Resetting the Table collaborates with strategic partners to build important communication across political silos in American life. Our work ranges from one-off forums to intensive year-long programs for institutional and community transformation that replace long-standing distrust or avoidance with a culture of healthy dialogue and deliberation.
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Six civic engagement organizations were recognized Monday night for their work to strengthen democracy in a cross-partisan way.
The 4th annual American Civic Collaboration Awards, or Civvys, were more competitive this year as the 2020-21 cycle saw the most nominees since the awards ceremony was established by the Bridge Alliance and Big Tent Nation in 2017. Eighteen finalists were selected among the four dozen nominees for three categories: national, local and youth. From those finalists, six winners were chosen.
"While the headlines may show ideological division and entrenched partisanship, we the people are showing the way forward," said F. Willis Johnson, Jr., vice president of partnerships and programming for the Bridge Alliance. "This important work reflects the spirit of the Civvys as organizations and industries are coming to realize that it is collaboration, not competition, that will allow us to move America forward, combine our strengths to do more, do better and overcome partisanship and gridlock."
Here are this year's winners:
Three organizations were also recognized with the Committee Choice Award:
The Bridge Alliance is a financial supporter of The Fulcrum and just announced it will take over as publisher in May.
The Fulcrum will help the Bridge Alliance bridge the divide that separates us, writes Nevins.
Nevins is co-founder and board chairman of the Bridge Alliance, a coalition of more than 90 organizations promoting core goals of the democracy reform movement: fairer and more accessible elections, reduced influence of money in politics, enhanced civic engagement, bolstered government transparency and more effective governance "with a country-before-party mindset."
I am excited about the opportunity for the Bridge Alliance, through its public communications arm the Bridge Alliance Education Fund, to become the new publisher of The Fulcrum as it grows and builds upon the successes of its first 29 months.
The work of our more than 90 member organizations is gaining traction. It is obvious to millions of Americans that something is wrong and we must fix our country's social and political system — by bridging the many divides that separate us.
We must harness the tension of our differences in order to strengthen our inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — balancing individual and community needs. For more than two years The Fulcrum has played an important role in doing so. We envision growing the existing digital platform to be more interactive, engaging and innovative — in order to empower Americans of all stripes in our movement. Our aim is to create a democracy that puts We the People first.
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The task will not be easy. To succeed we must find the balance between maintaining impeccable journalistic standards and, at the same time, offering to magnify the voices of all Americans yearning for a healthier governing system: young people, people of all ethnic and racial backgrounds, rural and urban dwellers, conservatives and progressives.
The Fulcrum will channel all these voices seeking a better democracy as we talk respectfully among ourselves.
We know how much citizens are yearning for more involvement and deeper connection with one another. The democratic reform community must reach all people who are advocating for particular fixes for the system, then connect them with the organizations pushing to make those changes a reality.
This is the new aspiration of The Fulcrum. We will enact a marketing strategy to reach people where they are and help them connect to the reforming democracy movement as a way to reach their own goals.
I have a deep faith in the power of regular American citizens to make a difference. Indeed, every advancement in our society has been led by the people. The Fulcrum's platform can engage, and will involve, citizens of all stripes. We can and must welcome all Americans — from across the political spectrum and the social spectrum — who see our differences as a strength.
Americans have a genuine sense of an authentic interest, affiliation and affection for this great nation. Our unwavering confidence in the country's future must be restored as we recognize and address the profound challenges we face.
Through The Fulcrum, we will continue our commitment to help citizens find their own path forward — one that reflects their own values and priorities, not the publisher's political agenda or anyone else's.
As a voice for democracy, The Fulcrum will be empowering, action-oriented, pragmatic, inclusive, trustworthy, innovative, positive, appreciative and respectful to all as we work together to achieve the goal of a more perfect union, a country where "E pluribus unum" (Out of many, one) is a reality.
Equal Citizens founder Lawrence Lessig said his organization will continue to push for the passage of HR 1.
This is the 10th installment of an ongoing Q&A series.
As Democrats take power in Washington, if only tenuously, many democracy reform groups see a potential path toward making the American political system work better. In this installment, Lawrence Lessig, founder of Equal Citizens and a Harvard Law School professor, answers our questions about 2020 accomplishments and plans for the year ahead. His organization promotes reforms aimed at fixing the political system so that all citizens are represented equally. Lessig's responses have been edited for clarity and length.
A bunch of us reform organizations were focused on getting every presidential candidate to commit to fundamental, HR 1-or-better-like reform. We organized a string of town halls to secure that commitment, beginning with Andrew Yang and ending with Bernie Sanders.
We also succeeded in getting the Supreme Court to clarify the power of presidential electors. That decision shut down any effort to get electors to vote contrary to their pledge and — more importantly in this election — provided a clear signal that the court would not tolerate any legislatures voting contrary to how the people had voted.
