A year ago it sidestepped the issue, but on Friday the Supreme Court said it would try anew to decide whether the drawing of congressional districts can ever become unconstitutionally political. A definitive ruling on partisan gerrymandering by this summer would surely rank as one of the landmark decisions of the decade. The justices agreed to hear challenges to the same two maps – giving lopsided advantages to Republicans in North Carolina and Democrats in Maryland – that they turned aside last summer. Since then, of course, the justice whose past writing on gerrymandering had made him the swing vote, Anthony M. Kennedy, has retired and been replaced by Brett Kavanaugh, a clear conservative whose opinions about partisan cartography are not clearly known. |
Today, The Fulcrum continues its biweekly feature "What is Your Take?" where we ask our readers a question and share various responses.
We look forward to engaging with our readers as we create a dialogue around different topics and issues that are important to all of us.
This week's question is: What actions, if any, would you like to see Congress take on voting reform?
Please share your responses by emailing pop-culture@fulcrum.us.
Below are responses to our previous question:
Last time, we posed the following question:
One of the most popular songs in the Broadway show "Hamilton" is "My Shot." As we strive to help protect and improve democracy in America, what do you see as "Your Shot" to make a difference?
Following are some responses from our readers, edited for clarity, length and style.
· I'm in my 70s and am convinced that my destiny is to fix the Electoral College before my death. I propose that each state implement ranked-choice voting and utilize instant runoff rounds to eliminate all but the top two winners. Then apply the method — proposed by Thomas Jefferson to fill Congress after the first U.S. census — to proportionally allocate Electoral College votes to the top two winners. Anonymous.
· As a longtime League of Women Voters member, I will continue the League's goal of "Making Democracy Work" and actively battling disinformation by informing voters through more civic education (especially in schools) and badgering them to vote. As more voters become disillusioned with politics and government and distrustful of elections, we have our work cut out for us. Mary Ann Moxon.
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· At 46 years old, I'm taking "my shot" to save American democracy by leaving a successful career in real estate and starting Veterans for Political Innovation. Our mission is to mobilize veterans to advocate for the most powerful election innovations to make our system less toxic and more competitive.
We strongly believe that the reform community, and veterans across the country, need to unite around the most powerful, achievable political innovation — final-five voting. Once we implement top-four or final-five Instant runoff general elections, in all 50 states, then we can elect leaders who are truly accountable to the majority of their constituents. More choice, through final-five voting equals more power for voters and less outside influence.
Final-five voting incentivizes problem solving and good policy making. Once we start electing more consensus-based candidates and more broadly accountable leaders, we can start truly addressing the myriad policy concerns that are not receiving adequate attention (immigration reform, health care, infrastructure, education, etc.). A bad system will beat a good person every time. Our current political system is built on faux competition and faulty incentives that encourage partisan extremism and gridlock.
That's "my shot"! Eric Bronner
We are more convinced than ever that by engaging our readers through music, theater, poetry, dance and all the arts, The Fulcrum can help us all find our shared humanity despite the sharp elbows of the day-to-day in American life and politics. And by doing so we hope to build upon The Fulcrum's mission of being a place where insiders and outsiders to politics are informed, meet, talk and act to repair our democracy and make it live and work in our everyday lives.
David L. Nevins
Co-Publisher, The Fulcrum
Podcast: Anti-Corruption Awards to Honor Entrepreneurs Investing in Better Elections
On this episode of Toppling The Duopoly, host Shawn Griffiths is joined by Cathy Stewart and Amikka Smith, who are co-hosting IndependentVoting.org's 20th Annual Anti-Corruption Awards this Monday, October 25 at 6 PM EDT. This year, Independent Voting is taking the event national by hosting a virtual event available to anyone who wants to register to attend. The awards honor individuals that span the political spectrum who are working to advance the independent voter movement.
The Framers, including Alexander Hamilton, argued that the federal government must play a role in regulation elections, writes Richie.
Earlier this week, the Senate failed to bring the Freedom to Vote Act to the floor, the third time this year a major voting reform bill has been blocked.
As members of Congress continue their efforts to pass the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act in the coming weeks, some opponents aren't just rejecting the bills on their merits. Instead, they're making a historically inaccurate and dangerous "federalism argument" — that elections must be left entirely to the states.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said last month that elections are "not something the federal government has been historically involved in" and called the Freedom to Vote Act "an assault on the fundamental idea that states, not the federal government, should decide how to run their own elections."
You don't need to look far to disprove this hide-the-ball argument. Article 1, Section 4 of the Constitution states: "Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such [election] Regulations." In "Federalist 59," Alexander Hamilton warned of the dangers of vesting voting and election laws entirely in the states, writing that "an exclusive power of regulating elections for the national government, in the hands of the State legislatures, would leave the existence of the Union entirely at their mercy."
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Beyond the text of the Constitution and guidance of the Framers, the federalism argument is disproved by 200-plus years of federal election regulations. That history includes bipartisan bills that McConnell voted for, like the 2009 Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act, the 2006 reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act (which would effectively be revived by the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act) and the 2002 Help America Vote Act that McConnell took a lead role in crafting.
