An ambient walk through the Vietnam Veterans Memorial grounds in Washington D.C.
This piece originally appeared on the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
An ambient walk through the Vietnam Veterans Memorial grounds in Washington D.C.
This piece originally appeared on the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
Welcome to the latest edition of The Expand Democracy 5 from Rob Richie and Eveline Dowling. This week they delve into: (1) how better elections could empower legislatures; (2) the 2025 World Press Freedom on disturbing trends; (3) better RCV polling in NYC; (4) Bright Line Watch survey on declining democratic health; and (5) the week’s timely links, including to a new free documentary Majority Rules 101.
In keeping with The Fulcrum’s mission to share ideas that help to repair our democracy and make it live and work in our everyday lives, we intend to publish The Expand Democracy 5 in The Fulcrum each Friday.
If you want to suggest a pro-democracy idea for coverage in The Expand Democracy 5, please use the contact form at Expand Democracy.
Last week, The Five spotlighted the growing breakdown of our constitutional system of checks and balances. Fundamentally, legislatures, not presidents or courts, should be the core of democracy. That means not having “mandates” from a single election to justify action on a full range of subjects, but creating policy through elected representatives who reflect the diversity of their constituents, deliberate in public view, and compromise to govern inclusively.
Fearful of Donald Trump and Elon Musk backing primary challengers, this Congress has largely turned its governing keys over to the president, but the problem runs more deeply. The shift to presidential power has gone on for decades. In states, while few governors act with the authoritarian zeal of the Trump administration, legislatures often have entrenched leadership with a stranglehold on the legislative process. Defenders of the two-party system may highlight the alleged virtues of winner-take-all elections that “throw the bums out,” but few legislative chambers in fact have even a slight chance of changing party control. In many states, that chance of turnover is best measured not in years, but in generations, if not centuries.
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To have Congress and state legislatures play a central, vibrant role in our system, their leadership needs to be at least as accountable to the voters as the executive branch, and more of their members need to be electorally rewarded for pursuing collaborative, deliberative approaches to policymaking. Those goals may seem in conflict, but here’s an example of how to bring them together.
Accountability seats: Years ago FairVote proposed “Districts Plus”, a modification of Germany’s “mixed member” system designed to achieve proportional representation for parties (based on the principle that a quarter of the vote earns a quarter of the seats, and half the vote earns half the seats) while also still electing local representatives. A state legislature would have a share of its overall seats – perhaps 20% – be “accountability seats” that are added to those directly elected locally to ensure the legislative chamber reflects the partisan preferences of the voters. In Districts Plus, if the legislative majority party did not earn more than half the vote, it would not earn a majority of seats – and as a result would lose control or at least have to negotiate with independents and minor parties. ( As an important aside, the details matter with such a system – one recommended best practice is to allow voters to vote for their local representatives as well as cast a separate “party accountability vote.”)
Source: FairVote
Three-member districts with RCV: Rather than have just one representative who rarely faces real competition except for possibly a primary challenger, voters would have three representatives, all elected with the proportional form of ranked choice voting, with just over 25% of voters having the power to elect a like-minded candidate. As proposed federally in the Fair Representation Act and as used comparably for Illinois house elections for 110 years, this would ensure our major parties truly are “big tents” that allow differences within their party to have a voice -- be it rural Democrats, urban Republicans and cross-cutting members on various issues. Given that they would usually share constituents with representatives who are independent or from another party and given the chance for the district’s less partisan voters to typically elect a seat, more members would be rewarded electorally for collaborative policymaking and almost always share district constituents with candidates from other parties.
Together, these reforms aim to thread the needle of both aligning legislative outcomes with voter preferences while empowering individual lawmakers to represent their communities more independently and collaboratively. Nicely summarized by Devin McCarthy for FairVote back in 2013, this combination would increase accountability for how the chamber is run and increase rewards for representatives to embrace their legislative role. Congress could also have analogs for this approach, especially in tandem with increasing the number of U.S. House seats.
