Voting is our voice

In our last issue of The Topline, we asked two questions: How can we rebuild American governance so that it responds to our needs? How can we rebuild a culture of tolerance and respect? These are tall orders, and no one is naive enough to believe they will be easy to accomplish. But there is a path forward for both that is achievable if we commit to them. The U.S. needs more political competition. Full stop. The only way to break the two-party stranglehold is to level the playing field, so that independent candidates focused on innovating solutions that meet Americans’ needs—rather than on partisan gamesmanship, purity tests, and performative nonsense—can compete. This requires three things: expanding ballot access for independent or minor-party candidates, reforming the primary system to give everyone a vote, and shifting away from plurality, winner-take-all voting to ranked-choice or approval voting. Competition ups everyone's game and increases representation. A system in which a party only needs to be less bad than the other to win promotes ugly tribalism and leaves everyone dissatisfied. We can do better. Please continue to share your suggestions with us. —Melissa Amour, Managing Editor

• Biden signs executive order defending abortion access —Al Jazeera

• Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe killed in shooting attack during campaign speech —CBS News

• Boris Johnson announces resignation as U.K. prime minister —Axios

• Putin challenges West to fight Russia on the battlefield: ‘Let them try’ —The Washington Post

• WNBA star Brittney Griner pleaded guilty in Russia to marijuana charges. What happens next? —CBS News

• Derek Chauvin gets 21 years for violating George Floyd’s civil rights —Los Angeles Times

• U.S. employers add a solid 372,000 jobs in sign of resilience —The Buffalo News

• Gas prices getting cheaper, could soon fall below $4 in several states —Insider

• Comey and McCabe, who infuriated Trump, both faced intensive IRS audits —The New York Times

• Pat Cipollone meeting with Jan. 6 committee behind closed doors today —CNN

Wisconsin drops drop boxes

A popular voting method that was used without controversy for years in Wisconsin won't be available to the state's voters anymore. In a 4-3 ruling, the state Supreme Court barred the use of most ballot drop boxes today and ruled voters could not give their completed absentee ballots to others to return on their behalf. Voting rights proponents say the decision will make it harder for voters—particularly those with disabilities—to return their absentee ballots. In her dissent, Justice Ann Walsh Bradley called the decision “dangerous to democracy” and claimed that “it has seemingly taken the opportunity to make it harder to vote or to inject confusion into the process…” —The Washington Post

• A challenge in Massachusetts. Two weeks ago, we applauded the VOTES Act, which was passed by the Massachusetts legislature and signed into law by Republican Gov. Charlie Baker. The sweeping election law makes no-excuse mail-in voting permanent while expanding options to vote early, among a number of other changes. This week, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court heard arguments from the state Republican Party, which contends that the law is unconstitutional and could encourage voter fraud. We’ll keep you posted. —WBUR

• “When you lose voting, you have no democracy.” Rampant misinformation about election fraud has made recruiting poll workers more challenging than ever—and has spurred vitriol and even death threats against election officials and volunteers. But people who are taking the jobs say they’re doing so out of a commitment to their country and to democracy itself. “We were aware that the Wisconsin elections were called ‘fake,'” says poll-worker Dwight Johnson. “Anytime anyone calls the integrity of the Wisconsin elections into question, I ask when they’ve worked in an election. Nobody that has questioned an election has worked in one, in my experience.” —Poynter

• And now for some good news. Multnomah County, Oregon, is the latest municipality considering shifting its elections to ranked-choice voting, in which voters assign preferences to each candidate, eliminating lowest-ranked candidates in a series of tallies until one candidate gets a majority. The county’s charter review committee will submit a proposal to county commissioners by the end of the month. If the commissioners ratify it and voters approve it, the county will officially adopt RCV in 2026.🤞—Willamette Week

MORE: Rep. Tom Malinowski: A viable third party is coming, and it’s starting with a New Jersey lawsuit —The New York Times

Adams: The danger of 'independent state legislature theory' 

“Constitutional government gains its legitimacy through the democratic process. But increasingly, Americans are cynical about our democratic institutions. According to a recent survey, ‘voters are losing faith in our elections, our institutions, and most of all, in the ability of our democracy to survive.’ Recent Supreme Court decisions and Republican willingness to ignore norms, and even laws, in their drive for political power has exacerbated these threats.” —Christine Adams in The Washington Post

Christine Adams is an author and professor of history at St. Mary's College of Maryland.

MORE: What happens when Americans don’t trust institutions? —FiveThirtyEight

Focus on the Republican Party

The ongoing decline of the once Grand Old Party has been particularly painful for former Republicans. And for moderates who’ve stuck with the party and fought for an eventual turnaround, their hopes are looking more and more like a pipe dream. As Tom Nichols wrote this week in The Atlantic: “In the end, despite the efforts of Sen. Mitt Romney and other reasonable Republicans, the fringe is now the base. The last rational members of the GOP—both elected and among the rank and file—need to speak even harsher truths to their own people, as Liz Cheney did last week at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. Otherwise, the madness will spread, and our institutions will continue an accelerating slide into a nightmare that will engulf all Americans, regardless of party.” Indeed. —The Atlantic

