Founded in 1991, the National Legal and Policy Center promotes ethics in public life through research, investigation, education and legal action. We recognize that the bigger the government, the more opportunities for corruption; and the more intervention in the economy, the more reason for special interests to seek influence. We believe that the best way to promote ethics is to reduce the size of government. We do not believe that ethics are advanced through more laws or "better guidelines," even as existing ones are ignored. We don't believe the problem is with too few laws, or with too much freedom, but with men and women. We believe the missing ingredients are character, morality and common sense.
Site Navigation
Search
Latest Stories
Join a growing community committed to civic renewal.
Subscribe to The Fulcrum and be part of the conversation.
Top Stories
Latest news
Read More
Constitution Day gets little fanfare compared to July 4th, but an attorney argues it should remind every American of their role in defending democracy.
Prasit photo/Getty Images
Defending the Constitution Is a Year-Round Responsibility—No Oath Required
Oct 08, 2026
For 250 years and counting, Americans have celebrated Independence Day on July 4 through fireworks, concerts, parades, barbecues, and more. By contrast, Constitution Day arrives soon after, on September 17, with far less fanfare. It is not a time to hear patriotic medleys on the radio, enjoy 20% off a new air-conditioner, watch a hot-dog-eating contest, or exchange cheerful greetings with neighbors. The observance marks the anniversary of the moment when 39 delegates signed our nation’s founding document at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia on September 17, 1787. Constitution Day came and went last month with little public awareness. But the observance should inspire all Americans to protect our cherished Constitution throughout the year.
Presidents of the United States recite an oath of office to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” This oath, familiar to many Americans who watch Inauguration Day ceremonies, is mandated by the Constitution itself (Article II, Section 1, Clause 8). Public officials, judges, service members, and lawyers like me also swear oaths to support the Constitution as part of their public or professional roles.
While oaths may obligate certain people to defend the Constitution, it is critical that all of us play a role in its defense. You can speak out and take action to help sustain our democracy. This is something we must never take for granted.
Ratified in 1791, the Bill of Rights, along with subsequent amendments, protects such crucial rights as freedom of speech, freedom of the press, peaceful assembly, freedom of religion, due process, equal protection, and more. The Bill of Rights further declares that powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states or to the people. Benjamin Franklin expressed his support for such popular sovereignty at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, declaring: “In free governments, the rulers are the servants and the people their superiors and sovereigns.”
If you’re like most Americans and have not taken an oath to defend the Constitution, you might be hesitant to “get involved,” comparing yourself to activists or policy experts. But this is about our government, not your particular background. A résumé is not required to add your voice at a school board or town hall meeting, march in a peaceful protest, circulate a petition, or vote.
Defending the Constitution also isn’t reserved for any single political party or ideology. Throughout U.S. history, people with a range of values and beliefs have invoked the Constitution to advance their views. Doing so requires us to respect constitutional limits even when they conflict with our political opinions.
In 1770, John Adams took an enormously unpopular position by insisting that Captain Thomas Preston and the eight British soldiers implicated in the Boston Massacre get a fair trial and served as their attorney. Preston was acquitted, and the soldiers’ trial resulted in six acquittals and two lesser convictions of manslaughter rather than murder. This powerful story shows how one of America’s founders believed that consistent application of rights and the rule of law were essential for a healthy nation.
Defending the Constitution does not require us to think in lockstep. On the contrary, constitutional issues are often complicated, and it is the process of disagreement and debate that enables us to work through them. The Constitution itself was the product of disagreement and compromise, with Federalists and Anti-Federalists at odds throughout ratification.
Even the U.S. Supreme Court has overturned its own precedents. In 1896, the Court’s ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson established the “separate but equal” principle. Nearly six decades later, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka rejected that principle, holding in 1954 that racially segregated public schools violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and that “separate but equal” has no place in public education.
The Constitution was designed to permit such change. As the Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw wrote, “Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” Through Article V, the Constitution established an amendment process, which has led to fundamental changes, including abolishing slavery, expanding voting rights, limiting presidential terms, and lowering the voting age to 18.
When we ignore the Constitution, or casually invoke it without understanding it, disagreements become harder to navigate because we lose our framework for resolving them. Soon after retiring as a Supreme Court justice, Sandra Day O’Connor emphasized the importance of constitutional education in a 2007 interview, warning “You don’t inherit that knowledge through the gene pool.” Constitution Day exists in its current form in large part because a retired medical technologist, Louise Leigh, studied the Constitution and took action to encourage constitutional awareness.
