As co-publisher of The Fulcrum, Debilyn Molineaux's name is synonymous with cross-partisan bridge building and the importance of civil dialogue in a democratic society. In this episode of How to Win Friends and Save the Republic from the National Association of Nonpartisan Reformers, Debilyn discusses her path from advertising to being a candidate for public office to co-founding some of the most influential bridging organizations in the democracy ecosystem.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media before boarding Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House on April 3, 2025 in Washington, DC.
I make a point of letting readers know when I change my mind about matters that bear on the ongoing discussion here at The Art of Association. I need to introduce today’s newsletter about what the second Trump Administration entails for civil society with just such an update.
My views on Donald Trump have remained more or less stable for a decade. As I wrote in the aftermath of Trump’s re-election and before his second inauguration,
“Ever since I saw Donald Trump speak in person, at a campaign event in New Hampshire in the fall of 2015, I have regarded him as a demagogue. To me, he exemplifies the “dangerous ambition” that Alexander Hamilton warned about in Federalist Paper #1 — and that the framers of the Constitution sought to exclude from the presidency. Trump subsequently demonstrated major shortcomings as a chief executive during his first term; in my view, he never really grasped nor demonstrated much interest in the core responsibilities of his office. Then came his shameless and sustained if ultimately unsuccessful bid to overturn the 2020 election. From my vantage point, then, Trump has repeatedly shown himself to be unfit for the office to which he was just re-elected.”
Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter
Nothing Trump has said or done since his new term began has disabused me of this basic judgment. What has changed, however, is my perspective on the resilience of constitutional democracy in America vis-a-vis Trump’s demagoguery and the populist nationalism that he stokes with it.
I used to think, and sought to persuade others (e.g., see here and here), that our constitutional system had a staying power against the likes of Donald Trump, one anchored in an interlocking set of self-defense mechanisms. These include the separation of powers, checks and balances, fixed and biennial congressional elections, federalism, the Bill of Rights, etc.
Moreover, as recently as a year ago, I proposed that, whatever malevolent designs Trump might pursue in a second term, they would be tempered (as they were in his first) by his incompetence at wielding the levers of governing power.
Ten weeks into the second Trump Administration, I am seeing things differently. To be sure, many of the self-defense mechanisms of U.S. democracy persist. For example, we still have an independent judiciary that I expect – contrary to its critics on both the left and right – will generally acquit itself well during the next four years. And we will have federal elections again in 2026, 2028, 2030, etc.
But I am considerably less confident than I once was that these mechanisms will serve to uphold constitutional democracy. All bets are off in particular when majorities in Congress – the branch of government best positioned and meant to check an encroaching president – are instead aiding and abetting his usurpation of their roles. A Congress that has ceded to the executive the powers of the purse (i.e., taxing, tariffing, and spending) that the Constitution grants to it is “Congress” in name only.
It also is clear that President Trump and his acolytes have learned some things. Their second time around, they are using a swarming approach that is more effective in overwhelming and bypassing democracy’s defenses. To quote Hamilton again, they are exploiting the executive’s capacity for – and comparative inter-branch advantages of – “decision, activity, secrecy, and despatch.”
In sum, I have come to appreciate how constitutional mechanisms of democratic competition and unabashed authoritarian impulses can co-exist within the same polity. And I no longer presume that the former will ultimately confound the latter.
What type of regime will prevail? That depends on how civil society responds. For constitutional democracy to win out, civil society actors must reckon with the logic of competitive authoritarianism and rethink their roles and contributions in the face of it.
Political scientists Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way first developed the concept of competitive authoritarianism in the early 2000s. Their goal was to describe and classify a growing number of hybrid regimes in which elements of ongoing democratic competition coincided with undeniable patterns of autocratic rule. Today, Viktor Orbán’s Hungary, Narendra Modi’s India, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Turkey stand as classic examples of this type of regime.
Trump has long made no secret of his admiration for these strongman rulers. In his second term, the U.S. will come to operate more like their countries. Levitsky and Way have recently observed how the U.S. is showing all the hallmarks of this regime type:
“Authoritarianism does not require the destruction of the constitutional order. What lies ahead is not fascist or single-party dictatorship but competitive authoritarianism—a system in which parties compete in elections but the incumbent’s abuse of power tilts the playing field against the opposition. Most autocracies that have emerged since the end of the Cold War fall into this category…But the system is not democratic, because incumbents rig the game by deploying the machinery of government to attack opponents and co-opt critics. Competition is real but unfair.