In particular, there is a long history of federal law on House elections and district lines, one of the areas covered in both the Freedom to Vote Act and John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Hamilton specifically writes about this in "Federalist 59," stating that "the national government would run a much greater risk from a power in the State legislatures over the elections of its House of Representatives."
It's no surprise, then, that Congress has always regulated the number of members in the House of Representatives. It has set criteria for the way voters elect their U.S. representatives since at least 1842. A series of laws passed in the late 19th century and early 20th century established norms for congressional redistricting relating to contiguity, compactness, and relative population. A 1967 federal law is the reason every American is now represented by only a single member of the U.S. House. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 (re-authorized in 1982 and 2006) also sets rules around congressional redistricting.
As our Framers anticipated and as our leaders have acted upon since our nation's founding, there are times when federal election rules are needed for all Americans, typically drawing from election laws in our state "laboratories of democracy."
Now is certainly one of those times when federal action is necessary. State legislatures are incentivized to gerrymander their congressional districts in increasingly outlandish ways. Politicians choose their voters, representation is distorted, and nearly all districts are lopsided for one party. Without a national solution, individual state reforms can equate to disarming unilaterally, and too often state reforms are falling short.
Claiming that Congress should sit on its hands is wrong. If our elected leaders have good-faith reasons to vote against the Freedom to Vote Act and even the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, they should make those objections heard.
Indeed, not only do this year's bills deserve an up-or-down vote, Congress should also look to the future, with the Fair Representation Act as the most comprehensive path to make House elections fairer. This bill would replace our current tiny congressional districts with larger multimember congressional districts elected through proportional ranked-choice voting. In addition to giving voice to those in the minority and the full spectrum of voters, this approach would make it much harder to gerrymander congressional districts.
Regardless, it's time for McConnell and others to give up the false "states' rights" argument designed to avoid accountability. There is no question as to whether Congress has a role to play in regulating district lines and elections. Given the breakdown of state voting norms, it's time for Congress to do the job our Framers intended.
The author has enjoyed searching Zillow for houses Fargo, N.D., far from her current home in the Pacific Northwest.
I know I'm not alone when I say that one of my great guilty pleasures is late-night (and sometimes early-morning) Zillow scrolling. Early in the pandemic, I was mostly looking at houses in Tulsa, Okla. After all, that is where my husband was born, and the city is famously offering $10,000 to those who show up with a job and are willing to put down some roots. Plus we had heard that my husband's home synagogue was offering a little more money for new congregants who could use some help with moving expenses. Never mind that I am a Catholic and David is a mostly retired Jew. It felt like a chance to start something new and totally different than life in our liberal and largely churchless corner of the Pacific Northwest.
As these things go, though, I got a little bored with my pretend version of Tulsa, and David seemed entirely disinterested in my plan, so I started looking at rural Maine and Fargo, N.D., and sometimes — to my family's great relief — here in Oregon, though most of the fixer-uppers that caught my attention were hugging the border of a contiguous state. The houses that I developed crushes on were not the fanciest ones, but they were houses that felt like the right place to me, though at the time that I started this habit I had never been to Tulsa or Fargo or even Omaha. But photos of the flower gardens and guest bathrooms and laundry rooms of other people in other parts of the country allowed me to project myself into another life, into another consciousness.
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My restlessness was partially tamped down when my daughters and I decided to drive from Washington, D.C. to Portland in May. My younger daughter finished her freshman year at George Washington University, so my older daughter and I flew to collect her and drive her home. We took turns at the wheel, awash in an ever-expanding and very eclectic playlist, we lingered a few extra nights in two national parks, we saw spring spread across the country, and everyone re-established their place in the sororal pecking order.
Then, two months later, my husband and I found ourselves needing to drive a U-Haul truck from Tulsa to St. Louis to Portland. It involved his mother's funeral and the tender transport of a family chandelier.
If you are the type to count these things, that's 19 days, 22 states, 6,000 miles, and two rental vehicles. Now, a week off the road after the second trip, I am grumpy and restless, pacing around my upstairs office. I scroll listlessly through Zillow. I check the weather in D.C. and Kansas City, Mo., and Medora, N.D.. I imagine myself back in Tulsa, in the house my husband's grandparents lived in. I see myself cooking all day Friday, lighting candles, and putting cousins' babies down to sleep in our bed while the adults finish a bit of Shabbat cognac before heading home for the night.
I imagine myself opening up a pie shop on the ground floor of a brick warehouse in the Crossroads neighborhood in Kansas City. I'll flip the open sign sometime in the mid-afternoon and close late; we'll serve strong coffee and a couple of seasonal pies alongside apple and cherry. There'll be some savory pies too — with all shortening crust — for the vegans who are still hungry after nibbling a salad while their boyfriends wolfed down a full plate of barbecue.
I'll sit out on the back porch in St. Louis and watch the lightning flash so bright and frequent that it dims the fireflies. I'll weed my flower beds in Northeast Minneapolis, my teacup balanced in the damp dirt as I watch baby rabbits slide beneath a gap at the bottom of the garage door.
I imagine myself a rancher's wife outside of Medora, searching through the pantry for a make-do supper because I don't want to drive the 45 minutes to the grocery store. I imagine myself in churches and dress shops and diners that are far away — physically and culturally—from those in my Southeast Portland neighborhood. I imagine my new friends who will invite me over for coffee and a slice of cake before I head home from my new job to my new house in a new town. And because it is summer and the sun is high, I imagine winter and what it will be like to live in Fargo when it is 40 degrees below zero and the wind is howling across the Great Plains.
