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Project 2025: Abortion policy

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The Supreme Court is a threat to American democracy

Don't let the Jan. 6 commission be another missed opportunity

Rioters breach Capitol security Jan. 6

Rioters breached Capitol security and stormed the building Jan. 6. The Senate appears poised to block the establishment of an investigative commission.

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Debilyn Molineaux
By Debilyn MolineauxMay 28, 2021
Debilyn Molineaux

Debilyn Molineaux serves as the catalyst for the American Future project to help everyday Americans discover and believe in a future that will be "worth it" to work together for the sake of our nation.

Debilyn brings a passion to her work that is contagious to all around her. Hailing from a conservative, agricultural community, Debilyn started her career as a small business owner, working with community businesses to promote and grow their own operations through advertising and marketing. After engaging other women business leaders, Debilyn was inspired to become more active in the political process. Her own personal experiences -- as a small business owner, a local candidate for office, and an elected president of a national organization -- have given her enormous insight into the challenges facing citizens who want to get involved and organizations that want to scale their impact.

Debilyn is a serial entrepreneur, co-founding many organizations and transpartisan projects over her 20+ year career in establishing the democracy ecosystem. She has co-founded the Bridge Alliance, Living Room Conversations and the National Week of Conversation. She formerly was co-publisher of The Fulcrum and continues as advisor for Citizen Connect, Listen First Project, AllSides and other organizations, individuals within the democracy ecosystem.

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Molineaux is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and President/CEO of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.

As a journalistic endeavor, we focus a lot on what's wrong with Congress and the dysfunction that stalls nearly all high-profile legislation from being debated. But we haven't explored the possibilities lost to partisan fighting. How many opportunities do we miss to improve our collective governance?

If Senate Republicans prevail, the so-called Jan. 6 commission will be a major missed opportunity. And the subsequent investigations will lack the gravitas of the bipartisan investigation citizens deserve. Commissions following Watergate and 9/11 put aside political gamesmanship and focused on uncovering the truth. The act of seeking facts together is essential.

All of Congress should be demanding the facts. Especially since each of our elected officials and their staff may have testimony to provide.

The alternative is investigating through congressional committees, where witnesses and committee members are the same people. It would be messier and less believable. Especially with members of Congress already campaigning for their 2022 elections. We have only to remember the many partisan investigations of Benghazi or Donald Trump followed by their weaponization for campaign ads.

Commissions are the best way for us to analyze what happened, what mistakes were made and how we can improve to prevent the same mistakes from happening again. A bipartisan Jan. 6 commission would provide the American people with the facts and reassure us that our government can correct itself in service to the people.

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A commission is not a request for more partisanship. We demand an honest accounting of what happened, who was involved and what we missed that could have prevented it from happening. It's an opportunity to build trust, instead of further eroding it.

Such knowledge is critical if we are to advance our society further. It is our duty to create a safe working environment for public officials, their staff and our security forces. If we fail to create a safe working environment for public servants, then hope for democracy is decreased as public service becomes a life-or-death risk few will take.

Lack of a commission at this moment will further diminish our confidence in elected officials and their ability to put aside personal interests for the greater good. Collective good is the essence of public service. Courage is required.

Let's not waste this opportunity. Our nation is counting on our elected leaders.

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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.

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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.

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Project 2025: A federal Parents' Bill of Rights

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Project 2025: A federal Parents' Bill of Rights

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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.

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