Competitive authoritarianism will transform political life in the United States. As Trump’s early flurry of dubiously constitutional executive orders made clear, the cost of public opposition will rise considerably…Americans will still be able to oppose the government, but opposition will be harder and riskier, leading many elites and citizens to decide that the fight is not worth it. A failure to resist, however, could pave the way for authoritarian entrenchment.”
A lot of elites have already decided the fight is not worth it. President Trump has made not only his congressional majorities but also media companies, law firms, and Ivy League universities bend the knee to his rule. He and and his appointees have quickly and unceremoniously fired and replaced senior military officers and agency officials who might have refused to do likewise. All the while, with Trump’s full support, Russell Vought’s OMB and Elon Musk’s DOGE are intentionally traumatizing and decimating the ranks of the federal civil service in order to bring it to heel.
President Trump is not just working the referees of our justice system – he is commandeering them to reward his allies and punish his enemies. He placed the Department of Justice and FBI under the control of his most committed partisans. They, in turn, are purging any lawyers, prosecutors, and investigators who prioritize constitutional scruples over the President’s demands. With a blanket pardon on Inauguration Day, President Trump gave a get-out-of-jail-free card to 1,500+ rioters, militiamen, and seditious conspirators convicted for their crimes on January 6, 2021. He is now lashing out with incendiary rhetoric and demands for the impeachment of federal judges who have the audacity to rule against his Administration. We are not in Kansas anymore.
All these acts of submission, vituperation, and domination send clear signals to the President’s friends and foes alike. It is how competitive authoritarianism takes root.
It may be that, having underestimated the stability of constitutional democracy in the face of Donald Trump’s leadership style and designs, I am now overestimating the threat he poses to it. But the authoritarian bent of his Administration is on full display wherever one looks.
For example, consider this footage of six ICE agents, masked and masquerading as “the police,” as they detain Rümeysa Öztürk, a Tufts University graduate student and legal resident of the U.S. One minute she is walking down a suburban Massachusetts sidewalk, off to break a Ramadan fast with friends. The next she is handcuffed and frogmarched into a Black SUV, then whisked away to a federal detention center in Louisiana. Her thoughtcrime? Co-authoring an op-ed in a student newspaper that criticized Israel. Watch and listen to the video in full to see how your federal tax dollars are now at work.
A more plausible critique of my updated assessment is that it ignores the laws of political gravity. Insofar as Donald Trump is doing unpopular things, like the sweeping tariffs he imposed last week, he and his party will suffer for it in future elections. But this presumes an opposition party that can harness public discontent against Donald Trump and the GOP – a capacity that has eluded the Democrats for years now.
Hoping for a “return to normalcy” scenario also glosses over another real possibility. We live in a dangerous world, one made more dangerous by the amateurism and politicized preoccupations of Trump’s national security appointees. A sudden emergency – terrorism in the homeland, a Chinese assault on Taiwan, a crippling cyberattack – could very well serve to strengthen the Administration’s hand.
All this said, the struggle between those seeking to keep the polity as competitive as possible, to the point of re-establishing liberal democracy, and those who seek to put their authority beyond the reach of democratic contestation is not likely to hinge on a single event, on one particular red line being crossed (or not). It rather will be an ongoing and cumulative conflict sprawling across government, politics, and society.
The good news about this dynamic for those on the side of preserving and enhancing competition is that it enables a much wider array of actors and associations to play constructive roles in the contest. The bad news is that the longer the struggle persists, the more the ranks of the public-spirited contestants risk getting thinned out by flagging zeal and the human tendency to make the best of what seems inevitable.
In competitive authoritarianism, it is necessary but insufficient for would-be strongmen to dominate government and politics. Ultimately, to cement their authority in place, they must subdue civil society. They can do this via payoffs, pacification, and / or distraction of those who are more malleable – and intimidation, investigation, and / or exile of those who are less so.
Here are five indicators we can track in the years ahead to assess whether civil society is rising to, or retreating from, the challenge we now face.
