Educating for American Democracy

May 10, 2021

by Lisa DiCaprio, Sierra Club NYC Group 

Educating for American Democracy is a new and innovative initiative to revitalize civics education in the K–12 curriculum. The project overview states: “In recent decades, we as a nation have failed to prepare young Americans for self-government, leaving the world’s oldest constitutional democracy in grave danger, afflicted by both cynicism and nostalgia, as it approaches its 250th anniversary. The time has come to recommit to the education of our young people for informed, authentic, and engaged citizenship.”

The National Endowment for the Humanities and the US Department of Education provided funding for Educating for American Democracy, which “involved a diverse collaboration among over 300 academics, historians, political scientists, K–12 educators, district and state administrators, civics providers, students, and others from across the country.” [1]

On March 2, 2021, Judy Woodruff, the anchor and managing editor of the PBS NewsHour moderated the virtual launch, Educating for American Democracy National Forum, which was attended by 6,000 people. The forum was preceded by Woodruff’s PBS NewsHour segment broadcast on the prior evening, Can teaching about civics in schools help break down barriers in American society?.

The Educating for American Democracy National Forum featured the Principle Investigators for the Educating for American Democracy project: Danielle Allen of Harvard University, Paul Carrese of Arizona State University, Louise Dubé of iCivics, Jane Kamensky of Harvard University, Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg of CIRCLE (Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning & Engagement), Peter Levine of Tufts University, and Tammy Waller of the Arizona Department of Education.

A February 21, 2018 Center for American Progress report by Sarah Shapiro and Catherine Brown, “The State of Civics Education,” concludes that “Only nine states and the District of Columbia require one year of U.S. government or civics. Thirty-one states only require a half-year of civics or U.S. government education, and 10 states have no civics requirement.” [2]

The crisis in civics education is revealed in several ways, such as national exams in history and civics [3] and public surveys. According to the most recent, 2020 Annenberg Public Policy Center Civics Knowledge Survey, “over half of Americans (51%) were able to name all three branches of government – the highest level seen in this survey.” (The first survey was in 2006.)

In the US, the K–12 curriculum is developed at the local and state levels of government. For this reason, the interactive Educating for American Democracy Roadmap is not a new curriculum, but “a vision for the integration of history and civic education throughout grades K–12.”

The interactive Roadmap comprises 7 main themes and 5 design challenges related to these themes.

The 7 main themes are:

  • Civic Participation
  • Our Changing Landscapes
  • We the People
  • A New Government and Constitution
  • Institutional and Social Transformation—A Series of Refoundings?
  • A People in the World
  • A People with Contemporary Debates and Possibilities

The 5 design challenges are: 

  • Motivating Agency, Sustaining the Republic
  • America’s Plural Yet Shared Story
  • Simultaneously Celebrating & Critiquing Compromise
  • Civic Honesty, Reflective Patriotism
  • Balancing the Concrete & the Abstract

Each design challenge relates to one or more of the 7 themes. For example, the Motivating Agency, Sustaining the Republic challenge corresponds to the Civic Participation theme and consists of these three questions:

  • How can we help students understand the full context for their roles as civic participants without creating paralysis or a sense of the insignificance of their own agency in relation to the magnitude of our society, the globe, and shared challenges?
  • How can we help students become engaged citizens who also sustain civil disagreement, civic friendship, and thus American constitutional democracy?
  • How can we help students pursue civic action that is authentic, responsible, and informed?

The project also includes a Pedagogy Companion to the Roadmap and Educating for American Democracy Educator Resources which provide sample lesson plans.

We must also advocate for mainstreaming civics education throughout the college curriculum. Although Educating for American Democracy is intended for K-12 instruction, its main themes and design challenges are relevant for college students and the extensive resources can be utilized for the development of college-level teaching materials.

Here are 7 ways that we can promote civics and voter education and protect the right to vote:

Expand student voter education and registration. Undergraduate students represent an important and growing demographic of potential and registered voters. According to the National Center for Education Statistics website on the Condition of Education, Undergraduate Enrollment (last updated on May 2020): “Between 2000 and 2018, total undergraduate enrollment in degree-granting postsecondary institutions increased by 26 percent (from 13.2 million to 16.6 million students). By 2029, total undergraduate enrollment is projected to increase to 17.0 million students.”