As an attorney, I have heightened responsibility because of the oaths I have taken, and I have written this piece with those oaths in mind. But my oaths do not give me greater ownership of the framework of our self-government than any other American. Helping to uphold the Constitution, whether through speaking, writing, voting, petitioning, assembling, serving, learning, or teaching, is key to sustaining our constitutional democracy.
Constitution Day may be Independence Day’s quieter sibling, but it should serve as an annual reminder of our individual and collective responsibility. Constitution Day is September 17, but every day is an opportunity to express an opinion and play a role in shaping history’s next chapter. Through greater appreciation and understanding, we the people can ensure that our Constitution remains the meaningful vehicle for sustaining our democracy, and that it grows as we do.
Ron Leshnower is an attorney, author, and volunteer with Lawyers Defending American Democracy (LDAD) as the New York State Lead for its Meeting the Moment initiative.
Keep ReadingShow less
Recommended
white concrete building during daytime
Photo by Ian Hutchinson on Unsplash
Congress Broke the Constitutional Order — And Now They Want Voters to Forget
Oct 07, 2026
How can leaders who broke the constitutional order, ignored their oath, weakened rights, and harmed the people now ask Americans to forget — and reward them with reelection? The question is not abstract — it goes to the heart of what the Constitution demands from those who swear an oath to uphold it.
The constitutional order is the framework that protects the Republic: three branches, checks and balances, oversight, limits on executive power, and the oath every member of Congress swears — to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. Yet in recent years, Congress has allowed that order to erode. Oversight collapsed. Guardrails bent. Silence replaced accountability. Loyalty to a president replaced loyalty to the Constitution.
But something else has changed too: voters.
Today, people are more politically literate — paying attention to promises made and unkept, roll‑call votes, and the policies that shape their daily lives. Millions have watched rights taken away, the ACA dismantled with nothing replacing it, corruption, executive overreach, and checks and balances ignored. Voters understand the stakes of reelecting leaders who have ignored their needs, weakened their rights, and abandoned their constitutional responsibilities.
The human cost of congressional neglect is nonpartisan — in every state. And the harm is lived. Families struggling with affordability. Communities harmed by compromised agencies. Public health systems strained. DEI protections rolled back. ICE abuses unchecked. The ACA dismantled with no replacement. Voting rights restricted. Election workers threatened. Foreign influence ignored. Inspectors general fired. Free speech attacked. Constitutional responsibilities treated as optional.
Today, Congress includes more than 100 documented election deniers — including a president who promotes it. Election denial and election interference deepen the damage. It rejects the constitutional process for transferring power. Leaders who deny certified results cannot claim loyalty to the Constitution. How can an election denier uphold an oath to the Constitution when election denial itself rejects the constitutional process?
The consequences of this broken order extend beyond domestic policy. The nation is living through a war Americans did not ask for — and Congress did not authorize. Congress failed to restrain unilateral military action, leaving the country in conflict without the constitutional safeguard of congressional approval. Reporters, veterans, communities of color, and entire states feel the weight of decisions made without oversight.
I have tried to hold leaders accountable. I have written to members of Congress across the country, asking whether they are honoring the oath they swore. I asked about rhetoric, the dismantling of the ACA, overreach, corruption, and ignored constitutional responsibilities. Each acknowledged my letters. None answered my questions. Citizens are entitled to answers. But Congress has learned that silence is easier than accountability — hoping voters will forget.
I hear the same frustration from relatives in Texas, who have watched their senator do little to help the people while repeating falsehoods that exhaust voters already overwhelmed by political deception. The pattern is familiar: leaders who break the constitutional order, ignore constituents, and then ask for votes as though the public has forgotten their record. It is exhausting to watch lies flood the airwaves while roll‑call votes and lived experience tell a different story.
It is even more exhausting to watch leaders look into cameras and repeat falsehoods while supporting policies that harm the people and weaken the Republic. Their public statements often contradict their votes, their silence in moments of crisis, and their unwavering support for a president whose overreach has broken constitutional guardrails. Yet these same leaders ask for votes as though their record does not exist. The gap between their words and their record is no longer a political problem — it is a constitutional one.
Americans should sense the desperation in these appeals. When the vice president asks for “one more chance,” and the president promises a $5,000 payment if his party keeps control of Congress, it reveals a troubling truth: they know the damage they have done. They know their record cannot stand on its own. Putting the president’s name on the COVID relief checks worked once. Now they hope money and manufactured loyalty will work again — that voters will forget the broken guardrails, the corruption, and the harm inflicted on the Republic.
