Legislators in 19 states are considering changes to state courts that would diminish the role or independence of the judiciary by giving political players more control over judicial selection, judicial decision-making or judicial administration. The roster of such bills was compiled by the progressive Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School, which opposes all such efforts.
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America’s 250th Year: A Milestone That Demands We Restore What We’ve Lost
Aug 24, 2026
A president acting like an entitled king, a Supreme Court behaving like a faction, and a Congress standing silent — this is not the America250 Americans envisioned. How did a nation that spent 240 years expanding rights spend the last decade dismantling them? And how do we honor that democratic journey when the Court is reversing the very rights that made it possible?
Now that the July 4th celebration has passed, we are fully in America’s 250th year — a milestone that not only invites reflection but demands that we confront what has been lost and decide whether we will restore it.
Rights once believed secure have been dismantled, scientific agencies weakened, and democratic guardrails bent by those entrusted to uphold them. Even the breakthroughs that saved lives during the pandemic have been politicized or dismissed. mRNA vaccines — a scientific achievement that protected millions — became targets of misinformation and hostility.
This backward drift has touched every corner of American life. Voting protections have been weakened. Reproductive rights reversed. Agency independence eroded. And in decisions that expand presidential power rather than check it, the Supreme Court has accelerated what scholars call authoritarian drift — the slow erosion of democratic norms through concentrated power and weakened guardrails. What the country fought to become — more just, more inclusive, more scientifically grounded, more pluralist — is being consumed by a faction determined to take us backward.
The Supreme Court has become a central force in this regression. In recent rulings, the Court has expanded presidential power at the very moment the country needed it checked — reshaping the balance the framers intended and reversing long‑standing precedents on voting rights, reproductive autonomy, regulatory authority, and agency independence. These rulings do not feel neutral or restrained; they feel sweeping, partisan, and disconnected from the lived realities of millions of Americans.
The Court’s legitimacy — its only real power — depends on public trust. Yet trust erodes when decisions appear aligned with political factions rather than constitutional principles. And it erodes when the Court’s role shifts from checking concentrated power to enabling it. America’s 250th year demands that we reflect honestly on the institutions that define our democracy — and acknowledge how recent actions have weakened the guardrails meant to protect the Republic.
The last decade has revealed a deeper fracture — a nation divided between those working to expand rights and those working to restrict them. Public reporting and scholarship show how recent reversals have disproportionately affected marginalized communities, reflecting deeper cultural and political divides over whose rights are expanded and whose are restricted.
That fracture widened again this summer. In July, the president continued pressing Congress to pass the America First Act — a sweeping measure that restricts voting access and federal benefits — after House leaders folded it into the National Defense Authorization Act and advanced it under a different name. The bill passed the House without transparent debate, deepening public distrust and showing how easily rights can be narrowed when power is concentrated and unchecked.
This milestone forces us to confront a painful reality: many officials entrusted with safeguarding the Republic have not honored the commitments they made to earn those positions. Supreme Court nominees described Roe v. Wade as “settled law,” then voted to overturn it. Public trust collapses when leaders say one thing to secure power and do the opposite once they hold it. Millions of Americans feel they are walking into walls of deceit, asked to restore what has been lost while watching officials undermine the very rights they vowed to protect.
America’s 250th year demands not only reflection, but restoration — of the rights, protections, and principles that have been lost. Even in a period of regression, the Constitution provides clear, lawful pathways to rebuild what has been dismantled.
Congress holds the broadest authority. It can restore voting rights weakened by recent rulings; restore reproductive autonomy by codifying protections once guaranteed under Roe v. Wade; restore civil rights enforcement and DEI commitments; restore Affordable Care Act protections; restore immigration pathways narrowed by executive action; and restore agency independence so scientific and public‑health decisions are grounded in evidence rather than politics. Congress can also restore integrity and transparency by imposing ethics rules, regulating the Court’s jurisdiction, and expanding the Supreme Court — a constitutional power used seven times in our history. And it must reject measures like the America First Act, which restrict rights through procedural maneuvering rather than transparent debate.
The people must demand that Congress restore the rights it has allowed to be weakened or taken away — and elect leaders who will work to restore them. Americans must demand that Congress use the full power of checks and balances — the power the framers intended — to restore what has been lost.
States also have tools. They can restore rights locally — broadening voting access, reaffirming reproductive autonomy, strengthening civil rights protections, and investing in scientific and educational integrity when federal leadership falters.
