While many Republican candidates who have denied the 2020 election results won their midterm races, some newcomers who focused their campaigns on the issue were less successful.
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Is the Ban on Abortion More Important Than Democracy?
Aug 01, 2025
After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, 93 prosecutors from 29 states vowed in a statement that they would not pursue abortion cases. In return, 17 states have attempted to pass laws curbing prosecutorial discretion, a legal principle that has existed since the United States’s founding.
On average, more than a quarter (28%) of cases are dismissed by prosecutors for various reasons, including insufficient evidence, constitutional violations, procedural errors, lack of resources, more pressing priorities, or negative public opinion. Prosecutors are public servants, propelled to power by the people, committed to justice. They make decisions based on the tenets of their position.
Prosecutorial discretion grants elected district attorneys the authority to decide whether to prosecute and which charges to file. As a cornerstone of representative democracy, this discretion allows prosecutors the freedom to delegate limited criminal legal resources to certain crimes and, subsequently, not to pursue others.
Discretion isn’t a get-out-of-jail card. Prosecutors have responsibilities to their constituents, laws, and the Constitution. District attorneys are voted into office, and if their policies fail to resonate with voters, communities will elect new leadership. However, elections aren’t the only way to curtail abuse. District attorneys are subjected to civil lawsuits and criminal charges for constitutional violations by the state bar and district judges.
Discretion determines the will of the people. It signals to prosecutors how they should allocate their attention. Residents choose to elect prosecutors based on their values. Some will vote for a prosecutor who won’t pursue low-level drug possession, shoplifting, and, beginning in 2022, abortion.
While state legislators enact laws, the decision rests with the prosecutors. Just because something can be prosecuted doesn’t mean it should. Prosecutors promote justice, efficiency, and public safety. If pursuing a case doesn’t align with these principles, they can choose to dismiss the case. In states with court backlogs and overcrowded jails, prosecutors will prioritize violent crimes. Exposing people to the carceral system doesn’t make jurisdictions safer. It unhinges families, increases unemployment, and pushes people further into a system.
Retaliating against prosecutors isn’t just petty; It’s upending the separation of powers. Florida State Attorney Andrew Warren was suspended from his office by Gov. Ron DeSantis in August 2022, after he signed the pledge stating his refusal to prosecute abortion-related cases. He, a man who was voted for by over 300,000 Floridians, was ousted from office and embroiled in a two-year legal battle by one individual for exercising his rights as a prosecutor and his First Amendment right as a U.S. citizen. The case was dismissed, but for those two years, Warren was unable to do his job. When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, it handed the power to regulate decisions on abortion and bodily autonomy to individual states. They wanted to reduce the oversight of the government. Yet, when cities and counties decide to pursue cases based on the sentiments of their constituents, they are instead met with threats to be removed from office. Why can’t elected officials prioritize what their residents want in a country that prizes democracy? Many of the prosecutors facing threats from state officials were elected into office after signing the 2022 statement against pursuing criminalization of abortion cases.
Six states have passed laws to curb the autonomy of prosecutors, with Texas passing a bill to remove elected prosecutors from office: a violation of the state’s own constitution. Imagine a prosecutor drops a case against a doctor for performing an abortion because the evidence shows it was a life-saving procedure, and as a result, the prosecutor is penalized. This will only ensnare doctors and elected officials in a legal battle funded by taxpayers to determine what their constitutions already knew and already voted for: that the prosecutor used their discretion wisely.
This discretion protects people. It ensures prosecutors are intentional about the cases they choose to pursue. It guarantees they have valid evidence before filing charges. When prosecutors exercise their discretion, they’re ensuring a case has probable cause before moving forward. If we undermine this principle, we chip away at necessary constitutional freedoms, starting with the Fifth Amendment.
You bestow prosecutors that power. As a citizen, you have the right to make your voice heard. In many states, prosecutors face trials before removal from office. Call the courthouse, email the judge, send a scathing tweet. They’re using abortion as the Trojan horse to dismantle the Constitution. Don’t let them do it.
Farah Merchant is a fellow of the OpEd Project with the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice and the Every Page Foundation.
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Recommended
RCV Critics, the “Re-Gerrymander”, Citizen Initiatives, Deliberative Democracy
Aug 01, 2025
Welcome to the latest edition of The Expand Democracy 5. In August, the Expand Democracy team will be taking a break from creating new content, but we look forward to sharing grouped content from this year’s editions that they believe still remains relevant. Today's stories include:
🗳️ Deep dive: Ranked choice voting and its critics
💰 Why it’s a problem that Texas “re-gerrymandering” is such an issue
💪 Expanding the citizen initiative
🎬 Deliberative democracy in action
🕙 Timely links
In keeping with The Fulcrum’s mission to share ideas that help to repair our democracy and make it live and work in our everyday lives, we intend to publish The Expand Democracy 5 in The Fulcrum each Friday.