1). Collective action and mutual defense. These imperatives are rightly seen as key to the whole contest. The administration’s prime targets – e.g., law firms, universities, foundations, newspapers, scientific networks, etc. – must hang together when it tries to dominate one of their kind, lest they hang separately. Authoritarians like to subdue one institution at a time so that those next up become more apt to fold without a fight.
It is thus encouraging, for example, to see law firms like Perkins Coie, WilmerHale, and Jenner & Block contesting President Trump’s executive orders targeting them, other stalwart lawyers stepping up to represent them, and 500+ firms signing an amicus brief on behalf of Perkins. Conversely, it is discouraging to see other law firms striking Faustian bargains with the Administration and the largest “big law” groups staying silent about the frontal attack on their profession.
2). Widely shared and reflective patriotism. Given how Donald Trump has sought to wrap his bid to “Make America Great Again” in the flag, it would be tempting for his opponents in civil society to dismiss love of country as part of the problem. But this would surrender the most defensible high ground. It is on the basis of the values, achievements, and shared, warts-and-all history of democracy in America that we can envision a better way forward.
The celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in 2026 offers an opportunity to reclaim the mantle of patriotism. President Trump will no doubt proclaim a nostalgic and exclusive form of this civic virtue to rally his MAGA followers during the Semiquincentennial. To counter it, we need to exhibit a reflective, forward-looking, and inclusive patriotism that resonates with an ample majority of Americans.
3). Broad and centripetal policy coalitions. It will once again be tempting for progressive philanthropists, advocates, and activists to intermingle their pre-existing policy preferences with their efforts to defend democracy. This helps them maintain their intersectional commitments and alliances on immigration, climate, DEI, trans rights, political economy, etc. But it makes it much harder to build the cross-partisan coalition of supporters that liberal democracy requires.
Civil society actors who are serious about stopping and reversing authoritarian drift should ask themselves a clarifying question: “Do the policy positions we hold currently appeal to a broad majority of Americans, including the median voter?” If the answer is “no” or “not really,” then they should either modulate the intensity with which they insist coalition partners and leaders share their policy preferences, or candidly acknowledge that they are prioritizing those preferences over the recovery of liberal democracy.
4). Repair and revitalization. One of the main reasons liberal democracy finds itself on the back foot is that so many of the institutions and professions it relies on have lost their collective way. Even as we come to the defense of these endeavors, we also have to admit and follow up on the pressing need to fix and reinvigorate them so they can once more serve democratic purposes.
Jen Pahlka and Mark Dunkelman have pointed out why and how this needs to be done with the administration and implementation of government policy. Others have done likewise with philanthropy (myself included). Darryl Holliday and his colleagues are doing this with local journalism and civic media. And a growing number of critical friends and leaders are mapping out the changes needed in beleaguered institutions of higher education.
Consider what former Harvard President and current professor Larry Summers recently had to say about his own institution and others like it:
“To maintain the moral high ground, which universities have in large part lost, they need a much more aggressive reform agenda focused on antisemitism, celebrating excellence rather than venerating identity, pursuing truth rather than particular notions of social justice and promoting diversity of perspective as the most important dimension of diversity.”
This would certainly be a step in the right direction – and make our universities much better able to ward off the populist broadsides that have only just begun to ramp up.
5). Independence and self-reliance. Finally, we come to a related and difficult rub. Many of the prominent nonprofits that comprise an ostensibly independent sector find themselves dependent on funding from a federal government that is now hellbent on squelching, diverting, or micro-managing their missions.
Upon closer examination, in the wake of the Trump Administration’s early disruptions, much of what we have taken to calling “civic space” is more accurately described as federally funded and subsidized space. They are not the same thing.
I will have more to say about this prosaic but nonetheless profound challenge in an upcoming post. Suffice it to say for now that, unless and until it is resolved in a reconfiguration of nonprofit funding patterns that enables greater institutional autonomy, authoritarians will retain the upper hand
Daniel Stid is the executive director of Lyceum Labs, a fiscally sponsored project of the Defending Democracy Together Institute. The following is reposted with permission from his blog, The Art of Association.
An individual leaving work with their belongings.
Last spring and summer, The Fulcrum published a 30-part series on Project 2025. Now that Donald Trump’s second term The Fulcrum has started Part 2 of the series has commenced.
