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
Site Navigation
Search
Latest Stories
Start your day right!
Get latest updates and insights delivered to your inbox.
Top Stories
Latest news
Read More
aerial photography of rural
Photo by Breno Assis on Unsplash
Innovative Local Solutions Can Ease America’s Housing Crisis
Apr 22, 2025
Across the country, families are prevented from accessing safe, stable, affordable housing—not by accident, but by design. Decades of exclusionary zoning, racial discrimination, and disinvestment have created a housing system that works well for the wealthy but leaves others behind. Even as federal cuts to public housing programs continue nationwide, powerful, community-rooted efforts are pushing back and offering real, equity-driven solutions led by local voices.
Historically, states like New Jersey show what’s possible when legal advocacy and grassroots organizing come together. In 1975, the New Jersey Supreme Court’s Mount Laurel ruling established that every municipality in the state has a constitutional obligation to provide its fair share of affordable housing. This landmark legal ruling reshaped housing policy and set a national precedent. Today, organizations like Fair Share Housing Center continue to defend and expand this right, ensuring that local governments are prohibited from using zoning laws to exclude working-class families or people of color.
Nationally, organizations like the Grounded Solutions Network are also leading the housing justice fight through community land trusts (CLTs), which help keep homes affordable by removing them from the for-profit housing market. In a CLT, a non-profit organization owns the land and the homeowner owns the building, ensuring that the home remains affordable for future generations, even as neighborhood prices increase.
Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter
Community development financial institutions (CDFIs)—like the Four Bands Community Fund—are expanding access to homeownership in reservation land and Indigenous communities that have been long excluded from conventional financial systems. CDFIs operate in urban, rural, and tribal communities nationwide. They are mission-driven lenders that provide loans, financial services, and support to individuals who are often overlooked by big banks. They invest in communities based on relationships and people, not just credit scores.
These are not one-size-fits-all solutions, but they are grounded in a shared belief: that housing is not a privilege. It is a human right, and essential for a healthy, equitable future.
We know the impact of these resources firsthand because they helped us secure the futures of our families.
Fair Share Housing Center, Grounded Solutions Network, and Four Bands Community Fund helped us secure not just physical shelter, but emotional security. They allowed us to provide a sanctuary where our children could heal, grow and feel safe, and they enabled us to achieve our dreams of homeownership.
Through these experiences of loss and recovery, we understand that stable housing is foundational to everything else. Home is the space where memories are built and family traditions are created. Housing enables individuals to maintain steady employment, access healthy food, and lay the groundwork for building generational wealth. Above all, housing is health.
The connection between housing and health is not abstract. People living in overcrowded or unstable housing are more likely to experience asthma, chronic illness, and poor mental health. Children who move frequently or live in unsafe conditions are at higher risk for developmental delays and emotional stress. Pregnant women who face housing insecurity have worse birth outcomes. When housing falls apart, so does public health.
Stories of housing security achieved through local solutions despite systemic challenges are being written all the time. Across the country, families are building stability through grassroots programs that work. But instead of supporting these models, the federal government is walking away from its responsibility to ensure that housing is accessible to all.
Federal funding for housing programs is being slashed at a time when more families than ever are struggling to keep a roof over their heads. Recent cuts to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) are projected to result in the elimination of tens of thousands of rental assistance vouchers and significant reductions in homelessness prevention programs. These choices aren’t just bad policies, they are a direct attack on the people who need support the most.
Community-centered housing justice groups like Fair Share Housing Center, Grounded Solutions, and Four Bands need investment. Community-based housing initiatives are often underfunded, overlooked, or burdened by red tape, even though they deliver real, measurable results. Meanwhile, billions of dollars are funneled into programs that benefit private developers or maintain the status quo. If policymakers are truly committed to solving the housing crisis, then it is time to fully invest in what’s working and trust the communities doing the work.
