Skip to content
Project 2025
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories
Protesters holding signs

Project 2025: Abortion policy

Supreme Court

The Supreme Court is a threat to American democracy

Democracy Awards recognize eight members of Congress for public service

U.S. Capitol

Each year the Congressional Management Foundation recognizes eight members of Congress for their non-legislative achievements.

Mandel Ngan/Getty Images
Sara Swann
By Sara SwannAug 16, 2021
Sara Swann

As a staff writer, Sara covers a variety of democracy reform issues, including voting rights, money in politics, gerrymandering and civic education. Prior to joining The Fulcrum in May 2019, Sara reported on local government on Maryland's Eastern Shore for the USA Today network. She is a native West Virginian and a graduate of Syracuse University.

See More Writings by author

At a time when public trust in Congress is low and partisan dysfunction is high, a select group of lawmakers is leading the way on improving citizen engagement and operations on Capitol Hill.

The Democracy Awards — also dubbed the "Oscars for Congress" — recognizes the legislators who go above and beyond each year. On Monday, the Congressional Management Foundation announced the winners of its fourth annual honors program. Two lawmakers, one from each party, were chosen for their non-legislative achievements and performance in each of four separate categories: constituent service, workplace environment, transparency and accountability, and innovation and modernization.

"Americans usually only hear about Congress when something goes wrong. The Democracy Awards shines a light on Congress when it does something right," said Brad Fitch, president and CEO of CMF. "These Members of Congress and their staff members deserve recognition for their work to improve transparency in government, foster innovation in Congress, modernize their work environments and serve their constituents."

Here are this year's eight winners.

For constituent service:

  • GOP Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska.
  • Democratic Rep. Cheri Bustos of Illinois.

For "Life in Congress" workplace environment:

  • GOP Rep. French Hill of Arkansas.
  • Democratic Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon of Pennsylvania.

For transparency and accountability:

  • Democratic Rep. Anthony Brown of Maryland.
  • GOP Rep. Dusty Johnson of South Dakota.

For innovation and modernization:

  • GOP Rep. Gus Bilirakis of Florida.
  • Democratic Rep. Katie Porter of California.

In addition, the nonpartisan floor staffers of the House and Senate were collectively recognized by CMF with a Special Democracy Award for "the crucial role they played and the personal risks they took on January 6, 2021 to protect others and our democratic tradition of peacefully transitioning power."

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

Latest news

Man atop a mountain
Democracy

America needs to open new frontiers

Vice President Harris at a podium
Election 2024

Will America dare break the glass?

Clarence Thomas, John Roberts and Samuel Alito
Rule of Law

Is the Supreme Court partisan?

Read More

Department of Labor building in Washington, DC
Flickr

Project 2025: The Department of Labor

Hill was policy director for the Center for Humane Technology, co-founder of FairVote and political reform director at New America. You can reach him on X @StevenHill1776.

This is part of a series offering a nonpartisan counter to Project 2025, a conservative guideline to reforming government and policymaking during the first 180 days of a second Trump administration. The Fulcrum's cross partisan analysis of Project 2025 relies on unbiased critical thinking, reexamines outdated assumptions, and uses reason, scientific evidence, and data in analyzing and critiquing Project 2025.

The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, a right-wing blueprint for Donald Trump’s return to the White House, is an ambitious manifesto to redesign the federal government and its many administrative agencies to support and sustain neo-conservative dominance for the next decade. One of the agencies in its crosshairs is the Department of Labor, as well as its affiliated agencies, including the National Labor Relations Board, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.

Project 2025 proposes a remake of the Department of Labor in order to roll back decades of labor laws and rights amidst a nostalgic “back to the future” framing based on race, gender, religion and anti-abortion sentiment. But oddly, tucked into the corners of the document are some real nuggets of innovative and progressive thinking that propose certain labor rights which even many liberals have never dared to propose.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

Keep ReadingShow less
Preamble to the U.S. Constitution
mscornelius/Getty Images

We can’t amend 'We the People' but 'we' do need a constitutional reboot

LaRue writes at Structure Matters. He is former deputy director of the Eisenhower Institute and of the American Society of International Law.

The following article was accepted for publication prior to the attempted assassination attempt of Donald Trump. Both the author and the editors determined no changes were necessary.

Keep ReadingShow less
Beau Breslin on C-SPAN
C-CSPAN screenshot

Project 2025: A C-SPAN interview

Beau Breslin, a regular contributor to The Fulcrum, was recently interviewed on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” about Project 2025.

Breslin is the Joseph C. Palamountain Jr. Chair of Political Science at Skidmore College and author of “A Constitution for the Living: Imagining How Five Generations of Americans Would Rewrite the Nation’s Fundamental Law.” He writes “A Republic, if we can keep it,” a Fulcrum series to assist American citizens on the bumpy road ahead this election year. By highlighting components, principles and stories of the Constitution, Breslin hopes to remind us that the American political experiment remains, in the words of Alexander Hamilton, the “most interesting in the world.”

Keep ReadingShow less
People protesting laws against homelessness

People protest outside the Supreme Court as the justices prepared to hear Grants Pass v. Johnson on April 22.

Matt McClain/The Washington Post via Getty Images

High court upholds law criminalizing homelessness, making things worse

Herring is an assistant professor of sociology at UCLA, co-author of an amicus brief in Johnson v. Grants Pass and a member of the Scholars Strategy Network.

In late June, the Supreme Court decided in the case of Johnson v. Grants Pass that the government can criminalize homelessness. In the court’s 6-3 decision, split along ideological lines, the conservative justices ruled that bans on sleeping in public when there are no shelter beds available do not violate the Constitution’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

This ruling will only make homelessness worse. It may also propel U.S. localities into a “race to the bottom” in passing increasingly punitive policies aimed at locking up or banishing the unhoused.

Keep ReadingShow less
Project 2025: A federal Parents' Bill of Rights

Republican House members hold a press event to highlight the introduction in 2023.

Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Project 2025: A federal Parents' Bill of Rights

Biffle is a podcast host and contributor at BillTrack50.

This is part of a series offering a nonpartisan counter to Project 2025, a conservative guideline to reforming government and policymaking during the first 180 days of a second Trump administration. The Fulcrum's cross partisan analysis of Project 2025 relies on unbiased critical thinking, reexamines outdated assumptions, and uses reason, scientific evidence, and data in analyzing and critiquing Project 2025.

Project 2025, the conservative Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for a second Trump administration, includes an outline for a Parents' Bill of Rights, cementing parental considerations as a “top tier” right.

The proposal calls for passing legislation to ensure families have a "fair hearing in court when the federal government enforces policies that undermine their rights to raise, educate, and care for their children." Further, “the law would require the government to satisfy ‘strict scrutiny’ — the highest standard of judicial review — when the government infringes parental rights.”

Keep ReadingShow less
© Copyright 2024