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Meet the change leaders: Eric Bronner, veteran and political reformer

Opinion

Eric Bronner
Courtesy Veterans for All Vets
David L. Nevins
By David L. NevinsFeb 20, 2024
David L. Nevins
David L. Nevins serves as publisher of The Fulcrum. Additionally, Nevins serves as co-founder and Board Chairman of the Bridge Alliance. Nevins brings business acumen, vision and a tireless this-must-and-can-be-done zeal to the burgeoning movement to bridge divides to transform the political process. As a business leader, Nevins excels at building bridges between people and organizations from the right, left and center for civilized conversation and then action. He co-founded the Bridge Alliance because, as he says, “No matter how well managed and how well funded anyone organization is, significant political reform will not happen without an alliance to further collaborative interactions. Together we can and will raise the collective impact of all.” He is a member of the Aspen Institute Society of Fellows, with a focus on the Aspen Rodel Fellowship in Public Leadership, he established and continues to work with The Nevins Democracy Leaders program at Penn State University. Nevins graduated with honors in economics from Penn State in 1969 and received an M.B.A. in finance from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1971.
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Nevins is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and co-founder and board chairman of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.

I had the wonderful opportunity to interview Eric Bronner on Jan. 18 for the CityBiz “Meet the Change Leaders” series.

Bronner is the founder and chief operating officer of Veterans for All Voters – a veteran-led, cross-partisan community that is mobilizing military veterans to be advocates for election innovations that unlock competition, make our politics less toxic and encourage the government to be more responsible.

Bronner graduated with honors from the United States Naval Academy in 1997 and served on active duty for eight years as a naval flight officer. Before discovering his passion for election reforms, Bronner was a successful real estate broker and attorney in St. Louis, Mo. For three years, Bronner was a board leader with Show Me Integrity, a cross-partisan democracy reform organization that in 2020 helped bring an innovative, nonpartisan approval voting system to St. Louis.

After the 2020 election, a fellow veteran saw Bronner’s passion for political reforms and recommended getting more veterans involved. Early in 2021, he put together an informal advisory board of veterans from across the country and political spectrum to investigate this opportunity. They discovered a true “white space” between the 40,000-plus veteran service organizations and thousands of civic health, bridge building and reform organizations.

As such, Veterans for All Voters launched publicly, in Wisconsin, in October 2021. Since then, VAV has mobilized over 3,200 veterans and supporters in all 50 states. In 2022, VAV was a coalition partner with the successful “ Yes on 3! ” ballot amendment campaign to bring “final-five voting” to Nevada. Now, in 2024, VAV’s 300-plus veteran leaders are supporting over 20 different active reform campaigns in cities and states across the country. These efforts are opposed by both major political parties.

Watch the interview to learn the full extent of Bronner’s remarkable work and perhaps you’ll become more civically engaged as well.

Eric Bronner- Veterans for All Votersyoutu.be

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‘Obama, You're 15 Years Too Late!’

The mid-decade redistricting fight continues, while the word “hypocrisy” has become increasingly common in the media.

The origin of mid-decade redistricting dates back to the early history of the United States. However, its resurgence and legal acceptance primarily stem from the Texas redistricting effort in 2003, a controversial move by the Republican Party to redraw the state's congressional districts, and the 2006 U.S. Supreme Court decision in League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry. This decision, which confirmed that mid-decade redistricting is not prohibited by federal law, was a significant turning point in the acceptance of this practice.

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In 1963, Alabama Governor George Wallace declared, "Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever." (Watch the video of his speech.) As a politically aware high school senior, I was shocked by the venom and anger in his voice—the open, defiant embrace of systematic disenfranchisement, so different from the quieter racism I knew growing up outside Boston.

Today, watching politicians openly rig elections, I feel that same disbelief—especially seeing Republican leaders embrace that same systematic approach: gerrymandering now, gerrymandering tomorrow, gerrymandering forever.

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Young people worldwide form new parties to reshape politics—yet America’s two-party system blocks them.

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In Europe, a trio in their twenties started Volt in 2017 as a pan-European response to Brexit, and the party has managed to win seats in the European Parliament and in some national legislatures. In Germany, young people concerned about climate change created Klimaliste, a party committed to limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, as per the Paris Agreement. Although the party hasn’t won seats at the federal level, they have managed to win some municipal elections. In Chile, leaders of the 2011 student protests, who then won seats as independent candidates, created political parties like Revolución Democrática and Convergencia Social to institutionalize their movements. In 2022, one of these former student leaders, Gabriel Boric, became the president of Chile at 36 years old.

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How To Fix Gerrymandering: A Fair-Share Rule for Congressional Redistricting

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground. ~ Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Col. Edward Carrington, Paris, 27 May 1788

The Problem We Face

The U.S. House of Representatives was designed as the chamber of Congress most directly tethered to the people. Article I of the Constitution mandates that seats be apportioned among the states according to population and that members face election every two years—design features meant to keep representatives responsive to shifting public sentiment. Unlike the Senate, which prioritizes state sovereignty and representation, the House translates raw population counts into political voice: each House district is to contain roughly the same number of residents, ensuring that every citizen’s vote carries comparable weight. In principle, then, the House serves as the nation’s demographic mirror, channeling the diverse preferences of the electorate into lawmaking and acting as a safeguard against unresponsive or oligarchic governance.

Nationally, the mismatch between the overall popular vote and the partisan split in House seats is small, with less than a 1% tilt. But state-level results tell a different story. Take Connecticut: Democrats hold all five seats despite Republicans winning over 40% of the statewide vote. In Oklahoma, the inverse occurs—Republicans control every seat even though Democrats consistently earn around 40% of the vote.

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