Institutions and individuals attempting to reinvigorate American democracy and promote more inclusive, transparent, and efficient government. From hyper-partisanship to disinformation, our democracy is under threat. These stories explore how communities across the country are responding to issues at the heart of our democracy through civic engagement, electoral and political reform, and government innovation.
Publisher and assistant editor of The Quoddy Times (a local paper out of Eastport, ME) Lora...
Solutions Journalism Network
By Jenn Rosen, Solutions Specialist
Voter suppression includes both legal and illegal methods of...
Solutions Journalism Network
Adapted from Marie von Hafften
Violent extremism refers to the beliefs and actions of people who...
Solutions Journalism Network
https://www.thecity.nyc/2021/1/21/22241444/nypd-officers-chokeholds-still-cant-breathe
Yoav Gonen
Topher Sanders
The City
21 January 2021
Text / Over 3000 Words
New York Police Department banned chokeholds in 1993, to prevent unnecessary injury and death. The practice has been scrutinized especially closely since the 2014 death of Eric Garner. But despite hundreds of complaints alleging the forbidden use of chokeholds, no NYPD officer has been fired for using a chokehold since 2014, nor have any complaints yielded more than some lost vacation time as a penalty. The failure of the policy stems from many causes, including ambiguity in the policy and its enforcement and lack of respect for investigative findings of the Civilian Complaint Review Board.
https://restofworld.org/2021/mexico-city-security-theater
Madeleine Wattenbarger
Rest of World
19 January 2021
Text / Over 3000 Words
Mexico City's 11-year-old video surveillance system, one of the most advanced in the world, was a massive investment in public safety: about $660 million to date to cover the city with more than 30,000 cameras and other devices. Like so much else in Mexico's law enforcement apparatus, it has done little to control crime but instead has become a tool of corruption and official impunity. While the cameras have helped keep tourists and elites safer, the vast majority of crimes go unreported and only a tiny number of police investigations benefit from the surveillance system.
https://www.nj.com/news/2021/01/newark-cops-with-reform-didnt-fire-a-single-shot-in-2020-moran.html
Tom Moran
NJ Advance Media
10 January 2021
Text / 800-1500 Words
In 2020, six years after the Justice Department imposed a series of reforms on the Newark Police Department, Newark police officers have reduced their use of force so much that they didn't fire their guns at all in 2020, nor did the city pay any brutality-lawsuit settlements. Reforms in training, including de-escalation tactics, all backed by supportive leadership and extensive community outreach, turned a "rogue department" of brutality and racism into a more trusted, effective force.
https://www.npr.org/2020/12/07/943938352/outside-in-everybody-knows-somebody
Laine Kaplan-Levenson
NPR
7 January 2021
Podcast / Over 15 Minutes
The story of the passage of the Violence Against Women Act starts with a young legal aide to Sen. Joe Biden who did not identify as a feminist and knew little about the issues, but whose methodical building of a coalition and a set of arguments led to the historic passage of the law in 1994. VAWA was the first U.S. federal law to address comprehensively the ancient problem of gender-based violence. A key provision, authorizing federal civil lawsuits by victims, helped many women for six years until the Supreme Court struck it down. The law's other effects, still ongoing, include funding victim-aid groups.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-06/the-swift-disruptive-rise-of-slow-streets?sref=EHcL0Cmk
Laura Bliss
CityLab
6 January 2021
Text / 1500-3000 Words
When city planners rushed early in the pandemic to close streets to automobile traffic in order to give residents a safe space to roam outdoors, they ended up learning lessons entirely apart from their original goals rooted in public health and traffic safety. In Durham, Atlanta, Los Angeles, and Oakland, community groups pushed back at the cities' initial failures to consider the opinions of communities of color whose neighborhoods were affected by the changes. The pushback led to collaborations and modified plans that redefined the problems at issue and the ways to address them.
