Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Help at the polls won't be limited in Minnesota under latest voting rights settlement

St. Paul city council member Dai Thao

St. Paul city council member Dai Thao faced charges in 2017 for helping a Hmong woman, who had trouble seeing, translate and complete her ballot. The charges were ultimately dropped.

Facebook

Minnesota has agreed to abandon two of its most unusual and harsh election rules, which have restricted help for people casting ballots — the freshest victory in the barrage of voting rights litigation in this year's battleground states.

The state laws at issue bar candidates from helping others vote and say that no one else may help more than three people complete in-person or absentee ballots in any election. With the lawsuit settlement, announced Tuesday, Arkansas will be the only other state with such strict limits on providing voting assistance.


The intent of Minnesota's law was to prevent campaign operatives from manipulating the votes of elderly, disabled and non-English-speaking voters. But the suit argued the statute was a direct violation of the Voting Rights Act, which says voters needing assistance have the right to choose whomever they want, and denied voters their political and free speech rights under the federal and state constitutions.

Three years ago, a federal appeals court struck down, for similar reasons, a law in Texas requiring language interpreters at the polls to be registered voters in the county where they were offering aid.

The new settlement was in a suit filed in February by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of four Hmong-Americans. The principal plaintiff was Dai Thao, a St. Paul city council member running for mayor in 2017 faced charges for helping a neighbor, a Hmong woman who had trouble seeing, both translate and complete her ballot. The charges were ultimately dropped.

The Twin Cities has the nation's largest Hmong population. And almost 11 percent of Minnesotans have a disability that could lead them to seek help voting, the ACLU said.

A similar claim had been brought a few weeks earlier by the Democratic congressional campaign committees, a piece of the party's broad array of nearly two-dozen suits hoping to get rules that potentially suppress the vote relaxed before November. The Republicans are fighting many of them, but now their defense in Minnesota is moot.

But the partisan fight continues in a second Minnesota suit, a challenge in federal court to the state's laws about the order in which each party's candidates are listed on the November ballot.

The Democratic nominee has carried Minnesota in 11 straight elections, but President Trump came within 2 points (45,000 votes) last time and has vowed to go hard after the state's 10 electoral votes this fall.

Two of the state's top elected Democrats, Secretary of State Steve Simon and Attorney General Keith Ellison, were technically in charge of defending the assistance restrictions but said after the settlement was announced that they were thrilled to see the provisions abandoned.

Read More

Trump Doubles Down on Maduro’s Arrest
File:Nicolás Maduro, president of Venezuela (2016) cropped.jpg ...

Trump Doubles Down on Maduro’s Arrest

In a dramatic escalation of U.S. pressure on Venezuela, President Donald Trump has doubled the reward for information leading to the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro—from $25 million to a staggering $50 million. The move, announced by Attorney General Pam Bondi, positions Maduro among the most-wanted fugitives in the world and intensifies Washington’s campaign to hold him accountable for alleged narco-terrorism.

“Under President Trump’s leadership, Maduro will not escape justice and he will be held accountable for his despicable crimes,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said Thursday. Bondi described Maduro as “one of the largest narco-traffickers in the world,” citing his alleged ties to criminal organizations like Tren de Aragua, the Sinaloa cartel, and Cartel de los Soles.

Keep ReadingShow less
Protest against gerrymandering
Demonstrators protest against gerrymandering at a rally in front of the Supreme Court while the justices debated Rucho v. Common Cause.
Evelyn Hockstein/For The Washington Post via Getty Images

When the Map Becomes the Battlefield: Gerrymandering and the Challenge of Democratic Reform

Founded as an independent national news outlet, The Fulcrum explores and advances solutions to the challenges facing our democratic republic—by amplifying diverse, civic-minded voices. We've long championed a new political paradigm rooted in civil discourse, civic integrity, and personal accountability while warning that hyper-partisan rhetoric and entrenched party lines threaten the very foundation of reasoned governance.

But in 2025, the threat has evolved. The content arriving in our newsroom, as well as the voices from the field, reflect not just frustration with gridlock, but growing alarm over the systematic dismantling of democratic institutions. From reform leaders to civic organizations to everyday citizens, we’re hearing the same refrain: The machinery of democracy is not merely stalled, but systematically being dismantled.

Keep ReadingShow less
Congress Bill Spotlight: Making Trump Assassination Attempt a National Holiday

A congressional resolution urges the House to designate July 13, the day that President Trump was shot in an assassination attempt, as an annual federal holiday.

Getty Images, Anna Moneymaker

Congress Bill Spotlight: Making Trump Assassination Attempt a National Holiday

The Fulcrum introduces Congress Bill Spotlight, a 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.

No longer would July 13 only be known as National Beans ‘n’ Franks Day or National Barbershop Music Appreciation Day.

Keep ReadingShow less