The Supreme Court itself can act. It can revisit precedents, narrow earlier rulings, reaffirm limits on executive power, and restore protections that align with modern interpretations of liberty and equality. Courts have reversed themselves before; they can do so again. Restoration requires all three levels of constitutional power: the Court can restore rights only by revisiting its own decisions; Congress can restore rights through new laws; and states can restore rights locally when national institutions fail.
And the people still hold power — through voting, organizing, public testimony, civic education, and sustained engagement. Rights were won because people insisted on them. They can be restored the same way. Americans must pay attention, infer, and think critically about what they see; they must have the courage not to give in to fear tactics or distraction. The rights Americans regret losing — voting protections, reproductive autonomy, civil rights enforcement, scientific integrity, transparent governance, and the constitutional balance among the three branches — are the rights that once strengthened the nation and must now be restored.
Americans must also demand that the president practice restraint and decorum — staying off social media with threats, intimidation, and bully tactics that destabilize institutions, divide the country, and set a damaging tone for the nation.
We cannot escape our past, but we can choose to learn from it. We can acknowledge the painful chapters of slavery, segregation, discrimination, and exclusion — not to relive them, but to understand how they shaped the present.
America’s 250th year is not simply a marker of time; it is a demand — a demand that we restore the rights, guardrails, and commitments that once strengthened the Republic. This milestone is not a celebration of what we are; it is a reminder of what we must become. It calls us to reclaim the progress that has been overshadowed, to restore the guardrails that have weakened, and to recommit to the founding ideal that “all men are created equal.” Only by facing the truth of this moment can we honor the sacrifices that brought us here and shape the future that must follow.
Americans must demand that the constitutional balance — the rights, limits, and guardrails the framers built to restrain power — be fully restored.
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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.
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Repeated claims of voter fraud have eroded Republican trust in mail-in voting. Explore how GOP rhetoric surrounding mail ballots risks depressing conservative turnout ahead of the 2026 midterms.
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GOP Claims of Voter Disenfranchisement Are a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
Aug 24, 2026
Trump’s efforts to sow seeds of doubt in the election process have had an unintended yet predictable effect on the 2026 midterms: many Republican voters no longer trust mail-in voting.
When City Councilmember Nithya Raman surged from behind in the Los Angeles mayoral primary as late mail-in ballots were counted, some members of the GOP pointed to a broken election system. In reality, they were watching California elections function exactly as designed — slow, scrupulous, but secure.
By law, California election officials have 30 days to count ballots and certify the results. Early polling projected a win for Republican reality TV star Spencer Pratt in the Los Angeles mayoral race, but that was several days before the collection of late mail-in ballots postmarked on or before Election Day. Since then, the election tides turned, and a blue wave of mail-in ballots carried Raman to a second-place finish.
Mail-in voting has become a critical part of California’s voting system as more than 88% of the state electorate cast their ballots by mail in the 2024 general election. In a state where election outcomes are routinely reshaped by the counting of mail ballots, Raman's 11-point surge was hardly extraordinary. Trump nevertheless declared the result "not possible" and evidence of a "rigged election."
Raman’s rise and the responses to it reflect a partisan division in how voters have been conditioned to view elections. The distrust in mail-in voting among GOP constituents did not emerge on its own. It was cultivated over years of messaging from Republican leaders.
President Donald Trump has alleged widespread voter fraud since his presidential loss in 2020.
According to a pre-election post from Trump in April of 2020, mail-in voting “doesn’t work out well for Republicans.” Despite winning in 2024 — when mail-in ballots comprised roughly 30% of the national electorate — Trump has stuck to his claim that mail-in voting is rigged against the GOP.
Trump's election fraud claims gained traction throughout the conservative media ecosystem as politicians, commentators, and online influencers echoed allegations that Democrats were "stealing and cheating" and that election officials were "counting votes until Spencer loses."
While fraud claims begin with prominent political figures — House Speaker Mike Johnson, Florida Senator Rick Scott, and of course, President Donald Trump — they gain plausibility as they are repeated across trusted media personalities, podcasts, and online communities. The conservative-leaning channels that Republican voters are most likely to trust and consume amplify these messages, reinforcing the perception that election fraud is widespread and credible.
As American citizens, our vote is our voice. Assertions that this voice is being undermined or discounted without our knowledge are understandably alarming. While a single allegation may be easy to dismiss, repeated claims delivered by multiple media sources and political officials are far more difficult to ignore.