https://www.thecity.nyc/2021/1/3/22211709/nypd-cops-brooklyn-brownsville-experiment-defund-police
Yoav Gonen
Eileen Grench
The City
3 January 2021
Text / 800-1500 Words
For 50 hours over five days, police and community members collaborated on the Brownsville Safety Alliance pilot project, which kept police officers away from a longtime crime hotspot so that community members could provide for police-free public safety. During the experiment, no one in the neighborhood called 911 to report a serious crime. Criminologists caution that the test does not prove that police can step away permanently. But residents say that after longstanding friction over policing, they and the police struck a new tone of cooperation in community-led crime prevention that they hope can continue.
https://www.autostraddle.com/a-year-of-intersex-victories
Mari Wrobi
Autostraddle
31 December 2020
Text / 1500-3000 Words
To promote the need to end intersex surgery, an organization launched a multi-pronged campaign that raised awareness about the potentially damaging impacts of the practice. The group used social media, created a petition, and held protests outside of a local hospital – all of which resulted in the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago issuing an apology and declaring that "they will no longer be performing intersex surgeries unless absolutely medically necessary moving forward." Throughout the world, similar awareness efforts have also garnered positive outcomes.
https://www.yesmagazine.org/democracy/2020/12/30/2020-election-youth-participation
Levi Pulkkinen
Yes! Magazine
30 December 2020
Text / 1500-3000 Words
A team of young people helped Kirsten Harris-Talley win a seat in the Washington state legislature. The 63 young people, ages 12 to 22, did more than the traditional behind the scenes work, like phone banking and door knocking. Rather, the young campaign workers participated in strategy meetings, ran the campaign’s Instagram account, and shaped the campaign’s climate justice and youth rights platforms. Ten of the young people were given paid fellowships and carried out responsibilities in all aspects of the campaign, such as voter engagement and fundraising.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/biden-plans-police-reform/2020/12/22/d4812c9c-3bcc-11eb-98c4-25dc9f4987e8_story.html
Robert Klemko
The Washington Post
29 December 2020
Text / 1500-3000 Words
After East Haven, Connecticut, police officers were caught harassing residents based on race, the Obama Justice Department took the police department to court and won a consent decree requiring a long list of reforms, in hiring, training, discipline, and use of force. The oversight, rare for a small city, changed the department's culture and won praise from many residents, who now trust the police more. Such federal action waned in the Trump years, but is expected to revive in the Biden administration, though perhaps under a more collaborative, less coercive model.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/dec/22/us-violated-asian-american-voting-rights-2020-despite-efforts-to-improve
Amy Yee
The Guardian
22 December 2020
Text / 800-1500 Words
Violations of the Voting Rights Act during primary and local elections led the city of Malden, where 23% of its 60,000 residents are of Asian descent, to provide voting materials and information - including mail-in ballots, voting instructions, official election websites, and precinct signs - in English and Chinese. The city also hired a trilingual city employee fluent in English, Cantonese, and Mandarin and collaborated with community advocacy groups on voter outreach and recruiting more bilingual poll workers. Advocates see Malden as a role model for other jurisdictions to remedy voter access issues.
https://www.kdnk.org/post/ranked-choice-voting-debuts-2020-basalt-mayoral-election
Kathleen Shannon
KDNK Community Radio
22 December 2020
Podcast / 5-15 Minutes
Ranked choice voting (RCV) lets voters select multiple candidates in order of preference. If no one gets a majority, there is a second round where the candidate with the fewest first choice votes is eliminated and the second choice on those ballots is counted. The process repeats until one candidate gets a majority. More elections use RCV, including Basalt ’s 2020 mayoral race where another RCV-experienced city shared public information materials and election judge training. RCV requires close attention to all ballots and campaigns are more civil because of the incentive to be a voter’s second choice.
https://www.noozhawk.com/article/report_on_santa_barbara_district_elections_goals_outcomes_20201216
Joshua Molina
Noozhawk
16 December 2020
Text / 1500-3000 Words
In 2014, activists enlisted the help of attorneys and filed a lawsuit against the city of Santa Barbara for violating the California Voting Rights Act by diluting Latino votes. To avoid a costly legal battle, the city agreed to switch to district-based elections where local officials are selected by the actual neighborhoods they will represent rather than the city at-large. These elections ensure neighborhoods will be represented by officials that have intimate knowledge of the area’s needs and have led to dramatic increases in the diversity of elected officials in terms of ethnicity, age and gender.