My heart is casting about for something, for someone, for somewhere. Some of it, of course, is that I am easily bored. And there is nothing more boring than a relentless global pandemic. But, I am also trying to sort something out. Trying to apprehend something that is niggling at the back of my mind. Trying to understand the people I share the country with.
In his Memorial Day address, President Biden characteristically claimed that "empathy is the fuel of democracy." I sense a bit of eyerolling among my friends at the president's earnest embrace of empathy. Because of Biden's history of personal tragedy, he is often characterized as the "mourner in chief," the person who any American can turn to after a crisis. He is a friend to those who suffer, which is to say, all of us.
He has been cast so thoroughly in the role of griever that when he invokes empathy directly, that is how we hear his exhortation. We hear it as an admonition to show more care toward one another, to act as a salve for one another's suffering. Maybe that is how President Biden meant it, and certainly there is nothing wrong with that — every one of us could use another shoulder to cry on.
But there is another way to think about the president's call to empathy. Maybe he's not really talking about suffering at all. Or maybe he's not talking only about suffering. Maybe he's talking about a kind of empathy that requires the imagination, the kind that requires us to actively seek to understand one another. The kind where we imagine what others are going through — the worries about elderly parents, the trouble with having kids, the trouble with not having kids, the crisis of faith, the comfort of faith, the aloneness, the crowdedness, the neighborliness, the conflicts with neighbors, the balm of a tight community, the liberating anonymity of a huge city, the circumstances and the inner lives of people who are not us or proximate to us.
Perhaps what Biden is exhorting us to — or maybe what I hope he is exhorting us to — is a sense of imagination along the lines of what Wendell Berry describes in his essay "Imagination in Place."
"If ... you want to write a whole story about whole people — living souls, not 'higher animals' — you must reach for a reality which is inaccessible merely to observation or perception but which in addition requires imagination, for imagination knows more than the eye sees."
It seems to me that our imaginative muscles have gotten a little flabby. Though we might mutter some bromides about dialogue across difference, how often do we really imagine ourselves into the lives of those with whom we disagree or even those who are simply not us? To the contrary, in the crucible of a polarized political climate, sometimes it feels immoral or at least counter to our values to imagine ourselves into the lives of those "on the other side," as if our imaginations might lead us astray from our core beliefs and we might become — or at least validate — something or someone we find abhorrent.
But as Berry suggests, the story we tell ourselves about our country and our neighbors is not whole unless we direct our imagination toward those places and people with whom we have no personal contact. If we cannot persuade ourselves to even entertain such an exercise, we doom ourselves to muck about in the mire of generalizations and stereotypes.
This is not simple, of course. It is easier to conjure stereotypes, particularly ones that suit our political aims. It serves us to valorize those we agree with and villainize those we do not. And yet, the empathetic imagination is as essential as the scientific method. Again, Wendell , this time from his essay "God, Science, and Imagination":
"Historians and scientists work toward generalizations from their knowledge, just as all of us do. We must do this, for generalization is a part of our means of making sense. But generalization alone, without the countervailing, particularizing power of imagination, is dehumanizing and destructive."
The particularizing power of imagination. That's what makes our stories whole — or at least more whole — isn't it? I realize now that I have spent the past few months imagining myself into different settings, near and far. And that is a happy distraction. But maybe I am restless and cranky now because there is a kind of unsatisfying escapism and self-centeredness at the core of it. I know that in order to be a full citizen of a pluralistic democracy, it is not about me converting to Judaism and packing my bags for Tulsa. It is not really about me at all.
Instead I need to send the feelers of my imagination further, deeper. Rather than imagine myself as the picturesque North Dakota rancher's wife with a dwindling pantry, I need to extend my imagination toward the whole of that rancher himself. What are his joys? His worries? What does he want from his life? What does he want from me as his neighbor, though a not-very-proximate one? What is it like to live through 140 weeks of drought—the worry about grazing land and fire and whether the whole enterprise might come crashing down? What is it like to wake up in a fitful dark, pull on socks and parka and cap and heavy gloves to head outside, eyes barely open, to break the ice on the water trough for sluggish cattle for the 35th day in a row? What is it like to suspect that everyone you see on television and in movies and on Twitter is mocking you, or worse, has forgotten about you entirely? What is it like to know — deep in your bones — that your children will settle far away, probably in some ironically hipster coastal city?
This is not to suggest that my imagined version of a North Dakota rancher should be imposed on any real rancher or on any flesh and bones person with her own idiosyncrasies and her own inner life. But I am suggesting that the exercise of casting my imagination into the particularities of another American's life is an act of citizenship. It is an antidote to the cycle of characterizing, generalizing, and dismissing that I and many others have gotten so good at. It is an effort to lure myself out of the morass of fragmentation and toward at least some semblance of wholeness.
