Washington – Alan Krueger, the Princeton professor and economic adviser to two presidents who died last weekend, rang the alarm bell for me as a reporter six years ago with a disturbing speech that he gave, of all places, at Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Museum. Krueger was one of those rare economists who break out […]

Washington – Behind the hollow sparring over the border wall and government shutdowns, the ground is shifting under President Trump and the political pendulum is swinging toward a new economic agenda. Even conservative Fox News reports that American voters, by a huge margin, now want to reverse the Trump tax cut of 2017 and increase […]

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 […]

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 […]

Orcas Island, WA – How about a quickie quiz on this year’s elections? Question – What did states as politically dissimilar as Utah, Michigan, Colorado and Missouri have in common in the 2018 election? Not House or Senate races. Not red or blue. No, the unique similarity is that in those four states, People Power […]

Washington – When it comes to the influence of political money on our election campaigns, you know the bad news, but you probably don’t know the good news – or even that there is good news. The bad news is that billionaires and corporations are pouring tons of money into our elections to buy influence […]

Washington – As we head into the 2018 election, you’ll hear more and more analysts talking about voter turnout and its importance in the battle for control of Congress. Turnout is typically low in mid-term elections and low turnout normally helps Republicans and hurts Democrats. What almost no one mentions is the fact that turnout […]

Raleigh, NC – When people decry the perilous state of American Democracy and declare the urgent need for reforms, they often ask plaintively, ”But where are the leaders going to come from? Where is our new Abraham Lincoln? Where is the new Martin Luther King?” People forget that Abe Lincoln and MLK did not suddenly […]

Washington – If like most Americans you’re angry that our democracy feels broken, that elections are being corrupted by billionaire and corporate money, and that politicians are rigging elections through gerrymandering, we’ve got good news for you. Grass Roots America is staging a political comeback. Citizen rebellions against the politicians and the power brokers are […]

Washington -If you suspect that politicians are rigging American elections to keep themselves In power, take a close look at Ohio. Or if you think gerrymandering doesn’t matter, check the track record this decade, which shows that Republicans have been gaining at least 16 and up to 22 extra seats in the House of Representatives […]