Reclaim the American Dream

Washington – Partisan gerrymandering has run so wild and rampant since the 2020 census that, hard to believe, the next Congress promises to be even more sharply polarized and gridlocked than the current Congress, and there’s nothing voters can do about it – unless the courts step in boldly, right away. The media focuses on […]

For all the uproar among Democrats over restrictive voting laws passed by Republican legislatures in 17 states, Democrats have only recently awakened to the more dangerous threat to American democracy –  Republican moves to take partisan control of counting votes and even overturn the popular vote in future elections. For months, Democrats in Congress and […]

Washington -Joe Biden’s stunning victory on his boldly ambitious $1.9 trillion corona relief package and its striking popularity with voters, including grassroots Republicans, now tempts many Congressional Democrats to think that they can go-it-alone and leave Republicans on the sidelines. But will it work? Senate filibuster rules are a formidable, if not insurmountable barrier. The […]

Washington – Unless you tuned out Donald Trump on his final frenetic campaign blitz, you remember seeing him barnstorming across Florida, stoking the fears of Latino voters with his nightmare threat that Joe Biden & Company would “turn America into Communist Cuba or Socialist Venezuela.” Fearmongering pure and simple, but it worked with a big […]

Washington – How about a pop quiz about  American politics? You’ll like this poll, especially if you’re in your 20s, 30s, and 40s,  because it deals a lot with Millennials and Gen Xers. But it does include everyone, even retirees over 65. Here’s the question: What’s been the fastest-growing political party or movement in the U.S. […]

WASHINGTON – Do you sometimes feel as if our democracy is coming apart at the seams? Gridlock, hate speech, dark money, negative ads, political parties at each others throats instead of working together for our common good? It’s almost enough to make you give up on American democracy. But please,don’t go there.  Because I know […]

  by Hedrick Smith What struck me when I began reporting on grassroots citizen reform movements in states as varied as Florida, Connecticut, and South Dakota was how creative and ingenious political amateurs were in generating ideas for reform and how gutsy and resourceful they were in mobilizing millions of voters to adopt state-level reforms […]

Washington – Except for the race for the Democratic Presidential nomination, our national media is so mesmerized and monopolized by the political war zone in Washington that you’d think nothing important ever happens in the rest of the country (except perhaps natural disasters). Unfortunately, that means the major media have largely missed one of the […]

WASHINGTON – The news flow has been pretty rough in the closing weeks of 2019 – the harsh conflict over impeachment, threats from North Korea and the persistent challenge of China, the dangers of fresh Russian interference in the 2020 elections, relentless partisan warfare. But there’s another story about American Democracy that gets little play […]

Washington – The 2018 elections may be a mixed bag for Democrats and Republicans but this has been a boom year for grass roots political reformers, whose jackpot was the powerful WethePeople backlash in seven states against partisan gerrymandering. Citizen rebellions in five states – Ohio, Michigan, Missouri, Colorado and Utah – forced referendums and […]