Reflections and Insights from BigTentUSA Community and Guests
BY SUSAN LEHMAN | BIGTENTUSA 📊 Inflation Down, Spirits Up…For Now. Good news! The Consumer Price Index (CPI) cooled in July compared to 2023, which served as evidence that inflation is moderating. This summer was the first time the inflation rate has fallen below 3% since 2021. The Federal Reserve is
BY THE BRENNAN CENTER FOR JUSTICE | DEMOCRACY DOCKET | BIGTENTUSA 🛝 State of play: The use of targeting voter rolls to urge election officials to purge voter registrations is becoming much more common place. Calling themselves election investigators, these private eyes have pressed officials in Michigan, Nevada and Georgia to
BY BREANNA GLOVER | BIGTENTUSA 💡What’s the issue: Christian Nationalism, a once-fringe ideology, has infiltrated the mainstream, and is shaping the far-right extremist political agenda. This movement advocates for increased religious influence in government and public life, strict censorship in education, and calls for the dominance of white Christians in
BY JACKIE PAYNE | GALVANIZE As we kick off another election year, let’s take a moment to acknowledge how anxious or frightened many of us are feeling. Our democracy and fundamental rights are under attack—there is no question of this. Authoritarianism is on the rise, and remarks about being a
BY BREANNA GLOVER | BIGTENTUSA 💡 What you need to know: The recent anti-IVF legislation in Alabama has stirred significant controversy and concern, prompting a rapid response from lawmakers, healthcare providers, and the public. 👀 How did we get here: The Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are human
BY WENDY ROGOVIN | BIGTENTUSA “The Constitution itself tells us that disqualification of the former president is not anti-democratic. Rather, the Constitution tells us that it is the conduct that can give rise to disqualification under the 14th Amendment that is anti-democratic.” Retired Judge J. Michael Luttig SCOTUS has agreed
By LAURA BRILL | THE CIVICS CENTER There it was again, this time in the Washington Post, a throw-away line about the supposed “apathy” of young voters. It was, as if to say, if there’s one thing we can all agree upon it is that young people don’t care. This
BY JILL BAYER CIPORIN | BIGTENTUSA Last week, at a holiday luncheon, one of my BigTent friends showed me a Star of David around her neck – much like the necklace I’ve also been wearing since October 7th. It brought me to tears. Why? Because she isn’t Jewish. And, because
BY JAY GUO | THE STATUS KUO It’s no longer possible to ignore the parallels, nor pretend it was just a one-time thing. In a speech before his MAGA faithful in New Hampshire in December 2023, Trump doubled down on his fascist and inflammatory language of earlier speeches. “They’re poisoning
BY STEVEN LEVITSKY AND DANEL ZIBLATT | AUTHORS, THE TYRANNY OF THE MINORITY (This is an excerpt from an article published in The Atlantic in September 2023.) The country’s Constitution was once the standard-bearer for the world. Despite its flaws, the U.S. Constitution was a pioneering document. America became the
BY BREANNA GLOVER | BIGTENTUSA What’s the Issue: Voters in areas of the South & the Rust Belt voted in line with preserving reproductive freedoms. Ohioans voted to approve Issue 1, amending the right to abortion in their state constitution. This ballot measure won by a large margin (around 12%), demonstrating
BY SUSAN LEHMAN | BIGTENTUSA BigTentUSA hosted a virtual Spotlight Speaker series with speakers Suzanne Nossel, CEO PEN America, Richard Dresser, President Writers Guild Initiative and moderated by producer, Evangeline Morphos. Unlike book bans in our past, the recent rash of book banning in schools and public libraries is a
By SUSAN LEHMAN | BIGTENTUSA “America is still a place of possibilities, a beacon for the world, a promise realized—where the power forever resides with ‘We the People’. That’s our soul. That’s who we truly are. That’s who we must always be.” President Joe Biden In 2019, six middle-aged women,