This strategy is not new. It reminds me of the old proverb: “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” Some supporters have voted multiple times for leaders who harmed them — and now openly express regret. They feel misled by promises that never materialized and policies that made their lives harder. Millions now ask: how can leaders who broke the constitutional order, ignored their oath, weakened rights, and harmed the people expect voters to forget — and reelect them? Leaders who did the most damage are counting on voters to forget, forgive, and — as the vice president asked — give them another opportunity to repeat the damage.
The Constitution gives power to the people — not to those who seek to manipulate them. And voters have more power than they realize. They can choose clarity over chaos, courage over intimidation, and truth over noise. They can remember the harm, who caused it, and why. They can refuse to be sidelined by party loyalty, pity, or lies. They can weed through conspiracies, do their research, seek the truth, and protect their voice, their power, and the Republic.
To protect the Republic, voters must vote with clarity — not confusion, not exhaustion, not fear. Clarity comes from political literacy, the civic skill the framers expected of the people. Political literacy means understanding political systems, constitutional responsibilities, and the difference between leadership and loyalty. It means developing critical thinking skills, evaluating media carefully, and recognizing when leaders distort reality to avoid accountability. It means knowing the record — not the rhetoric.
Even if Congress changes, citizens will have to work even harder to demand accountability. A new Congress does not automatically restore constitutional order. It will take determination and vigilance — especially when some say this president ignores accountability altogether. The framers never intended accountability to be optional. They intended it to be enforced by the people.
Someone once said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. We must reflect on what happens when we repeatedly vote for leaders who denied elections, remained silent in moments of crisis, took away rights, dismantled healthcare, weakened DEI protections, ignored ICE abuses, and allowed corruption to flourish. We may not be able to control every storm around us. But we can decide whether we will surrender our humanity, our hope, our voice, or our joy to it.
Voters must make a plan to vote — and vote. We cannot vote for a leader merely because they ask us to, want us to, or share our party label. We must look at the record. We must remember our power to put the Republic back on course. Protect your voice. Protect your power. Protect the Republic.
George Santayana warned that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Congress is counting on that. They want voters to forget the broken guardrails, the harm, the corruption, and the constitutional neglect. But forgetting is how democracies fail. Remembering is how democracies survive.
The founders warned us: A Republic, if you can keep it. Keeping it requires memory. Keeping it requires vigilance. Keeping it requires clarity. And keeping it requires refusing to forget what Congress hopes we will — because the survival of the Republic depends on what the people choose to remember.
_________________________________________________________________________
Carolyn Goode is a retired educational leader and former principal who has spent her career advancing civic responsibility, equity, and public engagement. She writes about democracy, leadership, and the values that strengthen American communities.
Keep ReadingShow less
The Art of the Crossfade
Crossfade Tour Mixes Music and Civic Imagination for America’s 250th
Oct 07, 2026
As the United States marks its 250th anniversary, MacArthur Fellow and cultural historian Josh Kun alongside DJ/producer J.PERIOD are asking what the art of DJing teaches us about living with difference.
Their answer is The Art of the Crossfade, a multi-city project that uses the DJ crossfader — the tool that blends two records without either disappearing — as both a musical technique and a metaphor for civic life. Through musical lectures, storytelling, community dialogue and J.PERIOD’s Live Mixtape performances, the series explores how people with different histories, perspectives and identities might find points of connection without erasing their distinctiveness.
After stops in Los Angeles and Phoenix, the project heads to Lincoln, Nebraska, on Oct. 24. The tour will then continue to New Orleans, where Kun and J.PERIOD will take over Music Box Village alongside artists and other special guests.
In a recent conversation with David L. Nevins, publisher of The Fulcrum, Kun explained how an idea he began developing about 15 years ago evolved into a collaboration with J.PERIOD — and why he believes the crossfader feels especially relevant now.
Q: Can you start by explaining where the idea for The Art of the Crossfade came from and how the project developed?
Josh: I started thinking about and developing these ideas around 15 years ago in my academic work and, around that time, met J.PERIOD, whose primary work is as a producer and DJ and was working with similar ideas in his mixtapes. Suddenly, I could see the concepts I was discussing, which come from DJ culture, being put into practice by an actual DJ who completely understood the theory behind them.
We initially started building the project informally. It began as a talk for a TEDx conference, and then we developed it into a multimedia lecture. We kept growing from there. In today's political and cultural climate, I think its core ideas are more important than ever.
The first question is: how do you mix different inputs, whether musical or political? How do you build new stories that respect diversity and difference instead of erasing it?
The second is: what does it mean to spend our days looking for connections?