To no one’s surprise, President Trump reinstated his provocative “Schedule F”program as soon as he reentered the Oval Office. The policy that allows a president to redefine—and thus fire— executive branch personnel at will and replace them with loyalists, partisans, and patrons, was controversial when Trump first introduced it in October 2020. That was a mere two weeks before his failed reelection bid and only three months before his 2021 departure from the White House, scarcely enough runway to get the program off the ground.
It is even more controversial now that this administration has fully exploited its powers.
Renamed Schedule Policy/Career, the job classification program has always been the chief pillar of Project 2025.
The Kettering Foundation accuratelypredicted, “A rules change called Schedule F, would massively expand presidential power and fundamentally change the character of the federal government.” It is, in many ways, the cornerstone of the modern “unitary executive theory.” Swelling the list of “political appointees” from less than 1% of the federal workforce to something more in the 4% range translates into tens of thousands of hires—MAGA soldiers—who are fiercely loyal to this specific president and his conservative agenda. Give them credit: Paul Dans and Kevin Roberts, the principal architects of Project 2025, knew that to control bureaucratic employment is to control the polity.
Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter
We’re now seeing theplan play out. Indeed, Trump and his lieutenants are sticking close to the Project 2025 playbook.
Downsizing is not bad per se. And, of course, rooting out waste and fraud in government is something all Americans should applaud. But the wholesale elimination of agencies/departments, and the bull-in-a-china shop approach to “dismantling the administrative state,” is just bad policy.
Guo Xu of the Haas School of Business at the University of California Berkeley has studied theimpact of certain incentives and strains on civil servants, and he has concluded that the administration’s approach to managing the bureaucracy through massive cuts and continued pressure is probably counterproductive.
Xu found that just over half of all federal workers identify as Democrats, compared to about a quarter who see themselves as Republicans. It would make sense then if Trump worried about partisan resistance. Even so, Xu says, those numbers tell a logical story: “Democrats are simply more pro-government and prefer to work for the state!” he says. More importantly, though, Xu concludes that the slash-and-burn mentality of this administration actually hurts the cause of pushing forward a MAGA platform. He writes, “Rather than driving out civil servants,” he insists, “DOGE would benefit from finding ways to make public service more attractive for Republicans. I doubt that demonizing civil servants is conducive to this.”
Republicans and Democrats overwhelminglywant a merit-based, non-partisan civil service. The numbers are striking in this deeply polarized moment. 88% of Democrats and 87% of Republicans believe that having a non-partisan civil service is important for a strong American democracy. In terms of competence, the astonishing numbers are even higher: 94% of Democrats and 91% of Republicans.
The problem is that Trump’s “Schedule Policy/Career Executive Order” flouts that vast consensus. It patently scorns one of the few points of agreement among Republicans and Democrats. To be sure, it is neither meritorious nor non-partisan to put sycophants into bureaucratic positions.
So many experts on both the right and the left have repeated a similar warning. Consider justone: “Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, estimated that Schedule F would cover not 50,000 federal employees, but 500,000 nationwide. He predicted that a new Trump administration would take an expansive view of Schedule F, which would cover federal positions loosely seen as having a say in policy. “These people could be replaced at any time,” Kelley said. “Your performance would be based on your loyalty to the president and not on your skills and ability to get the job done for the American people.”
Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, frequentlycontends that Project 2025 is a “corrective” to the “takeover of the federal government by the unelected bureaucrats on the radical left.” His Project 2025 blueprint for conservative governance, he tells us, is an “attempt to restore proper constitutional order to this country.”
I would have thought that “restoring proper constitutional order” required a federal workforce that knew what it was doing, knew how to navigate the labyrinthian complexity of the country’s administrative state, and, most of all, pledged to serve the Constitution and the American people.
Not sure we’re getting that right now.
Samples of Phase 2 articles about Project 2025
On Friday, March 21, the Campaign Legal Center (CLC) filed a complaint with the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) related to U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick urging the purchase of Tesla stock on March 19th.
CLC is a nonpartisan legal organization dedicated to solving the challenges facing American democracy. Its mission is to fight for every American’s freedom to vote and participate meaningfully in the democratic process, particularly Americans who have faced political barriers because of race, ethnicity, or economic status.