Perhaps that is what President Biden means when he says that "empathy is the fuel of democracy." For sure, there is a call for us to see and feel the connective tissue of shared grief, but perhaps there is a call to all the rest of it, too —baseball games and dim sum and report cards and evening ESL classes and overdue electricity bills and contaminated water and ice in the pit of the stomach at the sight of a police cruiser. It is the imperative of the whole story. And perhaps we'd get a little better at telling that story if we took the time to imagine one dark February morning on the plains of North Dakota.
Women make up more than half of the American population, but they are just 31 percent of the country's state lawmakers.
Originally published by The 19th.
A Seattle-based fund is pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into recruiting women to run for state legislative seats in three states, part of its effort to close the gender gap in American politics.
The group, called the Ascend Fund, announced Tuesday that it has awarded $600,000 to 13 nonpartisan, nonprofit organizations that will work to recruit and train candidates from across the political spectrum in Michigan, Mississippi and Washington. The groups will receive grant funding of $15,000 to $100,000, with an average award of $50,000.
Women make up more than half of the American population, but they are just 31 percent of the country's state lawmakers. Only the Nevada legislature has reached gender parity in both of its chambers.
Abbie Hodgson, director of the Ascend Fund, said lack of equal representation has had a ripple effect on issues including reproductive health, child care and voting rights.
“Recent events have proven that the underrepresentation of women in policy making spaces has led to not only poor public policy outcomes, but ramifications on women's everyday lives," she said.
The Ascend Fund is an initiative of Panorama Global, an organization founded in 2017 by philanthropist Gabrielle Fitzgerald. The fund has a goal of achieving 50 percent representation in statehouses in all 50 states by 2050.
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The Ascend Fund has emphasized state legislative representation in previous award rounds, but the focus on Michigan, Mississippi and Washington is part of a new pilot initiative aimed at rethinking ways to close the gender gap in vastly different areas. The fund has deemed the three states “geographically, demographically and politically diverse." Democrats control the legislature in Washington; Republicans control the Mississippi legislature; and it's split control in the Michigan Legislature with the governor's office.
In Michigan, women make up 35.8 percent of the 148 state seats; in Mississippi, it's about 15 percent of 174 seats in the legislature; in Washington, 41.5 percent of 147 lawmakers are women. These states also have different rules for running elections, including a top-two primary system in Washington, no campaign finance limits in Mississippi and term limits in Michigan.
“With this pilot program, we are laying the groundwork for testing strategies under different circumstances and environments, and hope to apply what we learn in these three states to other states as we expand," said Hodgson, who added that additional award money is possible in the future.
In Michigan, Rebecca Thompson hopes that Mothering Justice, an organization that advocates for women of color and one of the grantees, will use its $100,000 in funding to make a difference for Black women candidates. Mothering Justice will partner with Michigan United, Detroit Action, and MOSES to form Black Womxn Win – Michigan, a three-month leadership development program that will train 30 Black women to run for state seats in 2022.
Thompson, a consultant for Mothering Justice, ran unsuccessfully for a seat in 2014. She said that she has participated in several candidate recruitment programs over the years and that the new coalition's focus on Black women could have made a difference in her race.
“This program will be grounded in self care. There's this notion that campaigns have to be brutal and grueling and you can't take care of yourself, and we really want to reject that and build up a new generation of political leaders who tend to their wellness, particularly their mental and emotional health," she said. “Those are all components that, again, when I sort of think about what I needed when I was running, like we don't need Black women candidates running like White men. We need them running as the Black women that they are — they are nuanced. Their life stories look and sound and feel different. And we can be unapologetic about that, as opposed to sort of creating what exists in the status quo."
Chanley E. Rainey helps oversee NEW Leadership Mississippi, a civic engagement program at the Mississippi University for Women that works to teach college women about politics. Rainey hopes the $50,000 award will expand the scope of its program to include more trainees.
In a state with such low women's representation in the state legislature, Rainey said, recruiting conservative women will be crucial. Several candidate recruitment groups have focused on Democrats, who have a minority in both of the state's legislative chambers.
“We are trying to create a program that encourages both conservative Republican women and Democratic women to run," Rainey said. “In a state like Mississippi, the goal of gender parity will not be reached unless conservative women are part of the equation."
Bre Jefferson is the acting director of Sage Leaders, a training program under Puget Sound Sage, one of the award recipients. Jefferson hopes to use the $50,000 grant to expand its support, mentorship and training of BIPOC women candidates in Washington state.
Jefferson, a Black woman, said she's worked within the state's political circles for years and has seen the isolation that talented women of color face as they seek office.
“Bringing in voices into the rooms that have been traditionally left out of politics, left out of the conversation, is really crucial if we want to create the political atmosphere that is representative of everyone, not just the folks who have been traditionally given a seat at the table," she said.
Hodgson said diverse candidate recruitment was a priority in funding. Women of color make up 26.5 percent of current women state legislators who have shared their race and ethnicity.
“Obviously the stated goal of our programming is to elect women, but we think women are just one aspect of building a reflective democracy," she said.
Molineaux is president/CEO of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund, and Nevins is its co-founder and board chairman. They are co-publishers of The Fulcrum.
As Americans we are on a path to discard and diminish the concerns of our fellow citizens. This is a destruction of our democratic values as most people sit on the sidelines, picking whom we hate more.
As publishers of The Fulcrum we are dedicated to supporting the democracy ecosystem and the individuals and organizations striving to repair and reform our democracy so that it works more effectively in our everyday lives. A healthy democracy ecosystem allows all citizens and community members the opportunity to participate fully in society.