By SUZANNE NOSSEL | PEN AMERICA, CEO Beware the artist. In the struggle against authoritarianism, artists play an overlooked role as catalysts for social change, drivers of accountability, and prophets of freer futures. Amid intensifying repression of traditional political dissent worldwide, artists of all types and genres can flex striking expressive freedom
By KITTY DOUGLAS | BIGTENTUSA Democracy Centers are literally saving democracy. But what are Democracy Centers really? Democracy Centers are located in BIPOC communities where more than 55% of eligible voters no longer choose to vote. These communities are often rural and identifiable by certain common characteristics, such as high
By SARAH GROSS | WE THE PEOPLE FOR EDUCATION Over the past few weeks, Gov. Glenn Youngkin has been touring the commonwealth hosting “Parents Matter” town halls. The primary message at these events is that parents have a right to be a part of their child’s education. As the
By KITTY DOUGLAS | BIGTENTUSA “I cannot adequately put in to words the trauma and despair that comes from waiting to either lose your own life, your child’s life or both.” Amanda Zurawaski, lead plaintiff in Zurawski v. the State of Texas Not since 1973, has an American woman appeared in
By JAY KUO | THE STATUS KUO Three stories caught my attention, all situated in the South, all raising deep and troubling questions about state overreach, the rejection of core principles of federalism, and the vicious targeting of vulnerable minorities. If this sounds familiar, these indeed bear echoes of the
By WENDY ROGOVIN | BIGTENTUSA Over 725 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced this year. The flood of anti-LGBTQ+ law-making is all part of a coordinated attack, the goal of which is the erasure of LGBTQ+ people and the erection of structural barriers, to prevent change. This is not an exaggeration.
News from Ohio, courtesy of The Fairness Project On July 5, a non-partisan, grassroots coalition in Ohio submitted more than 700,000 signatures from state residents in all 88 counties in an effort to qualify a critical ballot measure to defend reproductive rights. Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights, which is backed
By, STEPHEN VLADECK | THE SHADOW DOCKET I’m so excited to get to chat with my friend Dahlia Lithwick about the Supreme Court and my new book on the Court’s “shadow docket.” Dahlia has long been not just an inspiration to me, but at the forefront of
By Dahlia Lithwick It’s always a treat to be in conversation with Steve Vladeck and especially powerful to be talking about his amazing new book, Shadow Docket, which became an instant New York Times bestseller and deservedly so. We are living in a spectacularly challenging moment both for court
By Gretchen Barton The science of the mind has revealed much in recent years about how to achieve persuasion and mobilization among voters. It’s time to use what’s actually been proven to move people to action. In 2020, my colleagues and I wrote a set of science-driven tips to help
The global socio-political landscape is undergoing significant shifts, driven by technology advancements, climate change, economic disparities, the struggle for human rights and the challenge of maintaining democratic norms amidst rising autocratic tendencies in various parts of the world- including the U.S. As pro democracy advocates, gaining a better understanding of
By: Evangeline Morphos Political analysts, historians, journalists, and political leaders are defining our present moment as a turning point in our democracy. Are we in fact abandoning our founding principles and moving towards authoritarianism? Are we so divided that we cannot bridge the gap of values and ideas? Jonathan Alter
By Maxim Thorne, CEO, Civic Influencers At Civic Influencers, we are succeeding in turning out young voters that can swing elections. The right knows and fears our work—and they’re freaking out. Billionaire entrepreneur and presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy proposed a constitutional amendment to raise the voting age from 18 to 25.