https://scalawagmagazine.org/2020/12/mississippi-florida-black-youth-vote
Iliana Hagenah
Scalawag
10 December 2020
Text / 1500-3000 Words
Civic engagement groups creatively encouraged young Black voters to vote. Mississippi Votes ran fellowships where local representatives educated young people on the political landscape of their state and used "geofencing," to share sample ballot links and precinct information on social media when users’ smartphones were within specific geographic locations. Engage Miami reached young people with "Get Out And Vote" TikTok videos, and partnering with social media influencers. In addition to registering thousands of new voters, both groups lent resources to youth voices in Black Lives Matters protests.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/how-boston-suburb-corrected-voter-rights-violations-against-asian-americans-n1250454
Amy Yee
NBC News
10 December 2020
Text / 800-1500 Words
Violations of the Voting Rights Act during primary and local elections led the city of Malden, where 23% of its 60,000 residents are of Asian descent, to provide voting materials and information, including mail-in ballots, voting instructions, official elections websites, and precinct signs, in English and Chinese. The city also hired a trilingual city employee fluent in English, Cantonese, and Mandarin and collaborated with community advocacy groups on voter outreach and recruiting more bilingual poll workers. Advocates see Malden as a role model for other jurisdictions to remedy voter access issues.
https://www.yesmagazine.org/social-justice/2020/12/09/portlands-protests-what-comes-next
Isabella Garcia
Yes! Magazine
9 December 2020
Text / 1500-3000 Words
Black Lives Matters protests have been sustained by an autonomously organized mutual aid network providing a range of services for protesters and community members. Requests for information and assistance are sent using encrypted communication. The groups provide medics, public protest art, legal and financial aid, and even mechanics to service protesters’ cars and a group that helps protesters replace glasses that were damaged or lost due to police encounters. The extensive mutual aid network enables flexibility to respond to a diverse set of changing needs, sustaining protests longer than in other cities.
https://bangordailynews.com/2020/12/09/mainefocus/a-secret-settlement-hid-an-officers-misconduct-outside-maine-it-would-have-been-different
Erin Rhoda
Bangor Daily News
9 December 2020
Text / 1500-3000 Words
A Colorado law enacted in 2016 requires law enforcement officers to disclose their past disciplinary records when seeking a new job at a different agency. By making such disclosures automatic, the law standardizes hiring practices statewide, protects past employers from liability for making the disclosures, and most importantly prevents rogue officers from hopping from one job to the next undetected. Maine has no such requirement., and so some of its agencies might unknowingly hire an officer with a record of misconduct.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2020/12/grassroots-push-to-save-disappearing-birds-bees-biodiversity-forces-change-in-germany
Bridget Huber
National Geographic
3 December 2020
Text / 1500-3000 Words
Environmental advocates got 1.75 million signatures to change Bavarian farming laws to protect biodiversity. The Save the Bees Campaign calls for using subsidies to nearly triple the amount of organic farming, creating a network of wildlife corridors, and other actions to protect bird and insect life. Initial results show that, since the law took effect, the share of organic farmland increased and thousands of more acres of forest have been protected. Farmers have also adjusted their view of productivity, including protecting nature as a way to be productive. Similar efforts are happening across Europe.
https://19thnews.org/2020/11/young-women-climate-activists-instagram-future-planet
Alexis Lanza
The 19th
25 November 2020
Text / 1500-3000 Words
A growing number of climate activists — mostly young women — are using social media to post about sustainability and encourage others to live a greener lifestyle. While climate activism can be a slow process, people are using Instagram to help make climate change feel more personal and energize followers to advocate for action at the local and national level.