It seems strangely narcissistic to think about individual setbacks in the middle of a pandemic. The setback we suffered was the setback the world suffered, the U.S. more than it had to — the pandemic.
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The profound wisdom in Margaret Mead's words: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." Fundamental democratic reform has been elevated to the center of national political attention. We've been working with many others for more than a decade to make this happen. But "we" have not been millions; "we'' have just been those convinced and committed to making this happen.
We will continue to press HR 1 as hard as we can. But we're incredibly excited about a new project that we'll launch as a beta in the next few weeks: a massive virtual deliberation project. We hope it will enable hundreds of thousands to deliberate in small groups, first about the Electoral College, and then, if that's successful, about other issues of democracy as well.
After HR 1, we're shifting our focus to people, not Congress. We want to demonstrate broad and deep understanding of issues of democratic reform across America.
America has a media culture with a severe attention-span problem — easily distracted, not easily focused. But unlike an ADHD kid, there's no clear treatment. Somehow we need to figure out how to engage the public with seriousness and serious issues. Slow democracy, not democracy tweeted.
have begun in earnest. HR 1 will have suppressed gerrymandering, and all the techniques to suppress the vote; it will have empowered small-dollar donations to support campaigns; and the people will have the tools to engage in serious, informed deliberation about important issues facing our democracy (and if not, admit it — even just one of these will be incredible!).
The core mechanisms of politics are debate and compromise. But, the authors write, these mechanisms are in serious need of repair.
Kelly is a senior governance fellow at Georgetown University's Beeck Center for Social Impact and Innovation. Bland is a senior consultant at Stanford University's Center on International Conflict and Negotiation. Thompkins is CEO of the Justice and Peace Foundation, which works to combat poverty, war and racial injustice. Morrow is a lecturer in politics at the University of Ulster.
There comes a time when political leaders and ordinary citizens alike must choose to affirm and reinforce the institutions that make a democratic nation possible. The last four years have taught us that we cannot take for granted that our democratic processes will lead to compromise and reciprocity.
We are participants in an ongoing conversation about peace building among academics, community activists and international scholars who have studied intractable political conflicts and helped to develop strategies for overcoming political divisions. Our discussions have drawn heavily on our experiences in Northern Ireland and Israel-Palestine and on our engagement in struggles to overcome racial injustice, wealth inequality and discriminatory policing here in the United States.
We believe the lessons we have learned offer important insights into how we could overcome the deep polarization poisoning American politics.
In our representative democracy, politics is a way of reconciling divergent interests. In this view, the core mechanisms of politics are debate and compromise. Today, these mechanisms are in serious need of repair. To restore viable democracy, we must first identify what makes political debate and compromise functional.
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People live their political lives looking toward the future. Two ways of envisioning this future are important. They sound similar, but they are different: A shared vision of the future and a vision of a shared future.
The first? It implies broad agreement about how the future should unfold. It is the work of politics to define such a vision, including a consensus on how to bring it about. In the absence of a shared vision, the parties to a conflict may seek to impose the future they desire on their opponents. At this point, a vision of a shared future becomes important.
The second? Democracy does not demand that the citizens share a vision of the future. But democracy does demand that they commit themselves to a future that each would find bearable. This future must offer them security, dignity and the capacity to pursue the everyday goals virtually all of us have for ourselves and our families.
In other words, citizens have to commit to a vision of a shared future to have a democracy.
Such a vision recognizes that fundamental differences exist in what the parties seek and what they deem just. But each party also recognizes its vision must address the place of the other in that vision. If that place would be unbearable, political negotiations and citizen dialogue will be fruitless or even counterproductive.
Normal interest-based and value-based political compromise can take place, this means, only when both sides are sure that no political arrangement under consideration would afford them less than a bearable future. For democracy to function, citizens must feel that losing a political contest will not deny them the opportunity to live "normal" lives — to pursue their personal goals and dreams with some chance of success.
A deep sense of loss pervades our nation. Conservatives feel they are losing the heritage needed to build the future they want. Progressives feel they are losing the achievements of the past and also the momentum needed to build the more just and diverse future they want.
If political dialogue is to be constructive, progressives and conservatives must — first and foremost — acknowledge their respective senses of loss are legitimate and then address the fear that those Americans have of other Americans who hold opposing views.
Coming together to preserve American democracy starts with some common tasks. We must provide security for individuals, families and communities. We must safeguard livelihoods. And we must foster dignity and respect. Most politicians clearly understand the importance of these questions, but they treat them as by-products of the policies they advocate.
In the search for a shared future, We believe that these outcomes — especially the emphasis on dignity — should be paramount, intentional and visibly demonstrated.