As the Tufts University Institute for Democracy & Higher Education, states, “Student voting rates reflect how well colleges and universities are fulfilling their civic missions. Voting is not the only indicator, but it is about a fundamental act of citizenship, and it can be measured objectively.”

A 2019 report by Nancy Thomas, Adam Gismondi, Prabhat Gautam and David Brinke, “Democracy Counts 2018: Increased Student and Institutional Engagement,” compares student participation in the 2014 and 2018 elections based on a National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement (NSLVE) database comprising “deidentified records for 10 million students for both the 2014 and 2018 elections.” (More than 1,000 colleges and universities participate in the NSLVE, which was launched in 2013.) The report includes these statistics:

  • National Student Voting Rate: 40.3%.
  • Average Institutional Voting Rate: In the 2018 U.S. midterm elections, college students turned out to vote at double the rate from the last midterm. Across all NSLVE campuses, the average institutional rate in 2018 was 39.1% (up nearly 20 percentage points from 19.7% in 2014).
  • Narrowing Age Gap: While older Americans historically vote at higher rates than their younger counterparts, 2018 NSLVE data showed a trend toward age parity. The turnout gap between students over 30 and those under 22 dropped from 22.3 percentage points to 16.9 points.
  • Women Voters: Women in college continued to vote at the highest rates in 2018, with Black women maintaining their position as the most active voters on campus, and Hispanic women making the most significant gains.
  • Increased Participation: In 2018, 99% of NSLVE campuses saw their voting rates increase from the 2014 midterms, and nearly half of institutions saw their rate increase between 15-24 percentage points.
  • In the general population, voting rates increased 13.6 percentage points between 2014 and 2018, but for college students, the increase was 21 points.

Despite the increase in voting between 2014 and 2018, the student voter participation rate of 40% is still lower than the 53% national average, as related in Jordan Misra’s April 23, 2019 article, “Voter Turnout Rates Among All Voting Age and Major Racial and Ethnic Groups were Higher Than in 2014,” which is featured on the US Census Bureau website, “America Counts: Stories Behind the Numbers: Behind the 2018 U.S. Midterm Election Turnout.”

College and university administrators can promote student voting by collaborating with faculty and student organizations to organize educational events on midterm and general elections and distribute guides on student voting, such as the Best Colleges electronic publication, Voting in College: Know Your Rights. A variety of resources are available from The National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement (NSLVE), which provides participating colleges and universities “an opportunity to learn their student registration and voting rates.”

Elected officials, high school principals, and teachers can also promote voter education and student registration as a crucial aspect of civic education.

In NYC, Council Member Helen Rosenthal (D-District 6), my representative in the City Council, initiated Student Voter Registration Day in response to low voter turnout by young voters. On March 20, 2015, the first Student Voter Registration Day, Council Member Rosenthal and 14 NY City Council members, representatives of the NYC Department of Education, NYC Votes, the outreach entity for the NYC Campaign Finance Board; and several community organizations, participated in educational events attended by 3,000 students at 25 high schools throughout NYC. Prior to Student Voter Registration Day, which is now an annual event, the students were provided with NYC Department of Education materials on voting.

On October 27, 2016, the City Council passed a resolution introduced by Council Member Rosenthal “declaring every third Friday of March as Student Voter Registration Day, and calling upon the Mayor of the City of New York to issue an executive order affirming that day as Student Voter Registration Day, and requiring that public schools observe this day with civic educational and registration drives.”  

In 2018, in coordination with NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio’s DemocracyNYC: A TEN POINT PLAN initiative, the NYC Department of Education integrated Student Voter Registration Day into its Civics For All curriculum. For current information, see the NYC Campaign Finance Board website, Student Voter Registration Day (SVRD) which states: “This annual one-day program is designed to register students to vote, educate them about civic participation, and promote a voting culture among our youngest eligible citizens.” [4]   

NYC student voter education initiatives also include The 2020 voter guide: By students for students, which “was developed by New York City high school juniors and seniors to answer student questions about how to register to vote and the process of voting.” This guide appears on the NYC Department of Education WeTeachNYC website that includes resources on a variety of topics, including civic education.