Remember that sinking feeling when you realized Woody Allen wasn’t the lovable loser you thought he was? Well, get ready for another rude awakening. What’s The Issue: No Labels, the so-called “unity ticket” third-party group, is funded by dark money with deep ties to corporate interests. It may play the role of
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana A significant number of far-right US political leaders are whitewashing and re-writing history by banning books and any discussion of unsavory historical events. Yes, we see you Governor DeSantis and you too Gov. Abbott. The tireless “antiwoke” campaigns are designed to leave
Four Proud Boys and four Oath Keepers have been convicted of seditious conspiracy for the January 6th attack on the United States Capitol. The last time anyone was convicted of seditious conspiracy was 1995 when Egyptian cleric Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman (aka The Blind Sheikh) and nine of his followers were convicted of
Getting an Initiative on the Ballot is Getting More Expensive. Everything is more expensive these days (read: inflation) – and that includes ballot initiatives. Campaigns for ballot initiatives often spend hundreds of thousands to millions on collecting signatures, and they’ve been spending more on average over time. Since 2016, the average
Welcome to the new Ohio, where the state legislature has become an increasingly frightening and powerful laboratory for autocracy. To start, on January 6th, 2023 (of all the dates!) Ohio’s governor signed one of the most restrictive voter-ID laws in the country. The Ohio law includes mandating the use of
Voting is a habit. Research shows that voting habits established soon after reaching eligibility persevere for decades.¹ Educating and mobilizing young people, therefore, is an effective strategy to establish lifelong voting. State Board of Elections data shows NC voters up to age 25 who voted in previous elections (2018 and
What happened: Sick of the pandemic restrictions and fed up with school closures, parents across the country came together to demand more control over their children’s education. Wanting a bigger say in how schools operate, they lobbied for the Parents Bill of Rights legislation introduced by the House GOP. This cleverly crafted law
In 2019, I vividly remember my son Luke’s 3rd grade teacher in our public elementary school in California who had the most wonderful mini library of books in the corner of his classroom. Luke had been struggling with literacy since Kindergarten. Despite that, he loved to spend time crouched on
The New Right, who are best represented by Peter Thiel and its philosopher-darling, Curtis Yarvin, are very clear about their antipathy to democracy. The New Right, aka Neoreactionaries, are proponents of “RAGE” (getting Rid of All Government Employees) and forming an entirely new system of government based on “neocameralism.” Neocameralism is defined as a country that is formed by a
One measure of a President’s power is the effect he has on the judiciary. President Biden has appointed 105 Article III judges, outpacing Trump, Obama, and Bush. Still, there is no denying Trump transformed the judiciary during his term in office. A study of the effect of Reagan judges concluded that there was
VIRGINIA On February 21st, Virginia will hold a special election to fill a vacancy in the U.S House of Representatives left by the late Rep. A. Donald McEachin. With an already slim majority by Republicans, this is one to watch. Join a phone bank to mobilize Black voters with the non-partisan group Center
What does it take to get George Santos out of office before he serves his full term? The United States Constitution expressly provides in Article I, Section 5, clause 2, that: “Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the
How did George Santos get elected and why is he still in office? One local newspaper investigated and ran articles on George Santos prior to his election. The North Shore Leader reported that Santos’s net worth went from $5,000 in 2020 to some $11 million in 2022. The paper also
It’s hard to believe that today (1/22/23) we would have celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s 1973 ruling of Roe v. Wade. It is a stark reminder of all that is at stake in the fight for reproductive rights. The reversal of Roe v. Wade marks the biggest setback for women’s
One fascinating aspect of the House Speakership election was that C-SPAN had full control of the cameras in the House chamber for all 15 rounds of voting. Because there was no Speaker in charge, no one could set rules limiting C-SPAN’s coverage. So, the American people had unprecedented access to view the entire
We’ve already seen the 118th Congress in action and it isn’t pretty. Next up is the Rules Package, which must be adopted by the House by January 13th in order to process payroll for staff. The importance of the Rules Package cannot be overstated. Sadly it is understood by few in the
Every once in a while we read something that breaks through the cacaphony of legislation designed to deprive people of autonomy over their bodies and lives. Over the past year, states have been inundated with anti-abortion and anti-trans legislation. Last week a California state senator introduced a bill to protect “fleeing felons” from other states from extradition. The “fleeing felons”
Having already succeeded in the deeply undemocratic practice of gerrymandering, increasingly, GOP-dominated state legislatures are turning their focus on curtailing people’s access to direct democracy through ballot measures such as ballot initiatives or referenda. The success of post-Dobbs ballot measures ensuring the right to an abortion has fueled the right-wing’s assault on ballot
The Supreme Court’s term starts this week. On Tuesday the Court will hear Merrill v Milligan, where the Court is being asked to resolve whether the state of Alabama’s 2021 redistricting plan violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Many fear that Merrill may be the final nail in the
On December 1, pro-choice and anti-abortion activists demonstrated outside the Supreme Court and U.S. Capitol as the Nine heard arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, a case posed to ban most abortions after 15 weeks. BigTenters proudly stood firm amid the fray while the Supreme Court spoke, often voicing
Disclaimer:
The views and opinions expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position of BigTentUSA.