Our journeys are featured in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Housing Justice docuseries, “From Hope To Home.” Through these three short films, we share our own stories, and the stories of others like us, to lift up the real people behind the housing crisis and the grassroots solutions making a difference. These films aim to inspire viewers—not just to be moved, but to be motivated.
Access to housing should never be up for debate. It’s health care. It’s safety. It’s education. It’s the foundation for good jobs, stable families, and thriving communities. It’s time the policies reflected that truth. Let’s get to work.
Keep ReadingShow less
WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 14: U.S. President Donald Trump meets with President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador in the Oval Office of the White House April 14, 2025 in Washington, DC.
(Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Trump Welcomes Salvadoran President, Continuing To Collaborate With Far-Right World Leaders
Apr 20, 2025
WASHINGTON D.C. - President Donald Trump on Monday said that he would try to deport “as many as possible” immigrants or criminals to El Salvador. Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele met with Trump at the White House to discuss the ongoing deportations of MS-13 and Tren de Aragua gang members to El Salvador’s notorious Center for Terrorism Confinement (CETOC).
Trump has now deported 238 individuals to El Salvador under the 1879 Alien Enemies Act without notice or due process of law. President Bukele has agreed to help Trump with his deportation goals and received $6 million from the White House to continue these efforts.
Among the deportees is Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a father from Maryland, who was wrongfully deported on March 15 due to an “administrative error,” said the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement on March 31 in court. The government alleges he is part of the MS-13 gang. Garcia came to the U.S. illegally, and his wife filed a restraining order against him in 2021, according to the Department of Homeland Security. However, in 2019, a judge granted him protection from deportation.
On April 10, the Supreme Court judged Garcia’s deportation illegal and ordered Donald Trump to “facilitate” his return to the United States.
Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter
“I don’t have the power to return him to the United States,” said the Salvadoran president. Bukele expressed that he does not want to release potentially dangerous prisoners. Furthermore, on April 12, Trump posted on Truth Social, “President Bukele has graciously accepted into his nation’s custody some of the most violent alien enemies of the World and, in particular, the United States. These barbarians are now in the sole custody of El Salvador, a proud and sovereign Nation, and their future is up to President B and his Government.”
Bukele’s visit and Trump’s collaboration with him on deportations highlight the president’s willingness to partner with authoritarian and far-right heads of state when he can use them to help fulfill his aggressive agenda on everything from deporting immigrants to setting tariffs.
“El Salvador’s cooperation with the United States has become a model for others to work with this administration,” said Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.
El Salvador’s CETOC prison has been highlighted for its human rights abuses, systematic torture, and lack of due process. Since President Bukele was elected in 2019, he initiated a state of emergency to combat the increased gang activity in the country. Since then, 85,000 individuals have been detained, and only 1,000 have been convicted of a crime, according to Human Rights Watch.
Garcia has now been kept in the Salvadoran prison for 30 days and counting.
“Under President Bukele, human rights, democratic norms, and the rule of law have all but disappeared in El Salvador,” said Amanda Strayer, Senior Counsel for Accountability at Human Rights First, in a statement. “The United States should be holding Bukele’s government accountable for these serious violations, but instead the Trump administration is cozying up to and copying Bukele’s authoritarian playbook – rounding up people with no evidence, denying them any due process, and disappearing them in abusive Salvadoran prisons indefinitely.”
On April 9, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus sent a letter to the president demanding Garcia’s return. It states, “We find your administration’s actions to be wholly unacceptable. Your administration has not only disrupted the lives of his American wife and children, but also undermines the very foundations of our nation’s commitment to justice and due process.”
Before the Salvadoran president’s visit, the State Department changed El Salvador’s travel advisory from Level 2 to Level 1, signifying it's safe for travel and encouraging Americans to spend their tourist dollars in the country. This means that El Salvador is now considered safer for Americans than some European countries, including France and the United Kingdom.
Since the November election, Donald Trump and Elon Musk have both publicly supported other heads of state involved in human rights or criminal cases.
