American Democracy Minute

The American Democracy Minute Radio News Report & Podcast for July 21, 2025 Citing the Equal Protection Clause, Florida Supreme Court Allows Desantis Redistricting Plan to Wipe Out Black Majority Congressional District The Florida Supreme Court, citing the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution, upheld the racial gerrymandering of a North Florida congressional district, which elimina...

The American Democracy Minute Radio News Report & Podcast for July 18, 2025 Wisconsin Elections Commission Issues Report on 193 Uncounted Mail-In Ballots in Madison During the 2024 General Election The Wisconsin Elections Commission issued a highly critical report of the City of Madison’s former clerk July 17th, after investigating how 193 mail-in ballots were left uncounted after the 2024 gen...

The American Democracy Minute Radio News Report & Podcast for July 17, 2025 Rhode Island Enacts a Permanent Vote-by-Mail Application List, Joining 9 Other States Offering No Excuse Vote-by-Mail List Options Rhode Island has given access to a permanent vote-by-mail list to all voters, in a bill signed by Governor Dan McKee.   The state joins nine other states and DC allowing voters to join a pe...

The American Democracy Minute Radio News Report & Podcast for July 16, 2025 Local Election Officials Concerned by Trump Cuts to Election Security Funding and Personnel, According to New Survey The Brennan Center for Justice released its annual survey of local election officials.  It found continued concerns for threats, intimidation and violence against poll workers, and the loss of election s...

The American Democracy Minute Radio News Report & Podcast for June 13, 2025 Apparent Racial Gerrymandering in Tarrant County, TX Draws Condemnation and a VRA Lawsuit.  The County’s Reply?  It’s OK. It was for Political Reasons. Tarrant County, Texas county commissioners approved a new county redistricting map June 3rd diluting the votes of Black and Hispanic voters, but commissioners claim the...

Brian is gone for a couple of days.  This is an important rebroadcast of our May 5 report, but Justice Jackson made similar remarks at another conference last week, saying the "'State of our Democracy' keeps me up at night."   The American Democracy Minute Radio News Report & Podcast for July 14, 2025 Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson Warns Judges, ‘The threats and harassment are attacks on our de...

The American Democracy Minute Radio News Report & Podcast for July 11, 2025 Updates on Accountability for 2020 Election Fake Electors and Conspiracy Theorists - Or Not Five years after the fake elector scheme to overturn the 2020 election, legal accountability is grinding along for some of the conspirators and those who wittingly or unwittingly supported them.  But pardons may be in the wind,...

The American Democracy Minute Radio News Report & Podcast for July 10, 2025 The Federal Election Commission has a New Chair.  But It’s Still Paralyzed. Shana Broussard became chair of the Federal Election Commission July 1st.  Problem is, her bipartisan commission, hapless in the best of times, will still be paralyzed.  The agency is supposed to have six members, but has only three, so no enfo...

The American Democracy Minute Radio News Report & Podcast for July 9, 2025 Tale of Two States:  New Mexico Rolls Out Automatic Voter Registration while New Hampshire Mandates ID & Citizenship Docs for Absentee Voters New Mexico rolled out its automatic voter registration system July 1st, allowing citizens to conveniently register to vote or change residency information while at the DMV.  A...

The American Democracy Minute Radio News Report & Podcast for July 8, 2025 Voters Find Ranked Choice Voting Gives Them More Options, Eliminates Runoffs and is Easy to Use.  So Why Have 17 States Banned It? In a recent report, we told you that 96% of New York City voters found ranked choice voting easy to use and liked that it gave voters more options.  So why have 17 states banned ranked choic...

The American Democracy Minute Radio News Report & Podcast for July 7, 2025 Ranked Choice Voting Gets High Marks in NYC Primary, with 96% Finding it Easy to Use and 82% Ranking at Least 2 Candidates We reported recently on the use of ranked choice voting in New York City’s Democratic Primary. A survey found that 96% of Big Apple voters found it easy to use and 58% agreed that “Ranking allowed m...

The American Democracy Minute Radio News Report & Podcast for July 4, 2025 Thomas Jefferson Gets the Credit for the Declaration, but the ‘Independence’ Part Came from Richard Henry Lee on June 7, 1776 Thomas Jefferson is credited with most of the text of the Declaration of Independence.   But the “independence” part came from a Virginian named Richard Henry Lee on June 7th, 1776.  "Resolved: T...

The American Democracy Minute Radio News Report & Podcast for July 3, 2025 New ProPublica Reporting Suggests DHS Secretary Kristi Noem Failed to Disclose $80,000 Payment from a Dark Money Political Group to Her LLC ProPublica is reporting an alleged $80,000 disclosure omission by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in her federal executive branch disclosure form, an ethics vi...

