President Joe Biden, reconvening a summit of North American leaders at the White House on Thursday, sought cross-border agreement on migration, Covid-19 and economic integration, even as his guests voiced concerns over what they say are protectionist trade policies left over from Biden’s predecessor.

“We can meet all of the challenges if we just take the time to speak with one another,” Biden said as he met in the East Room with the leaders of Canada and Mexico. “As leaders, we share an innate understanding that our diversity is an enormous strength.”

The main sticking points between the men center on Biden’s proposed tax credits for American-made electric vehicles, which are included in the major social and climate spending plan currently making its way through Congress. Canada has argued the proposed credits could violate a new North American trade agreement.

The White House holds a different view, and the topic was expected to arise during the lengthy talks between the leaders at Thursday’s gathering.

President Joe Biden, reconvening a summit of North American leaders at the White House on Thursday, sought cross-border agreement on migration, Covid-19 and economic integration, even as his guests voiced concerns over what they say are protectionist trade policies left over from Biden’s predecessor.

“We can meet all of the challenges if we just take the time to speak with one another,” Biden said as he met in the East Room with the leaders of Canada and Mexico. “As leaders, we share an innate understanding that our diversity is an enormous strength.”

The main sticking points between the men center on Biden’s proposed tax credits for American-made electric vehicles, which are included in the major social and climate spending plan currently making its way through Congress. Canada has argued the proposed credits could violate a new North American trade agreement.

The White House holds a different view, and the topic was expected to arise during the lengthy talks between the leaders at Thursday’s gathering.

President Joe Biden on Monday signed into law his $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill during a ceremony at the White House packed with some 800 supporters, heralding what he said was a “truly consequential” spending bill that will improve Americans’ day-to-day lives.

But Democrats also emphasized that there is more to come — a $1.85 trillion social spending measure that still faces a close final vote in the U.S. House and  major changes in the evenly divided Senate, where passage will have to come without GOP support.

Biden said the infrastructure legislation— backed by nearly all congressional Democrats, as well as 19 Senate Republicans and 13 House Republicans — is a signal that polarized public officials in Washington can come together to create jobs and solve long-lingering problems.

“My message to the American people is: America is moving again. And your life is going to change for the better,” Biden said during the South Lawn ceremony attended by federal and state legislators, governors, mayors, labor leaders, business leaders, and other supporters.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador will come to the White House on November 18 to meet with President Joe Biden for the first North American Leaders’ Summit since 2016.

“During the Summit, the United States, Mexico, and Canada will reaffirm their strong ties and integration while also charting a new path for collaboration on ending the COVID-19 pandemic and advancing health security; competitiveness and equitable growth, to include climate change; and a regional vision for migration,” a statement from the White House said.

It has been five years since the leaders convened for the trilateral summit. No official summits between the leaders of the three countries were held while former President Donald Trump was in office.

“Strengthening our partnership is essential to our ability to build back better, to revitalize our leadership, and to respond to a widening range of regional and global challenges,” the White House said in the statement.

The first seaport to improve its facilities following passage of the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill could be in Savannah, Ga., a senior Biden administration official said Tuesday.

President Joe Biden has yet to sign the measure, which Congress sent to Biden’s desk late last week, funding improvements in highways, transit, ports, waterways, airports and other infrastructure. But seaports facing historic backups from the pandemic are already making plans to put the money and policy changes to use.

“There’s work going on right now to actually get these projects teed up,” a senior administration official said on a background call with reporters Tuesday. Officials spoke on the condition they would not be named.

Port operators are planning to start many programs within 45 to 90 days through a variety of funding streams and policies the bill will provide, the official said.

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, was at the Port of Virginia in Portsmouth Tuesday to talk up the infrastructure bill, telling leaders there it could be “transformative for port operations, for road and rail infrastructure, for transit, which is really necessary here,” WTKR reported.

It wasn’t clear what the bill might mean specifically for Virginia’s port, but, in a statement to the Mercury, port officials called it “a significant federal investment in critical infrastructure projects that, among other things, will help strengthen the nation’s supply chain and keep trade flowing” and “an important step forward.”

President Joe Biden on Tuesday called on Republicans to stop pursuing retaliation against 13 members of their party who voted to pass the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill in the House last week, saying he’s never seen things this way in Congress.

Some conservative House Republicans have discussed booting those GOP colleagues from committee spots, even though the effort faces little chance of succeeding. And former President Donald Trump has been privately criticizing the 13 Republicans who voted to pass the bill, questioning why they would give Biden a win when he’s struggling in the polls, according to a GOP source.

“Well, I’m hoping, Jaime, that we can get back to a place where there’s more civility in politics,” Biden said in conversation with Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison during a grassroots town hall. “I really mean it. And I’ve never seen it this way.”

He continued, “If they’re a chairman of a committee, they’re trying to strip them of that chairmanship. I’ve never seen it like this before. It’s gotta stop for the sake of America. I know I get in trouble when I talk about bipartisan — these people say, why in the devil would I like any Republicans? Well, it’s important. … Unless we can generate consensus in America, we’re in trouble.”

“It’s just not right. We’re going to change it though,” the President said.

During the town hall, Biden thanked members of Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, for passing the massive infrastructure package, something he noted that his predecessor never got done. He also expressed confidence that Congress will pass the Build Back Better portion of his agenda.

President Joe Biden spent 90 minutes Thursday night answering questions from CNN’s Anderson Cooper as well as a town hall audience on a wide variety of topics from the fate of his domestic agenda to supply chain issues and the timeline of vaccine distribution for kids.

The United States is officially a member of the controversial United Nations Human Rights Council again, reversing former President Donald Trump’s withdrawal three years ago.

The US was elected on Thursday in an uncontested ballot of member countries by the UN General Assembly. President Joe Biden had said he would return the US to the Geneva-based organization. Cameroon, Eritrea and the United Arab Emirates also joined the Human Rights Council on Thursday despite concerns over their own domestic records voiced by human rights organizations.

The US got 168 votes, a slight drop from what other countries received to get three-year terms. The UN Human Rights Council describes itself as “an inter-governmental body within the United Nations system responsible for strengthening the promotion and protection of human rights around the globe and for addressing situations of human rights violations and make recommendations on them.”

Biden on Thursday applauded the US’ election to the council, saying in a statement, “I am grateful for the support of nations from around the world for our campaign, and I look forward to the United States once more being a constructive voice that works to help push the Human Rights Council to live up to its mandate and to protect the values we hold dear for all people.”

US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said in a statement celebrating the American reentry to the council that the US’ initial efforts on the council will focus on Afghanistan, Myanmar, China, Ethiopia, Syria and Yemen. She said the US’ goals will be to “stand with human rights defenders and speak out against violations and abuses of human rights.”

Congressional Republicans on Thursday objected to a move by the Justice Department to investigate violent threats made against local school board members and teachers, arguing that the federal agency is “policing the speech of citizens and concerned parents.”

“Violence and true threats of violence should have no place in our civic discourse, but parents should absolutely be involved in public debates over what and how our public schools teach their children, even if those discussions get heated,” according to a letter led by Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the top Republican on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee.

Attorney General Merrick Garland earlier this week directed the FBI to meet with local governments and law enforcement officials to probe increasingly frequent clashes at school board meetings over mask mandates and discussions of race in public schools. His action followed a Sept. 29 plea for help from the National School Boards Association, which is based in Alexandria, to President Joe Biden, in which school meetings in Georgia, Florida, Michigan, Ohio, New Jersey, Virginia, Wisconsin, Tennessee and Nevada were cited.

“As these acts of malice, violence, and threats against public school officials have increased, the classification of these heinous actions could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes,” the association said.

“As the threats grow and news of extremist hate organizations showing up at school board meetings is being reported, this is a critical time for a proactive approach to deal with this difficult issue,” the letter added.

But the GOP senators said that it was “entirely inappropriate” for the association to ask for a review of whether crimes are being committed under various statutes including the PATRIOT Act, which is aimed at deterring terrorism.

George Mason University’s Ed Maibach likened the intricate challenges facing the planet in stemming global climate change and the loss of biodiversity to a Gordian knot, but both he and fellow Distinguished University Professor Tom Lovejoy remain optimistic that both goals can be accomplished.

The two global icons in their field spoke frankly during Wednesday’s Mason Science Series appearance at the Country Club of Fairfax called “Sustaining the Planet for Our Children and Grandchildren.” Their unscripted 40-minute conversation included their views of what must happen globally if the world is to prevent a “cascading series of public health catastrophes that will be a pox on humanity for generations to come.”

The two Mason scientists, who spoke before roughly 40 people before opening the floor up for questions, were lauded by Fernando Miralles-Wilhelm, the event’s moderator and the dean of the College of Science, as “two of the highest caliber individuals any university could have.”

Both Maibach and Lovejoy acknowledged the inherent challenges ahead, but said they remain confident that humanity would meet those challenges when presented with indisputable facts.

As a curator of political history at the Smithsonian, I’ve spent years studying the bad old days of American politics. Leafing through contested election trial transcripts, constable’s reports and boxes of fraudulent ballots, I’ve studied the voter suppression and violence that was once a common feature of our democracy in the 19th century. It always seemed distant to me, with a consoling “it used to be worse” appeal. But recently, this past has been reanimated by new, partisan state laws designed to make it harder to vote.