Trump called France’s far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen's conviction for embezzling $4.1 million out of the European Union a “witch hunt.”
As Le Pen led the polls for the next election, she was found guilty of using European funds to pay her assistants and other employees working for her party in France, the National Front. Under French law, Le Pen was sentenced to ineligibility to participate in the 2027 presidential campaign and up to four years in prison.
Along with the U.S. government’s support, the Kremlin also denounced her conviction, saying Europe was “trampling on democratic norms.”
Another far-right leader, Giorgia Meloni, the Prime Minister of Italy, is also set to visit the White House on Thursday and will be negotiating tariffs with Donald Trump. She was the only European leader who attended Trump’s inauguration in January, and Trump has called Meloni one of his favorite European leaders.
Similar to Trump, Meloni has opted for the deportation of undocumented immigrants from Italy to Albania. In November 2024, Rome signed a $200 million treaty with Albania to create bigger and more secure immigration camps. Italian courts have challenged the legality of Meloni’s plan. The camps are now being used as a holding post for people whose asylum demands have been denied. Meloni’s far-right coalition remains hopeful that a decision by the European Union’s Court of Justice could pave the way for this policy to be implemented.
More recently, Meloni passed her controversial security bill by decree. The new bill would limit rights to freely assemble and provide protections for law enforcement accused of police brutality. In December 2024, when the bill arrived in the Italian Senate for a vote, the Council of Europe Commissioner of Human Rights denounced this bill and warned of potential human rights abuses.
In another instance of European political involvement, Elon Musk in January urged German voters to vote for the extreme right party, the Alternative for Germany (AfD). The party has been accused of being anti-immigrant, Islamophobic, and homophobic.
One of its largest campaign promises is what they call “remigration,” the mass expulsion of immigrants. The AfD has advocated for the expulsion of German citizens who do not have German ancestry. As a result, German courts have ruled that a significant portion of the AfD is suspected of being an extremist organization. The AfD came in second place in the February elections.
Among other controversial leaders, Javier Milei of Argentina has also become Trump’s “favorite president.” He was the first world leader to visit Mar-a-Lago after the November election. Milei is highly admiring of Trump and agrees with the president on various measures.
When Mileil ascended to the presidency in 2023, he implemented an austerity plan that reduced government spending, resulting in a significant increase in poverty nationwide. Milei has also attacked the LGBTQ community, restricted freedom of assembly, and has severely increased law enforcement’s ability to use lethal force against suspected gang members.
In a parallel with Trump, Milei has opted out of the World Health Organization, refused to condemn Russia for its illegal invasion of Ukraine, and has continuously fought against “wokeness.”
Amalia Huot-Marchand is a graduate student at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.
Keep ReadingShow less
woman in black hijab holding white and black printed board
Photo by Justin Essah on Unsplash
Quiet Death of Dissent
Apr 20, 2025
There is something particularly American about the way we're dismantling our democracy these days – we are doing it with paperwork. While the world watches our grand political theater, immigration agents are quietly canceling visas, filling out deportation orders, and reshaping the boundaries of acceptable speech without firing a single shot.
I think about Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian activist and Columbia graduate who committed no crime beyond speaking his mind. I think about Rumeysa Ozturk, a doctoral student at Tufts whose academic career hangs by a thread. I think about the estimated 300 international students whose visas are under review or already revoked for daring to participate in First Amendment exercises on campus across the United States. These stories are not just about immigration status but about who is American enough to participate in its democracy and under what conditions.
We are experiencing the weaponization of the First Amendment. It's a familiar pattern to those of us who study American history. When direct censorship becomes too apparent, too constitutionally questionable, the state machinery finds other ways to silence dissenting voices. During the Red Scare, it was deportation orders against immigrant labor organizers. During the Civil Rights Movement, local ordinances were selectively enforced against protesters. Now, it's the calculated use of immigration law to chill political speech.
Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter
The genius of our government's approach – and I use that word with all the bitterness it deserves – is its apparent neutrality. Federal authorities assure us no one is being arrested for their speech. These are simply routine immigration matters. But there's nothing routine about the pattern emerging before our eyes: speak too loudly about specific issues, challenge the wrong policies, and suddenly, your paperwork receives extra scrutiny. One's visa status becomes questionable. Another's right to remain in a country you've made your home becomes uncertain.
Happening now is a test of our democratic character. When we allow the government to use administrative procedures to silence voices it doesn't want to hear, we're not just failing those directly affected. We're failing the very principle of free speech that we claim makes America exceptional. The fundamental irony should not escape us that many of these deportation threats target students and scholars at leading universities. Institutions that we proudly claim as bastions of free inquiry and open debate. When we invite bright minds to our shores, we send conflicted messages worldwide, only to expel them when they engage in the democratic practices we claim to champion.
We must fully accept that the state of our democratic republic and its values are seriously in question. Free speech only truly applies to citizens. Citizens who speak in ways that don't challenge power, especially Whiteness, too directly. When did we decide the First Amendment was too dangerous to extend to everyone within our borders? Likewise, strategic silencing of targeted individuals, people groups, or ideologies is not about national security. On the contrary, silencing is about creating an atmosphere of fear that makes others think twice before speaking up. Every visa revocation and every deportation threat sends a message to countless others: your presence here is conditional on your silence.
James Baldwin, whose words I often return to in times like these, reminded us that America is peculiarly and uniquely situated to contribute significantly to the world. "But she can only do this if she is willing to re-examine herself and learn what it means to be Black in America." We should note that America can only contribute if it is willing to re-examine what it means to be a democracy in practice, not just in theory.
Deportation is not simply about the exiting of individuals who illegally reside within our borders—deportation, as purposed by this current Presidential administration, is toward extinguishing ideas and identities. Truthfully, revoking visas is best described as an act of retribution. Every use of administrative violence to silence dissent moves further from the democratic ideals we claim and closer to fascist rule. Will we be a nation that genuinely embraces the messy, uncomfortable work of democratic discourse? Or will we continue to rely on bureaucratic machinery to ensure that only certain voices are heard?
Unfortunately, political speeches or Supreme Court decisions will not assure our destiny. How we respond to these quieter attacks on democratic expression will speak volumes. Whether we're willing to stand up for the principle that the First Amendment isn't just a protection for citizens' speech or a fundamental and protected human right for all who live under our laws. Every time we allow the government to use deportation as a tool of political silencing, we're not just failing those directly affected – we're participating in the quiet death of American democracy itself.
Rev. Dr. F. Willis Johnson is a spiritual entrepreneur, author, scholar-practioner whose leadership and strategies around social and racial justice issues are nationally recognized and applied.
Keep ReadingShow less
Getty Images, boonchai wedmakawand
Congress Bill Spotlight: Donald J. Trump $250 Bill Act
Apr 18, 2025
The Fulcrum introduces Congress Bill Spotlight, a weekly report by Jesse Rifkin, focusing on the noteworthy legislation of the thousands introduced in Congress. Rifkin has written about Congress for years, and now he's dissecting the most interesting bills you need to know about but that often don't get the right news coverage.
Trump reportedly tips his Mar-a-Lago groundskeepers with $100 bills. What if his own face appeared on them?
What The Bills Do
Two different proposals in the House would put Trump’s face on money.
The Donald J. Trump $250 Bill Act would create a new $250 bill, tied to the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence signing in 2026. It was introduced on February 27 by Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC2).
The Golden Age Act would replace Benjamin Franklin with Trump on the $100 bill starting in 2029. (All existing $100 bills depicting Franklin would still be legal but the government just wouldn’t print any more.) It was introduced on March 3 by Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX26).
Neither legislation appears to have a Senate companion introduced yet.