When the democratic legitimacy of legislatures is greater than that of the executive branch, power would likely swing back to where it belongs. If we want to restore balance to our democracy, we must retool the very rules of representation. These ideas, tested abroad and rooted in our own history, can empower legislatures to act as engines of consensus, not casualties of partisanship.
The 2025 World Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) reveals a historic decline in global press freedom, with economic fragility now identified as a primary threat. For the first time, the global environment for journalism is officially classified as “difficult,” with the average score dropping to 55 out of 100, a new low. Key factors contributing to this downturn include:
RSF emphasizes that without stable and transparent financial conditions, the independence and plurality of the media are at risk, threatening the very foundation of democratic societies. Here is a discussion of the United States, with a rating that does not factor changes in 2025 after Donald Trump became president:
“In the United States (57th, down two places), where the economic indicator has dropped by more than 14 points in two years, vast regions are turning into news deserts. Local journalism is bearing the brunt of the economic downturn: over 60 per cent of journalists and media experts surveyed by RSF in Arizona, Florida, Nevada and Pennsylvania agree that it is ‘difficult to earn a living wage as a journalist,’ and 75 per cent believe that “the average media outlet struggles for economic viability.” The country’s 28-place drop in the social indicator reveals that the press operates in an increasingly hostile environment. President Donald Trump’s second term has already intensified this trend as false economic pretexts are used to bring the press into line.”
This year’s most prominent use of ranked choice voting likely will be in the Democratic primary for mayor in New York City, our nation’s largest city by far. RCV has had a remarkable impact up and down the ballot in New York City since its first use in 2021, but the mayoral race is the one contest that attracts national attention. Former governor Andrew Cuomo is seeking a comeback after his 2021 resignation, and has polled well ahead in first choices all years. But he’s also controversial, and given that he’s under 50% in first choices, there are questions of just what opponent might be able to build a majority coalition to overcome his lead.
While pollsters are busy in this race, they consistently are failing to make effective use of the data from asking for voter’s ranked preferences. Take this week’s Marist poll on the primary, which shows Cuomo leading state legislator Zohran Mamdani 44% to 22% in the first round, and ultimately winning head–to-head by 60% to 40% in the instant runoff. While pleased that Marist and other pollsters are showing that it’s straightforward for pollsters to simulate RCV contests, they could do much more.
Compare Marist’s reporting page with FairVote’s landing page on its mayoral poll in 2021. Not only does FairVote have visuals of how each candidate fares head-to-head against one another and how candidates’ depth of support might show a latently strong candidate, but it allows users to simulate any scenario they want. Polling shouldn’t just be about capturing the horse race, but revealing more deeply what voters think. RCV as a voting method does just that - and as a polling tool, it allows even more creativity and insights when presented creatively.
Source: Marist Poll
Bright Line Watch is an important initiative that brings together political scientists to monitor democratic practices, their resilience, and potential threats. Its detailed April 2025 survey report on the views of political scientists and voters is worth close reading. Here’s an excerpt on a disturbing trend that, sadly, is grounded in reality.
In the two months since our last survey, ratings of U.S. democracy declined among all groups — the public overall, Democrats, Republicans, and our academic experts. The shifts are statistically significant in every case. The mean public rating fell from 58 in December 2024 to 53 in February before reaching 49 in April — the first time it has fallen below 50 on the 0–100 scale since we began collecting public data on this question in 2018….
“The United States’ current democracy rating of 53 places it just above Israel (49) and below Mexico (60) and Poland (63). Canada (88) and Great Britain (83) are rated well above the United States by experts, while Hungary (30), Turkey (28), and Russia (11) are still rated well below. These findings also indicate that U.S. democracy has declined relative to other countries. We last asked experts to rate democracy elsewhere in July 2023. At the time, our rating of 70 trailed Great Britain (77) by much less, and we were well ahead of Israel (55), Poland (54), and Mexico (53).
We close The Expand Democracy 5 with notable links:
Republican and Democratic representatives discussed the fiscal state of the United State in a House Budget hearing on May 7, 2025
WASHINGTON –– Republicans and Democrats clashed on May 7 at a House Budget Committee hearing over how to address the nation’s mounting federal debt—whether to raise revenue through tax increases or cut spending on federal programs such as Medicaid.
