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A view of destruction as Palestinians, who returned to the city following the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, struggle to survive among ruins of destroyed buildings during cold weather in Jabalia, Gaza on January 23, 2025.
Getty Images / Anadolu
The Fragile Ceasefire in Gaza
Jan 28, 2025
Ceasefire agreements are like modern constitutions. They are fragile, loaded with idealistic promises, and too easily ignored. Both are also crucial to the realization of long-term regional peace. Indeed, ceasefires prevent the violence that is frequently the fuel for instability, while constitutions provide the structure and the guardrails that are equally vital to regional harmony.
More than ever, we need both right now in the Middle East.
The ceasefire in Gaza, that seems to be holding, is cause for celebration and, for some, optimism. Every day that passes without the destructive violence of the past sixteen months, and every hostage that is released during the present truce, provides some hope that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict might ease a bit. Negotiators on both sides should be commended.
But the hard work of finding an enduring solution to a centuries-old dispute remains. And that is where constitutions come in. Constitutions in the region are certainly part of the problem; maybe they can also be part of a lasting solution.
No one should doubt that constitutions function differently in Middle Eastern countries than in many other parts of the globe. Nathan Brown has written that constitutions in most Arab states are “generally viewed as elegant but insincere expressions of aspirations that rulers issue in an effort to obscure the unrestrained nature of their authority. Constitutions are written not to limit authority…but to mask it.” He’s right, of course. If modern constitutions are meant to limit political power, establish government institutions, enumerate individual and group rights, and identify a nation’s most fervent aspirations, most Middle Eastern constitutions badly miss the mark. To paraphrase Brown’s primary take-away: constitutions perform only minimally in a nonconstitutional Arab world.
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And now consider that a written constitution does not even exist in Israel.
The story of why is familiar. In May, 1948, the National Council of the newly-established State of Israel issued a Declaration of Independence. In it was the promise of a fresh constitutional draft. It would take four months for the Israeli constitutional framers to whip up such a draft, declared the Declaration of Independence. Well, that four months came and went, and, despite efforts to resurrect the call for drafting a constitution over the next 77 years, supporters of Israeli constitutionalism are still waiting.
So, we have nonliberal constitutions in many Arab countries and an unwritten constitution in Israel. Sadly, both make sense. To suggest that Arab countries should all of a sudden become liberal republics is both foolish and parochial, and to condemn Israeli leaders for refusing to check their authority as guardians of Jewish statehood is arrogant.
And yet those Arab constitutions, and the lack of a written constitution in Israel, is a big part of the problem. Constitutions are not a source of accountability in the region. Any solution, whether it be two-state or one, has to reckon with these constitutional deficiencies. Even slight reform of the fundamental laws in the Middle East would make a difference. The strengthening of political accountability in authoritarian Arab regimes would make negotiations with Israel more productive. (There was some hope for progress after the Arab Spring more than a decade ago. That hope has faded.) Equally, the extension of additional freedoms to Palestinians in Israel will help to ease the impasse. Both adversaries must move their “constitutions” to the left. Not an easy task, for sure. But one that would have long term, positive ramifications.
Neither constitution has to fully resemble those in North America or Western Europe. But both have to move, ever so slightly, in those directions.
Modern constitutions are like ceasefire agreements. If followed, they can right the political ship, provide much needed time and space for reflection, and, yes, even save lives. The Middle East conflict appears intractable at the moment. Constitutional reform in the region is part of the solution.
Beau Breslin is the Joseph C. Palamountain Jr. Chair of Political Science at Skidmore College and author of “A Constitution for the Living: Imagining How Five Generations of Americans Would Rewrite the Nation’s Fundamental Law.”
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The Committee on House Administration meets on the 15th anniversary of the SCOTUS decision on Citizens United v. FEC.
Medill News Service / Samanta Habashy
Money Makes the World Go Round Roundtable
Jan 28, 2025
WASHINGTON – On the 15th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s ruling on Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, and one day after President Trump’s inauguration, House Democrats made one thing certain: money determines politics, not the other way around.
“One of the terrible things about Citizens United is people feel that they're powerless, that they have no hope,” said Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Ma.).