If you want to suggest a pro-democracy idea for coverage in The Expand Democracy 5, please use the contact form at Expand Democracy.
Deep Dive: Ranked Choice Voting and Its Critics - Lessons from New York City
“How Brad Lander Helped Push Zohran Mamdani Toward Victory” - New York Times
We must invest in a spectrum of reform ideas in order to achieve better elections and a healthier democracy, which is why we at Expand Democracy seek to catalyze attention to a mix of pro-democracy ideas and projects. Ranked choice voting (RCV) is one such idea I’ve now championed for 33 years, mostly while leading FairVote. It makes more sense to me than ever.
The history of the modern advocacy effort for RCV is instructive. There is truth to the maxim (wrongly attributed to Gandhi) that “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” The last phase, though, is far from linear. Pushback can come in many forms, and until you cement change, your progress is vulnerable. While RCV is secure now in nations like Australia and Ireland, its American advocates have work to do.
RCV faces organized opposition that brazenly distorts and twists facts. Self-interested incumbents and related interest groups can fear that it will make elections harder. It also encounters tactical opponents, who play up minor faults in the service of some other agenda, such as pushing a rival voting system. It faces more genuine skepticism from election officials who worry that RCV is being pushed too quickly without enough consideration of the burdens it might place on them. Academics often add fuel to the fire, as it’s easier to publish an article finding fault than affirming value, as exhaustively detailed by Steven Hill.
The ground for this opposition is a simple reality – nothing is perfect. RCV of course cannot guarantee that elections will have a definitive "majority candidate” Not every voter will rank every candidate, and some three (0.3%) out of every 1,000 voters on average will make an error that invalidates their ballot. Candidates, of course, will win who some people dislike, or who make mistakes after they take office. The critics can always point fingers, and advocates have to keep showing that the positive values outweigh the negative.
Fortunately, RCV is overall working well. Still, that doesn’t stop the critics, as shown by recent responses to the RCV primary in New York City. Critics are engaging in “swift boating” - that is, the system worked so well that opponents have to do everything they can to suggest it didn’t. Those fundamentals in New York included:
- The primary nearly drew the most votes in New York City's primary history, with winner Zohran Mamdani gaining more votes than any previous mayoral nominee, and with historic youth turnout that far outpaced any other primary in the nation this year.
- In a crowded field where 20% of voters backed someone other than Mamdani or Andrew Cuomo, 95% of the votes counted for Mamdani or Cuomo in the final instant runoff.
- As Common Cause New York reported on its exit survey, “Ranked choice voting was incredibly popular: 77% said that they want ranked choice voting in future local elections.”
- As FairVote reported, Mamdani not only handily defeated Cuomo, but would have defeated every other candidate by a margin of greater than two to one - and more than 90% of backers of non-Cuomo candidates ranked more than one candidate.
- As RepresentWomen reported, the city council sustained its 31-member super-majority of women members, up from just 13 in 2021, and it is historically diverse in other metrics.
But that didn't stop sniping from Sam Oliker-Friedland, executive director of the Institute for Responsive Government, in a commentary in The Hill. (Mandani won, but ranked choice voting lost.) Oliker-Friedland contends: "The mayoral race didn’t elevate a broadly supported candidate," despite all the evidence to the contrary. He writes that "There is little evidence to suggest that large numbers of voters were thoughtfully ranking across ideological lines," despite the FairVote data showing that three candidates would have defeated Cuomo head-to-head, including council speaker Adrienne Adams, who trailed Cuomo in first choices by 36% to 4%. He brings up the trope that RCV is disadvantaging people of color despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary as collected by FairVote, and the fact that the Department of Justice uphold RCV in a key Voting Rights Act decision involving New York, He ignored that in the case of the mayoral primary, the number of ballots counting in the final decision due to RCV were some 50 times greater than the number of overvotes.
Or take law professor Ned Foley, who repeatedly critiques RCV (including in massively wrong conjectures about Mamdani in this primary), because it’s possible that a last-place candidate in an RCV race might be the second choice of enough voters that they would theoretically defeat every other candidate – an outcome that Harvard law professor Nicholas Stephanopoulos showed happens less than one percent of RCV races and that, as Michael Parsons and Rachel Hutchinson thoughtfully argue is not worth upending RCV elections to achieve.
