to engage the public with seriousness and serious issues. Slow democracy, not democracy tweeted.
have begun in earnest. HR 1 will have suppressed gerrymandering, and all the techniques to suppress the vote; it will have empowered small-dollar donations to support campaigns; and the people will have the tools to engage in serious, informed deliberation about important issues facing our democracy (and if not, admit it — even just one of these will be incredible!).
Meadows and Press are recent college graduates and junior fellows at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a nonpartisan foreign policy think tank.
Last year's record turnout was "a good reminder of everything we can accomplish working together," says Unite America's Nick Troiano.
This is the ninth installment of an ongoing Q&A series.
As Democrats take power in Washington, if only tenuously, many democracy reform groups see a potential path toward making the American political system work better. In this installment, Unite America Executive Director Nick Troiano answers our questions about 2020 accomplishments and plans for the year ahead. His organization advocates for nonpartisan political reforms and supports candidates committed to cross-partisanship. (Unite America is a funder of The Fulcrum.)
It's a cliche to say at this point, but last year was unprecedented. Culturally, politically, economically. Despite this, I think our biggest accomplishment came in our ability to adapt and overcome, reacting to the unknown unknowns. I'm proud to say that the pandemic didn't slow us down, it just shifted our direction.
Our biggest triumph was establishing the Unite America Fund, and mobilizing a cross-partisan community of donors to collectively invest in the reforms and candidates committed to reforming our democracy.
We are proud of all the campaigns and organizations we invested in, especially the successful ballot initiative for final-four voting in Alaska. Despite opposition from both political parties, the voters in Alaska prevailed.
I think our setbacks were the movement's setbacks — court decisions that didn't go our way (often for very partisan reasons), the inability to gather petition signatures (due to Covid-19), and the general toxicity of the political environment that polarized what should otherwise be nonpartisan issues like access to voting.
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It was incredible to see organizations across the movement work together, build together, and support one another in our collective effort to ensure a safe and secure election for the American people. There was record turnout, and it worked. It's a good reminder of everything we can accomplish working together.
We're focused on ensuring the victories in 2020 are just the start of a broader era of reform. We're going to amplify the 2020 victories, continuing to invest in their implementation, and share their impact to bring more people into the movement.
We are also prioritizing legislative campaigns across the country this year, including in three states where Unite America has helped to build bipartisan and bicameral legislative caucuses that are focused on electoral reform and evidenced-based policymaking.
While Democratic control may open some new opportunities for electoral reform at the federal level, it won't change the way we work insofar as building support in both parties to ensure nonpartisan reform stays just that: nonpartisan. Like any other issue area, big change requires big majorities in order to be sustained and trusted — and that's especially true when it comes to writing the rules of our electoral system.
The biggest challenge now will be to keep the foot on the gas; with a new presidency, there may be people who become complacent with the status quo.
Our job is to continue to make the argument that the divisive partisanship and threats to democracy that we saw over the last four years will not end with the Trump presidency. We must continue to work to change the underlying incentives that brought us here in the first place.
will not fix itself. It's on us!
Teachers, like Emily Valentine of Yung Wing Elementary School in New York City, should have more say in important decisions such as when to open schools, writes Schleifer.
Schleifer is research director at Public Agenda, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research and engagement organization focused on strengthening democracy, building trust and expanding economic opportunity. This is the second in an occasional series.