In an appearance on Fox News this week, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick encouraged viewers to buy stock in Tesla, the car company owned by Elon Musk, a “special government employee” advising the president and a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) leader.
The CLC complaint states the following:
“Campaign Legal Center (“CLC”) respectfully requests that the Office of Government Ethics (“OGE”) and the Department of Commerce (“Commerce”) investigate whether Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick violated the federal ban on government officials using their public positions for private gain. Specifically, on March 19, 2025, Secretary Lutnick appeared on a national television news program in his official capacity and told viewers to purchase Tesla stock.1 Public officials are prohibited from promoting any “product, service, or enterprise,” and Secretary Lutnick’s actions require an investigation of this apparently flagrant violation of federal law.
Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter
The ethics laws that prohibit using public office for private gain exist to hold public officials accountable to their responsibility of serving the public good. No public good is served when a cabinet official acts as an influencer promoting a company’s stock. If senior officials in the executive branch are allowed to blatantly ignore ethics laws without consequence, it decreases public trust in our institutions. It is therefore imperative that OGE and Commerce investigate whether Secretary Lutnick improperly used his position to promote Tesla stock.”
Kedric Payne, vice president, general counsel, and senior director for ethics at Campaign Legal Center, issued the following statement:
“The president’s Cabinet members take an oath to serve the American people, and with that oath comes the ability and privilege to exercise a vast amount of power. Such power is intended to promote the public interest and is legally barred from promoting personal business interests.
Secretary Lutnick’s actions violate the ethics rules that were enacted to hold public officials accountable to the American people. His statement is part of a pattern of behavior showing that Trump’s indifference to ethics is trickling down to his most senior officials.
The American people deserve a government that prioritizes public good. Most people will conclude that promoting a stock is not tied to any public good, and ethics laws agree. The Office of Government Ethics and Commerce ethics officials should hold Lutnick accountable and reassure the public that their officials will face consequences if they use their public office to enrich themselves or their allies.”
Federal Ethics Laws clearly prohibit executive branch employees from promoting any company in their official capacity.
Section 5 C.F.R. § 2635.702 states that “employees may not use their public office for their own private gain; [or] for the endorsement of any product, service, or enterprise.” Specifically, the law provides that “employees may not use or permit the use of their Government position or title or any authority associated with their public office to endorse any product, service or enterprise” with two narrow exceptions.
One exception to the rule is if an official offers an endorsement “in furtherance of statutory authority to promote products, services, or enterprises.” The second exception is if the endorsement is the “result of documentation of compliance with agency requirements or standards or as the result of recognition for achievement given under an agency program of recognition for accomplishment in support of the agency’s mission.”
Since President Trump recently removed the director of the Office of Government Ethics, David Huitema, who was appointed during the Biden administration, and replaced him with Doug Collins, a former Republican Congressman, critics argue that these changes could undermine its ability to hold officials accountable. Complaints such as the one filed by CLC’s are less likely to be adjudicated in impartially.
This is unfortunate since the OGE's mission is to prevent conflicts of interest and ensure ethical conduct, and its effectiveness depends on its leadership's commitment to impartiality.
Despite the possibility that CLC’s complaint won’t be adjudicated impartially it is critical to have complaints such as this one filed so that the public is aware of the seriousness of these potential ethics violations.
Ethical behavior ensures that public officials act with integrity, making decisions in the people's best interest rather than for personal gain. Without ethical conduct, trust erodes, and the legitimacy of democratic governance is undermined.
The very foundation of our democracy relies on citizens having confidence in their leaders and institutions.
To read the full complaint, click HERE.
The U.S. White House.
Presidential Immunity: History and Background
Presidential immunity is the long-standing idea that the president of the United States has exemption from liability or legal proceedings for acts related to the duties of presidential office. Contrary to popular belief, presidential immunity is not explicitly enumerated in the Constitution; only sitting members of Congress are explicitly granted judicial immunity through the Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause. Rather, the concept of presidential immunity has arisen through the Department of Justice’s longstanding policy against prosecuting presidents in office and the Supreme Court’s interpretation of Article II, which has developed through a number of Supreme Court cases dating back to 1867.