Having spent years researching how similar policies affected democracy in the 19th century, I can say: America, please don’t go down this road again. We already know what happens if we do.

In fact, there are a few crucial lessons to learn from similar efforts in the past.

Republican-controlled states have escalated their offensive against Democratic-controlled cities and counties this year to unprecedented heights, further deepening the trench between red and blue America

From Key West, Florida, to Bozeman, Montana, from Atlanta to Houston, local communities predominantly governed by Democrats have seen more of their policy decisions overridden by Republican legislatures and governors.

This surge of state preemption began with aggressive efforts by Republican governors to override local public health rules during the coronavirus pandemic, but in this year’s legislative session it has spread to cover a panoramic range of issues. GOP-run states have reversed local decisions on everything from voting rules to police funding levels, from policies on homelessness and energy to zoning and fees on developers. In Key West’s case, the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature even overturned a local ballot initiative barring giant cruise ships from docking in the small community.

Congress is at the mercy of one Senate rule: The filibuster

The story of modern Washington is the story of the filibuster

That’s the tactic of dragging out debate in the US Senate to make it harder to get things done. Thanks to Senate rules, whichever party is out of power has the ability, through filibusters, to squash nearly everything the in-power party wants to do unless the minority party agrees.

Passing legislation requires a supermajority of 60 votes to block a filibuster — votes that Democrats don’t have now and may not have even after the midterm elections next year. Republicans haven’t worked well with Democrats in years. Democrats have lost patience with Republicans. Neither party has a supermajority.

The two most substantial legislative accomplishments of the past 12 years — former President Donald Trump’s tax cuts and President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act — were only achieved by one party finding a way around the filibuster.

The midterm elections are still 18 months away, but the fight for control of the Senate is already shaping what gets done in the nation’s capital this year.

In an evenly divided Senate, where Vice President Kamala Harris gives Democrats the tie-breaking vote, every vote matters. That’s proven to be a crucial consideration for President Joe Biden as he tried to pass his Covid-19 relief plan and now his infrastructure and jobs proposals.

Looking ahead to next year, that means every Senate race matters. Republicans only need to flip one seat to take back the majority, while Democrats are eager to cushion their majority by picking off a few more seats currently held by GOP senators.

After months of delays, the U.S. Census Bureau on Monday gave states part of the critical data needed to redraw their U.S. House boundaries: an updated tally of how many people live within their borders, and the number of House districts that each state will have for the next decade.

For six states, the long-awaited census results mean they’ll gain representation in Congress: Fast-growing Texas will add two seats, and five states will each add one seat: Florida (which surpassed New York to become the third-largest state), North Carolina, Colorado, Montana and Oregon.

Because the House must remain at 435 lawmakers, seven states will have fewer representatives, after either losing population over the last 10 years or not growing as quickly as other states. New York, California, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia all will see their federal delegations shrink by one legislator starting in 2023.

After months of waiting and delay, the US Census Bureau finally released its final count of the country’s population and, with it, the states that will gain — and lose — congressional seats for the next decade.

The decennial process of reallocating the 435 House districts among the 50 states using population growth (and loss ) — known as reapportionment — is the official beginning of each state’s redistricting process, in which the lines of each congressional seat are redrawn to deal with the census results.

The top line? A half-dozen states will gain at least one new seat in 2022, with Texas the lone state — see what I did there? — to gain two districts. Other states — predominantly in the upper Midwest — will lose a House seat for the next decade.

There’s a debate over whether some of the For the People Act’s provisions are misconceived.

Democrats have publicly united around a legislative response to Republican efforts to roll back voting access in various states — a bill called the For the People Act.

Known as HR 1 in the House, where it passed in early March with only a single Democratic defection, and S 1 in the Senate, where it’s co-sponsored by every Democrat except West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, it’s a bill that Democrats and allied outside advocates argue is urgently necessary to save the country not only from voter suppression, but also from gerrymandering and the malign influences of big and dark money in politics.

“If our democracy doesn’t work, then we have no hope — no hope — of solving any of our other problems,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said last month. “We will fight and fight and fight to get this done legislatively. Failure is not an option.”

Beneath this public unity, however, some in Democratic and electoral policy circles have misgivings about the bill, however well-intentioned it might be. Jessica Huseman recently wrote at the Daily Beast about a set of objections to one section of the bill from election administrators, who said, under cover of anonymity, that it contains various poorly written and confusing requirements that could be difficult or even impossible to implement. (Democratic aides say they’re working on addressing those concerns.)

A U.S. House elections panel on Thursday heard from witnesses about the need to craft a new formula that identifies which states or jurisdictions have problematic histories of racial discrimination when it comes to access to the ballot box.

The hearing in the House Administration Committee’s elections subcommittee also served as a way for voting rights advocates to raise broader concerns about GOP-controlled state legislatures around the country that are engaging in a push to enact laws they say are aimed at election security. The rush to pass new voting laws followed baseless claims of fraud by President Donald Trump and his supporters in the November elections.

After legal maneuvers failed and nonpartisan watchdogs concluded there was no evidence of such fraud, the GOP strategy has shifted to passing the new state laws. Voting rights advocates say the fallout could be a decline in voter participation and disenfranchisement of voters of color.

Unveiling what he called the boldest domestic spending package since the construction of America’s interstate highway system and the dawning of the space race, President Joe Biden released broad details of a $2 trillion infrastructure package that would rebuild highways and bridges, along with providing funding programs for housing, broadband and schools and increasing U.S. manufacturing jobs over the next eight years.

“This is a once-in-a-generation investment in America,” Biden said during his appearance at union training center in Pittsburgh. “We’ll grow the economy, and it will make us more competitive around the world. It’s big, yes, It’s bold, yes. And we can get it done.”

The package, part of Biden’s “Build Back Better” agenda, would fund typical infrastructure projects such as rebuilding roads, advancing the country’s transition to electric vehicle charging stations, and combating climate change.

We have lost faith in elites and public institutions. The problem is nothing has taken their place.

One of the greatest challenges facing democratic societies in the 21st century is the loss of faith in public institutions.

The internet has been a marvelous invention in lots of ways, but it has also unleashed a tsunami of misinformation and destabilized political systems across the globe. Martin Gurri, a former media analyst at the CIA and the author of the 2014 book The Revolt of the Public, was way ahead of the curve on this problem.

Gurri spent years surveying the global information landscape. Around the turn of the century, he noticed a trend: As the internet gave rise to an explosion of information, there was a concurrent spike in political instability. The reason, he surmised, was that governments lost their monopoly on information and with it their ability to control the public conversation.

One of the many consequences of this is what Gurri calls a “crisis of authority.” As people were exposed to more information, their trust in major institutions — like the government or newspapers — began to collapse.

Senate elections typically happen only every two years — except sometimes they’re three years in a row.

Democrats picked up two seats in November 2020. They won two more in Georgia runoffs in January 2021. And in 2022, they’ll be fighting to keep control of the evenly divided chamber, where Vice President Kamala Harris is the tie-breaking vote.
But the fight for control is already center stage, since Congress — and the 50-50 Senate, in particular — helps shape how successful President Joe Biden will be in enacting his agenda. Democrats are eager to grow their majority so they can pass legislation with a more comfortable margin, while Republicans want the Senate back so they can check the Biden White House.

For many close observers, a direct line can be drawn from today’s civics crises to a long-standing failure to adequately teach American government, history and civic responsibility. Breadth has been emphasized over depth, they say, and the cost is a citizenry largely ignorant of the work needed to sustain a democracy.

Now, a diverse collection of academics, historians, teachers, school administrators and state education leaders is proposing an overhaul of the way civics and history are taught to American K-12 students. And they’re calling for a massive investment of funds, teacher training and curriculum development to help make that happen.

The Educating for American Democracy (EAD) initiative will release a 36-page report and an accompanying 39-page road map Tuesday, laying out extensive guidance for improving and reimagining the teaching of social studies, history and civics and then implementing that over the next decade.

Filibuster reforms are normal, and they happen all the time.

Four ways to reform the filibuster

In any event, as this brief discussion of filibuster procedure indicates, there are four broad ways that senators can weaken the filibuster without eliminating it altogether.

• Make fewer bills subject to the filibuster: The Senate can create carveouts and exempt certain matters from the filibuster altogether, as it does with bills subject to the reconciliation process.
• Reduce the power of individual rogue senators: The Senate could make it harder to initiate a filibuster. Right now, unanimous consent is required to hold a vote without invoking the time-consuming cloture process. But the rules could be changed to allow an immediate vote unless a larger bloc of senators — perhaps two or five or 10 — objected to such a vote, instead of just one.
• Make it easier to break a filibuster: The Senate could reduce the number of votes necessary to invoke cloture. This could be done as an across-the-board reform, like the 1975 change to the filibuster rule that reduced the cloture threshold from 67 to 60. Or it could be done by creating a carveout for certain matters, such as the 2013 and 2017 reforms that allowed presidential nominees to be confirmed by a simple majority vote.
• Reduce or eliminate the time it takes to invoke cloture: The Senate could reduce the amount of time necessary to invoke cloture and conduct a final vote. This could be done by allowing a swifter vote on a cloture petition, by reducing or eliminating the time devoted to post-closure debate, or both.

