Voters Want Action — Here’s the Plan

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We all are still absorbing the magnitude of last week’s election. In its scope, its geography, its generational implications, and more, it may mark the start of a new era in American politics.  

That’s far from certain. This century, voters routinely fire the party in control of Congress or the White House. Maybe this was just another poke at the powers that be. But there are reasons to think something more is happening, something big.  

Voter turnout was the second highest in a midterm since 1914. It was especially high among voters of color in the very places where the Supreme Court has demolished the Voting Rights Act. We saw a backlash of epic proportions against a radical Court and its politicized agenda. You can read an early analysis by our researchers and watch a briefing we held yesterday. 

Voters had a message for those in power. According to exit polls, corruption in government was a top issue. That echoes earlier polls by Fox News, Financial Times, and the Brennan Center. Voters connected a broken political system to their own economic distress. Candidates eventually caught up. Notably, voters did not think one party was better than the other on this score. 

With all this, Democrats did not earn a mandate. They got an opportunity. 

Affordability and accountability — those were the watchwords. No doubt, investigations will be vital to expose Trump administration wrongdoing. But voters will insist on seeing action.   

The Brennan Center this year has published a series of bold reforms that could change government, make it work better, and produce fairer and more equal results for Americans. Solutions for a Stronger Democracy draws on the expertise of dozens of our colleagues. Vox called it “a comprehensive plan for democracy reform,” part of a wider effort to rethink government. 

We started with solutions to address corruption. Congress can pass strong measures to end pay-to-play government. Here’s one idea, which I wrote about in The New York Times last weekend: a real ban on political contributions by government contractors, who receive $1 trillion from taxpayers every year. Such a ban is already on the books, but it is more loophole than law.  

The proposed ban would apply to trillionaire Elon Musk, who spent nearly half a billion dollars in this election.  

Congress can also end dark money in elections by requiring disclosure, create a tough new anticorruption agency, and send to the states a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United and other misguided Supreme Court rulings. 

Then there’s the Supreme Court itself. It did not directly intervene to help President Trump undermine the election, but the entire contest was fought on terrain tilted by the justices’ earlier actions on issues from voting to district lines to money in politics. It has vast power and minimal accountability.  

An 18-year term limit, with presidents able to nominate one new member every two years, would bring accountability to the Court. So would an enforceable ethics code applied to justices, now the only judges in the country without such meaningful rules.  

And voters wanted to curb abuse of power by an overweening executive. Seven in ten thought Congress was not doing enough to provide checks and balances. And they’re right! Lawmakers can start by reforming the Insurrection Act and by pursuing the bipartisan effort to reform the National Emergencies Act.  

Finally, only Congress can provide national responses to the assault on voting rights and fair representation. That attack is not over: Trump, after accepting the results, once again has begun to claim fraud (though his heart doesn’t seem to be in it). States run elections, but Congress has a vital national role to play in setting baseline standards that apply everywhere. 

Here’s one proposal: a new federal law giving every eligible citizen the right to vote and the ability to go to court to protect that right against discrimination. Believe it or not, no such law exists right now.  

And Congress can act to ensure fair electoral maps. Gerrymandering robs voters of choice, diminishes competition, and heightens polarization. Redistricting wars will likely continue every year into the future if nothing is done. The Constitution gives Congress the power to ban partisan gerrymandering everywhere, in Republican- and Democratic-dominated states alike. And it can bar mid-decade redistricting.  

Anticorruption measures. Supreme Court reform. Curbs on abuse of executive power. Voting rights laws. A ban on partisan gerrymandering. And much more, including reforms to strengthen Congress, all in our Solutions for a Stronger Democracy series. 

This agenda would ensure a government that works better for all Americans. It would break the lock that big money interests have on politics. It would make it possible to address affordability, health care, and more. It is a supermajority agenda. Each of these changes has broad public support across voters from all parties and no party. 

Candidates talk about change and reform on the trail. In the marbled halls of power, though, they too easily forget. Consultants whisper these are not “kitchen table issues.” But voters made clear they understand political economy better than the professionals.  

Newly elected incumbents might wonder: Maybe we don’t need to do these things. After all, buckets of money could not rescue Republicans from voter wrath. Voters of color went to the polls. Devious gerrymanders driven by political operatives often backfired.  

But if this had been anything less than a historic tsunami election — if it had been a typical wave election, let alone a regular old tight race — these factors would have been decisive.  

Sweeping reform will not happen immediately. Trump, diminished and dispirited as he may be, still holds a veto pen. Until senators address the filibuster, it may be hard to enact many of these plans. But this reform agenda can take root in the coming months. It can help shape the presidential race, too, where candidates are not tied to congressional rules and foibles. History teaches that a committed chief executive can drive change. 

There is a rhythm of reform throughout American history. After scandal and abuse can come change — not always, but that’s when it happens.  

For months we’ve pointed out that this happened after Watergate and Vietnam. Now the voters have cast their ballots with a decisiveness not seen since the 1974 election. The “Watergate babies” elected to Congress that year changed the rules of politics. They did so, we now see in retrospect, in a way that untethered institutional reform from economic protections for working Americans. Today’s political leaders can avoid that mistake. 

We can learn from history. As voters reminded us in November, we can do more than that: We can make history.