John,

Coronavirus has ground many aspects of our lives to a halt, and rightfully so: our top priority as a nation must be to get a handle on this health crisis and ensure the safety of every American.

We also want to let you know that, although we are now working remotely for public health reasons, we remain hard at work and committed to fixing our broken political system.

Our democracy needs us to stay vigilant now more than ever. So here’s some of what we at Issue One are doing to keep fighting for our institutions and political reform issues:

• First, because of our unique ability to work across the aisle, we have been asked to be a part of a rapidly emerging consortium of groups to get a bill to ensure all eligible Americans will be able to vote in November moving as soon as possible — and with as much bipartisanship as possible. One part of that measure is helping states to implement vote-by-mail (VBM), which is used in Oregon and Colorado and a number of other states. These VBM efforts are consistent with the election security and transparency campaign we launched last spring called Don't Mess With US. We will provide more information on this as it comes!

• We are continuing our legislative efforts to advocate for bipartisan solutions on issues pertaining to foreign interference in our elections, the modernization of Congress, and outdated aspects of our campaign finance laws.

• Our research team remains dedicated to calling out corruption in our politics and producing data-driven analyses on some of the worst practices in our political system — like dark money, illegal coordination between candidates and outside groups, and much more.

• And, as always, we are staying active on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to keep our fellow Americans engaged and in-the-know about democracy reform issues. Follow along!

The stakes remain extremely high for our democracy. The need for a strong and working government is more apparent than ever. While recent bipartisan successes on the Hill are heartening, including the passage of the House’s first bipartisan measures to improve the functioning of congress (just last week!) and the extremely critical work of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Secretary Mnuchin to provide relief, we know that our country is suffering more than it should because our political system has been deeply broken for years.

Together we must keep fighting to improve our politics. We must continue to focus on making game-changing bipartisan political reforms a reality and working for a government that is accountable to all Americans.

Stay safe,

Nick Penniman
Founder and CEO, Issue One