Unfortunately, today's toxic polarization has reached the highest levels of animosity since pre-Civil War. No longer are citizens just partisan for the candidate or the party that they support. Instead, a growing "negative partisanship" is driving our political process and poisoning our commitment to democratic values.
Not only do liberals and conservatives disagree, they actually hate each other and thus rather than supporting the positions of the party they like, they oppose positions of the other party no matter how reasonable their policies might be, merely because it comes from the party they dislike. We seem to hate each other more than we love our nation.
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As a result, according to Emory University professor Alan Abramowitz and student Steven Webster, "the parties hang together mainly out of sheer hatred of the other team, rather than a shared sense of purpose." When negative partisanship dominates, a political coalition is united far more by animosity than policy. The policy priorities are malleable and flexible, so long as the politician rhetorically punches the right people.
Social scientist Lee Drutman and others postulate that "negative partisanship" has reached levels that are not just bad for democracy, but are potentially destructive. And extreme partisan animosity is a prelude to democratic collapse.
As Drutman points out, it hasn't always been this bad. "Forty years ago, when asked to rate how 'favorable and warm' their opinion of each party was, the average Democrat and Republican said they felt OK-ish about the opposite party. But for four decades now, partisans have increasingly turned against each other in an escalating cycle of dislike and distrust — views of the other party are currently at an all-time low."
The solution to this destructive mindset amongst politicians and citizens alike will not be easy. We must re-frame our thinking as a people. We must create a new narrative of cooperation, collaboration that is solutions focused. We must embrace the diversity that is America and find the best from the left, the right and the middle. We must decide to like each other and respect our common humanity. Maybe even acknowledge some reasonableness in each other's perspective. We must start loving our country and democratic values enough to stop hating our political opponents. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke poignantly to the problem facing America in the 1960s that still resonates today:
"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."
And his decision about his response to hate:
"As my sufferings mounted I soon realized that there were two ways in which I could respond to my situation — either to react with bitterness or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force. I decided to follow the latter course."
To do so we must support and engage a new cohort of diverse community leaders (across ideological, racial/ethnicity, generational and gender lines) who embrace a crosspartisan problem-solving approach to governance.
We must come together as a constituency of millions demanding a new approach to governance from our leaders. How might we, the citizens of the United States, demand our elected officials do the work of governance instead of endless campaigning?
A "Crosspartisan Creed" that embodies principles based on finding commonalities that transcend the divides that separate us is already engaging hundreds of thousands of Americans. A democracy ecosystem of Democrats, Republicans and independents is growing and elevating the voice and capacity of diverse community leaders via strategic investments with community/regional foundations.
Within a democracy ecosystem, we can work together to clean up the toxicity and remove invasive species like foreign influence, disinformation and propaganda. We must examine our own thinking to root out the toxicity we have. We need to create a habitat in which our democratic values will thrive, so we humans can thrive, too.
Our failure to do so is to remain on the path to authoritarian rule.
Latino voters continue to have a growing impact on elections. The Bully Pulpit podcast from the University of Southern California's Center for the Political Future discusses how political parties are engaging with Latino voters.
Why 'civic transitions' are key to building an inclusive democracy in America
Students at the University of Vermont fill out voter registration forms to participate in March 2020.
Michelson is the dean of arts and sciences and a political science professor at Menlo College. Liñero-Lopez is the Ask Every Student program manager at the Students Learn Students Vote Coalition.
In the average lifetime there are a handful of major transitions during which an individual can reinvent themselves and their place in society. These are moments that stay with us forever, like moving to a new city, starting a new job, or joining the military. Or voting for the first time.
Reams of social science have demonstrated humans' powerful commitments to our identities. In any given situation, we ask ourselves, "What does someone like me do?" and then decide accordingly how we act, dress and, increasingly, how we engage with our democracy.
That's why the long-term health of our country depends on our ability to foster democratic participation as a core tenet of our population's identity. To do that, we need to create successful "civic transitions" for every American. Once someone has voted for the first time, they tend to adopt an identity as a voter, and then vote again in subsequent elections. Getting young people to adopt voter identities by inviting them to participate in our democratic processes can create a lifetime of civic engagement.
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In 2020, multiple student-serving organizations came together to help young people incorporate civic participation into their lives during a time of profound identity transition: enrolling in college. Through an initiative called Ask Every Student, they set out to increase college student voter registration by attempting to reach each individual student on nearly 200 participating campuses. An open-source framework enabled leaders to incorporate voter education and outreach into universal programs like student orientations and core curriculum courses. Campuses included private and public institutions, community colleges and minority-serving institutions such as historically Black colleges and universities.
An extensive study into the initiative's efficacy points to one clear conclusion: Just a few minutes of direct interaction has the power to profoundly impact a person's civic identity — especially when that person is new to the democratic process.
A survey of 2,267 students from 14 campuses that participated in the AES initiative (and approximately the demographics of the AES initiative as a whole) found that students who recalled hearing about an AES program on their campus said they were 8.3 percent more likely to register to vote, and 5.6 percent more likely to vote, than those who hadn't. Among first-year students — the group most likely to be experiencing profound life transitions at the time — those who recalled being encouraged to vote by an AES program on their campus were 14.2 percent more likely to register to vote.