Virginia Democrat Mark Warner says the focus should be on strengthening the intelligence community after years of blistering attacks.

Some Democrats may be eager to use their newfound power in Washington to investigate the misdeeds of the Trump era. But Mark Warner isn’t interested in performing an autopsy of the last four years in the U.S. intelligence community.

The Virginia Democrat and newly installed chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee doesn’t believe he would best serve the country by launching probes into the political pressure spy agencies faced under former President Donald Trump, who labeled elements within the intelligence community part of the “deep state” and clashed with them over issues like Russian election interference. Instead, Warner would rather focus on depoliticizing and rebuilding the clandestine organizations.

The Concept: January 2021

As America wrestled with the unfolding and growing turmoil of the 1960s, President John F. Kennedy, speaking at Vanderbilt University in 1963, observed “In a time of tension it is more important than ever to unite this country … so that all of our people will be one.” Important words then—and now.

Today, the nation faces another fraught moment. As the 21st century’s third decade commences, American democracy is struggling amid deep polarization, a pandemic here and abroad, questions about economic and social justice, and declining faith in its institutions. Total partisan warfare has replaced evidence-based problem-solving as the controlling force in our public life; the engines of perpetual conflict are overwhelming the classic work of politics: the mediation of differences. Rhetorical jousting matches, whether in 280-character tweets or split screen soundbites, elicit emotional outrage, reinforce ideological intransigence, and elevate platitudes of polarization above informed discourse. The path forward is therefore all-too-often left uncharted—and, perhaps most tragically, even unsought. This is not a partisan point: As a matter of discernible fact, the American experiment as a diverse, multiethnic democratic republic is undergoing one of its most difficult tests in its 244-year-old history.

There is, as the Hebrew Bible tells us, nothing new under the sun. From Jamestown to Philadelphia, from Fort Sumter to Appomattox, from the New Deal to McCarthyism, from the Warren Court to the resistance to civil rights, America has been perennially shaped by argument and by divisions. Disagreement, after all, is the oxygen of democracy. The crisis of our present time, however, is marked by a difference not just of degree but of kind. Not since the Civil War have so many Americans held such radically different views not just of politics but of reality itself.

And yet to know what has come before is to be armed against despair. If the men and women of preceding generations, with all their flaws and limitations and ambitions and appetites, could press on through ignorance and superstition, racism and sexism, selfishness and greed, then perhaps we, too, can take another step toward that most elusive of destinations: a more perfect union.

The Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy aims to advance toward that more perfect union at a time when the urgency of the political moment calls for action. Established with the core premise that the country has become disconnected from evidence and reason, the Project seeks to supplant ideology with fact. It will re-introduce evidence, broadly defined, into the national conversation, pointing to solutions beyond reflexive ideological claims that will mix responses from the “left,” “right,” and “center.” Whether in statistical or narrative form, evidence shines a brighter light on how to solve problems than ideology. As shown over our country’s history, no one ideology whether liberal or conservative, populist or nationalist, progressive or puritan has all the answers.

With its geographic location, enduring commitment to tackling society’s grand challenges, and the formidable intellectual talent already on campus, Vanderbilt is ideally suited to advance this critical national conversation forward.

“TO STRENGTHEN THE TIES”

Vanderbilt University was founded on the promise of unity. As Cornelius Vanderbilt noted in 1876, “If Vanderbilt University shall, through its influence, contribute to strengthening the ties which should exist between all sections of our common country, I shall feel that it has accomplished one of the objects that led me to take an interest in it.”

Though these words echo the hope of a post-Civil War society searching for a rebirth, both Vanderbilt and Nashville have a rich tradition of bringing together a nation in tumult. It was in the university’s hometown where many locate the beginnings of the national civil rights movement. Vanderbilt students and faculty joined contemporaries and colleagues from American Baptist College, Fisk University, Tennessee State University, and Meharry Medical College. Together, these men and women generated a synergy unmatched in any other city. Ultimately, they formed the “Nashville strategy,” demonstrating through various sit-ins the effectiveness of nonviolent action—a tactic that was then replicated throughout the country to underscore the absurd cruelty of injustice.

Our location has other advantages. We are in the heart of a blue city within a red state, a position that compels our leaders to find solutions that cross the ideological divide. Both Nashville and Tennessee also have a longstanding tradition of producing unifying leaders like Vanderbilt alumni Lamar Alexander, who served for decades as Tennessee’s governor and U.S. senator. Of course, our physical location near the center of our country—removed from the coasts—has more than just symbolic importance: it allows us to easily convene conversations to reset the nation’s path toward unity.

This context meshes well with Vanderbilt’s collaborative spirit illustrated by on-campus partnerships tackling vital current problems, including the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, the Fisk-Vanderbilt Bridge Program, the Vanderbilt Meharry Alliance, and the John Seigenthaler Center. Likewise, our annual Chancellor’s Lecture Series demonstrates the university’s commitment to nurturing democracy and modeling civility by bringing leading figures of divergent views to campus. Past guests include President George W. Bush; President-Elect Joe Biden; Former Secretaries of State Madeleine Albright and General Colin Powell; and Former National Security Advisors to Donald Trump, John Bolton, and to Barack Obama, Susan Rice.

The Project builds upon Vanderbilt’s world-class faculty who have long showed a deep and abiding interest in tackling big problems through an empirical lens. Those scholarly efforts include the workings of democratic institutions, income inequality, racial justice, education policy, public opinion, and social media. Through its website and other communication channels, the Project will share the many insights of our faculty and show their relevance to key questions facing the country at this critical moment in time.

Along with a committed interdisciplinary pool of talented scholars who understand the urgency of the moment, the geographical, cultural, and structural strengths of Vanderbilt makes the University uniquely situated to advance a national conversation that focuses on evidence-based problem-solving.

VANDERBILT PROJECT ON UNITY AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

Our new Project on Unity and American Democracy will leverage Vanderbilt’s intellectual capital and commitment to solving society’s big problems to explore publicly paths to unite the American people, examining vital questions of our democracy’s efficacy, durability, and capacity. This effort will yield a non-partisan hub for leading scholars, key policymakers, activists, opinion leaders, and others to develop evidence-based solutions that are not driven by ideological predispositions.

The Project aims to inform thinking and reframe public discourse through the following initial themes. We say initial intentionally because, as an evidence-based undertaking, we expect what we learn will inevitably lead us to revise these starting points:

• Polarization: Its Past, Present, and Future
• Hours of Hope: Case Studies in American Progress
• Race in America: Toward a Nation of Equality
• Under God: The Role of Religion in a Divided Time
• To Keep the Republic: Strengthening Democratic Principles at Home and Abroad
• Information Marketplace: Ensuring the Public has the Data
• Cultural Bridges: Using Artistic Expression to Narrow the Divide

Guided by this framework, the Project will generate deliverables such as historical case studies, original empirically driven scholarship, television and podcast opportunities, new courses for both current students and alumni, and conversations with prominent and thoughtful figures from across the political spectrum. For example, the Project’s launch will coincide with the 2021 inauguration and include essays from influential scholars, amplified by a series of virtual events with leading national figures from both political parties. Post-launch, these efforts will be bolstered through partnerships with key campus collaborators like Vanderbilt’s Data Science Institute and the Wond’ry, our innovation center where students bring their ideas to life.

Former Governor of Tennessee Bill Haslam will jointly chair the Project along with faculty members Samar Ali—a leading voice at the intersection of civil rights, national security, and economic development—and Jon Meacham, an acclaimed scholar on leadership and the American presidency. The co-chairs will provide strategic advice to advance the conversation about unity and American democracy. Gray Sasser, a Vanderbilt Law School graduate and former partner at Frost Brown Todd LLC in Nashville, will direct the Project’s daily operations. He previously served as senior vice president for congressional affairs of the Export-Import Bank of the United States.

OUR VISION

Our country is at an inflection point—one that challenges the premise of the American experiment. Just as Vanderbilt served as a source of unity after the Civil War and Nashville as an incubator for the civil rights movement, our community is poised once again through our geography, our commitment to problem-solving, and our talent to “strengthen the ties” and, therefore, answer an urgent need to heal our divisions.

By adhering to the historical and empirical record, The Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy will reinvigorate our national discourse, the public, and our leaders in the possibilities and promises of democracy. Through this crucial work, the Project will shine light on what binds Americans together allowing it to illuminate the path toward that more perfect union.

The Republican civil war hits a critical moment on Wednesday over the fate of two prominent lawmakers who represent rival visions for a party torn by the toxic but still powerful influence of Donald Trump.

Real-time reckonings for third-ranked GOP House leader Liz Cheney and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a freshman congresswoman who has espoused outlandish and dangerous conspiracy theories, will help establish the extent to which a loyalty oath to the ex-President remains the party’s dominant principle.

Cheney is expecting to confront a venting session over her vote of conscience to impeach Trump in the House Republican Conference on Wednesday. In the coming days she faces a fight to hang onto her leadership post. She is also confronting a potential primary challenge at home over her decision.

There’s no question that Republicans are not in a good spot politically at the moment.

