Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

The worst gerrymandered districts can go away

Protestors in front of the Supreme Court.

Protestors rally against gerrymandering.

Evelyn Hockstein/For The Washington Post via Getty Images

Nevins is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and co-founder and board chairman of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.

While most Americans only have a vague idea of what gerrymandering means, the impact on fair representation in the United States can’t be overstated.

Every 10 years the redistricting process occurs after the census to adjust congressional districts according to population. While the process is supposed to maintain fair and representative districts, politicians on both sides of the aisle have used this process to perpetuate their power.


To fix that problem, a group of House members reintroduced the Fair Representation Act on Thursday. Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), a lead sponsor, issued the following press release.

To address these structural gerrymandering issues and extreme partisanship in federal elections on March 20, 2024, U.S. Representative Don Beyer today led a House delegation in the re-introduction of the Fair Representation Act. The updated bill would implement measures to elect U.S. House Representatives through ranked choice voting in multi-member districts ... and require ranked choice voting to elect U.S. Senators.

The Fair Representation Act was supported by nonpartisan organizations including FairVote and RepresentWomen. More than 20 academics and thought leaders including Harvard’s Lawrence Lessig and Nicholas Stephanopoulos and Princeton’s Samuel Wang signed an open letter in support of the Fair Representation Act.

"The Fair Representation Act offers vital solutions to the hyper-partisan gerrymandering and lack of electoral competition that has allowed extremist ideologies to hijack our political discourse and sewn public distrust of our political system,” said Rep. Don Beyer. “Our bill would implement critical reforms to strengthen our electoral system, ensure every voter has their voice represented, and restore public trust. This is the way to produce a Congress made up of Members who prioritize pragmatic legislative results and solutions for the benefit of the American people.”

“The Fair Representation Act will breathe new life into American democracy, strengthening the voice of our people in our elections and, in turn, our government,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin. “I’m proud to cosponsor this legislation with one of my National Capital Region colleagues, Congressman Don Beyer, to establish multi-member congressional districts ... with members elected through ranked choice voting—three reinforcing measures that, taken together, will ensure voters are empowered to choose their officials, not the other way around.”

“Our country is ready for reform, and now is the time for Congress to act,” said David Daley, Senior Fellow at FairVote. “The Fair Representation Act would create swing districts everywhere and make every contest competitive in every state. It would end gerrymandering and more fully represent the breadth of ideas held by voters. It would greatly expand opportunities for communities of color to build power. And it would create incentives for legislators to work productively in service of the public interest rather than to obstruct and demean their opponents.”

“The Fair Representation Act outlines a bold plan to increase competition and fairness in U.S. House elections and reduce polarization, with added benefits for women candidates. No single reform would create more opportunities for women and people of color from across the geographic and partisan spectrum to win seats in Congress,” said Cynthia Richie Terrell, Founder and Executive Director of RepresentWomen. “The ability to compete in fair elections is central to our vision of how we achieve gender balance for women in Congress, in our lifetimes.”

“This bill works to make our democracy as fair as possible by creating ways that our country's remarkable diversity, including religious diversity, has representation in Congress – further ensuring that our democracy works for all and that all people, including those from minority faith traditions feel heard in Washington, D.C,” said Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush, President and CEO of Interfaith Alliance. “This is not a partisan issue – it's a moral one, inspired by a commitment to equity, respect and inclusion for people of all backgrounds.”

“We admire the reforms proposed in the FRA,” said Lisa D. T. Rice, proposer of ballot measure Initiative 83 that would enact similar reforms in the District of Columbia. “What Congressman Beyer and his co-sponsors are trying to do for the nation, we are trying to bring to the nation’s capital. The FRA, like our initiative, is pro-voter. We are all working for electoral systems that will empower majorities and hold elected officials accountable.”

Full text of the Fair Representation Act is available here with a one-pager here and additional resources here.

Read More

Voter registration

In April 2025, the SAVE Act has been reintroduced in the 119th Congress and passed the House, with a much stronger chance of becoming law given the current political landscape.

SDI Productions

The SAVE Act: Addressing a Non-Existent Problem at the Cost of Voter Access?

In July 2024, I wrote about the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act when it was first introduced in Congress. And Sarah and I discussed it in an episode of Beyond the Bill Number which you can still listen to. Now, in April 2025, the SAVE Act has been reintroduced in the 119th Congress and passed the House, with a much stronger chance of becoming law given the current political landscape. It's time to revisit this legislation and examine its implications for American voters.

Read the IssueVoter analysis of the bill here for further insight and commentary.

Keep ReadingShow less
Independent Voters Gain Ground As New Mexico Opens Primaries
person in blue denim jeans and white sneakers standing on gray concrete floor
Photo by Phil Scroggs on Unsplash

Independent Voters Gain Ground As New Mexico Opens Primaries

With the stroke of a pen, New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham enfranchised almost 350,000 independent voters recently by signing a bill for open primaries. Just a few years ago, bills to open the primaries were languishing in the state legislature, as they have historically across the country. But as more and more voters leave both parties and declare their independence, the political system is buckling. And as independents begin to organize and speak out, it’s going to continue to buckle in their direction.

In 2004, there were 120,000 independent voters in New Mexico. A little over 10 years later, when the first open primary bill was introduced, that number had more than doubled. That bill never even got a hearing. But today the number of independents in New Mexico and across the country is too big to ignore. Independents are the largest group of voters in ten states and the second-largest in most others. That’s putting tremendous pressure on a system that wasn’t designed with them in mind.

Keep ReadingShow less
"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