The roundtable discussion focused on the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision on prohibiting the government from restricting independent spending on political campaigns. The ruling unleashed corporate spending on elections and its impact was felt in the last election, where billionaire donors fueled Trump’s presidential win. Democrats on the Committee on House Administration convened the roundtable and only Democrats participated.
However, Ilya Somin, a professor at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, said he supported the ruling in 2010 and still does now because the Supreme Court was correct in deciding that the First Amendment protected independent political spending by corporations and other groups.
He said Citizens United is not responsible for the “bad developments” in American politics.
“I think almost any constitutional right can potentially be destroyed by saying you're not allowed to expend resources in order to exercise the right. That's certainly true of the right of freedom of speech. If you say, ‘Well, you can say what you want, but you can't spend money to disseminate your speech or broadcast,’ that would clearly destroy the right of freedom of speech,” he said.
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According to PBS News, the 2024 presidential election was the second most expensive election since the 1980s. OpenSecrets reported that the amount spent was $5.5 billion.
Tiffany Muller, president of End Citizens United, an advocacy group, told the gathering of lawmakers that the wealth of the ten richest people in the world surged by $64 billion the day after Trump was elected. She added that Elon Musk’s net worth had “increased by $200 billion just this year.”
She said the Court’s Citizens United decision was “disastrous,” and it not only opened the floodgates to unlimited and undisclosed spending, but it shut the door on getting anything done.
She said that before Citizens United, there were 14 instances of Republicans joining with Democrats to address climate change, and after it passed, the oil and gas lobby became the number one spender in elections, and “there have since been zero instances of us being able to address that since.”
Muller said yesterday’s inauguration was the culmination of the consequences of the last 15 years and the start of what she referred to as “the Billionaire’s Ball” because “just seven people donated a billion dollars to elect Donald Trump.” Now, some of them sit at the head of government agencies, “like Dr. Oz, who made a fortune as a snake oil salesman.”
In his last address to the nation, former President Joe Biden warned that rich people were having so much sway in politics that “an oligarchy is taking shape in America.”
McGovern, however, argued that the word ‘oligarchy’ should not be used because “people don’t know what that means.”
He suggested, instead, that lawmakers keep drawing the connection to show how big money influences particular policies.
“If you're on a committee that deals with healthcare, tie the fact that Trump is trying to undo efforts to lower the cost of pharmaceuticals. We have to keep making the connection,” he said.
Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) contradicted McGovern, “The reality is that we need to tell the truth, and if people don't understand the language we're using, it doesn't mean that we don't tell it to them. It means that we have to get them up to speed on the language.”
Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) joked that she could use tequila in her coffee after the witnesses’ testimony “because it all feels awful.” But she said that these issues are exactly why she believes it’s her responsibility to do everything she can to make sure that people understand the impact of money in politics.
Ramirez, a daughter of immigrants, was the first Latina ever to be elected to serve Illinois in Congress.
“It's 2025, why is that? It's too damn expensive to run for Congress,” she said.
Some legal experts said Citizens United does not determine who wins elections.
Joe Luppino-Esposito, deputy legal policy director at the Pacific Legal Foundation, said that the candidates with the most money do not always win.
“Ask [former Vice President] Kamala Harris, who spent well over a billion dollars,” Luppino-Esposito said. “She dwarfed [Trump] completely, and he still prevailed. It’s definitely not the case that whoever has the most dollars automatically wins.”
According to Forbes, Harris’ campaign raised around $20 million from big donors between October and November, compared to Trump’s $5 million.
Luppino-Esposito disagreed with the alarms Democrats raised about oligarchs.
“Every party has their own oligarchs,” he said. “Everybody has their own people that they hail as their leaders in industry. When the case came down in 2010, there was this perception that corporate money was all going to be on the Republican side of the aisle, and that is very, very far from the case. Both sides have engaged in the arms race… Trump is not as afraid to tout that these people are on his side, whereas President Biden had the same type of people on his side as well [like George Soros].”
Somin, from George Mason University, said he’s unhappy with the winners in the recent election, but he does not blame Citizens United.
“American politics since 2010 has certainly gone in much worse directions than I had expected or hoped,” he said. “I don't think Citizens United is the culprit.”
