Editorials
Are you concerned about election security, voter suppression, foreign involvement and dark money in elections, corruption in government, and reining in powerful special interest groups?
It is hard to imagine a more fitting job for Congress than for members to join together to pass a broadly popular law that makes democracy safer, stronger and more accessible to all Americans.
Republicans' war on democracy is gaining steam. Unable to persuade a majority of voters to vote for their presidential standard-bearer or Senate candidates in some key races, many have decided that instead of trying to compete in a free and fair vote they will make the contest less free and less fair. Republican state lawmakers are introducing voter-suppression bills all over the country.
The Capitol insurrection isn't over. In Republican-controlled state legislatures across the country, the assault on American democracy that began on January 6 rages on.
What happened Wednesday at the U.S. Capitol should be a moment of rupture for our political system. Something needs to change. America needs a serious democracy reform agenda, one that gives a new and elevated role to the pro-democracy Republicans who have been fighting with their increasingly extreme anti-system party for the last few weeks.
Americans turned out for the 2020 elections in numbers not seen in over 100 years. Voters made a plan and found a way to make their voices heard.
It appears that our democracy dodged a bullet — or, more precisely, multiple concerted efforts by the president of the United States to torpedo its very foundations.
For generations, the United States, at its best, has been a North Star to the world — a symbol of universal values such as freedom, human rights, the rule of law and democracy. Imagine watching what is unfolding in America today from a foreign capital. The ruling party’s leader refusing to concede a free and fair election, and delaying the peaceful transfer of power.
As experts posit how to rebuild our democracy and expand voting rights, we should spotlight an existing piece of legislation that can achieve these goals: H.R. 1, or the For the People Act. As the article notes, the bill would be “transformative.”