Washington – The 2020 election let the genie out of the bottle. More than 100 million American voters discovered it was easier to vote by mail or to vote early in person and avoid the Election Day crush. Voter turnout broke records. But now Republican lawmakers across the country want to reverse history and roll […]
Washington – Normally, elections clear the air, bring new faces to power, offer the dawn of a new day, a fresh beginning, and an opportunity for political healing. Not the election of 2020. The electorate rendered a split decision that could easily lead to more gridlock in Washington. The scarring schism that polarizes America into […]
Washington – With the election just days away, are you getting tired of the scaremongering and mud-slinging in the presidential campaign? How about some good news for a change? Good news about political reforms to make American elections fairer, more transparent, and more inclusive, and to help rebuild the political middle, so desperately missing in […]
Washington – Maybe you’ve forgotten, as I had, how snidely candidate Donald Trump declared war on Wall Street back in 2016, savaging Hillary Clinton as ”the puppet” of Wall Street – “they pull the strings” – and personally vowing to generate an economic renaissance that would lift the American middle class out of stagnation and […]
Washington – If you’re thinking of voting by mail this fall, pay close attention to what happened in the primary elections across the country this spring and summer. Tens of thousands of mail ballots were disqualified and not counted. So we need to figure out how to beat this problem pronto – both at the […]
Washington – No state has done more for voter rights and ballot access this year than Virginia, and women were the key drivers of those reforms. Go back half a dozen years and Virginia’s state government looked Deep South and Deep Red. The Virginia legislature was run by Republicans, mastered and marshaled by men. Democrats […]
Washington – Okay, America, how do we vote in 2020 with coronavirus facing us? Wisconsin chose to bull ahead – stick with its April 7 date and in-person voting. Democratic Governor Tony Evers proposal the state put off the primary until June or at least make it all vote-by-mail. But Republican leaders in the legislature […]
Washington – Back in the 1960s, when I was covering Martin Luther King Jr., John Lewis and other civil rights activists for The New York Times, I heard die-hard segregationists try to bait him as an “outside agitator” stirring up trouble. “You’re comin’ into our town,” they would bellow, meaning Birmingham or Albany, Georgia or […]
Hedrick Smith, who conceived this website and is its principal writer and architect, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning former New York Times reporter and Emmy award-winning documentary producer for PBS and PBS FRONTLINE. more »