“There are going to be some people who can exercise liberty in some ways more effectively than others. If you're a famous celebrity like Taylor Swift, when you speak, many more people are going to pay attention,” he said. “With almost every constitutional right, there's some degree of inequality in the sense of how effectively you can exercise that right, but I don't think there's anything unique to money and speech in that respect.”
During the roundtable, Lee conceded that it’s not just Republicans who protect big money in politics. Democrats publicly oppose Citizens United, but their actions don't align with their words.
“In our Democratic party, we won't even get rid of money and politics… when it's just us, and we have to start to talk about the why. I am the first Black woman to represent Pennsylvania. I do not come from money,” she said. “There is no one in my phone who I can call and ask for a significant amount of money. And because there's no such person in my network, people like me are systematically blocked from representing in Congress.”
Lee added that any one who cares about mass shootings, the climate, environmental racism, or taking down Big Pharma, should care about money in politics.
“If we can't put our money where our mouth is, then we have to be very real about whether or not we are actually fighting for the best interest of the American people,” Lee said. “We can't combat Big Pharma if we are also accepting money from them. Democrats have to be more serious about serving the people, and we can't do that if we are not serious about combating our own issues with taking money in politics.”
Samanta Habashy is a student at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, majoring in journalism and international studies.
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The United States Supreme Court.
Getty Images / Rudy Sulgan
Top-Two Primaries Under the Microscope
Jan 27, 2025
Fourteen years ago, after the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional the popular blanket primary system, Californians voted to replace the deeply unpopular closed primary that replaced it with a top-two system. Since then, Democratic Party insiders, Republican Party insiders, minor political parties, and many national reform and good government groups, have tried (and failed) to deep-six the system because the public overwhelmingly supports it (over 60% every year it’s polled).
Now, three minor political parties, who opposed the reform from the start and have unsuccessfully sued previously, are once again trying to overturn it. The Peace and Freedom Party, the Green Party, and the Libertarian Party have teamed up to file a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Their brief repeats the same argument that the courts have previously rejected—that the top-two system discriminates against parties and deprives voters of choice by not guaranteeing every party a place on the November ballot.
The plaintiffs argue that California’s top-two system is a violation of their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights, as well as “the rights of voters who wish to vote for and associate with minor political parties, their candidates and the issues for which they stand.” It’s a party-centric argument, adopted by some reformers, that the only legitimate expression of “voter choice” is a November election in which all candidates who wish to run appear on the ballot. The longer the menu, the more choices you get. Take something off the menu, you're denying choice.
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So why do California voters find the top-two system so appealing if there are “only” two choices? In fact, the choices these plaintiffs are suing to offer voters already exist—in the primary. In that way, the primary is much more like a general election, and, like any general election, all voters get to participate. The general election, then, becomes a runoff of the top vote-getters. It could be any combination of candidates. What matters is that the people themselves—not the parties—get to make the choice of who they like best to compete head-to-head. That’s the appeal of the California system—it’s voter-centric.
Since the adoption of the top-two system, electoral competitiveness has gone way up in California. Uncontested elections have virtually disappeared. Five million independent voters have access to the ballot box. And, all voters have access to the only electoral system that pits the two most favored candidates against each other head-to-head and guarantees a majority winner.
Meanwhile, the plaintiffs collectively represent 2% of the CA electorate (less than half a million voters out of 24 million registered). Twenty years ago, long before the top-two system, they represented—you guessed it—2% of the electorate. As millions of voters have left the major parties in CA, and tens of millions nationwide, the number of independent voters has more than doubled, going from 14% of the electorate twenty years ago to almost a quarter of the CA electorate today. California voters are clearly not very interested in the “choice” these plaintiffs are offering.
The case is unlikely to be successful. There is no absolute right for any party or candidate to be on any ballot. The U.S. Supreme Court has limited its guidance to directing states to “provide a feasible opportunity for political organizations and their candidates to appear on the ballot.” The top-two system treats every party equally. Indeed, the parties in their brief acknowledge that, despite a very modest amount of public support, some third-party candidates have had success in CA under the top-two system. Not to mention that the Supreme Court has already ruled that the top-two primary is constitutional.