Rather than get bogged down in grievances about RCV’s critics, the reformer’s job is to keep making the case and supporting it in practice. I salute groups like FairVote and Rank the Vote, as well as an impressive coalition of state and national groups, for doing what’s necessary. With their dedication, yes, RCV will win.
The latest good news from RCV advocates comes from Washington, D.C., where Make All Votes Count DC has have done a terrific job keeping RCV on track for first use in its June 2026 primaries and November 2026 general elections As reported by the Washington Post on July 30: “D.C. voters overwhelmingly passed a ballot initiative last year that would open up primary elections to independent voters and institute ranked-choice voting, allowing voters to rank candidates in order of preference… council members Christina Henderson (I-At Large) and Brianne K. Nadeau (D-Ward 1) successfully championed an effort to include $421,000 for ranked-choice voting in the 2026 budget, followed by an additional $39,000 each of the following three years, mostly for notifying and educating voters about the change.”
Why it’s a Problem that “Re-Gerrymandering” is Such an Issue
[Texas state legislator Carl Tepper examines a congressional district map. Source: CNN]
Six months into Donald Trump’s second presidency, the 2026 cycle of mid-term elections looms large on whether Congress will check executive overreach. All House seats are up for election, along with a third of Senate seats and a substantial majority of the nation’s governors and state legislators.
But don’t be fooled – few of these elections will be meaningfully contested. Nearly all Americans are sidelined by winner-take-all, single-choice elections that narrow choice and leave some 90% of us in congressional contests with foregone conclusions.
This very limitation of choice magnifies the significance of Trump backers’ brazen use of the authoritarian playbook to do everything they can to weaken voter power, threatening election officials who don’t do what they want, and now pursuing a polarizing, destabilizing campaign to redraw congressional districts to favor Republicans.
It’s helpful to look back to 2024 to understand the implications of this mid-decade “re-gerrymandering.” That year, Republicans lost House seats, but squeaked to a 220-215 advantage. Remarkably, today only three Republicans represent one of the 207 districts with any kind of Democratic lean in the “Partisan Voting Index”, including none in the 184 Democratic districts that favor Democrats by at least 53% to 47%. Only seven Democrats represent one of 219 districts with a Republican lean, including none in the 195 districts that strongly favor Republicans by at least 54% to 46%. Only 21 districts are in the “tossup” category, with a 51% to 49% margin.
That makes what’s going on in Texas a hugely consequential power grab. State legislators this week introduced a plan that would shift five Democratic-held seats into new districts that were all won by Trump in 2024 by more than 10 percentage points. If achieved, Republicans would be favored in 30 of 38 districts in a state where Ted Cruz narrowly kept his Senate seat in 2024 with a 53% to 45% margin. Democrats say they will push back in states they control, but their options are limited, and Republicans have more states to target.
What enables such partisan assaults on voters is that, for generations, we have accepted a single-member district congressional system that significantly limits our choices, as FairVote first discussed in its Dubious Democracy series in 1994. What makes it all the worse is the increasingly potent overlap of underlying partisan preference and congressional voting patterns. As the lead author of FairVote’s Monopoly Politics report in 1997, I take pride in highlighting how that trend was beginning—and indeed, that report originated the partisan voting index tool based on a straightforward way of interpreting presidential elections in districts.
What we said in those early reports makes all the more sense today. We need a regime where voters have agency, no matter where they live. The acceptance of rules that fly in the face of that principle creates opportunities for partisans to twist the rules in their favor – just a handful of newly drawn districts and targeted negative interventions in voting access can undercut what might be a wave of popular vote rejection of the current regime next year.
That’s why the Fair Representation Act remains, as David Brooks wrote in 2018, One Reform to Save America—and kudos to congressional reform leader Don Beyer for again introducing the bill this month. By simple statute, Congress can institute rules that result in accurate reflections of voter preference nationally and powersharing in nearly every part of the country through combining multi-member districts and ranked choice voting. That was the solution to lift up in Monopoly Politics in 1997. It’s even more imperative today.
Watch FairVote senior fellow David Daly talk about Will Gerrymandering End Democrats’ Hope of Taking Back the House in 2026? with Christiane Amanpour, in which he comments, “‘If we’re going to fix [gerrymandering]... Congress needs to take on the real fundamental question here, which is that in a nation that has 435 single-member districts, how do you draw the lines in all of those districts that determine winners and losers? There’s a bill that Congress is considering right now, the Fair Representation Act… that would move us toward a more proportional system that would make every single district a swing district. It would put an end to gerrymandering.’”