The American Democracy Minute Radio News Report & Podcast for July 2, 2025 U.S. Supreme Court Takes Case Challenging Limits on Political Party Spending.   It Could Open Up Another Flood of Money into Campaigns. The U.S. Supreme Court decided in Buckley vs. Valeo and Citizens United that unlimited money spent for campaigns equaled free speech, and enabled the rise of Super PACs.  But it kept li...

The American Democracy Minute Radio News Report & Podcast for July 1, 2025 Bill Moyers, Journalist and Keen Observer of Democracy, Dies at 91 Distinguished television journalist Bill Moyers died June 26th at age 91.  In his long career, he earned 30 Emmy awards, served as President Lyndon Johnson’s press secretary, helped found public broadcasting, and was a stalwart voice for democracy and de...

The American Democracy Minute Radio News Report & Podcast for June 30, 2025 In Puzzling Move, U.S. Supreme Court Orders Additional Arguments in Louisiana Redistricting Case Pitting VRA Against Equal Protections Clause The U.S. Supreme Court was expected to announce an opinion June 27th in Louisiana v. Callais, one of the most important voting rights cases of the year. Instead, in a highly unus...

The American Democracy Minute Radio News Report & Podcast for June 27, 2025 Is Partisan Gerrymandering Unconstitutional Under South Carolina Law?  A Pro-Voter Challenge Takes the Legislature to Task. The U.S. Supreme Court said in 2019 that partisan gerrymandering was fundamentally a political issue, and left it to legislatures and state courts to decide.  In South Carolina, a state supreme co...

American Democracy Minute Radio News Report & Podcast for June 26, 2025 Start Spreading the News:  NYC Mayoral Primary Results, Queens Assembly Candidate Indicted & George Santos Reports to Jail in July It’s been a busy few weeks in New York City, as the Democratic nominee for November’s mayoral race was chosen, a recent Queens state assembly candidate is indicted for fraud, and disgraced...

American Democracy Minute Radio News Report & Podcast for June 25, 2025 Will Texas and Ohio Redraw Congressional Districts Before the 2026 Midterms? For most states, redistricting is a once-a-decade event, perhaps extended by some litigation.  For Ohio and Texas, redistricting may turn into an ongoing partisan battle as both states consider interim redistricting as the midterms approach.  Some...

American Democracy Minute Radio News Report & Podcast for June 24, 2025 In NYC’s June 24th Primary, 11 Dems Seek Nomination for Mayor.  Ranked Choice Voting & Matching Funds Helped Give Voters More Choice. Tuesday, June 24th is the New York City primary, with 11 Democrats vying to become their party’s nominee for mayor. The election also features two major democracy reforms:  Ranked choice...

The American Democracy Minute Radio News Report & Podcast for June 23, 2025 New Report Outlines Ways States and Municipalities Can Protect Elections from Certification Challenges by Rogue Local Officials In the run-up to the 2024 election, we reported on the organized GOP efforts to challenge the certification of elections, laying the groundwork for sowing doubt and disrupting the outcome.  A...

The A merican Democracy Minute Radio News Report & Podcast for June 20, 2025 Restrictive State Voter ID & Proof of Citizenship Bills Near the Finish Line, But Not All Have Passed Voting Rights Lab reports there were 59 state bills introduced on proof of citizenship for voter registration this year, and 160 bills concerning voter ID.  A handful have made it near the finish line, including i...

The American Democracy Minute Radio News Report & Podcast for June 19, 2025 Once Again, the North Carolina Legislature Finds Itself in Court for Racial Gerrymandering The North Carolina legislature once again finds itself in federal court for two racial gerrymandering cases in a trial beginning June 16th.  Voters and three pro-voter groups accuse GOP leaders of violating the 14th and 15th Amen...

The American Democracy Minute Radio News Report & Podcast for June 18, 2025 ‘No Kings’ Rally Organizers Estimate More than 5 Million Protesters Gathered at More Than 2,000 Locations Organizers estimate more than 5 million Americans attended the more than 2,000 “No Kings” rallies around the U.S. on June 14th.  It’s likely to be in the top five mass protests of all time. Some podcasting platform...

The American Democracy Minute Radio News Report & Podcast for June 17, 2025 U.S. DOJ Demands State of Colorado Turn Over Massive Number of 2024 Election Records. It Could be an Attempt to Prove Conspiracy Theories. May 12th, the U.S. Department of Justice reportedly requested ALL the State of Colorado’s records relating to the 2024 federal election, and the preservation of records related to t...