Both parties agreed that the United States was on an unsustainable fiscal path and that urgent action is needed to prevent a debt crisis.
U.S. national debt will soon exceed $30 trillion, with annual deficits approaching $2 trillion; interest payments on the debt now surpass the entire defense budget, according to projections by the Congressional Budget Office.
“These figures represent a growing economic burden that threatens long-term prosperity,” said Joshua Rauh, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, in his testimony.
Republican representatives argued that the debt burden was driven by the “unchecked” growth of mandatory spending programs, particularly Medicaid. They blamed the expansion of Medicaid coverage under the Affordable Care Act for adding pressure to the federal budget.
The Act allows states to extend Medicaid coverage to adults with incomes up to 138% of the poverty level (about $20,780 annually for an individual or $35,630 for a family of three). Currently, 40 states and Washington, D.C. have adopted the expansion.
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“Are we not, through Medicaid, currently subsidizing the able-bodied massively more than the vulnerable, for whom Medicaid was actually designed to serve?” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said.
“If you’re illegal, you should not get a check from the federal government. If you don’t work and you are healthy, you should not get a check from the federal government,” said Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.).
Michael Linden, senior policy fellow at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, opposed this idea, arguing that 80 million Americans rely on Medicaid, which covers most long-term care and nearly half of all births in the United States.
While Rep. Norman said, “It is not a cut. It’s just rearranging an inequity,” a Congressional Budget Office analysis released May 7 showed that several Republican proposals to slash Medicaid would lead to millions of people losing health insurance coverage.
“There is a reason why 80% of Americans, including the majority of Republicans, oppose cuts to Medicaid,” said Linden.
While Linden acknowledged that the program could be more efficient, he said he has not seen any proposals from the Republicans that would reinvest the money saved from cuts back into the program to benefit people.
“Instead, those cuts are going to pay for tax cuts for billionaires,” said Linden.
Democrat representatives attributed the mounting debt crisis not to excess spending but instead to tax cuts, saying they benefited only the wealthy.
“The sweeping, indiscriminate tariffs that have raised prices on Americans, the slashing of critical programs from health care to education—why? All so that we can set up a $7 trillion tax break for the wealthiest in America,” said Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.)
A recent U.S. Treasury Department analysis found that Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act gave the top 1% of households an average tax cut of $60,300, compared with $660 for the middle 20% of households by wealth.
Rauh from Hoover Institution argued that raising tax rates discouraged work, savings, and investments, leading to lower growth and fewer new businesses and jobs, which would ultimately reduce revenues.
“Our research shows that when governments impose high tax burdens, you get lower than expected revenue growth,” said Rauh, supporting the tax cuts.
Linden disagreed with that theory. Quoting research from the Yale Department of Economics, he said at the hearing that corporations receiving the tax cut did not raise wages for their workers—but they did raise wages for their executives.
“Growth and prosperity come from everyday Americans going about their lives—creating jobs, being customers, being productive members of society—and they need basic things like health care and food and housing,” said Linden. “Not through a hope that the tax cuts for a giant multinational corporation will eventually trickle down to them.”
Huiyan Li is a reporter for Medill News Service covering business & technology. She is a journalism graduate student at Northwestern University specializing in politics, policy, and foreign affairs.
The Fulcrum presents The Path Forward: Defining the Democracy Reform Movement. Scott Warren's interview series engages diverse thought leaders to elevate the conversation about building a thriving and healthy democratic republic that fulfills its potential as a national social and political game-changer. This initiative is the start of focused collaborations and dialogue led by The Bridge Alliance and The Fulcrum teams to help the movement find a path forward.
The latest interview of this series took place with Francis Johnson, the founding partner of Communications Resources, a public affairs organization, and the former President of Take Back Our Republic. This non-partisan organization advocates for conservative solutions to campaign finance reform. A veteran of Republican politics, Francis has been at the forefront of structural reform efforts, including initiatives like ranked-choice voting.
I’ve been talking to Francis as part of the work I’ve engaged in, leading convenings and conducting research on exploring a conservative agenda for elections and democracy. One theme that has emerged from our conversations is the challenge of defining democracy itself—a point that Francis has consistently pushed me to consider more deeply.
