IVN is joined by Nate Allen, founder and Executive Director of Utah Approves, to discuss Approval Voting and his perspective on changing the incentives of our elections.
Podcast: Seeking approval in Utah
![Podcast: Seeking approval in Utah](https://thefulcrum.us/media-library/image.png?id=29637907&width=1245&height=700&quality=85&coordinates=128%2C0%2C128%2C0)
IVN is joined by Nate Allen, founder and Executive Director of Utah Approves, to discuss Approval Voting and his perspective on changing the incentives of our elections.
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 The Fulcrum's cross partisan analysis of Project 2025 relies on unbiased critical thinking, reexamines outdated assumptions, and uses reason, scientific evidence, and data in analyzing and critiquing Project 2025.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.
In its opening narrative, the document attacks any policy focus based on the diversity of the workforce. Like much of the MAGA movement, it rejects racial classifications and preferences under the guise of the “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) revolution” and critical race theory. I’m not sure many of the 161 million Americans employed in the United States who are coping with high prices, inadequate wages and startling levels of inequality — 39 percent of whom are minority and 55 percent are female — lay awake at night worrying over the critical dangers emanating from DEI and CRT. But for the handful who do, Project 2025 has them covered.
Project 2025 demands that federal agencies prohibit the use of any racial classifications or quotas related to the workplace, and also prohibit even the collection of employment statistics based on race/ethnicity. And while they are at it, they should eliminate the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, which requires federal contractors and subcontractors to commit to nondiscrimination and tracks compliance by these businesses.
Project 2025 then moves on to gender and transgender matters. The attack on female workers comes in the form of the promotion of what the document calls a “pro-life” workplace and of the states’ right to restrict abortion, surrogacy or other similar “benefits.” Project 2025 also calls for draconian measures against transgender workers, demanding the recission of regulations that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, transgender status, and sex characteristics, including in hiring and firing.
All in all, the strong ideological emphasis on cultural wars within the workplace seems misplaced and disconnected from the working conditions that plague hundreds of millions of American workers. Many of their proposals seem more focused on restoring some nostalgic version of white male supremacy and Christian nationalism than on actually aiding workers.
Project 2025 includes several more bad policy ideas, but also some interesting ideas and even a few good ones.
One bad idea sounds almost medieval. Project 2025 would seek to amend what is known as “hazard-order regulations” to permit teenagers to work in dangerous jobs. “Some young adults,” claims the MAGA manifesto, “show an interest in inherently dangerous jobs” but “current rules forbid many young people … from working in such jobs,” resulting in “worker shortages in dangerous fields.” The Project 2025 visionaries would loosen these regulations to allow teenagers to “work in more dangerous occupations.”
Project 2025 advocates that Congress pass legislation allowing waivers for states and local governments to escape from enforcement of crucial federal labor laws, like the foundational Fair Labor Standards Act (which bestows the right to a minimum wage and time-and-a-half for overtime pay, and prohibits employment of minors in oppressive child labor) and the National Labor Relations Act that guarantees the right of workers to organize into trade unions, engage in collective bargaining and take collective action such as strikes. This provision alone would enact an ominous, far-reaching threat to eviscerate the most important labor laws of the past 75 years.
Project 2025 also would crack down on labor union organizing by banning “card check” as the basis of union recognition and mandating secret ballot elections exclusively. Such a policy would allow employer coercion during certification elections, since many businesses hire anti-union consultants who are skilled in intimidating workers to vote against the union.
It also would reverse Obama- and Biden-era regulations that reined in widespread worker abuses in the fast food industry by holding corporations like McDonald’s and Burger King jointly liable for labor law violations committed by individual franchise owners operating under the corporation’s brand.
Project 2025 occasionally includes an interesting idea that deserves more attention. For example, it advocates for better quality child care, including on-site child care in the workplace rather than in a separate facility as a way of putting the “least stress on the parent-child bond.”
It also calls for a “day of rest” on “the Sabbath,” defined as either Sunday or another day of “sincere religious observance,” which seems like it could be a good idea for the “No Vacation American Nation,” where workers have fewer vacation days and holidays than any other developed country.
It also proposes the Working Families Flexibility Act, which would allow workers to accumulate paid time off by allowing private sector employees the ability to choose between either receiving time-and-a-half overtime pay or accumulating time-and-a-half overtime off.