Protect the right to vote and the integrity of the electoral process: The Brennan Center for Justice’s State Voting Bills Tracker 2021 provides an overview of new state legislation on voting, which is updated on a regular basis. As of March 24, 2021, legislators have introduced 361 bills in 47 states since the 2020 elections, five of which have been signed into law, that are intended to suppress the vote and politicize how elections are certified at the county and state levels of government. (See also Center’s Voting Laws Roundup: March 2021). [5]

These legislative initiatives are facilitated by the Supreme Court’s 2013 ruling in Shelby County v Holder that John Lewis, the late civil rights leader and Representative from Georgia, described as “a dagger in the heart of the Voting Rights Act.” [6] Immediately after the Court’s ruling, several Republican-dominated State Legislatures imposed a series of laws to restrict voting. (The 2016 presidential election was the first affected by the Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County v Holder.) [7]

Support initiatives to prevent the gerrymandering of state and congressional district maps that are redrawn every ten years based on the results of the US census. President Barack Obama and Eric H. Holder, Jr., the Attorney General in the Obama Administration and current chair of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, are collaborating to call public attention to the political consequences of gerrymandering. [8]

In a recent newsletter of the National Democratic Redistricting PAC, Holder wrote: “Democracy means that what the people choose should prevail. Manipulated, rigged maps mean that the special interests dominate.” He provided these examples of how gerrymandering has disenfranchised Democratic voters:

  • In 2012, when President Obama won a second term, Democrats received 1.37 million more votes than Republicans in races for the U.S. House – but the Republicans won a 33-seat majority. This was a function of the manipulated maps drawn in 2011.
  • Even in 2018 – a so called “blue wave” – Republican gerrymandering blocked what should have been a blue tsunami. According to an analysis by the Associated Press, without Republican gerrymandering, Democrats would have won up to 16 more seats in the U.S. House and flipped another seven state legislative chambers. In 2020, the pattern continued. [9]

The new state and congressional district maps based on the 2020 census will be drawn at a time when 23 states have Republican governors and majorities in state legislatures. Population, as reflected in census numbers, determines the allocation of Congressional seats and Electoral votes for each state in the US. The census results announced on April 26, 2021 illustrate population increases in the South and West and losses in the Northeast and Midwest. For example, Texas, Florida and North Carolina gained seats in the House while Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York lost representatives. (New York State’s Congressional delegation will be reduced from 27 to 26.) The second set of census results scheduled to be released this summer will provide the basis for redrawing Congressional district boundaries. As Weiyi Cai and Reid J. Epstein write in their April 26, 2021 New York Times article, “Which States Will Gain or Lose Seats in the Next Congress,” “Most of the congressional district lines will be drawn in the upcoming months by state legislatures and local commissions that have been given redistricting authority. Republicans control the redistricting process in far more states than do Democrats, because of G.O.P. dominance in down-ballot elections.” [10]

Support grassroots voter advocacy initiatives, such as Fair Fight in Georgia, which Stacey Abrams founded following her loss to Brian Kemp, the Republican candidate in the 2018 gubernatorial election. Fair Fight alleged “gross mismanagement,” which suppressed the vote, in the November 2018 civil rights lawsuit that it filed in federal court against the office of the Georgia Secretary of State and the Board of Elections.

Abrams also established Fair Fight Action (a separate organization from Fair Fight that shares the same website) to promote fair elections in Georgia, Fair Count, to ensure an accurate 2020 Census and Fair Fight 2020 to monitor voting in 20 battleground states. Fair Fight Action registered 800,000 new voters in Georgia, which contributed to the elections of Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff to the U.S. Senate in January 2021. Consequently, Democrats have a majority in the Senate when the 50 Democratic Senators are unified and Vice-President Kamala Harris breaks a tie vote.