One recurring issue when discussing democracy with “pro-democracy” advocates is the perception that supporters of former President Trump are inherently hostile to democratic principles. The prevailing logic suggests that Trump’s supporters either disregard democracy entirely or prioritize everyday concerns—like the rising cost of living—over preserving democratic norms.
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However, I have come to see this interpretation as overly simplistic. Many Trump supporters actually do view themselves as defenders of democracy, aligning their support for the former president with a commitment to protecting the republic. For instance, when the Trump administration challenges judicial decisions, many see it not as undermining democracy but as affirming the executive’s leadership. This concept can be known as "vertical accountability"—the idea that elected leaders, rather than unelected judges, are directly accountable to the people. This perspective mirrors strategies seen in authoritarian contexts, but its roots are in a belief amongst voters that democracy means fulfilling the mandate given by voters.
My intention here is not to argue whether these beliefs are right or wrong but to acknowledge their existence and influence. Framing Trump supporters as fundamentally anti-democratic is probably counterproductive to the broader goals of the pro-democracy movement—even if advocates do believe that the Trump Administration’s actions are anti-democratic.
That’s part of the reason I talked to Francis, who is broadly supportive of the Trump Administration, and has dedicated his career to the pro-democracy ecosystem. I do feel that there is a need to engage a diverse array of individuals wide and far to better understand this moment and explore pathways forward, and appreciated Francis’ perspective, which does run counter to many I’ve talked to in the series to date.
You may not agree with all of Francis’s reflections, but they’re worth taking stock of.
His main reflections included:
Francis contends that conservatives prioritize “procedural mechanisms and institutional stability over expansive participatory models of democracy,” emphasizing order and structure. Progressives, by contrast, often view democracy as “a dynamic, evolving process of continuous empowerment and structural change, rather than a static institutional framework.” This divergence is not simply rhetorical; it shapes how each side approaches governance, accountability, and reform.
The key takeaway is that when conservatives and progressives advocate for democracy, they are often speaking past each other—grounded in fundamentally different conceptions of what democracy should achieve and how it should function
Similarly, there seems to be more of a bipartisan consensus that more civics education is needed for young people to understand the parameters of government and how to participate effectively. I know from experience that “civics education” means different things to different people—often a distinction between an emphasis on knowledge and experience.
However, an opportunity remains to attempt to bridge a consensus, Francis argues. “I think there should be more collaborations between conservative and left-leaning pro-democracy advocates. I think we really need to increase the emphasis on civics education to reduce political polarization and really try to put together programs to rebuild trust in elections.
I appreciated Francis’s willingness to share his perspective and hope advocates can take his arguments in good faith.Scott Warren is a fellow at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University. He is co-leading a trans-partisan effort to protect the basic parameters, rules, and institutions of the American republic. He is the co-founder of Generation Citizen, a national civics education organization.
Scott Warren is a fellow at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University. He is co-leading a trans-partisan effort to protect the basic parameters, rules, and institutions of the American republic. He is the co-founder of Generation Citizen, a national civics education organization.
An individual voting with money.
In 2024, campaign fundraising in federal elections was more nationalized than ever. Candidates for both the House and Senate continued a decades-long trend of relying less on donations from the voters they represent and more on contributions from donors across the country. The nationalization of campaign contributions, once a concern among elections experts, is now a defining feature of congressional campaigns.
An analysis of 2024 House and Senate campaign data reveals just how deeply this transformation has taken hold. From candidates in small states with limited donor bases to top congressional leaders with national profiles — and especially in competitive races in battleground states — non-local campaign contributions were ubiquitous.
As congressional campaigns have become more nationalized, the share of money coming from within a candidate’s state or district has continued to fall — and in 2024, it reached the second-lowest levels ever recorded.
Just 17.6 percent of itemized donations to House campaigns came from inside the district, while Senate candidates raised only 27.5 percent from in-state donors. Only the 2020 election cycle saw lower shares of local fundraising, underscoring a long-term trend away from locally sourced campaign financing as candidates increasingly rely on national donor networks, online platforms and ideological contributors from outside their home turf.