But before you start writing the political obituary for the Republican Party in Washington, you need to consider this oft-ignored but critically important card that the GOP still has in hand: The Republican Party will control the bulk of the redistricting processes in the country.

The Point: Redistricting could save Republicans — and potentially return the House to their control for 2022 (and beyond).

But are the airwaves of any democracy free of this kind of harmful propaganda and downright fiction? The United Kingdom, for one, comes pretty close.

Though the UK media scene is defined in part by a freewheeling and often partisan tabloid press with its own share of conspiracy theories, its TV news channels largely frame their coverage down the middle, with broadcasters such as the BBC and ITV maintaining high levels of public trust. Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News is no longer on air in the country after failing to generate a significant viewer base.

A big factor in this is media regulator Ofcom, which enforces rules on impartiality and accuracy for all news broadcasters. Those who breach the rules can be censured or fined — putting pressure on TV channels to play stories fairly straight.

Retail sales of recreational marijuana would begin in Virginia on Jan. 1, 2023, under legislation authored by Gov. Ralph Northam’s administration, which in addition to ending the state’s prohibition on the drug would expunge many past criminal convictions and create a state fund to help people arrested for marijuana crimes start legal businesses.

Northam came out in favor of legalization late last year and his bill, first made public Wednesday, represents a starting point for what’s expected to be a long debate during the legislative session that begins this week.

“Marijuana prohibition has historically been based in discrimination and the impact of criminalization laws have disproportionately harmed minorities in low income communities as a result,” said Sen. Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, who is carrying the legislation in the Senate with Sen. Adam Ebbin, D-Alexandria. “We’re focused on undoing those harms.”

Timeline

When Northam announced his support for legalization, he said he did not plan to rush the process, citing the experience of regulators in other states. True to his word, his legislation lays out a two-year timetable in which officials would begin drafting regulations and issuing licenses to marijuana businesses before retail sales would begin in 2023.

“We’ve done the research and we can do this the right way,” he said during his State of the Commonwealth address Wednesday night.

Until then, most of the state’s current laws governing the drug would remain in place and the drug, while currently decriminalized, would remain illegal and subject to existing criminal and civil penalties.

The decision is likely to disappoint criminal justice advocates, who have argued for an immediate end to the state’s prohibition, enforcement of which has disproportionately targeted Black Virginians.

Likewise, operators of Virginia’s tightly-controlled medical cannabis dispensaries, have been lobbying for permission to begin recreational sales this year to serve as a stop gap while regulators establish rules and begin a broader licensing process.

However, legislative analysts who studied the issue last year recommended against that approach, arguing early access to the retail market would give medical producers an unfair competitive advantage and, in any case, would be unlikely to meet anticipated demand for the drug.

Taxes and oversight

Northam proposes handing regulatory control of the new marketplace to the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Authority, which would be renamed the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage and Cannabis Control Authority.

But unlike the state’s monopoly on the sales of liquor, in which sales are restricted to state-run retail stores, the authority’s role in the marijuana industry would be limited to developing and enforcing regulations and licensing producers, processers and retailers.

Northam proposed a 21 percent tax rate on retail sales, which, combined with the existing state sales tax and optional three-percent local tax would bring the total potential levy to nearly 30 percent, which the state’s Joint Legislative and Audit Review Commission (JLARC) estimates would bring in $37 million in new tax revenue the first-year sales are legalized, rising to an estimated $183 million in year five.

JLARC found 30 percent is on the high-end of tax rates assessed in other legal states, comparable to Colorado and Illinois but still less than the 36 percent and 47 percent charged in California and Washington, respectively.

The revenue would be divided four ways, with 40 percent going to pre-K programs for low-income families, 30 percent going to social equity programs, 25 percent going to substance abuse prevention and treatment programs and five percent going to public health programs.

The decision to charge the state’s alcohol control authority with overseeing the new marketplace was not a given. JLARC said the upside of such an approach is faster implementation of new regulations with a lower operating costs. The commission said the downside is that creating a new, dedicated state agency would have more flexibility and a greater focus on equity programs lawmakers have emphasized as they pursue legalization.

The liquor authority would be advised by a new Cannabis Control Advisory Board, which would be tasked with making recommendations as regulations are developed governing cultivation, security, quality testing, advertising and other restrictions and rules.

Equity

Northam proposes an array of equity programs aimed at making sure Black residents, who bore the brunt of criminal enforcement under prohibition but have struggled to gain a foothold in other states’ legal marketplaces, have an opportunity to profit from the drug’s legalization in Virginia.

“It’s important that people who have been damaged by the war on marijuana not be denied opportunity,” said Ebbin, the bill’s co-patron in the Senate.

The legislation would grant social equity licenses for businesses that are owned by people who were arrested or convicted of a marijuana offense or are the family member of someone who was, people who have lived for at least three years in a place the state determines was disproportionately policed for marijuana crimes or is determined to be economically depressed. Alternatively, businesses that aren’t owned by people who meet that criteria could still be eligible if they employ at least 10 full time employees who do.

The proposed qualifications were recommended by JLARC as an alternative to race-based criteria, which the commission said is generally only allowed by courts in instances where there is already a documented history of race-based exclusion.

Social equity licensees would be given a six-month head start to apply for licenses to operate marijuana businesses as well as technical support from the state and, potentially, lower application fees.

The legislation also proposes offering state-financed, low-interest business loans to help applicants start their businesses — an effort to address the difficulty of raising capital in an industry where most banks are still either unable or unwilling to issue loans.

The loan program would be financed by a new Cannabis Equity Reinvestment Fund, to which Northam proposes dedicating 30 percent of new tax revenue from marijuana sales.

The new fund would be controlled by a new board, the Cannabis Equity Reinvestment Board, which would more broadly be tasked with financing initiatives aimed at “making whole again families and communities historically and disproportionately targeted and affected by drug enforcement.” The proposed legislation specifically references scholarships, grants and contributions to the Virginia Indigent Defense Commission, which oversees legal representation of poor criminal defendants.

The Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, which endorsed the legislation Wednesday morning, called the provisions essential.

“I think Virginia has an opportunity to make sure that African Americans — Blacks in the commonwealth — get their fair share,” said the caucus’ leader, Del. Lamont Bagby, D-Henrico. “That is our focus.”

Expungement and resentencing

Northam proposes a multi-pronged approach to addressing old marijuana convictions.

All past misdemeanor marijuana charges and convictions would be automatically expunged by July 1, 2022, sealing the vast majority of criminal records related to the drugs. The legislation includes the caveat that all fines, court fees and restitution related to the charges must paid before they are cleared.

For more serious convictions, such as possession of large amounts or distribution, the legislation would allow a person to individually petition a judge to have their records expunged in light of the drug’s legalization.

And people currently serving jail or prison sentences related to marijuana charges would be entitled to have their sentences reconsidered by a judge as long as they were not convicted of possessing more than five pounds of the drug, convicted of a third felony offense or convicted of distributing the drug to minors.

“We’re going to have a multi-billion industry that we’re about to hopefully pass, so we want the folks in our communities that have been harmed and penalized by that not to still be in prison for something that’s hopefully going to be legal,” said Del. Don Scott, D-Portsmouth.

Possession limits, home grows and driving

Northam proposes limiting adults to possessing no more than one ounce of the drug, which is in line with the limits set in most other states, according to JLARC.

His legislation would also allow home cultivation, but only four plants per household, and only two of the plants could be “mature.” The legislation would require the plants not be visible from the street and “reasonable precautions” to prevent underaged access. Northam also proposes requiring each plant be tagged with the owner’s name, driver’s license number and a notation that it’s being grown for personal use.

With the drug’s legalization, criminal penalties would remain for unlicensed distribution, albeit with significantly reduced penalties.

Possessing more than an ounce but less than five pounds would result in a $25 civil fine, the current penalty for people caught with small amounts marijuana under decriminalization legislation that last passed last year.

People caught with five pounds or more would face felony charges punishable by between one and five years in prison and up to a $250,000 fine.

The punishment for a first-time charge of possession with intent to distribute would drop to a class 2 misdemeanor.

People under 21 caught with the drug would face a $250 civil penalty. Juveniles would face a maximum $200 fine. However, the legislation would allow judges to offer alternative sentencing programs that include drug treatment or education.

The legislation aims to address driving while under the influence of marijuana — which, unlike alcohol, can’t be reliably proved with a breath or blood test — by allowing a judge to infer guilt if there is an open container of marijuana in the passenger area and the accused appeared through conduct, speech and appearance to be intoxicated. (Last year lawmakers banned searches based on a police officer detecting the odor of marijuana).

Local control, referendums

Northam proposes giving local governments the authority to authorize or ban retail marijuana sales within their borders and set hours of operation.

But the legislation would also give local residents a say, allowing citizens to force a referendum that, if adopted, would open the jurisdiction to marijuana sales and, if rejected, end legal sales even if the municipality’s board has already approved them.

Local governments and residents would have less authority when it comes to manufacturing, processing and other non-public-facing marijuana businesses, though the siting of such businesses would be subject to local zoning rules.

Proposed business locations would be approved as part of the state’s licensing process, which include an opportunity for local residents and government officials to weigh in.