Prior to becoming the first African-American gubernatorial nominate for a major party, Abrams served as the minority leader in the House of Representatives in Georgia. On March 29, 2001, she received the 2021 NAACP Image Awards’ first Social Justice Impact Award for her initiatives to protect the vote and expand voter engagement in Georgia. In accepting the award presented by Michelle Obama, Abrams stated: “I share this award with all those who champion progress, equity and the truth of who we are and who we must become as a nation.” [11]

Support media literacy projects that inform the public about how to detect disinformation, especially relating to elections. These projects include: National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE), The Learning About Multimedia Project, and The News Literacy Project. Several investigations and declassified intelligence reports have revealed the unprecedented amount of disinformation circulated during the 2016 and 2020 elections to undermine Democratic candidates, especially Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. [12]

Support credible news organizations, public radio and television and local newspapers, which are crucial for countering:

  • The spread of misinformation by social media and right-wing newspapers, radio and television programs.
  • The commercialization of news programs which undermines voter literacy. Television stations originally viewed their news programs and the broadcast of political debates during elections as a public service. A comparison of the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon and 2020 Biden-Trump presidential debates reveals a dramatic decline in the educational value of these debates, as ratings and advertising revenues have increasingly superseded the initial purpose of the political debates broadcast on commercial media. See, for example, Kennedy vs. Nixon: The First 1960 presidential debate, the first televised political debate in the US, which was held in Chicago on September 26, 1960 and moderated by Howard K. Smith of CBS. (A PBS NewsHour project allows us to view all the US presidential and vice-presidential debates.)
  • The loss of local news outlets throughout the US, which has led to a sharp decline in knowledge relating to local political issues, including state elections, and participation in the electoral process. As related by Margaret Sullivan, the media columnist of the Washington Post, in her recent book, Ghosting the News: Local Journalism and the Crisis of American Democracy ​(Columbia Global Reports, 2020), “The decline of local news is every bit as troubling as the spread of disinformation on the internet…Some of the most trusted sources of news – local news, particularly local newspapers – are slipping away, never to return. The cost to democracy is great.  It takes a toll on civil engagement – even on citizen’s ability to have a common sense of reality and facts, the very basis of self-governance.” (Margaret Sullivan is also the former public editor of the New York Times and the former editor of the Buffalo News.) [13]

​We must also guarantee adequate revenue streams for public television and radio stations, which are dedicated to providing the public with accurate news and evidence-based commentaries.

On November 7, 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, which created the government-funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and provided the legal basis for the establishment of the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) in 1969 and National Public Radio (NPR) in 1970. [14] President Johnson’s statement in signing the bill emphasizes how public broadcasting can promote education and democracy:

It was in 1844 that Congress authorized $30,000 for the first telegraph line between Washington and Baltimore. Soon afterward, Samuel Morse sent a stream of dots and dashes over that line to a friend who was waiting. His message was brief and prophetic and it read: “What hath God wrought?”

Every one of us should feel the same awe and wonderment here today.

For today, miracles in communication are our daily routine. Every minute, billions of telegraph messages chatter around the world. They interrupt law enforcement conferences and discussions of morality. Billions of signals rush over the ocean floor and fly above the clouds. Radio and television fill the air with sound. Satellites hurl messages thousands of miles in a matter of seconds.

Today our problem is not making miracles--but managing miracles. We might well ponder a different question: What hath man wrought--and how will man use his inventions?

The law that I will sign shortly offers one answer to that question.

It announces to the world that our Nation wants more than just material wealth; our Nation wants more than a “chicken in every pot.” We in America have an appetite for excellence, too.

While we work every day to produce new goods and to create new wealth, we want most of all to enrich man's spirit.

That is the purpose of this act.

It will give a wider and, I think, stronger voice to educational radio and television by providing new funds for broadcast facilities.

It will launch a major study of television's use in the Nation's classrooms and their potential use throughout the world.

Finally--and most important--it builds a new institution: the Corporation for Public Broadcasting…

It will get part of its support from our Government. But it will be carefully guarded from Government or from party control. It will be free, and it will be independent--and it will belong to all of our people.

Television is still a young invention. But we have learned already that it has immense--even revolutionary--power to change, to change our lives.

I hope that those who lead the Corporation will direct that power toward the great and not the trivial purposes.

At its best, public television would help make our Nation a replica of the old Greek marketplace, where public affairs took place in view of all the citizens…

To find your local public television stations, see: Public Broadcasting Service Member Stations. To find your local public radio stations, see: National Public Radio Member Stations.