The effects of this sustained messaging are reflected in public opinion. According to survey data from Marist Poll, distrust in American elections has increased by 10 percentage points since 2024. The reasons for distrust are divided across party lines as Democrats (41%) are most concerned about voter suppression, while Republicans (57%) identify voter fraud as the greatest threat to free and fair elections.
For the majority of Republican voters who already question the integrity of American elections, recurring claims of widespread voter fraud reinforce existing concerns and increasingly shape attitudes toward election policy. In 2018, 57% of Republicans supported no-excuse absentee voting. Today, that support has fallen by roughly 20 percentage points, while Democratic support has remained relatively stable at 82%.
Republican voters have been repeatedly told that one of the most common and accessible methods of voting in state and federal elections is also among the least trustworthy. As confidence in mail-in voting has declined among Republicans, the partisan gap in voting methods has widened. In the 2024 election, approximately one in four Democrats voted by mail, compared with one in five Republicans.
The GOP has framed mail-in ballots as an obstacle, and that is exactly what they have become for Republican candidates.
Donald Trump and his political allies are engaging in psychological self-handicapping — creating obstacles to explain their losses before they occur. But unlike the textbook version of this phenomenon, the consequences extend beyond a single individual, as the entire GOP risks isolating its supporters by eroding trust in the democratic system.
For MAGA supporters, the most accessible pathway to voting has been tainted by allegations of electoral fraud. As a result, Democrats vote by mail at a higher rate than Republicans, and Democratic candidates like Raman are more likely to benefit from mail-in ballots. In this sense, Trump may be right — mail-in voting “doesn't work out well for Republicans.”
By stirring democratic distrust, Donald Trump is not simply warning about disenfranchisement — he is helping to produce it. Claims meant to explain electoral losses are increasingly shaping who participates in the first place.
As the nation approaches the 2026 midterms, the GOP must confront a simple question: If Republican voters are convinced that their ballots will not be counted, why would they vote at all?
Jackie Bond is an independent news writer from Los Alamitos, California, focused on politics, media, and public policy. She graduated from the University of Virginia in 2025 and is pursuing a master’s degree in journalism at Northwestern University.
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Modern politics rewards viral outrage over thoughtful debate. Explore how introducing mindfulness, gratitude, and cross-party reflection can lower the temperature in Washington and rebuild governance.
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Zen and Governing in a Time of Politics as Performance Art
Aug 24, 2026
News reports and social media constantly remind us that today’s political system rewards conflict, viral moments, and ideological performance over thoughtful and courteous debate.
Tune into the melee, and it is as if every high-ranking official is now a TV political pundit rather than a serious statesman or stateswoman.
What’s missing in this denigrating political interaction is mindfulness, reflection, compassion, and gratitude. A Zen approach, if you will, is sorely lacking in the nation’s capital.
Instead, we’ve learned that treating political opponents with cruel insults and aggressive attacks is a successful way to win elections and gain more time on cable channels and podcasts.
A good example of this approach’s success is the Louisiana Republican primary, where incumbent U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy came under fire from President Donald Trump, who called Cassidy a “sleazebag,” a “terrible guy,” and a “disloyal disaster.” Cassidy’s offense? He voted to convict Trump in the 2021 impeachment trial over the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Cassidy went down in defeat, a loss for anyone who cares about health policy because Cassidy is a doctor who has a deep understanding of that policy.
Similarly, in a congressional primary in Maryland, two Democrats — former Rep. David Trone and incumbent Rep. April McClain Delaney — are painting each other as secret MAGA sympathizers, hoping that animosity toward Trump in the Democrat-leaning area will rub off on the opponent. The strategy is clear. Stain the other person’s reputation by claiming they are in league with what primary voters see as villains on the other side.
Perhaps this sort of politics as performance art is one reason a Pew Research Center survey showed the majority of Americans think the nation’s best years are behind us.
While I understand the sentiment, I’m not as pessimistic as those survey respondents. Many years as a healthcare lobbyist in Washington have taught me that, although what’s been happening lately is troubling, the system is not beyond repair.
Despite the malevolent ill will that we see masquerading as political discourse, Washington is still a place where respectful conversations about policy happen, even if those conversations are behind closed doors.
These lawmakers are colleagues, after all, and many of them have been working with each other for a long time. They are committed to doing good work; we just don’t hear about that enough.
Flee the Chaos, Practice Gratitude
But let’s not let them off the hook completely.
As constituents, our message to lawmakers should be this: Each of you has it within your power to lower the temperature in Washington. You need to create platforms for dialogue and space for contemplation and reflection.