Perhaps the case will start some new conversations. How should the rights of third parties be balanced with the rights of voters—especially the explosion of independent voters? How do you articulate the value of a reform that has shown real merit but that is hard to capture in a state as large and as complicated as CA? Whose opinions on the value of a reform matter more—reformers or the public they profess to be serving?
If the case prompts thoughtful answers to any of these questions, these plaintiffs may still yet succeed in unwittingly advancing a very different goal—a more voter-centric reform movement.
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Group of people waving small American flags at sunset.
Getty Images//Simpleimages
Independents as peacemakers
Jan 26, 2025
In the years ahead, independents, as candidates and as citizens, should emerge as peacemakers. Even with a new administration in Washington, independents must work on a long-term strategy for themselves and for the country.
The peacemaker model stands in stark contrast to what might be called the marriage counselor model. Independent voters, on the marriage counselor model, could elect independent candidates for office or convince elected politicians to become independents in order to secure the leverage needed to force the parties to compromise with each other. On this model, independents, say six in the Senate, would be like marriage counselors because their chief function would be to put pressure on both parties to make deals, especially when it comes to major policy bills that require 60 votes in the Senate.
This pressure could even apply in the House, where the Republican Freedom Caucus may not support Speaker Johnson and mainstream Republicans on any number of the 13 appropriations bills that constitute the annual budget and where the reconciliation process enables the majority party to pass legislation with a mere majority. Still, the marriage counselor model envisions independents as using their leverage to achieve bipartisanship on Capitol Hill and with the White House.
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The peacemaker model is more ambitious. It envisions independents using leverage (via their votes), but it also involves independents inserting their own concepts, values, and feelings into the legislative process. Their goal is to be a third force on Capitol Hill and Washington in general because they would seek to forge not just a compromise between the Democrats and the Republicans -- say on climate change, guns, entitlement reform, immigration or childcare and parental leave -- but a synthesis of three distinct points of view.
The marriage counselor model of independents conceives of the independents like therapists who get the married couple to work out their difficulties with new plans, proposals, and attitudes. It is not the role of the therapist to insert his or her or their values into the therapeutic process. The peacemaker model, however, goes further. It absolutely does seek to insert the concepts, values and feelings of the independents into the legislative process. It is a peacemaker model not just in what scholars in Peace Studies call "negative peace," namely peace in the negative sense of avoiding conflict and even violence between the two major parties.
It is a peacemaker model in the positive sense of forging bills that will create new laws that will be satisfactory to all three sides and that represent a unique synthesis of three points of view. A positive peace and not merely a negative peace is, therefore, the goal of a new model in Washington that aims to substitute the goal of tripartisanship for the goal of bipartisanship. Tripartisan deliberations and decisions in Washington and not bipartisan deliberations and decisions represent the ten-year goal for the nation's capital and the country itself.
This process of societal transformation will be the final step of a 250-to-260-year process of closing the gap between the United States and the rest of the free world, where almost every democratic country has three or more political parties that have significant power -- notably in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea, the UK, and Israel. Australia, in particular, has witnessed the rise of the "Teal Independents" in recent years, providing the United States with a model to generate the rise of the "American Independents."
How precisely independents are to organize and reconcile differences amongst themselves and elect independents is an open question. I favor a view that focuses on a decentralized rather than a centralized approach. Independents need to be elected one at a time in a small number of national races -- or converted in Washington -- to create a critical mass with sufficient leverage.
The Dartmouth economist Charles Wheelan was right in "The Centrist Manifesto" that we needed a "Fulcrum Strategy" to overcome the dysfunction in Washington. But he was too ambitious to propose that a Centrist Third Party could supply the leverage. Power and ultimately positive peace will come if Americans use some of the political and military ingenuity the American Revolutionaries used to take power away from the British Crown.
In our case, the independents do not have to defeat all or even the majority or even huge numbers of Democrats and Republicans. They only need to defeat enough of them in order to have the leverage to create positive peace in Washington and the country overall.
Dave Anderson edited "Leveraging: A Political, Economic and Societal Framework," has taught at five universities and ran for the Democratic nomination for a Maryland congressional seat in 2016.
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