Mainstream civics education in community organizing and political advocacy initiatives. Government policies affect virtually all aspects of our lives. Although the US Constitution is the oldest written constitution in the world, our democracy is an experiment in self-government that requires an educated and engaged citizenry to endure and “form a more perfect union.” As Senator Raphael Warnock (D-Georgia) stated in support of the For the People Act of 2021 during his first floor speech in the Senate on March 17, 2021, the day on which the bill was introduced: “We must pass ‘For The People’ so that people might have a voice. Your vote is your voice and your voice is your human dignity…Surely, there ought to be at least 60 people in this chamber who believe, as I do, that the four most powerful words uttered in a democracy are, ‘the people have spoken,’ therefore we must ensure that all the people can speak.” [15] 

 

RESOURCES

Nonprofit organizations promoting civics education

Educating for American Democracy

iCivics

  • iCivics digital civic library   
  • The CivXNow Coalition (“a 150-member coalition calling for a civic education revival in America”) 

CIRCLE (Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning & Engagement)

Facing History and Ourselves

 

Climate and civics education  

EARTHDAY.ORG, Climate & Environmental Literacy

 

Government initiatives to promote civics education and voting

Legislation in the US Congress

NYC Student Voter Registration Day- Background

DemocracyNYC

NYC Department of Education Civics For All curriculum 

NYC Department of Education WeTeachNYC


Websites on voting rights and legislation on voting

Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School

H.R.4 - Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2019

S.4263 - 116th Congress (2019-2020) John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act

H.R.1/S.1 For the People Act of 2021                                                                                                                               

 

Websites for voter advocacy organizations

National Democratic Redistricting Committee

Declaration for American Democracy (a coalition of over 200 organizations)

Common Cause

United States Election Project

Fair Fight

Fair Fight Action (a separate organization from Fair Fight that shares the same website)

Fair Fight 2020

Fair Count

New Georgia Project

She the People

Black Voters Matter

League of Women Voters

League of Conservation Voters

Emily's List

Progressive Turnout Project

UN-PAC

End Citizens United

Let America Vote

Citizen University

Declaration for American Democracy

Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law

American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Voting Rights Project

 

Videos 

 

Public radio and television stations

BBC News

 

Media literacy projects

National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE)

The Learning About Multimedia Project

The News Literacy Project

Atlantic Council Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab)

 

NOTES 

[1] As the Educating for American Democracy website indicates, the funding provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the U.S. Department of Education does not imply their endorsement for all aspects of this initiative. 

[2] The five conclusions of the “The State of Civics Education” report are:

  • Only nine states and the District of Columbia require one year of U.S. government or civics.
  • State civics curricula are heavy on knowledge but light on building skills and agency for civic engagement.
  • While almost half of states allow credit for community service, almost none require it.
  • Nationwide, students score very low on the AP U.S. government exam.
  • States with the highest rates of youth civic engagement tend to prioritize civics courses and AP U.S. government in their curricula.


[3] The most recent, 2018 history scores received by eighth graders on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) were released in April 2020. In their April 23, 2020 EducationWeek article, “8th Graders Don't Know Much About History, National Exam Shows,” Stephen Sawchuk and Sarah D. Spark state: “Eighth graders’ grasp of key topics in history have plummeted, national test scores released this morning show—an alarming result at a time of deep political polarization, economic uncertainty, and public upheaval in the United States. Except for the very top-performing students, scores fell among nearly all grade 8 students in history on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, also called the Nation’s Report Card, since the last history administration, in 2014.” See also, “What Does the NAEP Civics Assessment Measure?,” which appears on the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) website.


[4] The sixth point of the DemocracyNYC: A TEN POINT PLAN states: “Civics for All: Civics Education for all Public School Students: Our public schools will be dedicated to giving our students the tools they need to be active, productive participants not just in our economy, but in our democracy. We will begin teaching civics in every New York City public school.”

