Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Not from here? Then don't send political donations, Arizona lawmaker says

Arizona filled with money
iQoncept/Getty Images

While more and more states and localities are moving to ban foreigners from influencing their elections, one Arizona lawmaker wants to take it a step further.

Republican state Rep. Bob Thorpe is not as concerned about people from other countries as he is with people from other states. So last week he proposed legislation banning contributions to legislative and ballot initiative campaigns from anybody outside Arizona.

A similar measure in South Dakota has been struck down as an unconstitutional restriction on speech, while a version in Alaska has been tied up in litigation for years.


Thorpe and other Republicans typically extend their hands-off approaches to governmental regulation to include restrictions on campaign financing. But the Tea Party conservative says he's now more interested in preventing wealthy people from other parts of the country (particularly the liberal coastal elites) from influencing election outcomes that would only affect the people of Arizona.

The Legislature is only narrowly in Republican hands, and prospects for the bill getting through before this year's session concludes at the end of April are unclear. In addition,

Tom Collins, the executive director of the state's nonpartisan campaign finance regulatory agency, says the proposal is probably unconstitutional.

Thorpe conceded that point to the Arizona Daily Star. But he said he's pushing the measure anyway in hope of eventually making the Supreme Court decide the issue.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

Last spring a federal judge said the First Amendment would be violated by implementing a ballot measure, approved by South Dakotans with 56 percent support in 2018, calling for a complete ban on out-of-state campaign contributions. The state has not yet filed an appeal.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court in November sent back to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals a challenge to an array of campaign finance restrictions Alaska imposed in the 1990s, including a cap on how much candidates for governor or the Legislature may receive from outside the state. Back in 1999, however, the Alaska Supreme Court ruled this limitation did not violate the First Amendment.

The bill by Thorpe, who is barred by state term limits from running to represent the Flagstaff area again this November, says any person or corporation from another state "shall not make a contribution to any committee located in this state or any person or candidate for office in this state." The bill does not mention independent expenditures, so presumably super PACs could still spend on advertising to influence Arizona elections.

In explaining his rationale for the measure, he pointed to the $24 million spent in favor of a 2018 ballot measure that would have required the state to boost its renewable energy usage. Much of the money was spent by the political action committee started by billionaire Democratic presidential candidate Tom Steyer. In the end, though, the ballot initiative was rejected, in part thanks to a $40 million campaign by Pinnacle West Capital, headquartered in Phoenix.

Read More

"Voter Here" sign outside of a polling location.

"Voter Here" sign outside of a polling location.

Getty Images, Grace Cary

Stopping the Descent Toward Banana Republic Elections

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.

Keep ReadingShow less
"Vote" pin.
Getty Images, William Whitehurst

Most Americans’ Votes Don’t Matter in Deciding Elections

New research from the Unite America Institute confirms a stark reality: Most ballots cast in American elections don’t matter in deciding the outcome. In 2024, just 14% of eligible voters cast a meaningful vote that actually influenced the outcome of a U.S. House race. For state house races, on average across all 50 states, just 13% cast meaningful votes.

“Too many Americans have no real say in their democracy,” said Unite America Executive Director Nick Troiano. “Every voter deserves a ballot that not only counts, but that truly matters. We should demand better than ‘elections in name only.’”

Keep ReadingShow less
Hand Placing Ballot in Box With American Flag
Getty Images, monkeybusinessimages

We Can Fix This: Our Politics Really Can Work – These Stories Show How

As American politics polarizes ever further, voters across the political spectrum agree that our current system is not delivering for the American people. Eighty-five percent of Americans feel most elected officials don’t care what people like them think. Eighty-eight percent of them say our political system is broken.

Whether it’s the quality and safety of their kids’ schools, housing affordability and rising homelessness, scarce and pricey healthcare, or any number of other issues that touch Americans’ everyday lives, the lived experience of polarization comes from such problems—and elected officials’ failure to address them.

Keep ReadingShow less
Why America’s Elections Will Never Be the Same After Trump
text
Photo by Dan Dennis on Unsplash

Why America’s Elections Will Never Be the Same After Trump

Donald Trump wasted no time when he returned to the White House. Within hours, he signed over 200 executive orders, rapidly dismantling years of policy and consolidating control with the stroke of a pen. But the frenzy of reversals was only the surface. Beneath it lies a deeper, more troubling transformation: presidential elections have become all-or-nothing battles, where the victor rewrites the rules of government and the loser’s agenda is annihilated.

And it’s not just the orders. Trump’s second term has unleashed sweeping deportations, the purging of federal agencies, and a direct assault on the professional civil service. With the revival of Schedule F, regulatory rollbacks, and the targeting of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs, the federal bureaucracy is being rigged to serve partisan ideology. Backing him is a GOP-led Congress, too cowardly—or too complicit—to assert its constitutional authority.

Keep ReadingShow less