After three decades as an investigative and political reporter and newspaper editor in the Chicago area, Madeleine Doubek switched to democracy reform advocacy three years ago. First came the Better Government Association, a nonprofit journalism outfit aiming to boost transparency and efficiency of the state government in Springfield, and for the past year she has served as executive director of CHANGE Illinois. Its top priority is persuading the solidly Democratic General Assembly and Gov. J.B. Pritzker to agree to put a referendum on the 2020 ballot turning over congressional and legislative redistricting to an independent commission. (The deadline is early May and three similar efforts have come up short.) Her answers have been lightly edited for clarity and length.
What's democracy's biggest challenge, in 10 words or less?
Gerrymandering is where corruption and voter suppression are born.
Describe your very first civic engagement.
At some point as a very young kid, I stood in the front hallway of our two-flat row house on the South Side of Chicago, listening and talking with the local Democratic Party precinct captain who paid my mom a visit before every election.
What was your biggest professional triumph?
Getting a law passed while I led the policy department at the Better Government Association that restricts the exorbitant, golden parachute severance packages that public executives get in Illinois.
And your most disappointing setback?
Having our Fair Maps Amendment blocked from being assigned to committee or debated despite having more than three-fifths of our state senators signed on as sponsors.
How does your identity influence the way you go about your work?
I've spent most of my adult life working as a political journalist so I am constantly thinking about new ways to communicate the need for systemic democracy reforms in a way that will make people stop what they're doing and get engaged. It's an unending quest.
What's the best advice you've ever been given?
Be the change you wish to see in the world.
Create a new flavor for Ben & Jerry's.
Bipartisan Blueberry Cashew Ripple
What's your favorite political movie or TV show?
"All the President's Men." Politics, newspapers, investigations and intrigue. Robert Redford. What more could you want? Although, another great one is "Deadline-USA," with Humphrey Bogart. If you've never seen it, check it out!
What's the last thing you do on your phone at night?
Check my calendar for the following day to make sure I didn't forget something.
What is your deepest, darkest secret?
I hate having to ask for donations so we can keep fighting for an improved Illinois.
A view of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on June 25, 2026. President Donald Trump jolted Republicans during a fiery appearance at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, scrapping a housing bill signing ceremony and clashing behind closed doors with a party rebel who challenged him over the Iran war. Trump had been expected to sign the bipartisan housing.
Only Trump doesn’t care about housing
It was August 15, 2024. Then candidate Donald Trump stepped out of his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club’s columned clubhouse to a gaggle of reporters. He was flanked by tables of groceries and signs showing the rising cost of food. Also on one of the tables was a dollhouse, meant to represent the equally alarming rise in housing prices.
It was a speech about the economy, the single most important issue of the 2024 election cycle, full of promises that went right to the heart of Americans’ anxieties. While former President Joe Biden and then Vice President Kamala Harris were contorting themselves to posture a good economy that just needed more time to recover from the pandemic, Trump was preying on voters’ very real fears of unaffordable gas, groceries, and homes. It was obviously a winning message.
In that speech, Trump promised, “We’re going to open up tracts of federal land for housing construction. We desperately need housing for people who can’t afford what’s going on now.”
As of mid-2023, there had been a housing shortage of nearly four million homes, according to the National Association of Realtors. Americans all over the country were either priced out of buying new homes due to low inventory, trapped in their existing homes by sky-high mortgage rates, or facing exorbitant rent hikes thanks to corporate investors buying up rental properties. Americans needed help, and Trump promised it.
Cut to March of 2026, when Trump reportedly told House Speaker Mike Johnson, “No one gives a sh*t about housing.”
That kind of thinking may explain why Trump this week suddenly announced he was canceling a signing ceremony for the bipartisan “21st Century ROAD to Housing Act,” a housing bill co-sponsored by Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Tim Scott that passed the House 358-32 and was approved in the Senate on Monday.
Trump instead demanded Congress pass the SAVE America Act, his controversial election grievance bill that doesn’t have enough Republican support to get passed in the Senate.
It’s just the latest in a line of policy self-owns where Trump has seemingly intentionally made life more difficult for Republicans hoping to keep their majority. Despite midterm elections occurring in the midst of a blistering economy and an unpopular war, they were surely hoping the housing bill would give them something — anything — to brag about when they returned home to their districts.
And very much to the contrary, Americans do give a sh*t about housing. According to a recent survey by the Bipartisan Policy Center, a whopping 79% say the cost of housing is extremely or very important to them. Eighty-three percent say Congress should take action on the issue — like it just did. Eighty-nine percent say the House and Senate need to work together to pass affordable housing legislation — like they just did. And 63% say they would be more likely to vote for a lawmaker if they helped pass legislation to build more affordable homes and lower housing costs — like they just did.
There aren’t many issues that unite Americans like housing does, and very few bipartisan policy wins Congress can point to, and yet, Trump is holding that bill hostage in order to get his pet project — which doesn’t even have the support of his own party — pushed through.
If you’re trying to make sense of something so nonsensical, as I’m sure many Republican lawmakers are, it’s certainly sad but not actually all that complicated. Trump said what he needed to get reelected and then promptly abandoned his promises in order to pursue his own self-interests, even if those interests are bad for Republicans and bad for voters.
That’s just the kind of guy he is.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.