[5] Georgia is one of the states where the new bills on voting procedures passed by Republican-dominated state legislatures have become law. Governor Brian Kemp signed the Election Integrity Act on March 25, 2021, claiming that it protects the integrity of the voting process although there is no evidence of the widespread voter fraud alleged in the 2020 elections in Georgia. See, Nick Corasaniti and Reid J. Epstein: “Georgia G.O.P. Fires Opening Shot in Fight to Limit Voting.” New York Times, March 26, 2021, updated April 2, 2021. See also, Richard Fausset, Nick Corasaniti and Mark Leibovich, “Georgia Takes Center Stage With New Battles Over Voting Rights, New York Times, March 3, 2021, updated March 30, 2021, and Nate Cohen, “Georgia's New Law, and the Risk of Election Subversion,” New York Times, April 6, 2021, updated April 20, 2021 and Nick Corasaniti and Reid J. Epstein, “What Georgia's Voting Law Really Does,” New York Times, April 2, 2021.

[6] See, Lauren McCauley, “Supreme Court Puts 'Dagger in the Heart' of Voting Rights Act,” Common Dreams, June 25, 2013.

[7] The Supreme Court case Shelby County vs Holder relates to Sections 4 and 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Shelby County in Alabama brought the case to the Supreme Court during the Obama Administration in response to a 2009 decision by the US Department of Justice, led by former Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr., that Shelby County could not change its voting procedures.

Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act identified 9 states (Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia) and portions of states (for example, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and the Bronx), with a history of racial discrimination and voter suppression. Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act required these states and localities to obtain preclearance i.e. prior approval from the Department of Justice or a federal court in Washington before implementing any changes in their voting laws or procedures.

The Supreme Court ruled in a 5-to-4 vote in favor of Shelby County in 2013. In his June 25, 2013 New York Times article, “Supreme Court Invalidates Key Part of Voting Rights Act,” Adam Liptak wrote: “The court divided along ideological lines, and the two sides drew sharply different lessons from the history of the civil rights movement and the nation’s progress in rooting out racial discrimination in voting. At the core of the disagreement was whether racial minorities continued to face barriers to voting in states with a history of discrimination.”

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote the majority opinion in support of Shelby County and was joined by Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. In her dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was joined by Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. She argued that voter discrimination had decreased because of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and advocated for maintaining Section 4 to “guard against backsliding.” As Justice Ginsburg wrote: “Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.” See, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Amanda L. Tyler, Justice, Justice: Thou Shalt Pursue A Life's Work Fighting for a More Perfect Union (University of California, 2021), which includes the complete text of Justice Ginsburg’s dissent. (Tyler clerked for Justice Ginsburg.)

For historical background on Shelby County v Holder and its current significance, see also the Brennan Center for Justice websites, “Shelby County v Holder,” August 4, 2018 and Voting Rights in America, Six Years After Shelby v Holder, June 25, 2019; Leah Litman and Jay Willis, “Will the Supreme Court Gut the Voting Rights Act?,” New York Times, March 3, 2021; and Joyce White Vance, “Ruth Bader Ginsburg Lost Her Battle to Save Voting Rights. Here's How We Can Take Up the Fight and Honor Her Legacy,” Time.com, September 21, 2020. (“Vance is a distinguished professor of the practice of law at the University of Alabama, a former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama and an NBC News and MSNBC legal analyst.”)

[8] For an explanation of gerrymandering, see: Michael Wines, “What is Gerrymandering? And How Does it Work?,” June 27, 2019. For a discussion of new research on the residential clustering of Democratic and Republican voters, see: Emily Badger, Kevin Quealy and Josh Katz, “A Close-Up Picture of Partisan Segregation, Among 180 Million Voters,” New York Times, March 17, 2021.

[9] The November 2020 elections in Wisconsin provide additional evidence of how Democratic voters were disenfranchised by the partisan drawing of boundaries for the State Legislature based on the 2010 census. In his February 27, 2021, updated March 2, 2021 New York Times article, “In Statehouses, Stolen-Election Myth Fuels a G.O.P. Drive to Rewrite Rules,” Michael Wines writes: “Democrats received 46 percent of the statewide vote for State Assembly seats and 47 percent of the State Senate vote, but won only 38 percent of seats in the Assembly and 36 percent in the Senate.” See also, Reid J. Epstein and Nick Corasaniti, Reid J. Epstein and Nick Corasaniti, “The Gerrymander Battles Loom, as G.O.P. Looks to Press Its Advantage,” New York Times, February 1, 2021.