The manifesto also somewhat recognizes that immigrant workers suffer frequent employer exploitation via the H-2A visa program that allows temporary agricultural workers into the United States. But their primary concern is that the low cost and expanding numbers of H-2A workers undercut jobs for American workers in agricultural employment, so they want a gradual phasedown and a cap on this program. But I’m skeptical. It might be a worthwhile policy goal to prioritize the hiring of U.S. citizens in certain agricultural occupations, but it’s hard to imagine too many Americans wanting jobs handpicking food in the hot sun, backs bent over and exploited, unless the wages were so high that the price of food became completely unaffordable.
In that same vein, Project 2025 would have Congress mandate that all new federal contracts require at least 70 percent of the contractor’s employees be U.S. citizens, with the percentage increasing to 95 percent over a 10-year period. But good luck with that — it’s conservative business owners who want low-wage immigrant labor, so it’s hard to imagine that such a policy would generate support, even in Republican circles. This is more likely a symbolic overture to win votes this November and not a serious policy offer.
While liberal organizations and media outlets have warned that Project 2025 is a threat to the American way of life, there actually are some positive proposals that deserve closer examination. Many of these positives reflect the influence of a young economist, Oren Cass, and his “new conservative” organization American Compass, which is not so welded to the libertarian free market brand of Trumpism and has a more benign view of labor unions and government regulation in their market-harnessing role.
William Galston from the Brookings Institute called Cass’s book “The Once and Future Worker” a “welcome common ground for policy debates across partisan and ideological lines.” Cass is listed as one of the co-authors of this part of Project 2025.
Cass’s good ideas include “non-union worker voice and representation” and “Employee Involvement Organizations.” By this he means a U.S. version of German-style codetermination, in which “works councils” in every workplace and worker representation on corporate boards of directors flex worker power and consultation rights, beyond what labor unions provide. Union leadership in the U.S. finds this threatening, but labor unions in Germany are more powerful than their U.S. counterparts, illustrating that such a structure can be a win-win toward cooperation on critical issues like working conditions, wages, benefits, productivity, and employer-employee communication and agenda-setting.
Another good idea is a proposal for interstate compacts that allow occupational license recognition for practitioners like doctors, lawyers, mental health therapists, plumbers and other licensed professionals. That would create more competition in these fields and provide more options for consumers.
Another farsighted idea is a broadening of workers’ access to employee stock ownership plans, which allow workers to become owners in the business in which they work and allows them to receive compensation beyond wages and benefits. Today 14 million U.S. workers are covered by over 60,00 ESOPs, almost as many workers as are members of labor unions, providing over $1.4 trillion of employee benefits. It’s been a decades-long success, and it has always puzzled me that both Republicans and Democrats haven’t done more to promote this policy.
For workers and labor markets today, the latest trends that are most impactful are remote work and gig platforms like Uber, DoorDash and TaskRabbit. But the Project 2025 manifesto has little to say about these market shapeshifters. Many remote and platform workers are subject to increasingly complex challenges of precarity, such as constant digital surveillance by bosses, lack of separation between home and work lives, employee misclassification, lack of health care and safety net coverage, companies ignoring labor laws, and other types of exploitation.
A number of innovative policies would better meet the needs of the 21st century labor force, including implementing a portable safety net that would allow all workers, no matter how or who they work for, to benefit from health care and safety net coverage for themselves and their families. Also helpful would be wrap-around job and vocational training, in which companies are surveyed about their upcoming skill needs and unemployed workers are trained to fill those identified needs. These kinds of innovations are commonplace among U.S. competitors, like Germany, Denmark and other advanced economy countries.
Yet Project 2025 has little to say about these issues other than token rhetorical shout-outs to teleworking and the need to “protect flexible work options” and “worker independence”, i.e. independent contractors. One small proposal calls for Congress to provide a “safe harbor” from job misclassification penalties for employers that offer safety net benefits to independent workers. This is a small step and much more needs to be done to prepare the workforce for the very near-future of widespread platform and remote work.
For example, the Biden administration is spending nearly half a billion dollars to establish technology hubs in rural areas, so that the employment benefits of technological development are not just primarily enjoyed by urban-based workers living in tech hubs like Silicon Valley or Seattle’s Microsoft-Amazon hub. Project 2025 does not propose anything comparable.
