Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Democracy Madness: Follow the money

Democracy Madness: Follow the money
enjoynz/Getty Images

So far, ranked-choice voting and the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact have earned spots in the Democracy Madness Final Four, our competition to find the single most important change championed by democracy reformers. Now we turn to ideas for changing the role of money in politics.

The voters surprised us in the Elections region, repeatedly going for underdogs. But we expect to see the higher-seeded reforms perform better this time around as the top-ranked proposals, repealing the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling and removing the "dark" from dark money, are major elements of the democracy reform agenda.


This bracket of 16 is sprinkled with ideas around public financing of campaigns, restrictions on lobbyists, and new disclosure requirements for both fundraising and campaign spending. While many of these proposals can appear somewhat technical or arcane, one in particular may resonate with voters: the demand for presidential candidates to release their tax returns. This has become a major issue now that President Trump is taking his refusal to show his 1040s all the way to the Supreme Court.

First-round voting continues through Tuesday, with succeeding rounds taking place over the next week and a half. Two weeks from today, we'll kick off the "best of the rest" bracket, to be followed by the Final Four.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

Click the Vote Now button to make your eight selections. (You can click the matchups, then each label, for more about the proposals.)


Read More

Jar full of american coins.

Jar full of american coins.

Getty Images, MariuszBlach

Congress Bill Spotlight: Suspending Pennies and Nickels for 10 Years

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 recently discontinued production of the one-cent coin. What about the five-cent coin too?

Keep ReadingShow less
​The U.S. Constitution.
The U.S. Constitution.
Getty Images, Bill Oxford

Democracy on the Edge: Take Action Now To Maintain the Constitution

Democracy is in danger. Voter suppression efforts are once again on the rise, most recently embodied in the reintroduction of the “SAVE Act.” Initially passed by the House in 2024 and revived again in April 2025, the bill proposes new identification standards for voting.

It calls to eliminate the use of driver’s licenses and state IDs and require birth certificates instead. While billed as an election integrity measure, this legislation is a thinly veiled attempt to disenfranchise millions of eligible voters, particularly the elderly, minorities, and low-income Americans who may lack access to original documentation.

Keep ReadingShow less
Guatemalan workers farming tomatoes using tools provided by the UVG Climate Smart Agriculture Project.

Guatemalan workers farming tomatoes using tools provided by the UVG Climate Smart Agriculture Project.

Rolando Cifuentes Velásquez.

Seeds of Abandonment: How USAID Cuts Left Thousands of Farmers in Guatemala Struggling

Maria Lopez was thriving.

Her tomato farm in rural Guatemala was flourishing since a worker from the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala (UVG) came in to show her climate-smart agricultural practices in her drought-stricken community.

Keep ReadingShow less
Defining the Democracy Movement: Aditi Juneja
- YouTube

Defining the Democracy Movement: Aditi Juneja

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.

Aditi Juneja is the Executive Director of Democracy 2076, an organization dedicated to reimagining democracy for the next generation. Democracy 2076 is intentionally taking a long-range view of democracy, bringing together diverse stakeholders to explore what democracy should look like within a 50-year time horizon.

Keep ReadingShow less