The legislation proposes some limits on where marijuana businesses can locate, specifically refencing locations that would disrupt churches, schools, hospitals and playgrounds. In residential neighborhoods, the licensing board could also consider arguments that a business would adversely affect real estate values.

The legislation also sets density limits, preventing any marijuana business from operating within 1,000 feet of another. And more broadly, regulators would be tasked with determining an appropriate number of licenses for a given area and respond if the number of licenses in a given area becomes “detrimental to the interest, morals, safety, or welfare of the public.”

From messaging potential voters on dating apps to helping pay for Uber rides to the polls, young people across the country are playing a role in the Georgia Senate runoff elections from afar, and they’re getting creative with digital techniques while doing so.

Youth turnout was high across the country on Election Day and national organizers are hoping to re-energize young voters ahead of the crucial Georgia elections that will determine which party controls the US Senate.

Students, influencers and celebrities got to work as soon as they realized both of Georgia’s Senate seats were heading to runoffs on January 5, as no candidate won more than 50% of the vote in November.

Don’t be too nervous about Republican Sen. Josh Hawley’s announcement that he will object to the certification of Joe Biden as President when Congress meets on Jan. 6. His ploy won’t stop Biden from taking the oath of office on Jan. 20. But it should make everyone concerned about the long-term health of our democracy.

According to federal law, if at least one senator and one House member submit written objections to a state’s Electoral College votes, the House and the Senate must retire to their separate chambers for two hours of debate. Each chamber then votes on whether to count that state’s votes. The 1887 law that dictates this process — the Electoral Count Act — is confusing and convoluted, but the bottom line is that Congress must count a state’s Electoral College votes unless both the House and the Senate vote to reject them.

Hawley’s objection — which will join a planned objection from Alabama Representative Mo Brooks in the House — has zero chance of succeeding. The Democrats who control the House surely will not go along, and it is likely that a number of Senate Republicans, such as Mitt Romney, will also reject this blatant attempt at overruling the will of the voters.

Marred by a global pandemic and its devastating economic consequences, 2020 is a year we all want to forget. But the consequences of the 58th presidential election in American history will not soon slip into the forgotten pages of a dusty library; for once, that tired cliché of the most important election in our lifetimes felt apt.

It is fitting, poetic even, that the seemingly endless 2020 campaign season will not actually draw to a close until 2021, when Georgia voters decide whether Democrats or Republicans control the United States Senate.

But even before those last votes are cast, the winners and losers of the most costly, most divisive and most fraught elections in more than a century have become clear. In no official order, this year’s biggest winners:

But 2020 wasn’t all bad news. In fact, I’ll go further than that: 2020 had good news that would stand out as astonishing triumphs of human achievement in any other year. In areas ranging from public health to medicine, from poverty alleviation to food technology, there were some tremendous leaps. To highlight them — as I’d like to do here — isn’t to deny the misery and grief that were visited upon so many around the world in 2020. Rather, it’s to remind us that there’s so much to fight for, and to honor the work of the many people who, under adverse conditions in an extraordinarily difficult time, still made tremendous progress on key problems.

The world will start 2021 having lost many things we shouldn’t have lost. More than 1.5 million preventable deaths have occurred so far. Hundreds of millions have been pushed into a spiral of poverty. In the US, the transition of power to President-elect Joe Biden promises to be ugly as Trump and his allies refuse to acknowledge the legitimacy of any election that their opponent won.

But beneath all that, there is still real work going on in the world, work that transforms our lives, helps people, treats disease, and makes the future brighter. That work deserves a spotlight. Here are seven things that give me optimism about the future.

Despite Trump’s loss, Republicans made astonishing and wholly unexpected gains on the federal, state and local level. And, in that, the GOP can take great pride.

For instance, in the US Senate, as it stands, the GOP has lost just one seat, despite predictions of a national wipeout. Republicans currently hold 50 seats, while Democrats and the Independents who caucus with them hold 48 seats. The US Senate runoffs in Georgia will determine if Republicans keep their majority or tie with Democrats, but given Georgia’s history of voting for Republican senators, the odds are likely not in Democrats’ favor. Regardless of the outcome, the closeness of the numbers will mean very few, if any, of Biden’s progressive nominees for his cabinet or federal courts will be confirmed.

In the US House of Representatives, the Republicans gained 13 seats, with two races still undecided in New York and Iowa. This is only the second time in about a century that the GOP gained House seats when a Republican president was defeated (and I’m proud to point out the first time this occurred was when I was Republican National Chairman in 1992).

2020 was not supposed to be a good year for House Republicans. The polls pointed to a Democratic-leaning electoral environment, Democratic candidates were outraising Republicans in most competitive seats, and the GOP had to defend a host of open seats that Republican incumbents had abandoned.

Yet, contrary to expectations, including their own, Republicans managed to gain seats even as the Democrats held onto their majority. Votes are still being counted, but based on contests projected by ABC News, Republicans have netted six seats so far, and they may still flip a few more.

But top-line numbers about seats gained and lost can only tell us so much. Let’s look at some of the major takeaways from the 2020 House elections.

Democrats are now looking to the Georgia runoffs as their last opportunity to pick up seats.

Democrats pinned their hopes of retaking the Senate on four key races this year, but they ultimately failed in two of them.

Democrats flipped Colorado and Arizona last week — half of the seats they need to get to a bare majority. But they fell short in North Carolina and Maine. They also lost races in more than a half dozen other more conservative states including Iowa, Montana, Texas, and South Carolina.

The dynamics in the states they lost were different: Former Vice President Joe Biden finished with a strong lead in Maine overall, suggesting that some voters split their ticket between him and longtime incumbent Sen. Susan Collins (R). Meanwhile, President Donald Trump narrowly won North Carolina, with Sen. Thom Tillis (R) performing closely in line with him.

To put some numbers on it: Democratic House Speaker Sara Gideon lost to Collins by as much as 9 points, after polls generally favored her to win, sometimes by a large margin. (About 5 percent of the vote had yet to be tallied on November 11, however, according to Decision Desk’s tracker.)

No matter how the election ends, it is clear that American voters did not resoundingly repudiate President Donald Trump. That comes as a disappointment to those of us who have found much about his presidency dangerous and inexcusable, but it also demands a closer look at what produced this outcome.

The election confirmed how profoundly divided the country is — and will be, whether our president is Trump or Joe Biden.

We already know how Trump will govern if he wins. If Biden wins, his pledge to bring Americans back together will prove just as monumental as the other problems he will face, including the pandemic and the shattered economy.

Joe Biden’s lead in national and state polls has Democrats well-positioned to have a good night up and down the ballot next week.

The latest race ratings from Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales, a CNN contributor, tell the story: Democrats aren’t just playing in red states and districts; they’re seriously competitive in many of them, with more than a third of registered voters having already cast their ballots and less than a week to go until Election Day.

Inside Elections now projects Democrats to pick up a net gain of 14 to 20 seats in the House, building on their historic 2018 midterm gains to grow their House majority, and a net gain of four to six seats in the Senate, which would be enough to flip the chamber. (Democrats need a net gain of three seats if Biden wins the White House, since the vice president breaks ties in the Senate, or four if he loses.) But the nonpartisan election analyst notes that greater Democratic gains in the Senate are possible.

Next week brings yet another highly charged election, described by many as the “most important of our lives,” with the future of the country feeling very much at stake.

But after an ugly, divisive and anxiety-inducing campaign season, Americans are also looking to the future and asking big questions: What comes next? How do we begin our political healing? And how do we restore our collective political voice, without being drowned out by those who shout loudest?

The answer is that we need to update our electoral system — and ranked-choice voting is a promising way forward.

Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of six pieces that shows how professional sports owners in America contribute to political campaigns, why they spend millions in the space and what that financial power means as athletes across sports continue to embrace activism of their own.

American professional sports owners have contributed nearly $47 million in federal elections since 2015, according to research by ESPN in partnership with FiveThirtyEight, including $10 million to Republican causes and $1.9 million to Democratic causes so far in the 2020 election cycle.

That strong Republican lean is consistent with owners’ spending in the 2018 and 2016 federal elections as well. A deep search in the Federal Election Commission database of campaign finances for principal owners, controlling owners, co-owners and commissioners from the NBA, NFL, NHL, WNBA, MLB and NASCAR reveals that this deep-pocketed group has sent $34.2 million (72.9%) to Republican campaigns or super PACs purely supporting Republican causes, compared to $10.1 million (21.5%) to Democrats over the past three elections. Less than 6% of contributions went to bipartisan or unaffiliated recipients.

The research includes more than 160 owners and commissioners spanning 125 teams, though no list of this kind can be completely comprehensive. Only current owners in each league and only their contributions while they have been involved with their franchises were included. Spouses and relatives were not considered unless they also play a controlling role in the ownership group. If a contribution appeared to be from an owner but could not be confirmed, it was not included. And, as is the case with many millionaires and billionaires, owners have a number of ways to hide their political spending.

The Trump Administration signed an anti-abortion declaration with 32 member states in the United Nations on Thursday, many of which are authoritarian regimes or seen as flawed democracies, a move which drastically reframes U.S. foreign policy ahead of the presidential election.