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2020/1123/Soccer-star-leads-an-awakening-on-child-hunger-in-Britain
Shafi Musaddique
Christian Science Monitor
23 November 2020
Text / 800-1500 Words
The pandemic has highlighted the issue of child poverty in England leading to public indignation and the reversal of a government policy that sought to end free meals for children during summer vacation. Professional soccer player Marcus Rashford brought attention to child hunger across the United Kingdom. When the government was slow to provide food, businesses filled the need by sending meals to families facing food insecurity.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/20/it-gave-me-hope-in-democracy-how-french-citizens-are-embracing-people-power
Peter Yeung
The Guardian
20 November 2020
Text / 1500-3000 Words
Cities across France are using citizens’ assemblies, where a diverse group of citizens study important issues and make policy recommendations. In Paris, 150 citizens spent nine months working on the climate convention, which resulted in 149 recommendations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030. President Macron pledged more funding and accepted all but three of the proposals. The convention also showed how citizens’ assemblies improve community cohesion and reduce polarization. Ireland, the UK, and Belgium have also successfully used citizens' assemblies to address important social issues.
https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-joe-biden-flagstaff-arizona-voting-rights-fa452fbd546fa00535679d78ac40b890
Felicia Fonseca
Angeliki Kastanis
Associated Press
19 November 2020
Text / 800-1500 Words
Organizations across the political spectrum increased voter turnout on Arizona’s Native American reservations. The Biden campaign targeted outreach to specific groups, such as Native women and veterans, and held Covid-safe election-related events, such as a parade to the polls. The Trump campaign ran advertising on reservations and featured well-known Arizona Native American Republicans at political rallies. Turnout increased anywhere from 12-14% on the larger Navajo and Hopi reservations (over 17,000 votes) to over 50% on smaller reservations. These increases helped Biden win Arizona by about 10,500 votes.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/15/nyregion/ccrb-nyc-police-misconduct.html
Blacki Migliozzi
Ashley Southall
Ali Watkins
The New York Times
15 November 2020
Text / 1500-3000 Words
New York City established its Civilian Complaint Review board in 1993 to strengthen its police-discipline system, a response to complaints that police officers rarely were punished for harassment and brutality, especially in Black and brown neighborhoods. In 6,900 cases in which the board recommended the toughest punishment, however, police officials overruled it more than 70% of the time over the past two decades. The result is a disciplinary mechanism designed to instill trust but that instead "has become all but toothless" because of how it is structured and how police leaders responded to oversight.
https://southerlymag.org/2020/11/13/how-faith-leaders-organized-to-win-two-major-environmental-victories-in-louisiana
Sara Sneath
Carly Berlin
Southerly
13 November 2020
Text / 1500-3000 Words
Religious leaders in Louisiana successfully mobilized their communities to vote against a state amendment that would give manufacturers a tax break at the expense of local governments. The interfaith network of 250 religious organizations took on the role of educating their congregations and neighborhoods. Plans for a large plastics manufacturing plant have also been delayed due to the efforts of religious groups.
https://www.kalw.org/post/twitter-keeps-some-measures-it-says-slowed-election-misinformation
Shannon Bond
KALW
12 November 2020
Text / Under 800 Words
To reduce the spread of disinformation, Twitter labeled about 300,000 tweets with warnings that they contained "disputed and potentially misleading" information about the election between October 27 and November 11. The tweets were from removed from recommendation algorithms, extra steps were needed to reply to or share a tweet, and almost 500 had an additional warning that users had to click past to read. Twitter says it saw a 29% reduction in quoting the tweets that had the warnings and, while several election related changes will end, users will still have to quote tweets rather than simply retweeting.
https://www.yesmagazine.org/democracy/2020/11/12/brazil-women-political-candidates
Isabela Dias
Yes! Magazine
12 November 2020
Text / 1500-3000 Words
Collective, or shared, candidacies, where groups of candidates to run for a single elected position in Brazil, has helped elevate women and other marginalized groups with progressive platforms to rise to power. From 2016 and 2018, 22 of the 98 groups that ran were elected. In 2020, 41% of the joint candidacies were led by women. A national bill to formalize collective candidacies has stalled since 2017, so one member of the group is formally elected, and is the one to cast votes and give formal speeches, while the others are hired as advisers but still are empowered to write and propose bills.
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