The Power of Grassroots Organizing on Pro-Voter Reform
Tova Wang and Melina Geser-Stark argue that while grassroots advocacy has been pivotal in advancing voting rights, it remains overshadowed by the perception that voter reform is the domain of political elites — a view this paper challenges by examining how grassroots efforts mirror modern social movements and drive the push for a more inclusive democracy.
The recent passage of major state-based voting rights legislation demonstrates the critical role grassroots organizations play in protecting and advancing U.S. democracy. In 2023, grassroots organizers, working in coalition, were instrumental in securing significant election reform and voter inclusion legislation in New Mexico and Minnesota. By documenting these landmark efforts, this paper offers a fresh perspective on how grassroots organizing can drive meaningful change in the voting rights arena.
In academic literature, news reporting, and the public consciousness, contemporary voting reform is traditionally viewed through a top-down lens, with “elite” actors—such as policy advocates, lawyers, and legislators—seen as the key drivers of change. In contrast, the role of grassroots activism in shaping contemporary voting rights reform is often overlooked. As a result, the work of organizers in legislative efforts is less understood than that of those who traditionally hold political power. However, under-resourced state-based grassroots organizations are often central to moving election reform policy. They educate constituents about policies, build networks of passionate communities, and mobilize their bases to impact policy decisions.
This paper challenges the traditional top-down approach to voting rights reform by examining how grassroots efforts often exhibit many of the features of social movements as they have been understood in scholarship and in the public mind. Historically, when we think of voting rights movements, we most often think of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s or the suffragists at the turn of the 20th century. Here, we look at how modern voting reform efforts also display key attributes of social movements.
Labor in the Courts: How Unions Have Stood Up for Workers’ Rights During the First 100 Days
In its first 100 days, the Trump administration has taken sweeping, aggressive action against federal employees, impacting hundreds of thousands of workers and sending ripple effects across the country. Still, unions have stood strong, with the AFL-CIO, AFT, AFSCME, SEIU, and others filing over a dozen lawsuits to protect workers’ rights.
Despite these unprecedented investments in mobilizing voters, overall trust in electoral health, democratic institutions, voter satisfaction, and electoral engagement have significantly declined. What might we be missing? Bruce Schneier and Hillary Lehr explore ways to enhance the voter experience in elections.
Information Inequality Can Be a Matter of Life or Death
In this paper, Mary W. Graham, co-director of the Center’s Transparency Policy Project, explores the unintended information inequities that weaken the nation’s vital health and safety alerts. By examining three policies — wildfire alerts, drinking water reports, and auto safety recalls — she suggests common sources of inequality problems and steps policy makers are taking to remedy them.
Labor in the Courts: How Unions Have Stood Up for Workers’ Rights During the First 100 Days
In its first 100 days, the Trump administration has taken sweeping, aggressive action against federal employees, impacting hundreds of thousands of workers and sending ripple effects across the country. Still, unions have stood strong, with the AFL-CIO, AFT, AFSCME, SEIU, and others filing over a dozen lawsuits to protect workers’ rights.
Despite these unprecedented investments in mobilizing voters, overall trust in electoral health, democratic institutions, voter satisfaction, and electoral engagement have significantly declined. What might we be missing? Bruce Schneier and Hillary Lehr explore ways to enhance the voter experience in elections.
Crime is nonpartisan and the blame game on crime in cities is wrong – on both sides
In their latest article for The Conversation, Justin de Benedictis-Kessner and Christopher Warshaw explain that there’s no empirical evidence linking crime trends to leadership by either political party.