Interestingly, Project 2025 occasionally presents an “alternative view,” in which a different conservative philosophy and policy goals are presented. This reflects the very real debates within the conservative movement about the best approaches toward addressing labor issues and the concerns of working women and men. Unfortunately the sensible minority view within conservatism is mostly overwhelmed by the dominant view and its cultural race and gender obsessions.
More in The Fulcrum about Project 2025
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.
The roots of many contemporary political problems can be found in the Constitution. Its institutions are creaky, and rights that are new or threatened need anchors.
But the roots of these problems also extend to the people and principles beneath the structures and rights secured by the Constitution. Sure, changing term lengths across all three branches of government or advancing voting rights are worthy amendment topics. It is critical, however, that we re-embrace the fundamental role we citizens have.
This is why “We the People” — the heart of the Constitution — matter most. We are still the ones who elect our representatives, senators (after the 17th Amendment in 1913) and the president (sort of, via the Electoral College).
The framers weren’t flawless, but they deserve credit for creating a government that confronts how bad humans can be. The separation of powers, checks and balances, and federalism may be frustrating, but they prevent power from being consolidated and more easily abused, a risk the framers knew would be perpetual.
Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter
Paradoxically, they also understood that our public officials must be good — virtuous, as they asserted repeatedly — if our democracy is to work as intended. Yet we citizens remain the only ones who can put malignant or malicious perpetrators into office. Can we reduce this complementary risk? Yes, with these four steps:
First, vote. But don’t stop there. A constitutional democracy asks more of us, particularly in the 21st century, when performative partisanship, misinformation and disinformation prevail. Foreign policy expert Richard Haass called our deteriorating civic life the greatest security threat facing the nation. In “The Bill of Obligations,” he described 10 “habits of good citizens” that each of us can do to strengthen America, including staying informed, getting involved, valuing norms and supporting civics education. Our “[c]ollective identity” he said, “is a matter of teaching, not biology.”
Second, dial back the animosity toward those with whom we disagree.It’s an old saw, and easier said than done, but disagreeing agreeably is as necessary as it is laudable. We need to remind our representatives to rediscover this lost art, too. That means changing their incentives from appealing to a narrow, primary electoral base while restoring their constitutional role of bargaining, negotiation and compromise. Yuval Levin clarifies in his latest book, “American Covenant,” how a diverse nation must use this fundamental, Madisonian approach to govern itself. He also emphasizes that national unity is less about what we think and more about what we do.
Third, refresh our appreciation for the full range of principles expressed in our constitutional structure, which might best be accomplished by reading “The Pursuit of Happiness” by the National Constitution Center’s president, Jeffrey Rosen. The philosophies and values beneath the service, citizenship and representation that shaped the founders’ thinking when they crafted the Constitution are considered classical for a reason; in Rosen’s hands, they come alive. He vibrantly shows how the founders tapped the work of great thinkers, from Cicero and Epictetus to Hume and Locke, to conceive the nation’s constitutional design. Their perspectives on restraint, moderation, humility and other traits are surprisingly resonant for re-anchoring our public morals today.
Lastly, recognize that we are all reformers, whether active or passive. As the artist Georgia O’Keeffe said in 1981, reflecting on moving to and living in northwestern New Mexico, “When you start making a home, it is difficult to stop changing it, imagining it different.”
It may be trite to equate our government or nation with a residence, and odder still to do so by citing an introverted artist. But few analogies work better. We are individually and collectively building and living in a home called America. We may disagree about small matters, say a paint color, or large matters, perhaps a renovation. But we need to agree about the largest matters, such as fixing leaky roofs, broken door hinges and cracked foundations.
And then there is how we treat those residing in the other rooms. Suggesting that “We the People” need a civic reboot is not a slur against any or all of us; it simply places us where we belong — at the center of our country, our government, our home — and evokes our responsibility of “imagining it different.” The cyclical waves or spirals that bring change don’t happen unless we use our imagination.
So keep at it, America. O’Keeffe captured the essence of human striving to better our world. Perhaps more than her artwork, her civic wisdom can inspire us all.
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.”
Most recently Breslin has also contributed to The Fulcrum’s 30-part series offering a nonpartisan counter to Project 2025, a conservative guideline to reforming government and policymaking during 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.