Expanding the Citizen-led Initiative in the United States
[States with the initiative are in dark shading. Source: Movement Advancement Project]
The United States has been an international leader in allowing citizens to engage in direct democracy, with the Progressive Era movement including establishing initiative and referendums in a number of states – that is, giving citizens the right to gather signatures to place a policy proposal on the ballot for enactment. But it’s been a long time since voters in any new states have earned the power of the initiative, and policymakers and courts in several states have been limiting initiative power through tactics like regulation of signature-gathering, strict interpretation of single subject rules, and lifting the threshold required for passage.
New America’s Political Reform program has introduced a timely initiative: “By the People: Expanding Citizen‑Led Policy in the United States,” published on July 1, 2025. While 24 states allow citizen-initiated statutes or constitutional amendments, only 21 enable them in practice. This leaves more than half the nation’s population without an effective alternative to the legislature as a means to effect policy at the state level.
To visualize this problem, New America created two interactive maps: one depicting current access to direct democracy by state, and another scoring non-initiative states on their readiness based on both feasibility and potential democratic impact. Non-initiative states are grouped, and the top-tier “Poised for Progress” states surface as strong candidates for near term reform efforts.
The authors make a research-driven case for expansion. A companion brief (authored by Maresa Strano, June 2025) makes a persuasive case that initiatives can narrow the gap between public preferences and policy outcomes, especially in states with entrenched division or weak legislative responsiveness. Key benefits highlighted include policy congruence, where states with initiative access are more likely to align lawmaking with majority views. In addition, there is increased civic engagement. While mixed, data show modest upticks in turnout and political efficacy, especially among underserved communities. Finally, policy innovation often starts with measures such as Medicaid expansion, minimum wage hikes, electoral reforms, and cannabis legalization, which frequently originate through state-level initiatives even in politically resistant environments.
The analysis reviews common concerns like money influence, voter confusion, legislative interference, and potential misuse of majority rule. To address these, New America suggests practices such as stronger transparency and finance rules, plain-language summaries, institutional safeguards, and citizen review tools.
Here’s how authors articulate the potential offensive strategy:
“We developed a scoring system to identify the most promising states for the expansion of citizen-initiated ballot measures. Based on a review of historical patterns, political science research, interviews with reform scholars and practitioners, and recent organizing experience, we conceptualized a state’s readiness for initiatives based on two dimensions: feasibility of adoption and potential policy impact. The feasibility dimension refers to factors associated with a higher likelihood of adopting ballot initiatives, as established by previous research on the topic, and to factors that would facilitate the work of people on the ground advocating for ballot initiatives. The impact dimension refers to factors that indicate places where ballot initiatives could have a greater impact because citizens have a greater difficulty expressing their views through the usual electoral channels.”
New America argues that direct democracy is not a replacement for representative government, but a complementary democratic corrective. In situations where legislatures fail to reflect public will, whether due to polarization, gerrymandering, or elite capture, well-designed citizen initiatives can deliver meaningful policy change, spark innovation, and build civic power from the ground up. At the same time, the project emphasizes that expansion must be deliberate and evidence-based. Advocates should tailor initiative frameworks to local contexts, guard against co-optation, and pair expansion with broader reforms, like campaign finance limits, electoral reform, and deliberative processes, to reinforce responsive governance.
The Partisan Bashing Power of Deliberative Democracy
From Juniper Shelley
[From the Pennsylvania “America in One Room” meeting. Source - Philadelphia Inquirer]
In the United States, trust in democracy is reaching all-time lows. Sixty years ago, 75% of Americans believed that the federal government did the right thing all or almost all of the time. In 2024, however, public trust in democracy hovered around 20%. Hyperpartisanship has divided us: today, Americans are half as likely to trust their neighbors as they were 50 years ago. According to political scientist Jamie Fishkin, however, polarization can be significantly eased if Americans commit to one simple step. In order to connect with one another, voters need to get off their phones and start talking in person. Fishkin is part of a much broader movement interested in vehicles of such engagement through “deliberative democracy” and tactics like citizens' assemblies and participatory budgeting.
The leader of Stanford University’s Deliberative Democracy Lab, Fishkin has dedicated his career to understanding what brings people of different political and social backgrounds together. In an experiment called “America in One Room: Pennsylvania” hosted in late June, Fishkin tested the theory that when given the opportunity to meet face to face with other citizens, voters were amenable to changing their position. The results overwhelmingly affirmed Fishkin’s theory.