These cases are as follows:
There are two important distinctions to make in examining these cases and their holdings. The first is between a civil suit and a criminal prosecution. Historically, presidential immunity has only been extended to civil suits. However, Trump’s recent Supreme Court case has now sparked a debate over the potential validity of criminal immunity. The second distinction is between an official and an unofficial, or private, act. An official act is an action taken within the scope of the president’s powers as outlined by Article II of the Constitution. All other actions undertaken by a president, even those which occurred during their term, are considered private acts. Much of the controversy around Trump’s claims of immunity arises from uncertainty as to whether his actions should be considered official or private.
Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter
Arguments in Favor of Presidential Immunity
One argument in favor of presidential immunity is that it prevents retaliatory and politically biased prosecutions against presidents. Without established immunity, politically biased prosecutors could unfairly target presidents for arbitrary reasons once they leave office. For example, most U.S. presidents are accused of insufficiently enforcing a federal law at least once during their term. Most of the time, these accusations go nowhere. However, without the privilege of presidential immunity, these accusations could turn into prosecutions by their political opponents.
This contributes to another popular argument in favor of immunity — that it protects the ability of the executive branch to function effectively. Proponents argue that presidential immunity allows presidents to freely make decisions based on the public interest, rather than choosing a less optimal but “safer” option to avoid future prosecution. This protects the independence of the executive branch by giving the president free reign to exercise their powers and perform their duties without fear of the courts. Supporters of presidential immunity claim that it maintains the separation of powers between the three branches of government, allowing the president to act without excessive oversight from other branches or parties.
Arguments Against Presidential Immunity
Critics of presidential immunity, especially as defined in Trump v. United States, claim that it compromises presidential accountability. They state that it translates to an absence of legal consequences for the executive, and thus eliminates deterrents to breaking the law. President Joe Biden, a prominent critic of expanded presidential immunity, points to Trump’s alleged incitement of the January 6 attack as an example of something future presidents could do without legal consequences. Opponents also believe that expanded immunity empowers presidents to operate without oversight and increases the risk of corruption and abuse by shielding presidents from legal scrutiny.
Opponents further argue that expanded presidential immunity weakens the American system of checks and balances. They claim that it eliminates a key check on executive power. Critics say that executive power has already grown out of proportion in relation to the other two branches, as seen in the increased use of executive orders in recent presidencies. They believe that expanded immunity only worsens that imbalance by diminishing the judicial branch’s ability to hold the executive branch accountable.
Finally, critics of expanded immunity believe that it threatens democratic rule of law by placing the president above the laws that all citizens must obey. Under presidential immunity, they argue, the law is not equally applied to all. Some fear that this open exemption for the executive will cause citizens to lose faith in their ability to hold elected officials accountable, weakening collective faith in the democratic process. Opponents also believe that expanded immunity has already allowed Trump to get away with anti-democratic behavior, such as attempting to overturn the 2020 election. They claim that protecting actions such as these is a threat to American democracy.
Conclusion
In summary, the state of presidential immunity has changed over time due to various Supreme Court holdings. Those in favor of presidential immunity argue that it prevents retaliatory prosecutions and protects the ability of the executive branch to function. Those in opposition to the recent definition of presidential immunity argue that it compromises executive accountability, weakens checks and balances, and threatens the democratic rule of law.
Given the Trump v. United States decision and Donald Trump’s recent reelection, the debate around presidential immunity is more relevant than ever. Due to his election as president, the cases against Trump will likely end, and it is improbable that we will see how far presidential immunity extends under the court’s 2024 decision. Trump’s election brings a new concern for critics, who believe that Trump may be more willing to stretch the law than he was during his first term due to the expanded immunity now afforded to presidents.
However, expanded presidential immunity is not necessarily permanent. President Biden recently proposed a No President is Above the Law amendment, which would eliminate immunity for crimes a former president committed while in office. This is unlikely to pass in the next few years due to a Republican-majority Congress, but it does raise questions about the future of criminal immunity for presidents in administrations to come.
Understanding the Debate on Presidential Immunity was originally published by The Alliance for Citizen Engagement and is shared with permission. Kailey Emmons is a sophomore at the University of California, Los Angeles, where she is currently pursuing a double major in Political Science and Biology.