While an in-depth analysis of what works and doesn't work in our democracy is a laudable and much-needed task, unfortunately Project 2025 is a biased political report designed to build a case for conservative solutions. The Fulcrum believes that a version of Project 2025 approached from a cross-partisan perspective, void of pre-determined left or right solutions, would serve as a guide for citizens and our elected representatives to ensure the healthy democratic republic we all desire.
Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter
Breslin’s interview on C SPAN offered an in-depth overview of the 990-page Project 2025 report and is a much-needed scholarly analysis of the Heritage Foundation’s comprehensive, far-reaching proposal.
In the interview, Breslin discusses the many controversial components of Project 2025, including its neo-isolationist and Christian nationalist temperament. He also discusses what Project 2025 would mean for America and how it promotes a degree of social, racial and religious intolerance. Callers to the show examined topics ranging from foreign aid to DEI policies, the proposed closing of the Department of Education and the reasons former President Donald rump might want to distance himself from the project. Consistent with the mission of The Fulcrum, Breslin tries to find common ground in a polarized and difficult political environment.
People protest outside the Supreme Court as the justices prepared to hear Grants Pass v. Johnson on April 22.
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.
Like many West Coast localities, the town of Grants Pass, Ore., suffers from an acute affordable housing crisis and no homeless shelters for adults. In 2013, the city council hosted a meeting to “identify solutions to the current vagrancy problem.” Rather than expanding shelter or housing, the council passed ordinances that made it illegal to sleep outside with blankets, pillows or even cardboard. Every violation triggers a $275 fine, and after two citations a person may be issued an exclusion order across all public property.
Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter
This amounts to banishment from Grants Pass or incarceration for simply being homeless. As the city council president at the time said, “The point is to make it uncomfortable enough for them in our city so they will want to move on down the road.”
While the Grants Pass scheme may be uniquely cruel, local governments enforce ordinances against standing, sitting, resting and sleeping in public space across the United States. Now that the minimal guardrails of legal protections for the homeless have been removed by the Supreme Court, it is more important than ever for local lawmakers not to fall prey to populist outrage to ramp up punitive crackdowns. They should instead heed the decades of social science research that shows them to be both counterproductive and cruel.
Synthesizing over 50 published research papers on the impacts of these laws from small towns to large cities, a group of social scientists including myself filed a brief for the Supreme Court in the case. The research consistently arrived at a broad consensus. The enforcement of anti-homeless laws not only fails to reduce homelessness in public space beyond a few blocks, it also traps people in homelessness longer and exacerbates health conditions, all while creating numerous barriers to shelter, treatment, jobs and housing.
Enforcement of anti-homeless laws has been shown to have various negative health impacts. For instance, a 2021 California study of 3,200 adults experiencing homelessness in eight counties found that 36 percent had their belongings taken and/or destroyed by local agencies while enforcing anti-homeless ordinances in just six months. Participants in this study and in other large surveys taken in Denver and Honolulu reported having lost life-saving medicine needed to treat HIV and Hepatitis C, ID and benefit cards, walkers, canes, crutches, and wheelchairs. Meanwhile, CDC scientists acknowledge that clearing encampments through enforcement increases the spread of infectious disease, increasing public health risks.
A study surveying doctors and medical providers identified widespread frustration with enforcement. The houseless regularly avoid appointments or even hospitalization from fear that their property will be destroyed. Many lose benefits and prescriptions due to short incarcerations. All of this leads to negative health impacts, increased emergency room utilization and exorbitant health care costs on already strained systems.
Many people experience incarceration for their first time due to their homelessness, but the consequences have lasting effects. Incarceration often means a loss of employment due to absence and increased difficulty securing new employment stemming from their newly acquired criminal record. The mark of a criminal record also leads to exclusions in the housing market due to landlord discrimination.
Tickets are often viewed as a civil infraction, but they can have the same punitive impacts. Unpaid citations in most U.S. localities result in arrest warrants, spoiled credit, suspensions of driver’s licenses, and erect multiple barriers to exiting homelessness. In San Francisco, a study found that 90 percent of the 10,000 to 15,000 citations given to homeless people each year for sitting, camping or loitering go unpaid — no surprise considering the poverty of those cited.
Not only are those with warrants often barred from work and housing, they are also restricted from residential drug and mental health treatment programs, as well as homeless shelters in many states. Rather than working as sticks to push people towards better life choices and opportunity, studies consistently find that enforcement more often pulls people deeper into poverty and extends their homelessness.