In the experiment, 200 Pennsylvanians were invited to spend four days discussing a variety of policy proposals in small groups. Their backgrounds were diverse and divided, representative of the state of Pennsylvania itself. Despite their differences, however, participants of both political parties saw their views shift towards the ideological center by the end of the week. Support for proposals to increase the number of Visas available for low-skilled workers soared from 25% to 50%, a traditionally democratic proposal. At the same time, support for proposals to make public higher education free dropped from 60% to 46% by the end of the event, suggesting a shift towards the right.
When Americans had the opportunity to get offline and discuss politics in a long-form setting that facilitated connection and understanding, their opinions were significantly more similar than they had believed. The echo chamber of social media has divided Americans, but the harm doesn’t need to be permanent. The next challenge for democracy’s allies is facilitating a turn away from social media and towards human contact, before it’s too late.
Timely Links
We close The Expand Democracy 5 with notable links:
- “Montana Initiative to File Bold Blueprint to Challenge Citizens United; New Amendment Would Use Corporate Law to Ban Political Spending”: Election Law Blog: “The Transparent Election Initiative, a Montana organization, today released the public draft of a historic constitutional amendment that takes direct aim at Citizens United—and the corporate and dark money it unleashed into Montana’s politics. The amendment will be officially filed with the Montana Secretary of State’s office on Friday, August 1. The 1,000-word amendment takes an innovative new approach by using Montana’s corporate chartering authority to no longer grant its corporations and similar entities the power to use money to influence candidate campaigns or ballot measures. By redefining the powers granted to corporations under Montana law, the measure aims to undo the practical effects of Citizens United within the state.”
- “When disasters disrupt democracy and the impact of extreme weather on the 2024 super-cycle year of elections”: International IDEA reports: “The year 2024 has been described as a super-cycle election year, with 1.6 billion people voting in 74 national elections in 62 countries due to a convergence in national electoral calendars. This was an extraordinary moment in our democratic history, but what is also extraordinary is that disasters and extreme weather events disrupted 20 elections at different levels in 15 countries.”
- New database of policy platforms and biographical narratives for congressional candidates: CampaignView is a new database capturing policy platforms and biographical narratives from congressional campaign websites. “We introduce CampaignView, a database of campaign platforms and biographical narratives drawn from congressional campaign websites. Our corpus covers 5,228 candidates, representing 86.9% of major-party, ballot-eligible contenders who ran for the U.S. House of Representatives between 2018 and 2022. Our text data was collected in real-time during each election cycle, parsed into relevant units of aggregation, and manually annotated for topical coverage. In sum, our data includes 43,465 platform points and 5,114 biographical narratives. We provide auxiliary information on candidates and their electoral contexts to supplement our data.”
- Bill To Bar Stock Trading for Congress Advances With Trump Carve-Out” Congress has much work to do to help voters have confidence in the institution. We’ll see how this bill progresses. “A key Senate committee on Wednesday approved legislation that would bar members of Congress, the president and the vice president from trading stocks, after its Republican sponsor changed the bill to ensure that a divestment requirement included in the measure would not apply to President Trump…. [Senator Rand Paul noted that Mr. Hawley’s original proposal would have required the president and the vice president to sell off investments starting in 2027, while the version approved on Wednesday does not apply that mandate until the start of an elected official’s next term — meaning it would never apply to Mr. Trump.”
- “Voting Rights Groups Seek to Stop Arkansas Laws Targeting Ballot Initiatives” - The Democracy Docket: “‘These laws serve no practical purpose and are expressly designed to make the process of collecting signatures more burdensome,’ the complaint states. In recent years, voters have brought about progressive change in a deeply conservative state using ballot initiatives, including raising the state’s minimum wage and legalizing medical cannabis. Even as the legislature subsequently hampered implementation. The groups are asking for a preliminary injunction, which would block the laws while litigation continues. A court hearing is expected soon.”
- New Report Reviews Allegations of Noncitizen Registrants and Voters - The Center for Election Innovation and Research’s new report shows noncitizen voting hasn't materialized: “In recent months, policymakers and the media have devoted much attention to claims that large numbers of noncitizens are registered or have voted in recent elections. However, comparatively little attention has been paid to the painstaking efforts undertaken by election officials and other government bodies in every state to thoroughly investigate these claims. Available evidence suggests that, once under scrutiny, the number of alleged instances falls drastically. The vast majority of allegations of noncitizen registration or voting appear to arise from misunderstandings, mischaracterizations, or outright fabrications about complex voter data. When investigations do turn up instances of improper registration or voting, officials take swift action to ensure that American elections remain secure.”