One of the things DJs do is take two records that might be radically different and find a point of connection. It might be a trumpet, a bassline, or a breakbeat. We’re trying to scale that idea socially, culturally, and politically. What are the shared trumpet lines? What are the shared breakbeats we can isolate and use to build new “mixes” that benefit the future of American culture?
Q: A lot of organizations doing bridging work struggle to engage people across the
political spectrum. How do you think about that challenge with The Art of the Crossfade?
Josh: This remains a key struggle. But part of the reason we use the crossfader [as a metaphor] is that we believe music is a rare language that can put people with radically different viewpoints next to each other without them knowing it. Anytime you go to a festival or get on the dance floor, you don’t know the political beliefs of the people next to you. Sometimes — perhaps all the time — people with radically different political beliefs love the same artists.
In the community talkbacks we’ve been doing around our shows, we’ve had moments when people have conversations they might not otherwise have.
In an earlier iteration, Crossfader was a series of short films. We filmed one episode in Lincoln, Nebraska, pairing a Yazidi refugee musician with a white heavy metal drummer who wasn’t right-wing but was certainly right-of-center. What struck me was how different they were, how much they misunderstood each other, and how music became, at least in that moment, a door opening to a new kind of dialogue.
Q: You and J.PERIOD both came of age with hip-hop. How did that influence the way you think about Crossfader?
Josh: J.PERIOD and I came up at the same time, and hip-hop has been, in different ways, the cultural and philosophical language of our lives.
That horizontal piece on the mixer was a technological tool for so many people of my generation. Even though we didn’t necessarily realize it at the time, it structured how we thought about culture and connection.
Q: Where does the idea of “common ground” fit into this work? Is finding common ground enough?
Josh: I believe in the possibility and power of common ground, and certainly part of The Art of the Crossfade is very much about that: finding that bassline, that breakbeat or that trumpet that becomes the common ground. It’s the point of connection between two different songs, two different generations or two different cultures.
Once you establish what you have in common, you can start a conversation, even if it’s small. You find that initial moment of connection. Without it, there is no conversation. I’m not saying the conversation is guaranteed, but it can only exist once you've established some commonality.
At the same time, I’m always checking myself to avoid overly romanticizing common ground. Sometimes people have to say, “I’m willing to find common ground, but not on this issue,” or “Not on this point,” or “Not if somebody can’t see me as a human being.”
I think everybody must draw certain lines. You can be excited and willing to have dialogue, but it must happen on terms of recognition and respect. So, I don’t know exactly what common ground looks like. These are open questions.
In New Orleans, there’s this interesting tradition of “neutral ground,” which is what they call the medians in the streets. I’m interested in thinking about those spaces as places for new connections and new exchanges.
For us, Crossfade is that opening gesture. It’s about setting the table and creating the common ground — or creating the neutral ground — where hopefully some kind of new mixes and new conversations can happen, grounded in respect, grounded in humanity, and grounded in openness and kindness and compassion that is required for conversation.
Q: You’ve talked about the dance floor itself as a model for bringing people together. What can a DJ teach us about creating that kind of shared space?
Josh: Think about an empty dance floor. A DJ has to figure out how to get a whole group of radically different people onto that dance floor. They have different bodies, different backgrounds, different experiences.
You have to play songs that you think are going to cut across multiple demographics. But then, once you get those people onto the dance floor, you have to sustain them. You have to keep them moving, which means figuring out what comes next.
What’s the next song? Maybe some people know it, and others don’t, but you have to find the right connection that keeps people moving and dancing together.
There are also certain unspoken norms on a dance floor. You maintain space. You respect other people’s bodies. If those rules keep getting established, the dance floor becomes a model for new social formations.
That’s what I’ve always loved about what DJs do. Back when I was a DJ, that's what I loved about it, and for J.PERIOD it’s still a great source of joy: seeing all these different people come together but come together differently.
Q: What do you hope The Art of the Crossfade can ultimately accomplish?
Josh: I don’t think the goal is simply to get everybody to agree or to find some predetermined political center. The possibility is to create the conditions for something new. Music gives us a way to begin with connection. You can find the bassline, the breakbeat, or the shared cultural reference that brings people into the same space. From there, you can potentially create a conversation that otherwise wouldn’t happen.
That doesn’t mean erasing difference. In fact, the whole idea of the crossfader is to bring different inputs together while allowing each to remain distinct.
For me, the hope is that we can create spaces — whether you call them common ground, neutral ground, or something else — where people can encounter one another with recognition, respect, and openness, and where new connections and exchanges become possible.