[10] See, Sabrina Tavernise and Robert Gebeloff, “U.S. Population Over Last Decade Grew at Slowest Rate Since 1930's,” New York Times, April 26, 2021. The census affects the composition of the Electoral College. States are allocated electors based on the number of their Congressional districts and two additional votes for each Senator. See, “Distribution of Electoral Votes,” on the US Archives website. See also the April 26, 2021, Statement from Eric Holder on the Release of Apportionment Data from the Census Bureau, in which he states: “With the release of apportionment data, each state now needs to prepare for a fair and transparent redistricting process that includes input from the public. Make no mistake — the same Republican state legislators who are pushing forward on hundreds of anti-voter bills at the state level have been very clear that they intend to manipulate the redistricting process to lock in their power. Stopping Republicans from gerrymandering the maps in states they control is the next fight in the battle to protect the right to vote and ensure every American has the freedom to choose their representatives.” See also, Madiba Dennie, Kelly Percival and Yurij Rudensky, Brennan Center for Justice, “2020 Census Population and Apportionment Data, Explained,” April 26, 2021.

[11] See also, Fair Fight About Stacey Abrams, Stacey Abrams, Our Time is Now: Power, Purpose and the Fight for a Fair America (Henry Holt and Co., 2020), and Stacey Abrams and Lauren Groh-Wargo, “How to Turn Your Red State Blue,” New York Times, February 11, 2021.

[12] See, for example, Julian E. Barnes, “Russian Interference in 2020 Included Influencing Trump Associates, Report Says,” New York Times, March 16, 2021, which relates a recently declassified intelligence report about the Russian disinformation campaign to undermine Biden's candidacy.

[13] See, Margaret Sullivan, Ghosting the News: Local Journalism and the Crisis of American Democracy (Columbia Global Reports, 2020), p. 15.

[14] On the history of public radio in the US, see: Emily Hellewell, “How Public Radio Scotch-Taped Its Way Into Public Broadcasting Act,” National Public Radio (NPR), November 8, 2012; and Lisa Napoli, Susan, Linda, Nina, & Cokie: The Extraordinary Story of the Founding Mothers of NPR (Abrams Press, 2021). NPR’s “All Things Considered” program was broadcast on May 3, 1971 and included coverage of an anti-Vietnam War protest in Washington D.C. in which more than 20,000 people participated. The NPR press release, “NPR Celebrates 50th Anniversary Of The First 'All Things Considered' Broadcast,” states: “In 1971, NPR debuted with around 88 Member stations, 55 employees, and fewer than 2 million listeners. Now, more than 60 million people access NPR content for free on multiple platforms each week. Through its Member stations, NPR provides an essential service to local communities, and serves as a lifeline for rural America and those seeking vital information during emergencies.” The NPR website, Fifty Years of NPR, provides a schedule of commemorative programs throughout the month of May. See, for example, “IA Reflects On The Last and Next 50 Years of NPR,” which was broadcast on May 3, 2021.

[15] For the complete, printed text of Senator Raphael Warnock’s March 17, 2021 speech, see, WRDW, March 18, 2021, “Warnock Says GOP Backed Voting Measures Resurrect Jim Crow Era.”

[16] For an analysis of H.R.1, see: Nicholas Fandos, “Targeting State Restrictions, House Passes Landmark Voting Rights Expansion,” New York Times, March 3, 2021.

 

For my previous Sierra Atlantic articles, see

“Key Resources on Recent Climate Change Reports,” Key Resources on Climate Change Reports: Part II,” “The Drawdown Project to Reverse Global Warming,” “The Social Cost of Carbon & Why It Matters,” “Ecological Footprints and One Planet Living,” “Five Years of Activism: NYC Commits to Fossil Fuel Divestment,” “NYC's Green New Deal,” “Carbon Footprints and Life-cycle Assessments – Educational Resources,” “Initiatives to Reduce Plastic Pollution,” “The Circular Economy – Educational Resources (Part I),” “Earth Day 50 and the Coronavirus Pandemic – Educational Resources,” “High-rise Passive House in NYC,” and “Passive House Update - Educational Resources.”

 

 

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