In all, approximately 76.1 percent of students surveyed reported hearing about an AES program on their campus. Assuming a similar percentage holds true for the nearly 3 million total students enrolled in colleges that participated in AES, we estimate that millions of students were reached through this initiative and that tens of thousands of them registered to vote in part because of it.
Of course, registering to vote and voting are not the only acts of democratic engagement that matter. Community service, activism, dialogue across differences, and many other facets make up the full spectrum of a vibrant civic life. But by introducing college students to the bedrock functions of the democratic process we open the door for them to positively impact their communities in multiple ways.
One of the study's most exciting takeaways was the degree to which students shared information they learned from an AES program on their campus with their families. In our conversations with students at these campuses -- we held 24 focus groups across the 14 study campuses — students noted how they shared AES program information with their families, spreading the initiative's impact.
Most Americans will experience some kind of major life transition in the next decade. These times of transition, especially for young people, are an opportunity to shape their civic identity for the better — but only if we commit to reaching them where they are.
American democracy is experiencing its own transition moment, challenged by increasing partisan polarization, decreased confidence in public institutions, and increased incidents of anti-democratic attitudes and behaviors. Against this backdrop, applying the lessons of Ask Every Student at scale will foster participation and positive identities as voters, as well as strengthen our democracy.
Coyle is a retired minister who writes about the intersections of faith, culture and politics. She is the author of "Living in The Story: A Year to Read the Bible and Ponder God's Story of Love and Grace."
Pittsburgh is the home of 446 bridges, more than any other city in the world. The City of Bridges is also home to a small group of Muslims, only about 0.5% of the population. Maybe this minority status contributed to the 2018 attack on a high school Muslim woman wearing a hijab. This violence is one reason Ebtehal Badawi began her "Pittsburg Builds Bridges" art project.
Even though she herself is a Muslim, Badawi's bridge paintings depict symbols of nine religions and cultures demonstrating a wide range of worldviews. She believes, as I do, that differences need not divide us. Our diversity can make us stronger, kinder and wiser if we will ground ourselves in the basic truth of our common humanity.
"The reason these things happen, incidents of racism and bullying, is because people are afraid of people who are different," said Badawi. "We need to accept those who are different, people who don't look the same or share the same belief. We need to be open, to see the people in front of us."
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We need to see the people in front of us.
This is where bridges come in handy. Bridges bring us nearer to one another, connecting those who may have been separated by distance or terrain, by experience or opinions. When we make the effort to find ways to move closer, then we are able to see, hear and understand more clearly.
Some years ago, I attended an event called Dallas Dinner Table, a conversation of strangers around a shared meal on Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday. The bridges of understanding we built during that evening made us all stronger, kinder and wiser.
When I served as a local pastor in several different congregations, we would create occasional opportunities for church friends with diverse (and sometimes clashing) opinions to sit down together and tell their stories. Strengthening relationships, cultivating mutual respect, and appreciating the context of our various lives often allowed us to find a path through our disagreements.
Living Room Conversations broadens the opportunity to build bridges of community across cyberspace. Even when we are separated by multiple miles and numerous time zones, we get to "see the people in front of us," hear their stories and understand viewpoints that are different from our own.
But why would any of us do this bridge-building work when it's so very comfortable to stay safely within our own familiar territory? Badawi reminds us that violence is the price societies will pay when we allow ourselves to be fragmented and cut off from each other. Fear of "the other" will foster violence in thought, word, or deed in small and large ways. On the other hand, drawing near to another allows us to see the other, to recognize our shared humanity and (hopefully) to find there insight instead of fear.
Like my Muslim sister, as a Christian, I too ground my peacemaking efforts in my own religious faith. We both acknowledge that there are too many ways in which our various faith traditions have been misused to divide people instead of bringing people together, to foster animosity instead of cultivating love. We reject these kinds of misappropriations, and we will do whatever we can wherever we are to encourage our neighbors to break down barriers and to build bridges in their place.
I am grateful for the ways the Bridge Alliance effort is always seeking creative partners in this bridge-building business. Maybe you too are making similar efforts where you live. Maybe you see others in your community reaching out across divides. Will you tell us what you see where you are? Where do you find hope, courage, and wisdom in the midst of the challenges of our day? Where are your bridges?
A version of this article was first published at CharlotteVaughanCoyle.com.
Pressure mounts on Senate Democrats to choose between voting rights and filibuster
Actress Alyssa Milano and other advocates protest outside the White House to demand federal action on voting rights.
The massive elections reform bill known as the Freedom to Vote Act appears to be headed down the same path as its predecessor: blocked from Senate consideration by a Republican filibuster.
Senate Democrats plan to bring the compromise bill to the floor Wednesday for a procedural vote that would allow lawmakers to begin debating the legislation. However, that debate can only begin if 60 senators vote to stop a filibuster, and Republicans remain staunchly opposed to the bill.
Voting rights advocates expect the legislation to be stymied and have set their sites on eliminating the filibuster rule. They say Wednesday's vote will force Senate Democrats to choose between keeping an "archaic" procedural tool and enacting broad electoral reform.
