Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Seattle's public funding for candidates survives Supreme Court challenge

Supreme Court of the United States

The Supreme Court has declined to hear a challenge claiming Seattle's democracy vouchers are unconstitutional.

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

A constitutional challenge to Seattle's "democracy voucher" program, the only system of its kind for subsidizing political campaigns with taxpayer funds, has fallen on deaf ears at the Supreme Court.

Two property owners in the city maintained the unique system violates their First Amendment rights by compelling them, through their tax payments, to support candidates they oppose. The justices turned down their appeal Monday without comment.

It was a rare bit of good news for advocates of reducing the influence of big money on politics, who have been disappointed by almost every campaign finance decision by the high court in the past decade.


By declining to hear the case, the justices let stand a decision in July by the Washington Supreme Court. It unanimously rejected the argument that taxpayers' free speech rights had been violated and allowed Seattle's program to continue — not an insignificant win for those who view expanded public financing of elections as potentially transformational to the cause of good governance.

With 63 percent support, Seattle voted to create the program in 2015 and vouchers were first distributed two years later. With about $3 million in dedicated local tax revenue every year, each voter receives four $25 vouchers they may donate to candidates — but only those who agree to exclusively accept small-dollar donations in addition to the scrip, and to limit their spending.

Last year, 36 candidates received a combined 98,000 voucher donations worth almost $2.5 million. Seven of the nine council seats were up for election in 2019 and all but one of the winning candidates used vouchers to fund their campaigns. And that was even though Amazon, labor unions and other businesses spent almost $4 million to oppose many of them because of their support of a local tax increase on businesses.

Campaign finance reform advocates say public financing programs help diversify the candidate field because it makes campaigning, which has become increasingly expensive even at the local level, more accessible. Supporters also say these programs help combat special interest influences in elections and boost the civic engagement of poorer people who could not otherwise afford putting money behind candidates.

Seattle's system "loosens the stranglehold that large donors have had over the terms of political debate by giving a more diverse pool of people an opportunity to have their voices heard," said Paul Smith of the Campaign Legal Center, which helped defend the program against the lawsuit. "Our victory in this case protects campaign finance reform efforts around the country and helps uphold the constitutional principle of self-governance."

The libertarian-leaning Pacific Legal Foundation, which mounted the challenge, predicted the court would revisit the free speech argument as other cities and states adopt public financing methods. (So far, though Albuquerqueis the only other place that has considered a system like Seattle's, and voters there narrowly rejected it last fall.)

"We don't see this as a sign that the court is uninterested in the issues raised," foundation attorney Ethan Blevins said.

Read More

U.S. President Barack Obama speaking on the phone in the Oval Office.

U.S. President Barack Obama talks President Barack Obama talks with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan during a phone call from the Oval Office on November 2, 2009 in Washington, DC.

Getty Images, The White House

‘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.

Keep ReadingShow less
Hand of a person casting a ballot at a polling station during voting.

Gerrymandering silences communities and distorts elections. Proportional representation offers a proven path to fairer maps and real democracy.

Getty Images, bizoo_n

Gerrymandering Today, Gerrymandering Tomorrow, Gerrymandering Forever

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.

Keep ReadingShow less
An oversized ballot box surrounded by people.

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

Getty Images, J Studios

No Country for Young Politicians—and How To Fix That

In democracies around the world, young people have started new political parties whenever the establishment has sidelined their views or excluded them from policymaking. These parties have sometimes reinvigorated political competition, compelled established parties to take previously neglected issues seriously, or encouraged incumbent leaders to find better ways to include and reach out to young voters.

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.

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

Demonstrators gather outside of The United States Supreme Court during an oral arguments in Gill v. Whitford to call for an end to partisan gerrymandering on October 3, 2017 in Washington, DC

Getty Images, Olivier Douliery

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.

Keep ReadingShow less