Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Two states asking Supreme Court for permission to regulate Electoral College conduct

Ballot box
teguhjatipras/Getty Images

This story was updated Nov. 21 with additional information.

Colorado has become the second state to ask the Supreme Court to decide if states may legally bind their presidential electors to vote for the candidate who carried their state.

The issue of so-called faithless electors is the latest aspect of an increasingly heated debate about the virtues and flaws of the Electoral College that has blossomed, especially among progressive democracy reform advocates, now that two of the past five presidential winners (Donald Trump in 2016 and George W. Bush in 2000) got to the Oval Office despite losing the national popular vote.


Last week, three electors from Washington — who were fined for voting for Colin Powell in 2016 instead of Hilary Clinton, the state's popular vote winner — filed a similar petition with the court. The fines were upheld by the state Supreme Court. In response, Washington told the high court in D.C. that "nothing in the text of the Constitution or its historical implementation precludes states" from passing laws to bind electors.

One of Colorado's nine electors also refused to vote for Clinton despite an order by the state's top elections official, who subsequently replaced the elector with someone who did. The elector sued, arguing a state law that mandates which candidate an elector must vote for was unconstitutional.

Thirty-two states have laws binding an elector's vote to the winner of the popular vote, but neither the Constitution nor federal law requires that Electoral College members adhere to state results.

A lower court dismissed the Colorado case, saying the elector was not eligible to sue. The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver reversed part of the decision, however, saying the elector could challenge his dismissal.

At a news conference Wednesday, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, who filed the petitionwith the Supreme Court, said the issue represented "a threat to the shared understanding of how our constitutional democracy works."

"Voters are expecting their votes to be delivered," said Weiser, a Democrat.

Colorado's Democratic secretary of state, Jena Griswold, defended the state's law intended to prevent faithless electors. "The idea that nine electors in Colorado that are unelected, unaccountable and that Coloradans really don't know could disregard our state law and the outcome of the general election is really unfathomable," she said. "This is a major decision, and we are hopeful the Supreme Court will do the right thing and protect our constitutional democracy."

Read More

Is Climate Change a Driver of Inflated Food Prices? Lessons From Florida

Photograph of an orange grove

Tyler Shaw via Unsplash

Is Climate Change a Driver of Inflated Food Prices? Lessons From Florida

If you buy groceries in the United States, you may have noticed that they’ve become more expensive. Inflation, as measured by the personal consumption expenditures price index (PCE), has risen significantly in the years since the COVID-19 pandemic, and the increase has been higher for food and beverages than for other types of items.

The price of oranges, Florida’s most famous crop, has increased by 26% since 2019, roughly in line with the overall inflation rate during that period.

Keep ReadingShow less
Jennie Spanos (left) and Alfonso Saldaña (right), co-directors of Move to Amend.

Photo provided

How Move To Amend Is Challenging Corporate Power, One Resolution at a Time

Alfonso Saldaña entered political activism during the early years of the Obama administration, motivated by a sense of optimism for real change in healthcare reform, addressing economic inequality, and reducing corporate influence over politics.

“I was excited when he won,” he said. “I thought things were going to get fixed.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Worst Gerrymandered States Face Redistricting Showdown As Trump Pressures Texas

Anti-gerrymandering protest

Sarah L. Voisin/Getty Images

Worst Gerrymandered States Face Redistricting Showdown As Trump Pressures Texas

President Donald Trump is actively urging Texas lawmakers to redraw congressional districts in what’s fast becoming a national showdown over electoral fairness. If successful, the effort could yield five additional safe Republican seats — boosting the GOP’s control to nearly 80% of Texas’s 38-member congressional delegation.

Texas already ranks among the worst offenders in the country for gerrymandered districts. As The Fulcrum reported in December 2024, two of its congressional maps are textbook cases in manipulated representation. The latest maneuver threatens to deepen that problem.

Keep ReadingShow less
Even With Limited Energy, I Resist
File:ICE.Arrest lg.jpg - Wikipedia

Even With Limited Energy, I Resist

Each of us follows a unique destiny, even as we know we will each wind up dead one day. Some people afflicted with a life-ending disease keep it to themselves. They would rather soldier on as though everything were normal. Maybe they tell a trusted friend or two, but they don’t broadcast it. They prefer not to have to deal with the sometimes halting words of empathy from strangers. Many people don’t know what to say, so in some sense, the sick person is relieving others of the need to commiserate publicly. To find suitable words. They talk about the weather or the Chicago Cubs. Anything but disease and its cousin, death.

As someone whose life has followed an unconventional path, I felt it was important that when I was diagnosed with cancer of the tongue and lymph nodes, I not keep this to myself. I didn’t know the difficult path that lay ahead, but since all of my family had died, I knew that I would have to rely on the support of friends (my chosen family) to make it through it. After a brutal surgery to remove the cancerous parts of my tongue, the surgeon took nerves from my arm to reconstruct a new tongue. This was followed by 33 targeted radiation treatments that left me unable to swallow solid food and the loss of my taste buds. Doctors thought I might regain those abilities and sensations, but alas! They have never returned.

Keep ReadingShow less