The Trump administration has been trying to garner support for the Geneva Consensus among U.N. member states since 2019, when the declaration had around 25 signatures, according to a memo obtained by the Guardian, but has made little headway. “We would like many more countries to join this Declaration in 2020 so that our mutual priorities in the multilateral space can succeed,” the memo read. The declaration is thematically similar to Pompeo’s commission on unalienable rights, which advocates for U.S. human rights policy to be tied to the nation’s founding documents of national sovereignty, private property and religious freedom.

The Senate majority is firmly within Democrats’ reach with just a week to go until Election Day

That wasn’t necessarily expected a year ago, but Democrats’ improving fortunes have a lot do with President Donald Trump. Republicans breathed a sigh of relief after the second presidential debate last week, where they think the President at least didn’t hurt himself. But Trump has been a consistent drag on down-ballot Republicans, and he’s spurred Democrats to raise staggering sums of money.

Democrats in once-red suburban House districts started shattering fundraising records in the 2018 midterms, and now a similar dynamic is playing out across the Senate landscape, with Democratic challengers raising more in one quarter than incumbents and challengers — combined — used to raise in an entire cycle.

The stakes of this election are so high because the system itself is at stake.

I recently asked Melissa Schwartzberg, a professor of politics at NYU who specializes in democratic theory, why democracy survives in some countries and crumbles in others.

Why was I thinking about it? Oh, no reason. But her answer has been ringing in my head since. It explains much of what makes this moment in politics so distinct, so desperate.

“The really important question is when do electoral losers think that it’s in their interest to go along with their defeat, and when do they think they’re better off resisting and revolting?” Schwartzberg replied. “It has to be that they think they have some better chance of obtaining power in the long run by continuing to abide by the rules of the game.”

In American politics in 2020, both sides doubt that abiding by loss is the surest path back to power. This is an election — and more than an election, it is a politics — increasingly defined by a fight over what the rules of the game should be.

“Democrats need to squarely face the question: Are you willing to give up democracy in order to keep the current structure of the Court?”

If Democrats win back power this November, they will be faced with a choice: Leave the existing Supreme Court intact and watch their legislative agenda — and perhaps democracy itself — be gradually gutted by 5-4 and 6-3 judicial rulings, or use their power to reform the nation’s highest court over fierce opposition by the Republican Party.

Ganesh Sitaraman is a former senior adviser to Elizabeth Warren and a law professor at Vanderbilt. He’s also the author of one of the most hotly debated proposals for Supreme Court reform, as well as the fairest and clearest analyst I’ve read regarding the benefits and drawbacks of every other plausible proposal for Supreme Court reform. So in this conversation on The Ezra Klein Show, we discuss the range of options, from well-known ideas like court-packing and term limits to more obscure proposals like the 5-5-5 balanced bench and a judicial lottery system.

But there’s another reason I wanted Sitaraman on the show right now. Supreme Court reform matters — for good or for ill — because democracy matters. In his recent book, The Great Democracy, Sitaraman makes an argument that’s come to sit at the core of my thinking, too: The fundamental fight in American politics right now is about whether we will become a true democracy. And not just a democracy in the thin, political definition we normally use — holding elections and ensuring access to the franchise. The fight is for a thicker form of a democracy, one that takes economic power seriously, that makes the construction of a certain kind of civic and political culture central to its aims.

Facebook billionaire co-founder Dustin Moskovitz has put more than $20 million into a little-known Democratic super PAC that is spending big.

A little-known Democratic super PAC backed by some of Silicon Valley’s biggest donors is quietly unleashing a torrent of television spending in the final weeks of the presidential campaign in a last-minute attempt to oust President Donald Trump, Recode has learned.

The barrage of late money — which includes at least $22 million from Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz — figures among one of the most expensive and aggressive plays yet by tech billionaires, who have spent years studying how to maximize the return they get from each additional dollar they spend on politics. Moskovitz is placing his single biggest public bet yet on the evidence that TV ads that come just before Election Day are the best way to do that.

Like other Silicon Valley donors new to politics in the Trump era, Moskovitz has sought to bring the brainy, data-driven approach that he has pioneered in his philanthropy to his political program in 2020. He has tried to calculate the “cost-per-net-Democratic-vote,” combing through academic literature to mathematically determine where each marginal dollar from him can make the biggest difference. Other significant Moskovitz bets this cycle have included millions to the Voter Participation Center, a voter-turnout organization that has been supercharged by tech money over the last two years, and Vote Tripling, a “relational organizing” approach to encourage friends to vote.

Deeply committed to diversity, social justice and combating climate change, the youngest voters could be the engine that drives a new GOP.

The evidence all points in one direction: Americans born after 1996, known as Generation Z, could doom not only Trumpism but conservatism as the country currently knows it.

Members of Generation Z who are of voting age — 18- to 23-year-olds — want more government solutions. They rank climate change, racism and economic inequality consistently in their top issues, according to polls, and they participated in greater numbers during their first midterm (in 2018) than previous generations did theirs.

As Republicans espouse “family values” and “religious liberty,” data finds that Generation Z, also known as Zoomers, are less likely than older Americans to be a member of a religious group — 4 in 10 don’t affiliate — and appear to care more about systemic racism and an equitable future than upholding traditional nuclear family structures, based on polling of their policy priorities.

A prominent Republican senator set off a controversy by tweeting that “we’re not a democracy.” Here’s what he actually meant — and why the seemingly minor controversy actually matters.

It’s not often that you see a US senator declare that “we’re not a democracy,” let alone to paint that as a good thing. Yet that’s exactly what Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) did in a pair of tweets spanning Wednesday night and Thursday morning, arguing that “democracy isn’t the objective; liberty, peace, and prospefity [sic] are.”

“We want the human condition to flourish. Rank democracy can thwart that,” Lee writes.

This may sound like an endorsement of authoritarianism, and there’s reason to think it actually is. But understanding Lee’s comments on their own terms requires a little more charity — and subtlety.

On the American right, there is a long tradition of arguing that the United States is a “republic, not a democracy,” a distinction its proponents trace back to the founders. It centers not on whether a nation holds competitive elections but the extent to which it puts constraints on majorities from restricting the rights of minorities. Democracies, on this definition, allow for untrammeled majority rule; republics put in place rules that prevent legislators from using their power in tyrannical ways (think the Bill of Rights).

The fight for the House isn’t so much about who will control the chamber; it’s about how many seats Democrats will pick up and whether they can expand their majority.

With the national environment looking encouraging for Democrats, they have more offensive opportunities in GOP-held suburban seats. Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s lead over President Donald Trump has expanded to 57% to 41% among likely voters in CNN’s latest poll, taken after the first debate and largely after news of the President’s coronavirus diagnosis was made public. That survey is just a snapshot in time ahead of the November 3 election, but with more than 3 million general election ballots having already been cast, the current environment matters.

There’s wide public agreement that the ugly, contentious presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden on Tuesday night was an irritating national embarrassment — “must-flee TV,” as CNN contributor Paul Begala wisecracked. But the Commission on Presidential Debates’ announcement that it’s considering changes to the format of the two remaining debates won’t cure the problem.

Tuesday’s basic format — two-minute answers, with opportunities for rebuttal — wasn’t the reason the debate got so ugly. The fatal flaw was not giving the moderator, Chris Wallace, the power to compel the candidates to follow the rules they’d agreed to.

The only way to keep out-of-control debaters in line is to give the moderator the ability to turn off the candidates’ microphones — and the authority, if necessary, to eject them from the debate altogether.

The burgeoning fight to fill Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg‘s Supreme Court seat is pouring fuel onto already simmering tensions in the Senate and threatening to fundamentally reshape the institution.

Senators in both parties acknowledge the level of dysfunction in a chamber where the bulk of their time is spent processing nominations amid failures to break stalemates on pressing national issues such as coronavirus relief and police reform.

“I’m praying to God that the better angels start flying with my colleagues. That’s all I can tell you. As Abraham Lincoln said, we all have better angels. I’m looking for them right now,” said Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va), who is part of a shrinking group of centrist senators in an increasingly partisan Senate.

More than two dozen legal thinkers game out what President Trump’s new Supreme Court pick means for America’s biggest legal fights, the court’s reputation, the fate of its “swing seat” and more.

Amy Coney Barrett has been a federal judge for just three years, but one thing is already certain: She’d mark a sharp turn from Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court. At just 48 years old, the former clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia would lock in a long-term conservative legacy for President Donald Trump, who is expected to nominate her officially this afternoon. Democrats are already anxious enough about the looming 6-3 conservative majority that they’re openly considering expanding court-packing to counter it.

But what do we really know about her judicial philosophy, and how she’d rule on major issues? Politico Magazine asked top constitutional law experts and Supreme Court watchers to weigh in. They see a strong legal mind who could help usher in serious changes when it comes to abortion and other legal issues—welcome, or concerning, depending where your social politics fall. Others highlighted that Barrett would be a role model for women, even if not in a traditional feminist mold, and a strong voice for constitutional originalism. Some suggested her tenure might be less predictable than we think. How so? Here’s what they all said.

An expert explains originalism, the Roberts Court, and what a Justice Barrett might do.

According to multiple news sources, President Trump is set to announce that his nominee to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court is Judge Amy Coney Barrett, who sits on the US Court of the Appeals for the Seventh Circuit (based in Chicago) and is also a law professor at Notre Dame.