Keep ReadingShow less
Microphone with flag
Photo provided
On the Ballot, But Not the Stage: Illinois Independent Faces Familiar Debate Lock Out
Oct 07, 2026
CHICAGO, Illinois — Independent gubernatorial candidate Collin Corbett held a press conference outside WTTW Chicago studios Tuesday demanding access to an upcoming candidate forum on October 13 that will feature Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker and Republican Darren Bailey.
- YouTube youtu.be
Corbett has cleared the ballot access requirements required by law to make it on the November ballot. The Illinois State Board of Elections lists him and running mate Carolyn Schofield as active independent candidates for governor and lieutenant governor.
But independent candidates nationwide know all too well that as challenging as making it on the ballot can be—it is not the only obstacle they face. They may share the same ballot with the major party candidates, but the rules often prevent them from sharing the same stage.
"We Independents make up 47% of the electorate, nearly double each major party. The Independent candidate belongs on the forum stage," Corbett said.
"Further, moderates are 38% of the electorate in Illinois, a larger share than liberals or conservatives. Moderates deserve to see a mainstream candidate on the forum stage."
Readers who have followed IVN for a while know this is an issue we have covered extensively for nearly two decades: Candidates outside the two major parties are regularly denied access to the forums, debates, and polling that help voters see them as viable alternatives.
The 15% Wall
WTTW’s reported criteria require a candidate to receive at least 15% support (excluding the poll’s margin of error) in a professionally conducted independent survey after the primary.
If that number sounds familiar, it is because it is a rule that is also used in presidential debates and has been challenged in court.
The Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) adopted rules for debate inclusion back in 2000 that are still used to this day. One of them is known as the “15% rule.”
Presidential candidates are required to poll at 15% in 5 national polls handpicked by the commission to qualify.
Even in 2024, when the Trump and Biden campaigns ditched the CPD, CNN used the same rule. It is partly responsible for the exclusion of then independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
As a result of the "15% rule," there has not been a third candidate on the presidential debate stage since Ross Perot in 1992. And history shows how this creates a conundrum for independent candidates.
They need polling support to get into debates, but debates and media coverage are among the primary ways lesser-known candidates build the name ID needed to improve their polling.
And because the press and pollsters determine that they are not viable, they are often left out of the conversation entirely.
Corbett currently faces a similar hurdle. One September survey that included him put his support at 4.1%, compared with 51.3% for Pritzker and 30.8% for Bailey.
WTTW Had A Rule That Went One Step Further to Exclude Independent Candidates
For a time, the polling threshold was not the only obstacle Corbett faced. The Illinoize reported in August that WTTW’s criteria also required a participant to be “the nominee of a political party recognized under state law.”
The criteria separately gave WTTW discretion to add candidates it considered newsworthy.
This went beyond the presidential debate rules. The CPD, which may or may not be used in future elections, does not have an explicit requirement that candidates belong to a political party.
An independent theoretically could qualify by satisfying the polling requirements. Even if the deck is heavily stacked against them to do it.
Corbett’s campaign says its attorneys sent WTTW a demand letter September 10 arguing that the party requirement was not viewpoint-neutral and therefore unlawful. The campaign says WTTW has since dropped it.
However, an updated WTTW criteria page reflecting the change could not be found.
WTTW Has Used Broader Forums Before
Corbett also argues WTTW has not consistently used polling thresholds to determine who gets featured in a candidate forum/debate. There is precedent for broader inclusion.
WTTW announced that 9 candidates in Chicago’s 2023 mayoral election would participate in its February 7 forum. Eight ultimately appeared.
A major poll conducted immediately before that forum found that only 2 of the 8 candidates, Paul Vallas and Lori Lightfoot, polled above 15%. The current mayor, Brandon Johnson, polled at 11%.
Johnson placed fifth in that poll (Jesús “Chuy” García polled highest at 20%, but dropped out before the forum).
WTTW also announced this year that 5 candidates for Chicago School Board president would be invited to its September forum. Four ultimately participated.
In the mayoral and school board races, simply being on the ballot was enough. However, the rules are different for the gubernatorial forum.
"WTTW is selectively enforcing rules to shield the major parties and silence Independent voices," Corbett said.
"Illinois voters deserve an opportunity to compare every candidate who earned a place on their ballot. All three of us should stand on stage and answer tough questions about how we're going to make life affordable for working families."
Watch the full press conference above.
On the Ballot, But Not the Stage: Illinois Independent Faces Familiar Debate Lock Out is republished as part of The Fulcrum’s partnership with IVN and the Latino News Network to expand voter‑first journalism and strengthen public‑centered coverage of democracy.
Keep ReadingShow less
Load More
The President Invited Iran to Bomb My Home