American Democracy Minute

The American Democracy Minute Radio News Report & Podcast for June 15, 2026 FBI Raids Ohio Group Promoting Voter Registration Seeking 2020 Evidence. Staff & Volunteers Questioned, Phones and Computers Seized. The FBI raided an Ohio civil rights group June 11th in an apparent effort to find evidence of fraudulent 2020 voter registration activity.   Pro-democracy leaders around the country h...

The American Democracy Minute Radio News Report & Podcast for June 12, 2026 Florida Supreme Court Allows Latest Gerrymandered Congressional Map, Again Ignoring the State Constitution’s Fair Maps Amendment Florida’s Supreme Court denied an emergency request by a pro-voter group June 10th to pause Governor Ron DeSantis’ congressional redistricting map. The gerrymandered map, likely flipping four...

The American Democracy Minute Radio News Report & Podcast for June 11, 2026 Convicted County Election Official & Election Denier Tina Peters Had Her Sentence Commuted. CO Gov. Jared Polis Censured His Action. Colorado Governor Jared Polis commuted the 9-year sentence for Mesa County clerk Tina Peters May 15th, leading to her release June 1st.  An unrepentant Peters immediately repeated her...

The American Democracy Minute Radio News Report & Podcast for June 10, 2026 What Could Go Wrong with Trump’s Mail-In Voting Executive Order and The USPS Plan to Implement It?  Bad Data, for One Thing. In our last report, we shared the U.S. Postal Service’s plans for implementing President Trump’s executive order for verifying the citizenship of mail-in voters.  The flawed data on which the pla...

The American Democracy Minute Radio News Report & Podcast for June 9, 2026 In Response to Executive Order Federalizing Mail-In Voting Rules, the U.S. Postal Service Proposes Rules to Verify Voter Eligibility Recently, a federal court allowed - for now - President Trump’s executive order governing mail-in ballots.  The US Postal Service has been tasked with implementing much of the order, and U...

The American Democracy Minute Radio News Report & Podcast for June 8, 2026 California Primary Mail-In Ballot Count Methodically Continues Amidst Trumped Up Fraud Accusations and U.S. DOJ Investigations It’s been a week since the California state primary, and election workers continue the methodical counting of mail-in ballots.  In a now familiar pattern, after President Donald Trump complained...

The American Democracy Minute Radio News Report & Podcast for June 5, 2026 Unsigned SCOTUS Alabama Order May Make Intentional Discrimination Even Harder to Prove and Allow States to Ignore the Purcell Principle We recently reported that the U.S. Supreme Court’s majority greenlighted Alabama’s return to its 2003 congressional district map, twice struck down by a lower court as intentionally dis...

The American Democracy Minute Radio News Report & Podcast for June 4, 2026 U.S. Supreme Court Majority Greenlights Alabama’s 2023 Congressional Map, After a Lower Court Panel Said - Again - It Intentionally Discriminated May 26th, a federal district court ruled for the second time that the State of Alabama’s 2023 congressional district map was intentionally discriminatory. It said “Our re-exam...

The American Democracy Minute Radio News Report & Podcast for June 3, 2026 Louisiana Legislature Eliminates One of Two Majority Black Congressional Districts, Flipping One to the GOP, After SCOTUS Callais Decision Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry signed a new congressional district map May 29th, eliminating one of two Black majority districts by adding nearby conservative White majority voters. ...

American Democracy Minute Radio News Report & Podcast for June 2, 2026 New Hampshire’s Proof of Citizenship Law Violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments as Undue Burden, Rules Federal District Judge  A federal judge ruled May 29th that New Hampshire’s 2024 proof of citizenship law intended to stop a microscopic noncitizen voting and voter fraud threat created a significant burden to eligib...

The American Democracy Minute Radio News Report & Podcast for June 1, 2026 Federal Court Allows Trump Order Federalizing Mail-In Voting Rules to Proceed Because Voters Haven’t Been Harmed – Yet Because no voters had yet been harmed, a federal district court allowed the Trump administration to proceed with President Donald Trump’s March 31 executive order federalizing mail-in voting rules. The...

The American Democracy Minute Radio News Report & Podcast for May 29, 2026 Federal Court Panel Rejects Alabama Congressional Map - Again - as Intentional Discrimination.  State Officials Appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. There’s another showdown between the courts and the State of Alabama over congressional district maps, and it’s likely headed - you guessed it - back to the U.S. Supreme Court...

The American Democracy Minute Radio News Report & Podcast for May 28, 2026 As Angry Voters Turned Out in Record Numbers for Early Voting, South Carolina Senate Decides to Abandon Trump-Pushed Redistricting Map The South Carolina Senate abandoned a plan May 26th to flip the state’s only liberal-leaning congressional district to conservatives.  A ticking clock, over a hundred proposed amendments...