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The historic lows of 2020 help explain how these patterns accelerated: The Covid-19 pandemic forced campaigns to abandon in-person events and shift to digital fundraising, which resulted in record amounts of campaign dollars flowing through online campaign fundraising platforms like ActBlue and WinRed. This dramatic uptick in digital fundraising, combined with more national attention being paid to local races, coincided with a surge in out-of-state contributions. These figures remained high in 2024, which allowed candidates to pull in thousands of donations from across the country.
While such fundraising strategies help boost totals and expand reach, they also raise questions about local accountability and whether today’s campaigns are still financially rooted in the communities they aim to represent.
Congressional candidates who raise more than $200,000 have been raising smaller percentages of their campaign funds from within the districts (for House candidates) and states (among Senate candidates) that they seek to represent.
Cycle | House candidates | House R's | House D's | Senate Candidates | Senate R's | Senate D's | |
2012 | 33.8% 33.8% 33.8% | 38.0% 38.0% 38.0% | 28.4% 28.4% 28.4% | 51.8% 51.8% 51.8% | 54.4% 54.4% 54.4% | 49.7% 49.7% 49.7% | |
2014 | 34.8% 34.8% 34.8% | 39.0% 39.0% 39.0% | 29.3% 29.3% 29.3% | 43.3% 43.3% 43.3% | 45.9% 45.9% 45.9% | 40.4% 40.4% 40.4% | |
2016 | 29.6% 29.6% 29.6% | 32.3% 32.3% 32.3% | 26.3% 26.3% 26.3% | 44.1% 44.1% 44.1% | 44.8% 44.8% 44.8% | 43.4% 43.4% 43.4% | |
2018 | 21.1% 21.1% 21.1% | 26.1% 26.1% 26.1% | 18.4% 18.4% 18.4% | 41.7% 41.7% 41.7% | 49.2% 49.2% 49.2% | 38.6% 38.6% 38.6% | |
2020 | 16.7% 16.7% 16.7% | 18.4% 18.4% 18.4% | 15.4% 15.4% 15.4% | 18.9% 18.9% 18.9% | 24.9% 24.9% 24.9% | 15.4% 15.4% 15.4% | |
2022 | 20.3% 20.3% 20.3% | 21.6% 21.6% 21.6% | 18.9% 18.9% 18.9% | 29.2% 29.2% 29.2% | 38.0% 38.0% 38.0% | 23.6% 23.6% 23.6% | |
2024 | 17.6% 17.6% 17.6% | 18.1% 18.1% 18.1% | 17.2% 17.2% 17.2% | 27.5% 27.5% 27.5% | 37.4% 37.4% 37.4% | 30.0% 30.0% 30.0% |
Source: OpenSecrets analysis of federal campaign finance disclosures.Get the dataEmbed Download imageCreated with Datawrapper
Candidates in the nation’s least-populated states relied more heavily on non-local money than anywhere else in the 2024 cycle. These states, with just one or two House districts and relatively few major donors, dominate the list for outside fundraising. In the House, Delaware (93.9 percent), Vermont (92.1 percent) and Wyoming (89.3 percent) had the highest average out-of-district percentages among general election candidates. The trend extended to the Senate, where Vermont (92.6 percent) and Wyoming (92.5 percent) candidates relied most on out-of-state support.
Even among viable, well-funded campaigns, local donors often played a secondary role. Candidates in small and rural states typically lack dense networks of high-dollar contributors, forcing even incumbent campaigns to lean on national party committees, digital fundraising platforms and out-of-state donors.
States with small populations were more likely to be home to House and Senate campaigns that relied on out-of-district or out-of-state contributions in 2024.
Note chart below:
OpenSecrets analyzed federal campaign finance disclosures. This analysis reflects candidates who raised more than $200,000 during the 2024 election cycle and participated in the general election.
Outside Money, Inside Influence: How National Donors Shaped the 2024 Congressional Elections was originally published by Open Secrets and is shared with permission.
Robby Brod is Multimedia political journalist, strategic communications professional, and marketing copywriter.