Instead of jumping into the chaos, which probably is the easier thing to do, you must learn to walk away from it and find compassion for each other. You also should feel grateful to be in these roles. Gratitude renews the soul and the spirit, and should make you better representatives who can govern effectively.
And never forget that your job in Congress is to do good by your constituents, and not just look out for yourself or your party. When discussing legislation, find ways to communicate that create thoughtful deliberation and conclusions that are good for everyone.
Don’t Disregard Everything the Other Party Says
We as citizens have our own role to play in creating a less vituperative and more mindful approach to governance.
Sometimes our biases make us stubborn. We refuse to acknowledge any hint of good when ideas come from those we disagree with. But if we can avoid that trap, we can make policy strides — even if just small ones — in these otherwise hostile times.
Healthcare issues are a good example. It’s easy to find reasons to excoriate the current administration on health issues, and to scoff at the idea of Make America Healthy Again, or MAHA, when something as basic as vaccinations has come under fire, putting the health of many Americans at risk.
But take a moment to sift through the debris and see if there is common ground. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has made efforts to eliminate red dye 40 from food, which is a legitimate concern because it can make hyperactivity worse for some children.
Kennedy also announced earlier this year new dietary guidelines that encouraged Americans to avoid highly processed foods and to eat more fruits, vegetables, and other healthy food choices.
When the other side gets something right, there is no need to reject it out of hand, allowing politics to trump policy.
As citizens, we, too, need to walk away from the chaos, embrace mindfulness, and take our civic responsibility to petition our representatives seriously, advocate for issues we care about, and make sure those in power understand the ramifications of their decisions.
Taking a short pause for meditation and mindfulness won’t hurt either.
Gary Jacobs, author of “The Zen Lobbyist: A Mindful Approach to Transforming Healthcare,” is managing director at Healthsperien, a Washington, D.C.-based healthcare policy consulting firm. He is also an adjunct professor at American University and host of the podcast “Policy Prescriptions.” With over 40 years of experience in healthcare entrepreneurship, consulting, and policy advocacy, Jacobs drives bipartisan solutions to expand primary care access and reform public health programs. A certified meditation instructor, Jacobs combines mindfulness practices with executive strategy to help heal both patients and the people who care for them.
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Existing laws in Colorado reduce the administrative and regulatory costs of building new housing.
Congress Just Passed a Housing Law That Rewards States for Reform — Here’s Why Colorado Has a Head Start
Aug 24, 2026
In Colorado, a full-time worker must earn US$36.44 an hour to afford a modest two-bedroom apartment without spending more than 30% of their income on rent, according to a recent report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
The state’s minimum wage is $15.16. Someone earning that would have to work 96 hours a week, more than two full-time jobs, to cover rent.
The report ranks Colorado as the 12th-least-affordable state in the country for renters.
In July 2026, Congress offered state and local leaders a new set of tools to expand housing supply when it passed the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, the most significant federal housing legislation in decades. It authorizes relatively little new spending. Instead it offers competitive grants and technical assistance to state and local governments that ease the local rules that slow housing construction and raise its cost, and it loosens federal restrictions on how existing housing dollars can be spent.
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I direct the Center for Housing Research and Innovative Solutions at the University of Denver, where we study how Colorado and states across the Mountain West can expand housing supply and lower housing costs. Before that, I led the Office of Policy Development and Research at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which evaluates proposed housing legislation, during the years when many of the ideas behind this new law were being developed and debated.
Housing costs are now central to Colorado politics. In a statewide poll in spring 2026, voters were more likely to call the cost of housing “a very big problem” than any other cost they were asked about. Whoever wins the governor’s race in November will inherit that problem along with a new federal law that could help address it. They will also take office just as federal agencies begin writing the rules that determine how much the law actually delivers and what states get out of it.
What the new law offers Colorado
Much of the federal act rewards changes that Colorado has already spent several years making. One provision authorizes competitive grants for local governments that revise parking mandates and minimum lot sizes or streamline permitting and environmental review for new construction. A 2024 Colorado state law eliminated parking requirements near transit, and Denver has since dropped them entirely.
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Colorado also legalized accessory dwelling units statewide in 2024, letting homeowners build small backyard or garage apartments without needing a special hearing or approval. What that law could not supply was money. The federal act now lets Federal Housing Administration home improvement loans finance these units, pairing permission the state already granted with financing that has been hard to find.
The same pattern appears in construction rules. Colorado is one of four states that have legalized single-stair apartment buildings, a design that allows small apartment buildings to be served by one stairwell rather than the two that American building codes have long required, freeing up floor space and making it possible to build apartments on narrow lots. The new law directs federal officials to issue guidance for these buildings and authorizes grants to test their safety and cost.
