This is the second 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, Corey Goldstone, communications manager for the Campaign Legal Center, answers our questions about 2020 accomplishments and plans for the year ahead. His organization works to achieve voting, campaign finance and redistricting reforms through litigation. Goldstone's responses have been edited for clarity and length.
First, let's briefly recap 2020. What was your biggest triumph last year?
The Campaign Legal Center successfully advocated for nonpartisan voting reforms to encourage broader participation and a more inclusive democracy. As a result, America turned out to vote in record numbers in 2020. Braving the dual challenges of a viral pandemic and civil unrest, hardworking election officials stood shoulder to shoulder to finish the vote count and certify the results, despite intense pressure from Donald Trump to circumvent election procedures.
Major legal victories in our voting rights litigation paved the way for safe and secure access to absentee voting and a higher degree of confidence that states would not reject ballots for arbitrary reasons like handwriting in voter signatures.
CLC also played a leading role — along with our partners in the National Task Force on Election Crises — in educating lawmakers, the media and the public about the limited role of state legislatures and the vice president in the vote certification process.
And your biggest setback?
Trump was an existential threat to democracy in 2020. He used his megaphone in 2020 to convince many of his supporters that the election was stolen, despite all evidence to the contrary. In the final weeks before the election, only 37 percent of Americans expressed confidence that the election would be held fairly. Countering cynicism and conspiracy theories with facts has become increasingly challenging.
While it's a relief that a violent attempt to prevent the counting of the Electoral College votes in our presidential election failed, the fact it was encouraged by the president and attempted by the crowds he summoned to Washington reflects a deeper decay in public confidence in our democracy.
What is one learning experience you took from 2020?
We have a resilient system of safeguards in place in which ballots are validated and counted. Our elections are highly decentralized and election administrators are qualified officials who take their jobs seriously. We have a duty as Americans to accept the results of elections, even if the candidate we supported does not win. Many officials in key positions resisted pressure from Trump and recognized their obligation to the country.
Now let's look ahead. What issues will your organization prioritize in 2021?
We need to advance voting rights, strengthen ethics laws, curtail partisan gerrymandering and decrease the influence of wealthy special interests in our political system. These are reforms that an overwhelming majority of Americans — across the political spectrum — view as popular.
The vote certification process was abused by bad-faith partisans to the point where the country narrowly avoided a constitutional crisis. The Electoral Count Act should be substantially revised to provide constraints on the permissible grounds for objecting to a state's appointment of presidential electors or the votes cast by those electors.
How will Democratic control of the federal government change the ways you work toward your goals?
If passed, HR 1 would enact one of the most comprehensive improvements our democracy has seen in decades.
What do you think will be your biggest challenge moving forward? And how do you plan to tackle it?
The splintering of American media consumption makes it challenging to educate the public about election mechanics to foster trust in the process. We need to make sure we are talking to voters that distrust mainstream media.
Finish the sentence. In two years, American democracy will ...
be more transparent, inclusive and accountable to the people.
A view of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on June 25, 2026. President Donald Trump jolted Republicans during a fiery appearance at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, scrapping a housing bill signing ceremony and clashing behind closed doors with a party rebel who challenged him over the Iran war. Trump had been expected to sign the bipartisan housing.
Only Trump doesn’t care about housing
It was August 15, 2024. Then candidate Donald Trump stepped out of his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club’s columned clubhouse to a gaggle of reporters. He was flanked by tables of groceries and signs showing the rising cost of food. Also on one of the tables was a dollhouse, meant to represent the equally alarming rise in housing prices.
It was a speech about the economy, the single most important issue of the 2024 election cycle, full of promises that went right to the heart of Americans’ anxieties. While former President Joe Biden and then Vice President Kamala Harris were contorting themselves to posture a good economy that just needed more time to recover from the pandemic, Trump was preying on voters’ very real fears of unaffordable gas, groceries, and homes. It was obviously a winning message.
In that speech, Trump promised, “We’re going to open up tracts of federal land for housing construction. We desperately need housing for people who can’t afford what’s going on now.”
As of mid-2023, there had been a housing shortage of nearly four million homes, according to the National Association of Realtors. Americans all over the country were either priced out of buying new homes due to low inventory, trapped in their existing homes by sky-high mortgage rates, or facing exorbitant rent hikes thanks to corporate investors buying up rental properties. Americans needed help, and Trump promised it.
Cut to March of 2026, when Trump reportedly told House Speaker Mike Johnson, “No one gives a sh*t about housing.”
That kind of thinking may explain why Trump this week suddenly announced he was canceling a signing ceremony for the bipartisan “21st Century ROAD to Housing Act,” a housing bill co-sponsored by Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Tim Scott that passed the House 358-32 and was approved in the Senate on Monday.
Trump instead demanded Congress pass the SAVE America Act, his controversial election grievance bill that doesn’t have enough Republican support to get passed in the Senate.
It’s just the latest in a line of policy self-owns where Trump has seemingly intentionally made life more difficult for Republicans hoping to keep their majority. Despite midterm elections occurring in the midst of a blistering economy and an unpopular war, they were surely hoping the housing bill would give them something — anything — to brag about when they returned home to their districts.
And very much to the contrary, Americans do give a sh*t about housing. According to a recent survey by the Bipartisan Policy Center, a whopping 79% say the cost of housing is extremely or very important to them. Eighty-three percent say Congress should take action on the issue — like it just did. Eighty-nine percent say the House and Senate need to work together to pass affordable housing legislation — like they just did. And 63% say they would be more likely to vote for a lawmaker if they helped pass legislation to build more affordable homes and lower housing costs — like they just did.
There aren’t many issues that unite Americans like housing does, and very few bipartisan policy wins Congress can point to, and yet, Trump is holding that bill hostage in order to get his pet project — which doesn’t even have the support of his own party — pushed through.
If you’re trying to make sense of something so nonsensical, as I’m sure many Republican lawmakers are, it’s certainly sad but not actually all that complicated. Trump said what he needed to get reelected and then promptly abandoned his promises in order to pursue his own self-interests, even if those interests are bad for Republicans and bad for voters.
That’s just the kind of guy he is.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.