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Want different politics? Pay attention to women like these.

Victoria Woodhull

"Victoria Woodhull was the first woman to run for president in 1872, with Frederick Douglass as her running mate," writes Debilyn Molineaux.

Hulton Archive/Gerry Images

Molineaux is the co-founder and executive director of Bridge Alliance, a coalition of more than 90 civic reform groups. (Disclosure: The Bridge Alliance Education Fund is a funder of The Fulcrum.)

This is the third in a series of opinion pieces we are publishing during Women's History Month to recognize the contributions of women to the democracy reform movement.

Victoria Woodhull was the first woman to run for president in 1872, with Frederick Douglass as her running mate. While disparaged and trivialized at the time, she was relentless in pursuing equal rights and labor reforms. Many advances made in the early 20th century can be traced back to Woodhull's "radical ideas" from the 19th century.

Our lesson: Never underestimate the ability of women to transform our culture. One of the greatest strengths of women is transmuting their experience into something for the good of our larger human family.


There are many women who inspire with their courage, tenacity and intelligence. Here are four of them.

Jackie Salit

As she says in the preface of her book, "Independents Rising," politics is in Salit's blood. Her career as an independent began before it was cool in the 1970s. In fact, it was not talked about in polite company, but she did anyway. She has campaigned for independent candidates and fought for ballot access, voting rights and redistricting in more places than people can imagine. And now with 42 percent of registered voters not affiliated with a party, Salit leads Independent Voting with strategic vision and tactical street smarts that is bringing about a better America where we are all authentically empowered to be citizens, regardless of our party or lack of one.

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Zaneeta Daver

Now the COO of Civic Nation, Daver is an educator, systems analyst and thinker with a side of curriculum development. In other words, she likes to be in the background, contributing with her entrepreneurial style and whole-human approach. Her career spans higher education and consulting, thinking about how we can become the multicultural society we claim to be. Daver has been a thinking partner in creating our shared future, influencing the work of Bridge Alliance (and therefore 100 organizations) in an understated or subtle way. Daver is an example of a powerful woman who doesn't need the spotlight to make a difference.

Katherine Gehl

Gehl was CEO of her family's Gehl Foods Inc. when she became concerned about the state of our country and used her business expertise to analyze what was wrong and how our politics could be better. This led to her researching and writing the 2017 report "Why Competition in the Politics Industry is Failing America" with Michael Porter. This historic look at politics through a business lens is the undergirding to many of the democratic reforms being advanced today — including single-ballot, top-five primaries with ranked-choice voting general elections. Her insight into politics as an industry with unhealthy competition is a new way of viewing our system with a plan to transform it.

Mary Stanley

Stanley was a mentor and often gruff friend to many women who ran for office for 47 years. She was a relentless supporter and helped get dozens of women elected. In 1971, she participated as a Republican in the formation of National Women's Political Caucus along with Gloria Steinheim, Bella Abzug and others. She changed parties after the GOP failed to support ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment and removed reproductive rights from its platform, two issues she saw as essential for women's equality. Stanley was in constant contact with her elected representatives, building a relationship with each, one postcard, letter, phone call and visit at a time. She ran fundraisers, offered endorsements and was relentless in her advocacy for more women in elected office. The many she met selling buttons and bumper stickers at political events did not know she donated all profits to female candidates. She held fundraisers for Nancy Pelosi, Dianne Feinstein (who sent her birthday presents each year) and Karen Humphrey, the first female mayor of Fresno, Calif. Many women in office today owe their start to Stanley. She would be so proud of them.

What is the legacy we would leave for our descendants? Let's map the path and start. Together and with perseverance, we can create the future our children and grandchildren will inherit and write about.

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The American Schism in 2025: The New Cultural Revolution

A street vendor selling public domain Donald Trump paraphernalia and souvenirs. The souvenirs are located right across the street from the White House and taken on the afternoon of July 21, 2019 near Pennslyvania Avenue in Washington, D.C.