- “This Democrat Wants Cognitive Standards in Congress. Her Colleagues Disagree”: From the New York Times -” Ms. Perez offered an amendment to a federal spending bill that aimed to create basic guidelines in Congress to ensure that members were able to do their jobs “unimpeded by significant irreversible cognitive impairment.” Her amendment was unanimously rejected, which Ms. Perez chalked up to the fact that it prompted an “uncomfortable conversation” and that Congress does not like to make new rules for itself…But Ms. Perez does not plan to drop the issue, which she said is a major concern for voters. In a poll of the 230,000 people who subscribe to her newsletter, more than 90 percent who responded supported the proposal.”
- U.S. Postal Service and Democracy: From Electionline.org: “The U.S. Postal Service recently celebrated its 250th anniversary…The Postal Service and elections have a long history with vote by mail starting with Civil War soldiers. In 2024, 99.22 million ballots were processed in the General Election with 97.73% of ballots delivered from voters to election officials within three days. To celebrate 250 years, USPS even has an election of sorts happening. From now till Sept. 30 people can vote for a retired stamp to bring back! You can even vote by mail for your favorite stamp.”
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Innovating America’s Democracy Is Our Tradition and Our Responsibility
Jul 31, 2025
The American story is one of constant innovation and renewal, where democracy rises to meet the challenges of each new age. Our history documents a journey of transformation, inviting us to reflect on centuries of innovation in American democracy. Citizens have routinely amended outdated practices, reinforced core tenets, and forged new institutions. Our story highlights that reform is not only possible—it is tradition.
As we celebrate America’s 250th year, which began on July 4, 2025, we must also reflect on the nature of innovations in our democracy as a platform for encouraging Americans to embrace the next phase of reform. If we are successful in adding a new set of reforms to the historical arc, ones that remove the overly partisan influences on our electoral system, we might be able to reverse the hyperpartisan spiral George Washington warned us about; and we may re-align our electoral incentives to promote the kind of cooperation among elected leaders that might allow us to have on-time responsible budgets and the kinds of practical policies the country needs. It feels like a daunting task, but our forebears often tackled what were monumental revisions to our democracy in their times. And it would be a shame to let the 250th anniversary of our country come and go without taking up the charge given to us by those who came before us, the responsibility to leave our generation’s mark on our improving democracy. We have all the tools and ideas we need. We must decide if we have the will.
As we enter what may become an unfortunately polarizing period related to our country’s 250th birthday, we need to keep our focus on the task, to appropriately commemorate our country’s quarter-millennial birthday in a way that keeps our history of innovation going while carefully navigating the current political environment.
One method to maintain our focus is to keep grounded in the progression of our innovations. The Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress has newly launched a Democracy Innovation Timeline, one phase in its Quarter Millennial Program work to celebrate the arc of America’s historical reform and renewal. The product is designed to be informative, visually enticing, and inspirational—a reflection on the past and a call to action for our time.
The timeline describes early innovations on democracy that borrowed civic concepts of representation and compromise from ancient Greek and Roman civilizations and concepts used in colonial America to transition from monarchical European and English models to a more ethical system grounded in the idea that all men are created equal. From the beginning, the new aspirational system needed improvement, as only a small percentage of the population were permitted to share in the freedom to vote or even be considered citizens. Slavery was in wide practice. Over the decades that followed, improvements were made to fix some of the initial failings but also to iterate on the details of the system that determined how well it functioned, from secret ballots to popular participation in selecting candidates and choosing senators.
The timeline is designed to mark some of the key innovations in our democracy over the past 250 years and reminds us that Americans who came before us saw a periodic need to update the mechanisms of democracy. Gerrymandering existed through most of our history; however, sincere efforts have been made over the past 75 years to replace partisan line drawing with more independent processes, for example. Partisan primaries have been designed by party actors to limit access to ballots and control who gets to run for office, resulting in a system that rewards party ideology over cooperation, while voters have started proposing and trying innovations that fix that misalignment of incentives. The process of innovation continues, though our history also shows that reform consistently faces resistance. Hope can be found in the insistence of innovators to keep the cycle of reform alive.
The project was primarily the work of Jessica Firestone and Seth English, two Nevins Fellows from Penn State who dedicated their summer to creating this reflection on the history of American democratic reform. They are part of a rising generation of leaders who will give the needed energy and dedication to this cause. If their work can form part of a larger movement to heed the call, to continue our brave tradition of innovation, then our democracy has a chance at earning another 250 years. Let their inspiration be a call to all of us to do our part.
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In the summer of 2025, the Trump administration’s education agenda is beginning to mirror the blueprint laid out in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025.