• Georgia. The U.S. Senate race in Georgia between incumbent Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and radical Republican candidate Herschel Walker has garnered a lot of attention mainly because of Walker’s bizarre public comments, violent past, and false claims. A new report shows that even Walker’s own campaign aides don't know when he's telling the truth. In emails and text messages, they say he lies "like he's breathing." At least three aides called him a “pathological liar,” and one said, “He's lied so much that we don't know what's true.” Hoo boy. —The Daily Beast

• Pennsylvania. Republicans in the Keystone State are beginning to back away from their own gubernatorial candidate, radical Doug Mastriano, and throw their support behind his Democratic opponent, state Attorney General Josh Shapiro. This week, nine former and current Republican officials publicly endorsed Shapiro; others say they’ll simply abstain from voting in the governor's race, as Mastriano’s extreme views are simply too far outside the mainstream. “I wouldn’t define Mastriano as a Republican but as a populist,” Lawrence County Commission Chair Morgan Boyd said. “His claims about the election turn me off. His divisiveness turns me off.” —NBC News

• Wyoming. Such crossover support is unlikely to help Renewer Rep. Liz Cheney, who faces an uphill battle to retain her U.S. House seat. Though she has a prominent national profile, in part for serving as the indomitable vice chair of the House’s Jan. 6 select committee, back home is another story. Polls show Cheney running significantly behind one of her challengers, the Trump-endorsed Harriet Hageman. In a state in which just 15% of the voters are registered Democrats, will Cheney’s efforts to get them to vote for her in the Republican primary impact the outcome enough for her to eke out a win? Stay tuned. —CNN

MORE: Ronald Brownstein: The contradiction of Republicans’ rhetoric of freedom —The Atlantic

The Fulcrum Strategy

By Spencer Reynolds 

With ranked-choice voting and nonpartisan primaries, independents and other candidates from non-major parties finally have a chance at a level playing field. But in order to get there, we, the voters, need to make the choice to change this country for the better. We need to vote in new elected officials who care about solving problems, not partisan battles. 

But what’s next? What do we do once we’re in Congress? It’s not as though the Democrats and Republicans are just going to play nice once we win a couple seats…

Throughout centuries of two-party battle in Congress, the rules and traditions have been bent by Republicans and Democrats to entrench a two-party system. The majority party has nearly all the power—they set the congressional schedule, control (mostly) committee assignments, and chair every committee to ensure control over which bills make it to vote and which don’t. The minority is left with two options, cooperation and compromise or obstruction. You and I both know which option they choose. 

Representatives without a party are in even worse shape. Those without a party can’t get committee assignments in the House, and in the Senate they’re required to get assignments, but are always given the worst of the assignments to ensure that no power is taken away from the two major parties. 

Everything is set up to ensure that the party in power stays in power as long as possible, while the party out of power has the fewest options available to them to change things. 

But we can beat the system. 

This is where the fulcrum strategy comes into play. 

The fulcrum strategy, like its namesake, is a way to balance the scales in Congress. In order to be successful, the fulcrum strategy requires a third group of elected officials to control the “middle” of the scale. Not the ideological middle, but the middle of the scales of power. This third group wouldn’t even need to all belong to the same party. All they would need is a united desire to wrest the reins of power from the two major parties and give them back to the people. This group would only need to be large enough to ensure that neither of the other two parties could hold a majority on their own. With enough seats to deny a true majority to either party, the fulcrum coalition could change the rules of Congress to ensure that new parties are enshrined in the bylaws and are equal participants in democracy. 

What does this look like in practice?

Right now, the Democrats control both houses of Congress. There are currently 220 Democrats in the House and 210 Republicans, along with five vacancies. With this math, a third party would need to strip three seats from the Democrats, bringing their count down below the 50% threshold. Just three seats to save our democracy.

The Senate is even closer. There are currently 50 Republicans, 48 Democrats, and two Independents that caucus with the Democrats. If a third party was able to take one seat from both the Republicans and Democrats, they’d be able to change the Senate for the better. 

That’s all it will take. Three seats in the House. Two seats in the Senate. Get those, and we can clear the way for a truly representative democracy. 

We can do this. 

Spencer Reynolds is the digital director and director of political partnerships at the Forward Party.

MORE: McMullin stresses independence, says he won't caucus with either party if he wins Utah Senate seat —NBC News

I'm okay with citizens owning guns. But I say get rid of assault weapons. Police should scout an area when a public event is planned, where many people will gather. —Bob C.

How can we rebuild American governance so that it responds to our needs?

1. Abolish the Electoral College and have a popular vote for president.

2. Get rid of the Senate filibuster, or at least make it a talking filibuster that would eventually result in a vote.

3. Term limits on Supreme Court justices—no more than 15 years. Then maybe we'd get justices that have some experience in real-world issues, and not have to put up with radicals on both the right and left for decades.

4. Get rid of the 435-person limit for the U.S. House and use the smallest population state as the baseline for one representative. So Wyoming, with its 580K residents, gets one representative. California would get about 69.

How can we rebuild a culture of tolerance and respect?

Mandatory conscription in national service for two years for men and women between high school and college. It could be the armed forces or something like the CCC, or some kind of community service. If everyone from around the country had to spend time with each other when they are young, maybe that would allow us all to walk in the other person's shoes and see things through their eyes.

And get rid of Fox “News” LOL. —Dave S.

The views expressed in "What's Your Take?" are submitted by readers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff, the Renew America Movement, or the Renew America Foundation.