"I, along with other coalition members, as well as Black and Brown voters across the United States, are disappointed. We are experiencing political theater at the expense of our lives, at the expense of justice for our communities and the work that we have done," said the Rev. Stephany Spaulding of Just Democracy, a coalition of more than 40 Black- and Brown-led social justice groups that support eliminating the Senate filibuster.
Democrats introduced the Freedom to Vote Act last month after the For the People Act was blocked by a GOP filibuster in June. The new, pared-down legislation includes many of the same provisions as the original bill, while making some concessions to appease moderate Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Manchin was the only Democratic holdout on the For the People Act, saying he believed any election reform legislation should have bipartisan support.
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- Both bills would require states to allow no-excuse absentee voting and offer automatic voter registration. But the Freedom to Vote Act would also make Election Day a public holiday, a provision that was dropped from the For the People Act.
- The Freedom to Vote Act also includes new protections for election administrators, who have faced heightened threats following the 2020 election. The bill would also empower voters to challenge burdens on their right to vote in court.
- Under this legislation, states with voter identification laws would be required to follow certain standards, such as accepting a broad array of photo and non-photo ID documentation when verifying a voter's identity.
- While the newer bill drops a provision that demands states adopt independent redistricting commissions, the Freedom to Vote Act does add new requirements to curb partisan gerrymandering and ensure the redistricting process is more fair and transparent. The bill also includes some campaign finance provisions, although they are significantly scaled back from what the For the People Act proposed.
These changes were made in response to critiques from election administrators who desired a more streamlined process and in the hopes of swaying Republicans to support the bill. But GOP lawmakers have not budged from their opposition.
Voting rights advocates have expressed frustration that these compromises were made in a fruitless attempt at bipartisanship.
Following Wednesday's anticipated blocking of the Freedom to Vote Act, Senate Democrats will be facing a "make or break" moment for American democracy, advocates say.
"Senate Democrats face a choice clearer than ever before: protect our democracy or protect the outdated, abused Senate filibuster," said Eli Zupnick, spokesperson for the Fix Our Senate coalition. "Despite Sen. Manchin's good faith outreach, there simply aren't 10 Republicans going to work with Democrats on this. Senate Democrats can have the filibuster, or they can defend our democracy. There is no third option, and we're running out of time."
A June poll conducted by Morning Consult and Politico didn't find majority support among voters for keeping or eliminating the filibuster. When voters were asked if the current Senate rule should be kept, 48 percent indicated support. But when voters were given a choice between whether legislation should pass with 60 votes or a simple 51-vote majority, 45 percent said the latter.
Another poll, this one conducted last month by Data For Progress, found supermajority support across party lines for the Freedom to Vote Act. Seven in 10 Americans overall indicated support. Democrats were most enthusiastic with 85 percent backing the legislation, followed by two-thirds of independents and 54 percent of Republicans.
"Americans overwhelmingly support the Freedom to Vote Act because they believe that every one of us should have the freedom to vote so that we all have an equal say in the future for our family and community, regardless of our age, our political party, our background or our zip code," said Common Cause president Karen Hobert Flynn.
Discussions on gerrymandering often call for the creation of independent redistricting commissions to draw electoral maps. But in this episode of the Democracy Works podcast from the McCourtney Institute for Democracy, Christopher Fowler explains that plan is just part of a bigger solution to gerrymandering.
Earlier this year, I joined in the work of Urban Rural Action, founded by Joe Bubman. URA's primary mission is to bring together Americans across geographic, political, racial, and generational divides to build relationships, strengthen collaboration skills, explore different perspectives and tackle issues that impact all communities.
Being fully transparent, I am often suspicious of bridge-building efforts and I initially was reluctant to fully embrace the work. This is not because I do not believe in the premise, but because the end goal is often simply civility. Put another way, if we all just agree to not critique or debate then we can all just get along. Joe and I have had this discussion and he admitted in his own reflection that "We bridge-builders too often view the problem through a narrow lens."
For many of us this is hard to admit, but even our well-intentioned initiatives privilege some voices over others and in subtle ways uphold the status quo. As a result, consensus is formed and we spend more time, in the words of Anand Giridharadas, marketing "the idea of generosity as a substitute for the idea of justice." Ghiridharas related this to what he called the Aspen Consensus, which says, "Do more good" — not "Do less harm." (The Aspen Institute from which this consensus is derived, is in a loose network of many of these bridge-building organizations.) Rarely is consensus a road to justice.
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This may be problematic to some of you, but our beloved President Abraham Lincoln stated, "If I could save the Union without freeing any slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it." Our calls for unity cannot come at the expense of those on the underside and while we are on the issue of slavery, we have to stop treating it as a footnote to American history and truly wrestle with how it has and continues to shape our nation.
Wrestling with our collective past has the potential to free us from guilt and move us toward reclaiming our shared humanity. As James Baldwin stated, "Guilt is a very peculiar emotion. As long as you are guilty about something, no matter what it is, you are not compelled to change it."
Wallowing in guilt is not the way forward, but neither is pretending that it never happened. Going along just to get along may be the easiest way to navigate this system, but it is also a sure way to maintain more of the same. Some of us need to become more comfortable in being uncomfortable. And perhaps even more challenging, some of us need to become comfortable in making others feel uncomfortable. It will be crucial to individual and shared growth. Too often we want to silence disruptors who insist on remembering, but every critic is not an enemy.