Despite the overwhelming evidence that these laws are ineffective, costly and harmful, they are politically popular. For politicians in power, enforcement reduces public outrage.
Such laws have been consistently found to do nothing to curb wider collective urban disorder or reduce homelessness in public space. But enforcement scratches the itch of individual angry residents and business owners dialing 911 to have their block spot-cleaned of homelessness. Meanwhile, political challengers often campaign on even harsher ordinances, blaming the persistence of homelessness on the incumbent’s tolerance. Both positions distract from the real issue of the growing affordable housing crisis at the problem’s root, which politicians are weary to address.
Even if the Supreme Court had ruled in favor of the homeless plaintiffs, the truth is little would have changed without further political and legal pressure for reforms. And though Friday’s ruling is a huge step backwards, it won’t stop the ongoing legal cases to protect unhoused people’s rights on Fourth, Fifth, and 14th amendment grounds of rights to property, due process and equal access to shelter.
Nonetheless, the court’s decision now frees localities of even the lowest level of accountability in its criminal treatment of homelessness. It will also fuel political competition between cities, counties and even states to pass increasingly punitive policies as they try to push their unhoused residents “down the road.”
Republican House members hold a press event to highlight the introduction in 2023.
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.”
So far, the heavy legislating has happened at the state level, with a number introducing legislation aimed at increasing parental involvement, transparency and accountability. There is a growing movement for parents to have more control over and insight into their children's education. Proponents believe greater parental involvement can lead to better educational outcomes. Most laws proposed by states purport to center around increasing transparency in educational systems, ensuring parents are informed about what their children are being taught, how schools are run, and how decisions are made.
Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter
These legislative efforts are often a response to our broader social and political movements, driving for increased parental involvement and oversight in schools. For instance, conservative groups have been particularly vocal about lessons around critical race theory and gender education, pushing for more parental control to adjust school curricula to align with their personal views and values.
Such laws generally outline specific rights for parents regarding their control and influence over their children’s upbringing, primarily in the context of education. Arizona’s House Bill 2732 in 2010 was the first in the current effort to define parental rights concerning children's education, upbringing, and health care. The law specifically includes a parent's right to direct their child's education, access school records and be informed about the curriculum.
Utah passed Parental Rights in Public Education in 2014, specifying certain rights of a parent or guardian of a student enrolled in a public school.Florida’s 2021 Parental Rights in Education gave parents control over their child's education, health care decisions and moral upbringing, including provisions for greater transparency in educational materials and school policies.
Texas enacted two bills in 2023: The first allows parents to access and review instructional materials; the second prohibits public school systems from possessing, acquiring and purchasing “harmful library material that is sexually explicit, pervasively vulgar, or educationally unsuitable.”
Many other states have proposed and enacted similar bills over the last decade.
Excessive interference in curriculum can undermine the expertise of educators and educational institutions, resulting in a fragmented educational experience for students, especially if parents with diverse views impose conflicting demands on schools. Schools will face increased administrative burdens to comply with the proposed transparency, find a middle ground and fulfill reporting requirements. This diverts time and resources away from direct educational activities, impacting overall school function.
Further, there is an argument that this type of legislation can lead to censorship of educational materials, particularly those related to controversial or sensitive topics such as sex education, race and gender identity. This can limit students' exposure to diverse perspectives and critical thinking opportunities. Allowing parents to opt their children out of certain lessons or activities can lead to inconsistencies in educational standards and experiences, affecting the overall quality and cohesiveness of student's education.
The focus on parental rights could prioritize voices of more vocal or organized groups, potentially neglecting the needs and rights of minority or marginalized students and families. The federal legislation will likely result in increased legal disputes between parents and schools, which are costly and time-consuming, draining already limited school resources. Also, the implementation of these laws can exacerbate social and political divisions, particularly in communities with diverse views, leading to conflicts between parents, educators, and school boards, creating a contentious educational environment.
Balancing parental rights with the needs and expertise of educators is crucial to address these concerns effectively. While Project 2025’s initiative reflects a growing trend across the United States to formalize and expand parental rights in the context of education and child welfare, careful consideration is needed to ensure these rights do not hinder the educational process and overall student welfare.
More in The Fulcrum about Project 2025