Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

6 takeaways from a liberal democracy reform scorecard of Congress

Thumbs up/down
jayk7 / Getty Images

It's no surprise that Democrats in Congress rank better on democracy reform than their Republican counterparts, especially when progressive groups are keeping score. Over the last year, GOP members were largely opposed to Democratic efforts to get big money out of politics and expand access to the ballot box.

So the bipartisan chasm comes off as enormous in the first congressional scorecard produced by End Citizens United, a liberal political action committee that's focused mainly on shrinking money's influence over politics. And the report, released this week, suggests only rare and subtle degrees of disapproval for the blue team on Capitol Hill in 2019 — and only a few areas for faint praise of the red team.

All members were rated on whether they accepted contributions from corporate PACs. The 432 current House members were also scored on how they voted on the floor four times — including of course on HR 1, the comprehensive political process overhaul passed in March — and how many of five measures important to the group they cosponsored. Since the Senate took no votes on legislation connected to democracy reform, the senators in office last year were rated only on a quartet of co-sponsorships.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter


To see how each member scored, read the complete report. But here are six of the big takeaways:

The presidential candidates scored well.

All five members still in the running for the Democratic nomination received perfect marks: Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and Sens. Michael Bennet of Colorado, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. (So, too, did the three senators who have dropped out.)

Such perfect scores were rare.

Eleven Senators and 37 House members, all of them Democrats, checked all the boxes to earn an A+. This group included 22 House members in their first terms.

Because not many Democrats reject business cash.

Only a quarter of the Democratic senators (11 of them) and one-fifth of the party's House members (47) are doing one of the things End Citizens United thinks most important in an area when corporate money is flowing so freely into campaigns.

Almost all the Republicans got failing grades.

In fact, all 53 of the party's senators got a zero. So did 192 of the GOP members of the House last year. The remaining five each did one thing that got them credit with the group:

Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania voted for an overhaul of the Voting Rights Act. Brian Mast of Florida voted for for an election security package. Francis Rooney of Florida and Phil Roe of Tennessee are rejecting corporate PAC money. (Both are retiring, though.) And John Katko of New York is cosponsoring an amendment to the Constitution to allow more limits on campaign fundraising and spending.

The newest Republican is an outlier.

Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey scored 85 percent for agreeing with the groups' position in seven of the 10 areas. But he's only been a GOP member since the start of the year. Last year he was a Democrat.

Just four Democrats did not get an A.

Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia were the only two Democratic senators in this category; she scored 82 percent and he got 71 percent. In the House, the lowest Democtaic scores were for Frederica Wilson of Florida (83 percent) and Collin Peterson of Minnesota (77 percent).

Read More

Donald Trump
James Devaney/GC Images

Project 2025: A cross-partisan approach, round 2

Earlier this year, The Fulcrum ran a 32-part series on Project 2025. It was the most read of any series we’ve ever published, perhaps due to the questions and concerns about what portions of Project 2025 might be enacted should Donald Trump get elected to a second term as president of the United States.

Project 2025 is a playbook created by the Heritage Foundation to guide Trump’s first 180 days in office. Our series began June 4 with “Project 2025 is a threat to democracy,” written by Northern Iowa professor emeritus Steve Corbin. He wrote:

Keep ReadingShow less
Senior older, depressed woman sitting alone in bedroom at home
Kiwis/Getty Images

Older adults need protection from financial abuse by family members

A mentor once told me that we take better care of our pets than we do older victims of mistreatment. As a researcher, I have sat across from people, including grown men, crying while recounting harrowing experiences of discovering and confronting elder financial exploitation within their families — by siblings, sons and daughters, nieces and nephews, girlfriends and neighbors. Intervening and helping victimized older people comes at a tremendous cost to caring family members. Currently, no caregiving or other policy rewards them for the time, labor, or emotional and relationship toll that results from helping to unravel financial abuse.
Keep ReadingShow less
Woman's hand showing red thumbs up and blue thumbs down on illustrated green background
PM Images/Getty Images

Why a loyal opposition is essential to democracy

When I was the U.S. ambassador to Equatorial Guinea, a small, African nation, the long-serving dictator there routinely praised members of the “loyal opposition.” Serving in the two houses of parliament, they belonged to pseudo-opposition parties that voted in lock-step with the ruling party. Their only “loyalty” was to the country’s brutal dictator, who remains in power. He and his cronies rig elections, so these “opposition” politicians never have to fear being voted out of office.

In contrast, the only truly independent party in the country is regularly denounced by the dictator and his ruling party as the “radical opposition.” Its leaders and members are harassed, often imprisoned on false charges and barred from government employment. This genuine opposition party has no representatives at either the national or local level despite considerable popular support. In dictatorships, there can be no loyal opposition.

Keep ReadingShow less
Migrants sits on the ground facing Border Patrol agents

U.S. Border Patrol agents detain migrants who camped in the border area near Jacumba, Calif.

Katie McTiernan/Anadolu via Getty Images

Do mass deportations cause job losses for American citizens?

This fact brief was originally published by EconoFact. Read the original here. Fact briefs are published by newsrooms in the Gigafact network, and republished by The Fulcrum. Visit Gigafact to learn more.

Do mass deportations cause job losses for American citizens?

Yes.

History shows mass deportations cause job losses for American citizens.

The anti-immigrant efforts of the Kennedy, Johnson, Roosevelt and Coolidge administrations either “generated no new jobs or earnings” or “harmed U.S. workers’ employment and earnings,” according to PIIE.

More recently, an analysis of President Obama’s deportation efforts found that deporting 500,000 immigrants causes around 44,000 job losses for U.S.-born workers.

Keep ReadingShow less