Getty Images, FreshSplash
Ukrainian Teen, U.S. Student: A Shared Fight for Stability
Jul 31, 2025
Heart-stopping: not the description that comes to mind for most high school volunteer projects. But on a Friday afternoon late last March, my role as a virtual English tutor with ENGin was exactly that.
For nearly a year, I’ve been meeting weekly over Zoom with a 14-year-old Ukrainian teenager named Max. During our sessions, we’ll chat about everything from Marvel movies to the latest football scores—he’s a die-hard Real Madrid fan—and play games like charades or "Would You Rather." But on that particular Friday, Max wasn’t online.
Worried, I checked my phone. Max had sent a rushed message: I’m not zoom there are bombs I am shelter.
Panicked, I refreshed my phone for hours, hoping for a response. Nothing. The silence was deafening. Would Max be okay? Until, finally: a text.
He was safe, for now. So was I—yet looking around my cozy dorm room, safety felt increasingly elusive.
For Max, being able to go to school every day remains a question. He’s since shared how much he struggles to pursue the limited opportunities available in his war-torn home. Once, when we were discussing goals, he shrugged and said, “My goal is to finish one normal week.” Another time, when we practiced the word routine, he joked, “My only routine is sirens.”
That week changed our dynamic. We didn’t just practice English anymore—we talked about survival, hope, and what it means to keep learning in chaos: how to stay calm during air raid sirens, where to find reliable news, what dreams still felt possible, and how to hold onto them.
As for me, I’m a Canadian who came to the U.S. for a better education. I’ve attended boarding school in Connecticut for the past two years, starting at age fifteen. While fully aware of the privilege such an opportunity represents, I was unprepared for the political fragility that increasingly defines what it means to study in America as an international student.
Recently, I’ve been questioned more at the U.S. border than ever before—where I go to school, the details of my classes, how long I plan to stay, and even why I chose to study in the U.S. instead of attending high school in Canada. The questions seem innocuous at first, but they quickly shift in tone—probing, skeptical, like I’m trying to game the system rather than pursue an education. A month ago, several of my Canadian boarding school classmates were pulled aside for intensive questioning—frightening, stressful interrogations none of us had ever experienced before. It felt like we were being treated less like students and more like suspects. I remember clutching my passport as the officer asked why I didn’t just stay in Canada, as if ambition itself were a threat.
That experience has changed me. I now think twice before planning trips home for holiday breaks—not because I don’t want to see family but because the border has become a point of anxiety, a place where the legitimacy of my goals gets put on trial.
It’s made me realize that the education and plans I’ve worked so hard for can be taken away in an instant. After years of Dean’s List-worthy academic effort, all aimed at earning a spot at a top American university, I’ve started to seriously consider Canadian schools—places I had once ruled out in hopes of a U.S. degree. I now understand that the universities of my home country offer something the U.S. no longer guarantees: stability. I never thought I’d have to choose safety over ambition. That shift has left me disappointed and angry—resentful, even—after all the sacrifices I’ve made to study abroad. For the first time, I’ve felt what it’s like to be bullied out of my potential. And in that feeling, I’ve come to better understand Max’s reality: the instability I now fear shadows his everyday. Ever since I met Max, his future has been fragile, shaped by forces entirely beyond his control.
On February 28, President Trump met with President Zelenskyy to discuss a resolution to the Russia-Ukraine war. Watching that now-famously tense meeting, I couldn’t help but feel that Zelenskyy was being bullied. He came to America to seek help for a nation under attack. Instead, he was dismissed and undermined. Taken within the context that English is not Zelenskyy’s first language, Trump’s comment—“You don’t have the cards”—felt especially cruel.
Towards the end of the meeting, Zelenskyy made a comment that has stayed with me. “Everybody has problems, and even you. But you have a nice ocean and don’t feel it now. But you will feel it in the future.”
Rather than extending its self-proclaimed values of liberty, equality, and democracy, that meeting exposed the U.S. government inching closer to a Putin-style regime. It ended in contention, with Trump pulling all U.S. funding from Ukraine. This is a profound mistake that sends a dangerous signal to the world. Worse yet, Trump again falsely blamed Zelenskyy for starting the war, including dangerous pro-Russian rhetoric—“You don't start a war against someone 20 times your size and then hope that people give you some missiles”—as if Ukrainians had sought out invasion.
