5 groups honored with civic collaboration prizes
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New group wants to revive ‘the people’ as the focus of American democracy
"We the people." Most Americans recognize the phrase as the opening of the Constitution. But for a nascent group of democracy reformers, the phrase means even more.
The group — named simply The People — gathered for its inaugural national assembly over the weekend, its mission nothing less ambitious than realigning the machinery of democracy so that governments operate much more regularly as true representatives of "we the people."
The People was founded by three individuals who have become well known as advocates for systemic change, in different ways and from different ideologies. Katie Fahey, a 29-year-old Michigander, gained renown last year for organizing the grassroots movement that led to the Michigan referendum ending the politicized gerrymandering of the state. Liberal actor and entrepreneur Andrew Shue promotes activism among young people and gives their civic action campaigns a platform through DoSomething.org. Pollster and consultant Frank Luntz helped engineer a resurgence of conservatism in the 1990s with breakthrough thinking about Republican message discipline.
Together they selected two people from each state who spent parts of three days drafting "The Declaration of The People" — a foundational document describing how the reform group hopes to fix the broken democracy.
They convened Friday evening at the museum of the National Archives, hoping to gain inspiration by viewing the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights. They were then exhorted to get to work with optimistic speeches by Fahey and Shue and a more sobering presentation from Luntz. A video of focus groups he's conducted in the past year — some of his subjects were in the audience — displayed a high degree of divisiveness and unwillingness to hear opposing political opinion.
At one point in the film, the pollster asked how many participants had lost friendships because of disagreement about the 2016 election result. Nearly everyone raised a hand, and the crowd watching murmured agreement. Luntz used this to underscore the importance of listening to one another, instead of shutting people out based on background or creed.
How well that advice was heeded will become clearer later in the week, when the convention organizers reveal the details of the organizing document adopted Sunday.
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Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who tops the second tier of presidential candidates, is spending more time on democracy reform issues than her opponents for the Democratic nomination.
Klobuchar heads to Georgia to do what rivals haven’t: lean in to a democracy reform agenda
A top issue on the democracy reform agenda — protecting elections against both disinformation and cyber hacking — is getting some unusual attention this week in the Democratic presidential campaign.
Amy Klobuchar, arguably at the top of the second tier of candidates given her rising support in Iowa, went to Atlanta on Monday to highlight her efforts in the Senate to enhance election security and to unveil some additional proposals.
The choice of location made sense for two reasons. She and nine other Democrats will meet in the city Wednesday night for their latest in a series of debates where the governing system's problems have so far received short shrift. And Georgia has emerged as the most prominent state where bolstering voting rights and election integrity have become a top priority of the Democratic establishment.
Naturalized citizens living in Mississippi must prove their citizenship when they register to vote, unlike those born in the United States. Above, members of the military are sworn in as U.S. citizens at Keesler Air Force Base in Mississippi.
Mississippi voting rules are biased against naturalized citizens, lawsuit alleges
The latest effort to ease restrictions on voting through litigation is a challenge to Mississippi's requirement that naturalized citizens show proof of their citizenship when they register.
The lawsuit, filed Monday by the Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance, says the law is unconstitutional because it violates of the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause by treating one category of citizens differently from another. People born in the United States need only check a box on the state's registration form attesting they are citizens.
The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, which helped bring the suit, says Mississippi is the only state with a unique mandate for would-be voters who were not born American citizens.