Civic Minute

So if multi-member districts with proportional representation are such a good idea, why don’t we have them? Two reasons. For Congress, there’s a 1967 federal law that requires single-member districts. A bill called the Fair Representation Act has been introduced to repeal it. It would let states elect their representatives proportionally from larger, multi-member districts. […]

Here’s a question. If you live in a district where sixty percent of voters lean one way, what happens to the other forty percent? Under our current system — nothing. They lose every election. Their representative has no reason to listen to them. In district after district, a huge chunk of voters effectively has no […]

Something feels broken. You vote, but it doesn’t seem to matter. Your representative doesn’t listen to you. Elections feel like they’re decided before they start. And no matter who wins, nothing really changes. You’re not imagining it. The United States is one of the oldest democracies on earth. That’s something to be proud of. But […]

Did you know that half the states in the country have passed resolutions asking Congress to propose a constitutional amendment on election spending? Idaho became the twenty-fifth state in March. The list runs from Massachusetts to Montana, Oklahoma to California — red states, blue states, and everything in between. All asking the same thing: let […]

The redistricting war is over — and nobody won. Texas, North Carolina, and Missouri redrew their maps to favor Republicans. California and Virginia redrew theirs to favor Democrats. The net partisan result? Roughly a wash. But the country now has dozens more safe seats than it had a year ago. More districts where the outcome […]

In the last presidential election, ninety-four percent of all campaign events happened in just seven states. That means the vast majority of Americans were completely ignored. Whether you live in Texas, California, or forty-one other states — candidates had no reason to talk to you, listen to you, or fight for your vote. Now, Wisconsin […]

Here’s something that might surprise you. Across Wisconsin, fifty-six counties and dozens of municipalities have passed resolutions calling for nonpartisan redistricting. Thirty-two counties have put it to a countywide vote — and voters approved it by overwhelming margins every single time. This isn’t a close call. This isn’t a partisan issue — at least not […]

In 2022, under Wisconsin’s old gerrymandered maps, only four out of ninety-nine state Assembly races were decided by fewer than five points. Four. The other ninety-five? The outcome was basically known before the first vote was cast. Congress is even worse. Since those maps were drawn, the median margin of victory across Wisconsin’s eight congressional […]

You may have noticed something about gas prices. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, prices shot up almost overnight. But when oil markets settled back down, it took weeks — sometimes months — for prices at the pump to follow. Economists have a name for this. They call it "rockets and feathers." Here’s why. When […]