In May, Russian forces intensified attacks on Kharkiv and Odesa, while Ukraine’s eastern counteroffensive stalled amid reduced U.S. aid. Aid groups have reported record shortages in food and medical supplies. Meanwhile, more lives are senselessly lost—not only to bombs and bullets but to the absence of clear, principled diplomacy. By cutting aid, withdrawing from negotiations, and signaling unpredictability to both allies and adversaries, the U.S. is no longer the stabilizing force it once claimed to be. Its retreat leaves allies like Ukraine exposed and emboldens authoritarian regimes that thrive on chaos. Each diplomatic silence, each broken promise, accelerates the slide toward a wider, deadlier conflict.
What strikes me is that this erosion of stability isn't limited to the battlefield. It mirrors what’s happening between Canada and the U.S.
Already, the global ripple effects are undeniable. In mid-March, the S&P 500 dropped nearly eight percent. Germany passed a historic defense spending package. Earlier this month, Russia launched its largest drone and missile attack of the war—nearly 500 projectiles hit cities like Kyiv and Odesa, damaging hospitals and heritage sites. Ukraine struck back with a covert drone campaign inside Russia, and ground offensives have escalated in Sumy and Dnipropetrovsk. As the war intensifies and peace grows even more distant, markets remain volatile, allies more cautious, and my own country of Canada continues its search for more stable trade partners. Trust in America’s protective capacity is eroding.
While, thankfully, military conflict between the U.S. and Canada doesn’t extend beyond Trump’s threats of invasion—he even floated the idea of “annexing” Canada as a 51st state and pressuring it with tariffs to that end—it's hard not to notice the parallel erosion of stability. Like Ukraine, Canada is watching long‑standing international norms dissolve. Internationally recognized promises once taken for granted are being rolled back, fraying protective, peace‑promoting alliances.
And let’s be clear: Canada’s southern border was already less safe due to American neglect. More drugs flow into Canada from the U.S., including meth, cocaine, and fentanyl, than the reverse, which is a minuscule 0.2%. The same goes for illicit firearms. If border issues are truly Trump's concern, it’s the responsibility of the U.S.—not Canada—to protect their border from illegal items entering the country.
Back home, America’s shifting loyalties have been a significant blow. Canadians once viewed the U.S. as a trusted partner, yet the federal government has issued caution for Canadian travelers to the United States. And on April 15, the Canadian Association of University Teachers warned Canadian academics against Stateside travel. Trump’s comments about Canada—calling us “the 51st state” or referring to our federal prime minister as “Governor”—are not just insulting, they’re ominous.
This rhetoric sets the stage for a darker future. I fear the U.S. is preparing for a slow economic war against its closest allies that will remake the current world order. These policies may yield short-term material wins, but the long-term global consequences will be devastating.
Russia, China, Iran—the new “Axis of Upheaval”—are the players set to gain from such disruption. With each new tariff, another move is made in this high-stakes game with our global stability. And America holds the dice.
Trump—along with his unelected, now explosively dismissed, associate Elon Musk—treats everything, including humanitarian crises, like business transactions. Allegedly, Trump pushed Zelenskyy to sign a $500 million mineral deal in exchange for security. That kind of bargaining reveals the true cost of appeasement: it turns lives into leverage.
Preventing a violent dictatorship shouldn’t be a matter of profit margins or resource deals. It’s about protecting real people—like Max—whose futures are being dismantled by war. It’s about defending the right to learn, to grow, and to dream without fear.
That’s why I started tutoring Max: to do my small part to remedy the tragedy he has to endure in his most formative years. From threats to his education to his physical safety, this war will mark his entire future. And lately, I’ve found myself wondering: what kind of future will I have—as a Canadian, as an international student—if borders grow hostile and institutions more unstable? I’ve always assumed I belonged in North America: I speak English fluently, attend a well-known boarding school, carry a “friendly” passport, and come from a close ally. Even with all that, I now find myself questioning my stability. If I feel displaced by uncertainty, how much more destabilizing must it be for Max? The greed of a few has forever altered his opportunity to learn and thrive. It’s disheartening, unfair, and demoralizing. But I also know that one weekly hour of practicing English together can open doors to opportunities outside of Ukraine.
The U.S. has been lucky to avoid internal conflict for generations, but that comfort has turned into complacency. Now is the time for Americans to reject greed and isolation, restore trust with their closest allies, and recommit to the values that once made their country a beacon of hope—not only within its borders but against any threat to those ideals abroad, from Ukraine and beyond.
Because if liberal values like peace, freedom, and safety—values America claims to uphold around the world—are not protected, it’s only a matter of time before a crisis comes to our North American shores and Zelenskyy’s prophecy is proven true.
If conflict crosses the ocean, what will you do?
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