Getty Images, P_Wei

The American Schism in 2025: The New Cultural Revolution

A common point of bewilderment today among many of Trump’s “establishment” critics is the all too tepid response to Trump’s increasingly brazen shattering of democratic norms. True, he started this during his first term, but in his second, Trump seems to relish the weaponization of his presidency to go after his enemies and to brandish his corrupt dealings, all under the Trump banner (e.g. cyber currency, Mideast business dealings, the Boeing 747 gift from Qatar). Not only does Trump conduct himself with impunity but Fox News and other mainstream media outlets barely cover them at all. (And when left-leaning media do, the interest seems to wane quickly.)

Here may be the source of the puzzlement: the left intelligentsia continues to view and characterize MAGA as a political movement, without grasping its transcendence into a new dominant cultural order. MAGA rose as a counter-establishment partisan drive during Trump’s 2016 campaign and subsequent first administration; however, by the 2024 election, it became evident that MAGA was but the eye of a full-fledged cultural shift, in some ways akin to Mao’s Cultural Revolution.

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The U.S. Is Rushing To Make AI Deals With Gulf Countries, But Who Will Help Keep Children Safe?

A child's hand holding an adult's hand.

Getty Images, LaylaBird

The U.S. Is Rushing To Make AI Deals With Gulf Countries, But Who Will Help Keep Children Safe?

As the United States deepens its investments in artificial intelligence (AI) partnerships abroad, it is moving fast — signing deals, building labs, and exporting tools. Recently, President Donald Trump announced sweeping AI collaborations with Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. These agreements, worth billions, are being hailed as historic moments for digital diplomacy and technological leadership.

But amid the headlines and handshakes, I keep asking the same question: where is child protection in all of this?

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Illinois Residents Grapple With Urban Flooding

Rear view of a person standing in the street flooded with water

Getty Images//Stock Photo

Illinois Residents Grapple With Urban Flooding

Following months of research, canvassing, and listening to community needs, journalists, including Britton Struthers-Lugo, produced solutions-based stories about the challenges faced by the Berwyn, Illinois, community.

In Part 1, Struthers-Lugo examines the issue of urban flooding, a growing concern for residents and infrastructure in Berwyn.

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Proposed Proof-of-Citizenship Bill Could Impact All Registered Voters in Texas

Opponents of a proof-of-citizenship bill before Texas lawmakers say many women in rural areas, who could get targeted by the bill, do not have a birth certificate matching their current last name.

Golib Tolibov/Adobe Stock AI

Proposed Proof-of-Citizenship Bill Could Impact All Registered Voters in Texas

Voting rights advocates in Texas are speaking out against a proof-of-citizenship bill before lawmakers.

Senate Bill 16 would require new registrants and some existing registered voters to prove they are U.S. citizens.

Amber Mills, issue advocacy director for the Move Texas Civic Fund, said the requirement would be in addition to what the state already does to check someone's eligibility.

"When you're completing a voter form, you do also have to submit either your driver's license number or your Social Security number," Mills pointed out. "That's really important because that is how the state verifies who you are, and that's a key indicator that they use to protect their databases on the back end."

Even if you were born in the U.S., the bill could require you to show proof of citizenship with a passport or birth certificate matching your current name. According to the Secure Democracy Foundation, more than 38% percent of rural and small-town Texans do not have a passport.

Anyone who cannot prove citizenship would be placed on a separate voter roll and could only cast ballots in the U.S. House and Senate races.

Emily French, policy director for the advocacy group Common Cause Texas, said the additional barriers could prevent many residents from casting their votes in local, state and presidential races.

"All the DPS systems, all the immigration systems which say that they are citizens, but there can still be mistakes that mark them as noncitizens and could throw them off the voter rolls until they come in with these documents that they don't have," French explained.

The bill directs the Texas Secretary of State's Office to check all registered voters' status by the end of the year and send the names of registered voters who have not proven their citizenship before September 2025 to county elections offices.

Mills noted if you are flagged, there is no online system to comply with the request and all paperwork must be submitted in person.

"We are not disputing the goal of having only eligible citizens on the voter rolls, but we know that Texas already has strong systems in place," Mills emphasized. "It's ultimately the state's responsibility, the county's responsibility to do these voter roll checks, but what SB 16 would do is not change any of that, not improve any of that. It would just add an additional burden."

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