The 48-year-old Barrett was appointed by Trump to the appeals court in 2017, and was also reportedly a finalist for Justice Anthony Kennedy’s seat in 2018. She has been portrayed as a favorite of social conservatives seeking to push against the Supreme Court’s abortion jurisprudence. She is unusual, compared especially to famously (and perhaps strategically) tight-lipped recent nominees like Brett Kavanaugh and Elena Kagan, for her extensive paper trail on questions of constitutional law. As a legal academic, she’s written extensively on what obedience to the original meaning of the Constitution requires of judges and members of Congress; how to reconcile the importance of precedent with allegiance to the Constitution’s original meaning; and how precedent can be used to mediate deep disagreements about the law.

As a result, we know more about her jurisprudential beliefs than we’ll know about those of any SCOTUS nominee since, perhaps, Ginsburg. We know she identifies as an originalist who believes that the original public meaning of the Constitution is binding law. But we also know that she is skeptical of the radical libertarian originalist idea that economic regulation is presumptively unconstitutional, and that she believes some Supreme Court decisions that originalists may conclude are incorrectly decided nonetheless stand as “superprecedents” that the Court can abide by.

Reid Hoffman symbolizes a bigger debate over whether Silicon Valley disruption has any place in our politics.

Every few months, LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman sends an invitation to some of the other billionaires who make up the Democratic Party’s big-money machine: He’d like to add you to his political network.

Soon after, advisers to dozens of the party’s megadonors pile into rooms in Washington, DC, or Palo Alto, California — or, these days, on Zoom — for closed-door, Chatham House Rule sessions for some of the party’s most powerful fundraisers. They share notes, hear from people seeking big checks, such as Joe Biden’s campaign manager, and debate each other’s strategies to beat Donald Trump.

Hoffman and the other principals are not always there. But his invitations to this “donor table” have given him extraordinary agenda-setting power and made him one of the most influential Democratic donors of the Trump era.

It’s been clear for years that tech platforms needed to get their houses in order ahead of the 2020 election. They’ve had ample time to plan for and implement solutions to curtail the spread of junk news, conspiracy theories, lies, and misleading information on their platforms. And yet, despite promise after promise about how serious they are committed to addressing these problems, it’s hard to describe the measures taken by these companies as anything more than baby steps. Yes, a tiny label applied hours after the President of the United States posts information lying about the election process is better than nothing — but it’s hard to think it’s the best platforms can do.

Every single day we see disinformation and misinformation continue to flourish on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. Platforms have certainly gotten better at preventing foreign interference — and sure, they deserve credit for that. But these companies still appear largely unprepared for how to address the bad info that courses through their platforms via domestic actors. Little information labels don’t cut it. And with a major election just weeks away, and as Trump and his allies peddle outright lies, it is both disconcerting and alarming that, years later, we are still in a position where millions of people are poisoned with garbage information each day.

The coronavirus pandemic has reshaped the 2020 U.S. presidential campaign, limiting the number of rallies and in-person appearances of the candidates.

When candidates do venture out, a familiar form of campaign transportation, the campaign bus, is likely to remain grounded, as tight quarters make social distancing nearly impossible.

Until recently, candidates have relied primarily on social media to reach voters. But this medium and campaigning from home – or from your front porch, as Warren Harding did in 1920 at the end of another pandemic – cannot sufficiently substitute for in-person contact with voters.

Aircraft have played a role in U.S. presidential campaigns for decades. As an aviation historian attentive to the evolution of the general aviation sector, I think the pandemic has increased their importance in 2020, forcing candidates to make more strategic use of aircraft as the quickest and safest way to campaign.

Campaigns take flight
The use of airplanes in presidential campaigns has evolved from something so daring – even death-defying – that it made headlines, to a convenient, necessary tool.

Today it’s the safest way for candidates to travel – not simply because of aviation’s safety record but due to the dangers candidates face amid the pandemic.

With the Great Depression hanging over the 1932 presidential election, New York Gov. Franklin D. Roosevelt believed the country would respond to bold leadership. His campaign hatched a plan to break with protocol and accept the Democratic presidential nomination in person – and in dramatic fashion.

Working with American Airways, Roosevelt’s secretary, Guernsey Cross, arranged to charter a Ford Tri-Motor, a standard commercial aircraft of the early 1930s, to fly the governor from Albany to Chicago. During a year when only 474,000 Americans traveled via commercial aircraft, the flight captured media attention.

The plane took off at about 8:30 a.m. on July 2, 1932, and after stops in Buffalo and Cleveland arrived in Chicago at 4:30 p.m., two hours behind schedule due to bad weather. Roosevelt used the time to work on his speech. That evening he accepted the nomination in person and promised Americans a “new deal.”

Roosevelt’s flight, however, did not immediately lead to more presidential air travel. Although First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt would use aircraft extensively, air travel was considered too risky for the president. FDR would not fly as president until 1943, when he used a military aircraft to travel to the Casablanca Conference in Morocco, to attend a crucial strategy meeting with Winston Churchill.

Private planes gain prominence, come under fire
Presidential air travel was well established when, during the 1960 presidential campaign, John F. Kennedy became the first candidate to use his own private aircraft – a Convair CV-240 – to campaign.

It’s probably an exaggeration to argue that the plane – dubbed “Caroline” for his young daughter – provided Kennedy with his margin of victory in the hotly contested race, as claimed by The Smithsonian.

But it did allow Kennedy to travel more than 225,000 miles and campaign more efficiently. And since then, presidential candidates have made extensive use of private aircraft during their campaigns. Most campaign aircraft are chartered or owned by the campaign.

There was nothing particularly controversial about campaigning with private aircraft until the 2008 financial crisis. As the nation plunged into the Great Recession, automobile industry CEOs came under fire for using corporate aircraft to fly to Washington, D.C. for congressional hearings focused on the huge bailout packages the industry had received from the government. Intense public backlash led to a drastic market downtown for corporate jets. That backlash might explain Sen. Barack Obama’s 2008 Whistle-Stop campaign train tour, where he chose an historic mode of presidential transportation over the newly controversial one.

By 2012, however, memories of the 2008 controversy had faded and candidates again used private jets for campaign travel. Mitt Romney leased a 1990 MD-83, while his running mate, Paul Ryan, utilized a 1970 DC-9-32. Both aircraft, bearing the slogan “Believe in America,” debuted at a campaign rally in Lakeland, Florida.

Trump used the plane, emblazoned with his name, as a backdrop at campaign rallies. The plane, thus, not only allowed him to travel easily and extensively, but it also helped him promote his personal Trump brand at every campaign stop.

Safety during the pandemic
Though commercial aviation has witnessed a small recovery since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, private aircraft have reemerged as the safest way to travel. They permit greater control over passengers and make social distancing easier. Both Air Force One and private aircraft have featured prominently in the 2020 presidential election.

Both candidates are in their seventies and at greater risk from infection. The Secret Service will continue to take precautions to keep President Trump safe on Air Force One. And Biden’s campaign can more easily enforce health guidelines on a private plane, especially protocols on masks and social distancing. Although the Biden campaign has decided against leasing a dedicated campaign plane, when necessary – such as for his recent trip to Kenosha, Wisconsin – Biden can and undoubtedly will make use of private aircraft.

The 2020 presidential election began amid stay-at-home orders, with President Trump and Joe Biden largely confined during the first few months. As Trump and Biden seek to get their messages out in the final weeks of the campaign, both will use aircraft when necessary and in what they determine to be the best interests of their respective races for the White House.

Over 48 years, Washington has changed a lot but the Watergate reporter keeps delivering the goods.

Over nearly a half-century, no other person—including people wielding official power as legislators or prosecutors—has done as much to illuminate the modern presidency and help shape understanding of the nine people to hold the office during his career as Woodward, wielding only a journalist’s unofficial powers of curiosity, notepad, and recorder.

Yet even as Woodward has made it his life’s work to demystify presidents, his own style and methods remain shrouded in carefully cultivated mystique. This paradox—he keeps his secrets, while exposing those of his influential subjects–is central to his work.

‘The foundation of all human progress is the rule of law,’ attorney general says

Attorney General William Barr accused the Black Lives Matter movement of using the issue of Black people shot by police as a tool for a larger political agenda instead of sincerely trying to help those they claim to support.

At an event hosted by Michigan’s Hillsdale College on Wednesday, Barr was asked about the relationship between the rule of law and economic prosperity. That led to a discussion of crime and Barr’s claim that while the concept of “Black lives matter” cannot be argued against, the organization using that slogan has little interest in making Black lives better.

“The rule of law is the foundation of civilization, including economic prosperity. And that’s why these so called Black Lives Matter people — now that as a proposition who can quarrel with the proposition Black lives matter — but they’re not interested in Black lives, they’re interested in props,” Barr said. “A small number of Blacks were killed by police during conflict with police, usually less than a dozen a year, who they can use as props to achieve a much broader political agenda.”

The Problem Solvers Caucus is attempting to break the impasse on additional aid.