The American Democracy Minute Radio News Report & Podcast for May 27, 2026 The Cost of Partisan Power:  Mid-Decade Redistricting and Delaying Congressional Primaries Will Cost the Taxpayers Big Money States conducting mid-decade redistricting racked up big bills for the special sessions, special elections, delayed congressional primaries, infrastructure changes, and extra labor.  And it’s taxp...

American Democracy Minute Radio News Report & Podcast for May 26, 2026 The Redistricting Arms Race was Fueled by Hundreds of Millions in Super PAC and 501C4 Money from Both Sides in Virginia and California The redistricting arms race fights in Virginia, California and elsewhere were fueled by hundreds of millions of dollars from Super PACs and hard-to-track dark money groups.   Contributions s...

The American Democracy Minute Radio News Report & Podcast for May 25, 2026 Ballrooms & Billion Dollar Slush Funds: For Memorial Day, Words from Legendary Campaign Finance Reformer, Doris “Granny D” Haddock In a Memorial Day tradition, we bring you an abridged portion of a speech at the U.S. Capitol by legendary campaign finance reformer Doris “Granny D” Haddock, the 90-year-old grandmother...

The American Democracy Minute Radio News Report & Podcast for May 22, 2026 South Carolina Legislators Advance Map Flipping the State’s Only Blue Seat, Likely Delaying the Congressional Primary at a Cost of $6 Million  South Carolina legislators advanced a new congressional redistricting map May 20th, after Governor Henry McMaster ordered a special session.  The map, which likely flips South Ca...

The American Democracy Minute Radio News Report & Podcast for May 21, 2026 Missouri SOS Still Scheming to Derail November Ballot Initiative to Overturn New Gerrymandered Congressional Map Splitting Kansas City Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins told the Associated Press last December he would do “Everything I can to protect Gov. Kehoe’s Missouri First Map,” UNQUOTE.  “Everything” appare...

The American Democracy Minute Radio News Report & Podcast for May 20, 2026 Could SCOTUS Have the ‘Private Right of Action’ In Their Sights?  The Court Returns Two Cases to Lower Courts for ‘Further Consideration’ May 18th, the U.S. Supreme Court returned two cases to lower courts which  challenge Voting Rights Act provisions allowing an individual to sue for violations, called a “private right...

The American Democracy Minute Radio News Report & Podcast for May 19, 2026 Amidst Caustic Anti-Democracy Bills Nationwide, Maryland Passes Positive Election Reforms, Including Its First Ranked Choice Voting Rules Overshadowed by the stream of caustic gerrymandering and voter suppression bills nationwide, Maryland Governor Wes Moore signed several pro-voter election bills May 12th.  One bill in...

The American Democracy Minute Radio News Report & Podcast for May 18, 2026 U.S. Supreme Court Rejects VA’s Hail Mary to Save Its Redistricting Referendum; First Challenge to Florida’s New Map Reaches Court The Hail Mary stay application by Virginia Democrats to save their congressional redistricting referendum was rejected by U.S. Supreme Court May 15th.  The same day, the first challenge to F...

American Democracy Minute Radio News Report & Podcast for May 15, 2026 Redistricting Firefight: SC Gov. Signals Special Session to Bypass Senate Vote; GA Gov. Calls Special Session for 2028 Maps; MD Senate May Reconsider Like a stubborn, arson-ignited wildfire, partisan gerrymandering keeps flaring up. South Carolina will apparently redistrict after all, after its governor signaled he would ca...

The American Democracy Minute Radio News Report & Podcast for May 14, 2026 SC Senate Derails Redistricting of Congressional Map; MO Supreme Court Finds Map Eliminating Majority Black Kansas City District is Constitutional In yet more redistricting news, the South Carolina Senate failed to reach a two-thirds vote to extend their session to redistrict the state’s congressional map. Missouri’s su...

The American Democracy Minute Radio News Report & Podcast for May 13, 2026 U.S. Supreme Court Stays Lower Court Order Directing Alabama to Create Another Majority-Black Voting District – An Order it Previously Upheld It took two trips to the U.S. Supreme Court to finally compel a second majority-Black congressional district in 2025, after a defiant Alabama legislature would not.  May 11th, the...

The American Democracy Minute Radio News Report & Podcast for May 12, 2026 Callais Decision Fallout as Louisiana, Tennessee, Alabama & South Carolina Scramble to Eliminate Black Congressional Districts We’re tracking the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Callais decision, sending GOP-dominated Louisiana, Tennessee, Alabama & South Carolina scrambling to eliminate their Black-majori...