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U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN)

Trump’s Plan to Strip Rep. Omar of Her Citizenship Is Unconstitutional and a Threat to All of Us

​People arrive at a polling location on the first day of early voting in Texas

Early voting records should scare GOP

Five men sitting on one side of a table, as a panel at an event.

Congressional Inaction Raises Constitutional Change Alternative

Man holding American flag

This Is What Makes America Great

Group of voters stand in line

Six Key Voting Blocs Hold the Balance of Power on Nov. 3

Podcast: Conversations: Former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott

Podcast: Conversations: Former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott
The Fulcrum
By The FulcrumAug 18, 2022
The Fulcrum
The Fulcrum staff.
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In the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, it became clear that the Electoral Count Act of 1887, the legislation that provides the framework governing the casting and counting of electoral votes, needed updating because of its arcane language and ambiguities that could be exploited by bad actors willing to overturn the will of the people.

In stepped a bipartisan group of senators, and, after months of negotiating, a deal was struck. Last month, the Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act was introduced by Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) along with eight other Republican cosponsors and seven Democratic cosponsors, to update the antiquated Electoral Count Act of 1887.

On this special episode of Swamp Stories, host Weston Wamp spoke with former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS) about the bipartisan group of senators that helped drive the effort, the implications for public confidence in our system, and why the bill needs to pass this year.

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Border patrol SUV at the Mexico / United States border in El Paso Texas

Getty Images

How Border Policies Are Reshaping South Texas Politics

Zapata County, a rural border region in South Texas, is one of the poorest counties in the state. Democratic presidential candidates carried the county for more than a century. In 2020, that all changed when Zapata, a county with a population that is 94 percent Latino, voted for Donald Trump. Trump won the county again in 2024.

Less than two years after Trump took office for a second time, the administration’s border policies are weighing on Zapata residents. The federal government began bulldozing land across the county in June. Landowners are beginning to fight back and some say their private property has been seized illegally to build the wall.

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Georgia State Capitol

Georgia State Capitol in downtown Atlanta Georgia USA.

Getty Images

The Governor Count Will Miss the Biggest Statehouse Changes

A Democratic victory in Georgia and a Democratic victory in Nevada would add the same number to the party’s governor tally. If current legislative majorities survived, however, the results would change state government in opposite ways. Georgia would acquire an executive able to challenge Republican control. Nevada would acquire unified Democratic government. One result creates a new bargaining obstacle; the other removes one.

That difference should shape how Americans interpret the 36 governorships on the ballot this November. Election-night coverage will count partisan gains and losses. The more useful question for public managers and citizens is which combinations of authority those results create, and who will then possess enough power to be held responsible for delivery.

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A montage of dollars and yuans
assorted banknotes
Photo by Eric Prouzet on Unsplash

America’s Political Whiplash Is the World’s Problem

The rest of the world is beginning to hedge against the United States.

The New York Times recently reported that global investors are balking at U.S. bonds and that foreign governments are pulling their gold out of American vaults. This month the Dutch central bank moved much of its North American gold out of the United States. In March the Bank of France took 129 tons out of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the largest in the world, plans to cut its holdings of Treasuries. Last year Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank, said erratic policymaking in the United States was setting the stage for a “global euro moment.”

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A ​fire burns and destroys the city hall in Limoges, central France.

A fire burns and destroys the city hall after a group of individuals forced entry into the building during ongoing protest action against the "high cost of living," in Limoges, central France on Oct. 17, 2026.

Pascal Lachenaud/AFP/Getty Images/Tribune

What Americans can learn from the French protests

On Monday, France’s Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez admitted that police have “lost control” as some cities continue to see massive waves of looting and mayhem. Social media brims with images of stores being ransacked, cars burning, and mask-wearing goons running wild. In Limoges, the beautiful Hôtel de Ville was burnt to the ground.

But the chaos, as is so often the case, began peacefully. And many supporters and leaders of the protests have condemned the violence. I think that violence has more to do with France’s miserable record of assimilating immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East than with budget cuts. Call me cynical, but I don’t believe the goons pillaging Louis Vuitton stores are planning to resell the handbags to buy better school supplies or to bolster their teachers’ salaries.

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