Context
Seven prominent Americans are depicted on the main U.S. bills: George Washington on the $1, Thomas Jefferson on the $2, Abraham Lincoln on the $5, Alexander Hamilton on the $10, Andrew Jackson on the $20, Ulysses S. Grant on the $50, and Benjamin Franklin on the $100.
Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter
The last personnel change to one of those bills was in 1928 when Jackson replaced Grover Cleveland on the $20.
Since then, Congress has named or renamed various things after living ex-presidents, like renaming the D.C. area’s Washington National Airport as the Ronald Reagan Airport in 1998 or renaming the EPA’s headquarters as the Bill Clinton Federal Building in 2013. But none of those were renamed after incumbent presidents.
In this digital age of credit cards, plus apps and websites like Venmo, PayPal, and CashApp, cash transactions represent a sharply declining share of monetary transactions: plunging from 31% of payments in 2016 to 18% in 2022.
What Supporters Say
Supporters argue that Trump deserves his spot alongside the seven prominent Americans, five of them former presidents, currently appearing on paper money.
“President Trump is working tirelessly to fight inflation and help American families. This achievement is deserving of currency recognition, which is why I am grateful to introduce this legislation,” Rep. Wilson said in a press release. “The most valuable bill for the most valuable president!”
“President Trump… took a bullet for this country and is now working overtime to secure our border, fix our uneven trade relationship with the rest of the world, make America energy independent again, and put America first by ending useless foreign aid,” Rep. Gill said in a press release. “Featuring him on the $100 bill is a small way to honor all he will accomplish these next four years.”
What Opponents Say
Obviously, Democrats oppose putting Trump’s face on money at all. But other opponents counter with alternative points.
For example, some say the U.S. should eliminate the $100 bill entirely. “Let’s abolish the $100 bill,” Timothy Noah wrote in the New Republic. “Benjamins are the favorite currency of criminals and almost no one else—and there’s no good reason to go on printing them.”
“Since 1980, the proportion of $100 bills that reside outside the U.S. has risen from 30% to nearly 80%,” Noah added. “The overwhelming majority of those who possess these bills are criminals of one kind or another who want to stash their money overseas.”
(Presumably, the same argument could be used against creating a $250 bill too.)
Another argument: an 1866 law prevents people from appearing on U.S. money while they’re still alive. Congress passed the law after Spencer Clark, superintendent of the National Currency Bureau, put his own face on the five-cent note.
The $250 legislation would also repeal that 1866 law, though the $100 legislation would not.
Odds of Passage
The $250 legislation has attracted three Republican cosponsors. It awaits a potential vote in the House Financial Services Committee, controlled by Republicans.
The $100 legislation has also attracted three Republican cosponsors—though, interestingly, completely distinct from the three who cosponsored the $250 legislation. It also awaits a potential vote in the House Financial Services Committee.
Perhaps a more likely outcome: the Treasury Department may just unilaterally make such a decision, rather than Congress.
In 2016, President Obama’s Treasury Secretary Jack Lew announced Harriet Tubman would replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill. Due to a combination of slow-walking and bureaucratic delays by the Trump administration in the production design process, though, the Tubman bill isn’t expected to debut until around 2030.
Jesse Rifkin is a freelance journalist with the Fulcrum. Don’t miss his weekly report, Congress Bill Spotlight, every Friday on the Fulcrum. Rifkin’s writings about politics and Congress have been published in the Washington Post, Politico, Roll Call, Los Angeles Times, CNN Opinion, GovTrack, and USA Today.
SUGGESTIONS:
Congress Bill Spotlight: adding Donald Trump’s face to Mount Rushmore
Congress Bill Spotlight: BAD DOGE Act
Congress Bill Spotlight: Repealing Trump’s National Energy Emergency
Congress Bill Spotlight: Smithsonian Italian American Museum
Congress Bill Spotlight: Impeaching Judges Who Rule Against Trump
Keep ReadingShow less
Load More