Members of the House Problem Solvers Caucus on Tuesday released what they viewed as an effective compromise offer amid the ongoing impasse between Democratic and Republican negotiators over the next phase of Covid-19 aid. The proposal includes about $1.5 trillion in funding, and lands somewhere in between Republicans’ latest $650 billion “skinny stimulus,” and Democrats’ more generous $2.2 trillion proposal (they’ve reduced their bid from the more than $3 trillion included in the HEROES Act.) The Problem Solvers’ plan is a product of efforts by 25 Democrats and 25 Republicans who make up the group, a number of whom represent battleground House districts.

Their legislative framework features a combination of priorities from both parties, including $120 billion for enhanced unemployment insurance (which covers a $450 weekly supplement for eight weeks, and some additional funding after that), $500 billion for state and local government funding, and $280 billion for another round of stimulus checks that mirror the earlier ones. There’s also a provision addressing business liability protections, a chief demand of the GOP.

Archive Needed to Preserve Content Deemed Dangerous

Social media platforms are taking down online content they consider terrorist, violently extremist, or hateful in a way that prevents its potential use to investigate serious crimes, including war crimes, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. While it is understandable that these platforms remove content that incites or promotes violence, they should ensure that this material is archived so it can possibly be used to hold those responsible to account.

The 42-page report, “‘Video Unavailable’: Social Media Platforms Remove Evidence of War Crimes,” urges all stakeholders, including social media platforms, to come together to develop an independent mechanism to preserve potential evidence of serious crimes. They should ensure that the content is available to support national and international investigations, as well as research by nongovernmental organizations, journalists, and academics. Rights groups have been urging social media companies since 2017 to improve transparency and accountability around content takedowns.

Harvard political theorist Danielle Allen discusses the US’s founding, prison abolition, and the future of democracy.

My first conversation with Harvard political theorist Danielle Allen on The Ezra Klein Show in fall 2019 was one of my all-time favorites. I didn’t expect to have Allen on again so soon, but her work is unusually relevant to our current moment.

Allen has written an entire book about the deeper argument of the Declaration of Independence and the way our superficial reading and folk history of the document obscures its radicalism. (It’ll make you look at July Fourth in a whole new way.) Her most recent book, Cuz, is a searing indictment of the American criminal justice system, driven by watching her cousin go through it and motivated by his murder.

This is a wide-ranging conversation for a wide-ranging moment. Allen and I discuss what “all men are created equal” really means, why the myth of Thomas Jefferson’s sole authorship of the Declaration of Independence muddies its message, the role of police brutality in the American Revolution, democracy reforms such as ranked-choice voting, DC statehood, mandatory voting, how to deal with a Republican Party that opposes expanding democracy, the case for prison abolition, the various pandemic response paths before us, the failure of political leadership in this moment, and much more

James N. Gregory, University of Washington

An election looms. An unpopular president wrestles with historic unemployment rates. Demonstrations erupt in hundreds of locations. The president deploys Army units to suppress peaceful protests in the nation’s capital. And most of all he worries about an affable Democratic candidate who is running against him without saying much about a platform or plans.

Welcome to 1932.

I am a historian and director of the Mapping American Social Movements Project, which explores the history of social movements and their interaction with American electoral politics.

The parallels between the summer of 1932 and what is happening in the U.S. currently are striking. While the pandemic and much else is different, the political dynamics are similar enough that they are useful for anyone trying to understand where the U.S. is and where it is going.

Multiracial street protest movement

In 1932, as in 2020, the nation experienced an explosion of civil unrest on the eve of a presidential election.

The Great Depression had deepened through three years by 1932. With 24% of the work force unemployed and the federal government refusing to provide funds to support the jobless and homeless as local governments ran out of money, men and women across the country joined demonstrations demanding relief.

Our mapping project has recorded 389 hunger marches, eviction fights and other protests in 138 cities during 1932.

Although less than the thousands of Black Lives Matter protests, there are similarities.

African Americans participated in these movements, and many of the protests attracted police violence. Indeed, the unemployed people’s movement of the early 1930s was the first important multiracial street protest movement of the 20th century, and police violence was especially vicious against black activists.

Atlanta authorities announced in June 1932 that 23,000 families would be cut from the list of those eligible for the meager county relief payments of 60 cents per week per person allocated to whites (less for Blacks). A mixed crowd of nearly 1,000 gathered in front of the Fulton County Courthouse for a peaceful demonstration demanding US$4 per week per family and denouncing racial discrimination.

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The biracial protest was unprecedented in Atlanta and yielded two results. The eligibility cuts were canceled, and police promptly hunted down one of the organizers, a 19-year-old Black communist named Angelo Herndon. He was charged with “inciting to insurrection,” a charge that carried the death penalty. Lawyers spent the next five years winning his freedom.

Protests over unemployment

But race was not the key issue of the 1932 protest wave. It was government’s failure to rescue the millions in economic distress.

Organizations representing the unemployed – many led by communists or socialists – had been active since 1930, and now in the summer of 1932 protests surged in every state. Here are examples from the Mapping American Social Movement Project timeline from one week in June:

• June 14

Hundreds of Chicago police mobilize to keep unemployed demonstrators at bay at the start of the Republican Party nominating convention.

• June 17

A so-called “hunger march” of 3,000 jobless in Minneapolis ends peacefully, but in Bloomington, Indiana, police use tear gas on 1,000 demonstrators demanding relief, while in Pittsburgh unemployed supporters crowd a courthouse to cheer the not-guilty verdict in an “inciting to riot” case.

• June 20

Police break up a march by 200 unemployed in Argo, Illinois, and a much larger protest by jobless in Rochester, New York. In Lawrence, Massachusetts, 500 protesters successfully demanded an end to evictions of unemployed mill workers; in Pittsburgh, protesters block the eviction of an unemployed widow. The same day in Kansas City, a mostly Black crowd of 2,000 pleads unsuccessfully with the mayor to restore a recently suspended relief program.

Farmers’ uprising

The unemployed protests in urban areas of 1932 seem similar to today’s protest culture, but that was not true in the farm belt.

Dealing with collapsing prices and escalating farm evictions, farmers in many regions staged near-uprisings. Black farmers in the cotton belt braved vigilante violence when, by the thousands, they joined the Alabama Sharecroppers Union, which advocated debt relief and the right of tenant farmers to market their own crops.

Newspaper headlines focused on the white farmers mobilizing in Iowa, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Minnesota and the Dakotas in the summer of 1932. The Farmer’s Holiday Association formed that year pledging to strike (“holiday”) to raise farm prices. The strike that began on August 15 involved sometimes heavily armed white farmers blocking roads to stop the shipment of corn, wheat, milk and other products. The strike withered after a few weeks, but farmers had sent a message, and some state legislatures quickly enacted moratoriums on farm foreclosures.

Counties that today are marked as Trump territory distinguished themselves in 1932 as centers of what became known as the “Cornbelt Rebellion.”

Unrest helped FDR defeat Hoover

Periods of grassroots protest and civil unrest interact in unpredictable ways with presidential elections. In 1932, unrest helped Franklin Roosevelt defeat incumbent Herbert Hoover. Again, there are similarities between that summer and this one.

Democratic presidential candidate Roosevelt, like today’s Democratic candidate, Joe Biden, enjoyed the luxury of running on platitudes instead of programs. Roosevelt used the phrase “new deal” in his nomination acceptance speech, but details were few and it was not until he took office that the phrase acquired real meaning.

Roosevelt could avoid commitments because the political dynamics of 1932 forced the incumbent to play defense, much like today.

Herbert Hoover was no Trump, almost the opposite. Cautious, principled, quiet, a moderate Republican, he had made major errors in the first years of the Depression, and his reputation never recovered. Democrats accused him of inaction (which was not true), while the unemployed movements fixed the label “Hoovervilles” on the homeless encampments and shacktowns that sprang up in cities across the country.

Hoover’s credibility was further damaged in the summer of 1932 when more than 15,000 World War I veterans converged on Washington, D.C. under the banner of the Bonus Expeditionary Force, commonly called the Bonus Army. They demanded that Congress immediately pay them the bonuses they were due to get in 1945.

When the Senate rejected the proposal, the Bonus Army settled into a massive encampment across the Anacostia River from Capitol Hill.

A month later, Hoover called in U.S. Army troops. During a night of violence, the army burned thousands of tents and shacks and sent the Bonus Army marchers fleeing.

For Hoover, the deployment of U.S. Army units played out much as it did for Trump this May, when he had Lafayette Park violently cleared of protesters. Hoover’s action deepened his image problems and strengthened the sense that he lacked compassion for those in need, including those who had fought for their country only 14 years earlier.

Hoover tried to mobilize a backlash against the summer of protests, claiming that Communists were behind all of the unrest, including the Bonus Army, which in fact had banned all Communists. It didn’t work: Roosevelt won in a landslide.

In the end, the protests helped Democrats in the election of 1932. In Congress, Democrats gained 97 House seats and 12 in the Senate, taking control of Congress for the first time since 1918. And equally significant, they helped propel the agenda of the New Dealers, as the new administration prepared to take power and launch the ambitious legislation of the first 100 days.

Three years of grassroots action had forced even reluctant politicians to recognize the urgency of reform. The early New Deal would race to provide debt relief for farmers and homeowners, jobs for the unemployed, and public works projects – part of what demonstrators had been demanding for years.

James N. Gregory, Professor of History, University of Washington

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.