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Renaldo Pearson began his 600-mile trek in Atlanta on Aug. 6, the 54th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act.
600 miles, 50 days, 2 feet: A journey to fix America’s democracy
Renaldo Pearson is on a long-distance walk — at least that's what he tells the friendly folks in the southeast who stop to offer him a ride.
As much as his bruised feet and sunburned skin would appreciate the relief, he politely declines each offer. The ground rules for this mission to fix America's broken democracy are simple: Keep walking and invite others to join the journey.
Two weeks ago, on the 54th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, Pearson laced up his waterproof Adidas Terrex sneakers and set out from Atlanta. On Monday, he crossed the border into North Carolina and his 50-day journey will end, more than 600 miles later, in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 24 — National Voter Registration Day.
Upon arrival, Pearson pledges to remain on the steps of the Capitol until all the presidential candidates promise to make democracy reform a priority or the Senate passes HR 1 (or another bill that includes reforms to expand voting rights, make elections safe and competitive and end political corruption).
Pearson has financial backing for this campaign. He was inspired to take action after seeing this Washington Post headline so he connected with RepresentUs. The reform group hired him to be director of external affairs in June, and they set about planning the Democracy 911 campaign.
There is a RepresentUs team following Pearson to make sure he takes breaks and remains hydrated. And they help arrange lodging, whether at the home of a supporter or a hotel along the way.
Others are welcome to join Pearson on the road for as long as they'd like. (The route is posted in week-long chunks on the Democracy 911 website.) He hopes most people will join him toward the end for his nonviolent demonstration at the Capitol.
The Democratic-led House passed HR 1 in March, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has been adamantly against the legislation, barring any consideration of it in his chamber. And while some presidential candidates have called for government reform, the debates lacked serious promises from the Democratic hopefuls, Renaldo said.
"Folks might look at this [walk] and say, 'That is crazy' — and they're right," Pearson said with a laugh. "But fortunately, this is what falls in the realm of what legendary civil rights leader Rev. Joseph Lowery would call 'good crazy.'"
"Bad crazy," according to Pearson, are the elected officials who caused the political system to become so deficient. He said this walk to Washington is his way of calling for help.
"I just happen to be crazy enough to believe that enough Americans will answer this 9-1-1 call to fix American democracy before it is too late," he said.
As one of the lead Democracy Spring organizers three years ago, Pearson is not a newcomer to the fight for reform. In 2016, hundreds of people peacefully protested on the Capitol's steps to get big money out of politics and end voter suppression. Next month, he's hoping for a similar outcome.
Pearson's not the first to walk a long distance in the name of democracy reform, though. On New Year's Day 1999, the late Doris "Granny D" Haddock at age 88 began her 3,200-mile trek from California to D.C., calling for campaign finance reform. Haddock celebrated two birthdays during her journey, became a media darling and eventually ran for Senate in 2004.
Addressing America's existential threats of gun violence and climate change — in addition to many other important issues — "rests upon the assumption that we have a functional democracy that is devoid of enough corruption to heed the public interest and solve these issues before they literally kill us," Pearson said.
"I am not the least bit sanguine about having to do this," he said. "It does not bring me satisfying joy to be drawn to this point, but this is where we are."
As he walks with aching feet in the late summer heat, deterring unfriendly dogs with pepper spray, Pearson holds one thing in mind to push himself forward: his family who fought for justice in the civil rights movement.
"They endured so much more and had so much less. This is definitely tough, but it pales in comparison to what they faced," Pearson said. "As Coretta Scott King said, 'Struggle is a never-ending process. Freedom is never really won, you earn it and win it in every generation.' It's our time now."
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Computer company Hewlett Packard received a perfect score from the index for its policies on political spending disclosure.
Big companies disclosing more could-be-secret political spending, analysis shows
An increasing number of the country's largest publicly traded companies are disclosing more than ever about political spending habits that the law permits them to keep secret.
That's the central finding of the fifth annual report from a group of academics and corporate ethicists, who say the average score among the biggest companies traded on American exchanges, the S&P 500, has gone up each year since 2014.
Though corporate political action committees must disclose their giving to candidates, those numbers are very often dwarfed by the donations businesses make to the trade associations and other outside groups that have driven so much of the steady rise in spending on elections. Conservatives say robust disclosure of these behaviors is the best form of regulating money in politics and is working fine, and this new report reflects that. Those who say campaign finance needs more assertive federal regulation will argue such corporate transparency is inconsistent and inadequate to the task, and the new report underscores that.
Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon is joined by fellow Democratic members of the House and Senate this summer to discuss legislation that would attempt to prevent hacking into the country's election systems. Intelligence officials announced late last week an outline for how to release information about possible hacks during the 2020 elections.
Intel community promising more transparency about election hacking efforts
A year from the presidential election, U.S. intelligence agencies have adopted a new framework for how they will inform candidates, groups and the public about attempts to disrupt our country's elections by foreign operatives.
But the one-page summary of the plan, released late last week, is so general that it remains unclear what the intelligence community plans to do if and when it discovers something suspicious.
The summary by the director of national intelligence states that the federal government will "follow a process and principles designed to ensure, to the greatest extent possible, that notification decisions are consistent, well-informed and unbiased."
The new framework is designed to prevent a repeat of some of what happened after the 2016 election.