![]()  Dear John: Thanks to the efforts of thousands of democracy defenders, America dodged disaster in the midterms, despite the efforts of dark money groups to suppress the vote and tear down the firewalls that stopped Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election results. But we’re not out of the woods yet! This year, CMD exposed how the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and right-wing groups like Convention of State Action are spending close to $25 million annually to push their stealth plan to rewrite the U.S. Constitution in order to lock in minority control and cripple the ability of the federal government to protect our rights, regulate big corporations, and deal with climate change. Their goal? Forcing Congress to convene a constitutional convention that gives GOP leaders supermajority control over any amendments that get sent out to the states for ratification. And CMD released a report this year, “Convention of State Politicians,” documenting how voters would have zero say in the process. But you don’t have to take my word for it. CMD obtained audio from an ALEC meeting where former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum actually said, “We have the opportunity, [through a constitutional convention], to have a supermajority, even though we may not even be in an absolute majority when it comes to the people who agree with us.” CMD has been ahead of the pack in alerting Americans to these threats and sounding the alarm for nearly 30 years.
 That’s why the watchdog work of CMD is so vitally important and why I have joined their Board of Directors. The fight to take back our democracy will be a long one, but it starts with unmasking the powerful special interests that have deformed American politics and poisoned our polity. In my book, Democracy in Chains, I revealed the Right’s decades-long stealth campaign to reverse-engineer America back to the days when the robber barons reigned supreme and rigged the legal and constitutional rules to work in their favor. I could never have connected the dots as I did without CMD’s intrepid reporting, and that's why I’m reaching out to you now to ask for your support! | 