Financing rules are shifting too. Banks are the main investors in the federal low-income housing tax credit, the largest subsidy for building affordable apartments. Developers sell those tax credits to banks in exchange for cash to build with. But federal regulators cap how much of a bank’s capital can go into such investments. The act raises that ceiling from 15% to 20%. Banks can now buy more credits, putting more equity into each deal, just as state housing subsidies shrink. The Colorado Housing and Finance Authority, a statewide housing finance authority that awards those credits to developers, lobbied Congress for the change.
What Colorado learned that other states can use
Colorado’s most useful contribution to other states may not be any single law but rather the machinery the state built to make those laws function.
Housing subsidy in the United States is fragmented, and assembling it consumes time and money that could otherwise go into buildings. The ROAD Act does not eliminate that fragmentation, but it trims some federal requirements that make stacking subsidies expensive, and it gives states a reason to make their own programs easier for developers to combine.
Colorado has been chipping away at this problem. In 2025 the state, its housing finance authority and the city of Denver launched Housing Hub Colorado, a single portal that aligns their application timelines and requirements. A shared application accepted by all three is expected later this year.
The portal came out of the Colorado Housing Consortium, a coalition launched in 2025 that brings together more than 120 people from state and local government, developers, lenders, philanthropies and nonprofits. Its members surveyed the field, ranked the barriers driving up construction costs, and picked three to work on first: a shared funding application, a revolving loan fund, and pooling demand for modular construction.
The lesson for other states is practical. A project stalls if any one of these fails: land it can be built on, permits that arrive on time, financing that closes, and a builder who can deliver at a price that works. Fixing one at a time leaves the others to block the project, which is why states that coordinate across agencies can act quickly when federal money and guidance arrive.
Colorado’s experience is also a caution. Passing a reform and implementing it are different things. In 2025, six of Colorado’s 105 home-rule cities, which under the state constitution control their own zoning, sued the state over the 2024 laws and over Gov. Jared Polis’ move to withhold state grant money from cities that don’t comply. Bills to limit how large a lot cities can require for a single home, and to allow lot splitting, died in the state Senate in 2026 after local governments objected to the state overriding their zoning decisions.
This is where research and measurement matter. Colorado has been at this since 2022, when voters passed Proposition 123, dedicating a share of state income tax revenue to affordable housing. Its reforms are now far enough along to evaluate, and knowing which produced housing and which produced only paperwork can inform other states considering similar measures. This knowledge will also help federal officials assemble the model zoning and land-use practices the law directs them to publish for states and cities to adopt voluntarily. The HUD research office I used to lead is responsible for developing these guidelines.
What the law will not do
The new federal law is designed to make new housing cheaper and faster to build, not to help people pay for homes that already exist. Focusing on new production has limits. It does little for households whose incomes are too low to pay for housing at any price. Three in four eligible low-income renter households nationally receive no federal rental assistance because the programs are underfunded.
Colorado is testing that limit. To close a $1.5 billion budget shortfall this year, lawmakers moved $130 million out of Proposition 123, with most of the cut falling on programs that build rental housing for low-income families. Regulatory reform costs little and can do a great deal, but it does not replace subsidies. The likely result is less subsidized housing built in Colorado over the next few years, at the same time the new federal law is making it easier to build housing generally.
Some of the state’s own barriers also remain. Colorado law gives condominium owners up to eight years after a building is finished to sue over construction defects, and the insurance costs that follow have long pushed developers toward building apartments instead. Condominiums are one of the few paths to entry-level homeownership. State lawmakers did act: A 2025 law offers builders more protection from lawsuits if they agree to third-party inspections and warranties. But homebuilders expect it to take six to eight years to affect premiums. The federal law does not touch the issue.
Why the next year matters
Federal agencies must still write regulations, conduct studies and launch programs as part of the new federal law, work that could take years at HUD, whose staff has been sharply reduced. Despite that, analysts at the Pew Charitable Trusts argue that jurisdictions that update their zoning, building codes and permitting policies now will be best positioned to win the new grant funding.
Colorado already knows how to do this work. What it has not yet demonstrated – and what the next governor and the state’s mayors now have a chance to show – is whether reform on paper becomes homes people can afford.
Congress Just Passed a Housing Law That Rewards States for Reform — Here’s Why Colorado Has a Head Start was originally published by The Conversation and is republished with permission.
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