This past fall, I had the privilege of being chosen to participate in the Civic Saturday Fellowship, a program of Civic University. Civic Saturday is a civic analog to a faith gathering. Civic Saturdays are arranged in this format because the founders understood that organized religion has figured out a few things about how to bring people together, about how to create a language of common purpose and about how to use story and narrative to spark people's reckoning with their own shortcomings, weaknesses and aspirations.
Civic Saturdays serve to remind all of us that we are in this together, shaping the future of our communities and country. While we all approach it differently, we are working to realize the promise of our democracy. Many think democracy is already established, but democracy is an idea that is still being perfected and until we break our routines, democracy will remain static.
In one of my civic sermons I stated, "we have to embrace the discomfort that true patriotism requires and be willing to contend with difficult questions. An example of this would be to ask, how do African Americans hold in tension the legacy of systemic racism and have pride in this Country?" We are too quick to move past the fact that Black people arrived on these shores as legal property and even after their citizenship was achieved Black Americans' relationship with democracy has remained complicated.
This an issue that for many creates discord, but it must be acknowledged. So when we gather together to embrace democracy, we must hold on to that tension and refuse to flatten the texture and grain of our varied lived experiences. Many of us want to find ways that our voices can flourish together, but we must anticipate that it might take what sounds like struggle along the way. Perhaps through this grappling, we will save our civic souls.
Texas' new election maps discriminate against Latino voters, lawsuit claims
Texas lawmakers approved new election maps for Congress and the state legislature, but advocates are suing over a potential voting rights violation.
The GOP-majority Texas Legislature approved new maps for Congress and the state Legislature this week, and the first lawsuit has already been filed — before any maps have been finalized.
Latino voting rights advocates filed the first federal lawsuit on Monday, claiming the districts drawn and approved by Texas lawmakers discriminate against Latinos by diluting their voting power and therefore violating the Voting Rights Act. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott is expected to sign the new maps into law in the coming days.
The lawsuit was filed by five registered Texas voters and nine Latino advocacy groups, including LULAC, Mi Familia Vota and Texas Hispanics Organized for Political Education. They are being represented by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which successfully challenged the state's maps during the previous redistricting cycle.
Over the last decade, Texas has gained 4 million new residents, earning the state two new congressional seats. Half of the newcomers are Hispanic and 95 percent of them are people of color, according to the Census Bureau.
However, the recently approved maps do not reflect this growing Hispanic voting bloc in Texas. The number of state House districts in which Latinos make up a majority of the eligible voters dropped from 33 to 30. The number of congressional districts in which Hispanics were in the majority was also reduced from eight to seven.
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Instead, Republicans, who control the state's redistricting process, drew the maps so the two new congressional districts would be majority white. The lawsuit claims legislators used gerrymandering tactics like packing and cracking to diminish Latino voting power.
"Fair maps" advocates have also flagged Texas' redistricting plans as examples of partisan gerrymandering. The Princeton Gerrymandering Project and RepresentUs gave the state's maps for Congress and the state legislature failing grades for ensuring "significant Republican advantage." The groups also noted that the maps have non-compact districts, meaning there were more county splits than usual.
This the latest, and perhaps most high profile, redistricting lawsuit to be filed since the process kicked off following the 2020 census.
I was recently talking to an 86-year-old friend of mine, Michael Stapler, about The Fulcrum and our new Pop Culture section.
The Fulcrum believes there is a deep connection between democracy and American culture, and this new coverage area is designed to deepen the understanding of our differences and similarities, and discover our shared interests and common destinies.
Whether it is music of all types, poetry, dance, literature, painting and drawing, comedy, or drama, we will appeal to the human spirit — a spirit that expresses the joys, sorrows and harmonies of the heart and soul.
Michael, whose hobby is painting, took my words seriously and I was taken aback when he presented me with a beautiful painting he did that was inspired by our conversation about the connection between art and democracy.
His painting, "LIBERTY - Celebrating Freedom in America," is his expression of what celebrating freedom in America means to him.
His painting was accompanied by these words expressing how art is connected to democracy, and perhaps they were his inspiration for the painting:
- Art represents one of the key components of Democracy, the freedom of expression.
- Art examines and expresses culture, human rights, and diversity.
- Art can view ways of life that differ from one's own.
- Art is a universal language.
- Art often promotes citizen participation.
- Art engages one's emotions.
- The Statue of Liberty represents freedom, democracy and justice.
Many artists are drawn to the Statue of Liberty. Iconic pop artist Peter Max has been enamored with the statue, completing his first portrait of it 45 years ago. He has done many more over the years.
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Standing at 305 feet tall, the Statue of Liberty for many is a symbol of freedom, optimism and friendship among nations. A gift from France in 1886, her base has these words inscribed:
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Each one of us as we look upon Michael's painting and read these words will feel different emotions and have different perceptions as to what the Statue of Liberty means to them. And that is America: a diversity of thought, a melting pot of ideas.
As you look at this painting and read the words inscribed on Lady Liberty, what emotions do you feel? Email us at pop-culture@fulcrum.us to share your thoughts.