Skip to content
Project 2025
Search

Latest Stories

Follow Us:
Top Stories
Protesters gather at the Wisconsin State Capitol, holding signs.

Trump's Water Policies Put America's Drinking Water at Risk

America at 250: A Country in Distress

America at 250: A Country in Distress

a house made of brown cardboard in a person's hands.

Homelessness Just Declined in the U.S.–Trump’s Plans Will Take Us Backwards.

Spectators on a stadium with USA playing.

Democracy Needs Citizens, Not Fans

Meet the change leaders: Cynthia Richie Terrell

Cynthia Richie Terrell
RepresentWomen
David L. Nevins
By David L. NevinsSep 26, 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.
See More Writings by author

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

Cynthia Richie Terrell, the founder and executive director of RepresentWomen, is an outspoken advocate for institutional reforms to advance women’s representation and leadership in the United States.

Terrell and her husband, Rob Richie. helped to found FairVote — a nonpartisan champion of electoral reforms that give voters greater choice, a stronger voice and a more representative democracy. Terrell has worked on projects related to women’s representation, democracy and voting system reform in the United States and has helped parliamentarians around the globe meet United Nations goals for women’s representation and leadership.

She has worked as campaign manager and field director for candidates for the presidency, the House of Representatives, the Senate and governor. She has also been involved in state and city-wide initiative efforts, including a state equal rights amendment.

In 2024 Terrell was named one of Washington, D.C.’s top policy experts and received a Generational Impact Award for her work on voting system reform. Terrell is a member of Citizen University’s Civic Collaboratory and was named a Brewer fellow along with a cohort of leaders in the democracy reform movement. She has a chapter on women and the presidency in the 2020 volume of “ The Best Candidate: Presidential Nomination in Polarized Times.”

Terrell writes a weekly column on women’s representation for Ms. Magazine and has been published in The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Hill, Refinery29, The Nation, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, The American Prospect, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Baltimore Sun and The Christian Science Monitor. She has appeared on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” and has participated in numerous radio shows, podcasts and panel discussions on the topics of electoral reform and systems strategies to advance women’s representation and leadership.

Terrell is an avid knitter and gardener, has three children, and is active in local politics and in the Quaker community. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in political science from Swarthmore College in 1986.

I had the wonderful opportunity to interview Terrell for the CityBiz “Meet the Change Leaders” series. Watch to learn the full extent of her democracy reform work.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com


Latest news

Are State Courts More Protective of Transgender People than Federal Courts?
Rule of Law

Are State Courts More Protective of Transgender People than Federal Courts?

“A Huge Grab of Power”: Trump Is Defying Congress on Foreign Aid
Ethics & Leadership

“A Huge Grab of Power”: Trump Is Defying Congress on Foreign Aid

Federal Register Reports being printed out of a large machine.
Governance & Legislation

Putting the Guardrails Back on Delegations of Power

Read More

President's Trump National Address On Iran Is Watched By New Yorkers In Manhattan

People watch as US President Donald Trump makes a national address on television at Brooklyn Diner Times Square on April 1, 2026 in New York City. US President Donald Trump's address to the nation is expected to lay out the framework for ending the conflict in Iran.

Adam Gray / Getty Images

When Duty Isn’t a Priority: A Megalomaniac President Abuses the Nation

What does it mean when the presidential oath becomes a performance instead of a promise? It means the nation is left vulnerable to a leader whose actions suggest that personal power may matter more than the Constitution he swore to defend.

He raised his right hand and swore to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution.” Yet millions of Americans have watched a president whose conduct repeatedly raises doubts about his commitment to that oath. His attacks on constitutional limits, his hostility toward oversight, and his tendency to treat institutional constraints as obstacles to personal objectives have led many to conclude that constitutional duty is no longer his governing priority. When the oath becomes symbolic rather than binding, the consequences are carried by the public.

Keep ReadingShow less
Why Democrats Are Running Against the ‘Epstein Class’

Graham Platner, the Democratic Senate nominee, is running a populist campaign with a focus on corruption and influence.

CJ Gunther/Getty Images

Why Democrats Are Running Against the ‘Epstein Class’

After Graham Platner secured the Democratic nomination for Senate in Maine, his first ad of the general election didn’t mention his opponent, Sen. Susan Collins, or the Republican Party. It focused on the late disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and who he called the “Epstein class” of elites in both parties.

“Some of the most powerful Democrats and Republicans in the country were on Epstein island,” Platner said in the ad, referring to Epstein’s former residence in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Platner, whose economic-populist campaign combined with controversial online statements and a since-removed tattoo of a Nazi symbol have drawn national attention, framed himself in opposition to this elite class.

Keep ReadingShow less
Trump’s second term is a murky, embarrassing and costly spectacle

U.S. President Donald Trump displays a graph entitled "Our Pool is Bigger than Skyscrapers" as he speaks on his renovations to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool during an event in the Oval Office of the White House on June 3, 2026, in Washington, D.C.

(Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images/TNS)

Trump’s second term is a murky, embarrassing and costly spectacle

Every time I get asked by a TV anchor what I think about the drama of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, my favorite “historical” headline from the Onion comes to mind: “World’s Largest Metaphor Hits Ice-Berg.”

And every time I do, I hear from defenders of the Trump administration complaining about the disproportionate media coverage of what should be a very minor story in the grand sweep of things. They have a point. President Trump has done some good work rehabbing Washington, D.C., where I live. But the Reflecting Pool has bedeviled him. Algae keep returning to the pool, despite the administration’s best efforts, and attempts to remedy the problem have yielded further problems.

Keep ReadingShow less
A stage on the national mall with a crowd of people before it.

Attendees arrive during the Great American State Fair Kickoff Celebration on the National Mall on June 24, 2026 in Washington, DC. The Great American State Fair runs through July 10 celebrating the 250th anniversary of the United States of America.

Al Drago / Getty Images

America’s Birthday Is Not a Trump Rally

Growing up in Ithaca, a college town in New York’s Finger Lakes region, I had a very different idea of the Fourth of July.

Independence Day was a community ritual. Families gathered before the parade, children buzzed with anticipation, veterans and local officials passed by, fire trucks and marching bands rolled through downtown, neighbors greeted one another by name, and best of all, fireworks lit up the night sky. The celebration was modest, local, and imperfect in the way all genuine civic life is imperfect. It fostered a sense of belonging.

Keep ReadingShow less
© Copyright 2026