Progress Builds on Itself

While modest improvements in the functioning of our democracy and governments will not be nearly enough to do what we need our governments to do - tackle urgent problems on a large scale while seizing the opportunities opened by rapid change – we must nevertheless start with modest improvements. If we keep at it, they will reinforce each other and add up to the big change we need. We could call this the synergy of solutions.

The good news is that marginal improvements will often increase our ability to make related improvements. Better civics education in a community’s schools, for example, can improve the likelihood of electing better local representatives, and that in turn can improve the prospects for more transparency and accountability in the governments they lead.

Real Progress is Being Made Right Now

As you will see from the "Details & Resources >>" links in the Elements of an Ambitious Program section below, there are strong organizations and smart dedicated people working in many of the areas of change we need, and solutions are being developed on many fronts.

Progress is being made in promoting an increase in the cooperative attitudes and practices needed to improve our democratic functioning. A massive democracy reform movement is building all over the country, and better policies hold the promise of expanding the base of support for a reinvigorated pro-democracy politics.

Elements of an Ambitious Program to Strengthen Democracy

This article will focus on a comprehensive overview of what elements should be included in an ambitious program to improve our democracy. Other articles in this series will deal with closely related aspects of our challenge. These include our stake in strengthening democracy, how our democracy falls short of the strength and effectiveness we need, how citizens can engage the challenge, and how you can choose the specific ways to engage that will work best for you.

A strategy to create a stronger and more effective democracy and improve the government it creates must have many parts, steps, projects, and goals. A robust listing follows. Please note, however, that the list below is intended as a "living list." It is neither complete nor perfect. Additional explanation and explanatory resources are added throughout in the form of "Details & Resources >>" linked pages. These will be expanded and improved over time.

Before you go on, note also that most readers will find this list eye-glazing. It is included now to give readers an idea of where this article is headed. The lists below will be replaced by much more reader-friendly text. In the meantime, the best approach for most readers will be to skim the lists which follow and slow down to read more carefully only the sections of particular interest to you.

Ensure free and fair elections and that all votes count equally:

• Guarantee universal voting rights and restore all federal civil rights protections.

• Prioritize efforts to increase youth and minority voting.

• Increase the number of polling places in underserved low-income and minority neighborhoods. Establish mobile polling stations in remote areas.

• Make registration and voting easier with automatic voter registration and portable registration, allowing voters to retain their registration status when moving within the state.

• Remove barriers to the disabled, impoverished, homeless, and those lacking transportation to ensure universal access.

• Provide early voting and vote-by-mail options to ensure everyone has practical voting options that will work for them.

• Counteract voter suppression measures, both in intent and in law.

• Restore voting rights to former felons once they have completed their sentences.

• Grant the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and other US territories statehood so they can have voting representation in Congress.

• Provide multilingual ballots and voter instructions.

• Offer comprehensive multilingual voter education on registration, voting options, rights, and reporting rights violations.

• Ensure that poll workers receive training to prevent inadvertent denial of voting rights as well as to prevent voter intimidation.

• Eliminate gerrymandering by implementing a nonpartisan redistricting process free from incumbent manipulation so that redistricting is done fairly and ensures that all voters have an equal influence on outcomes. Details & Resources >>

• Rotate which states go first in presidential primaries to prevent states from competing for early influence.

• Allow independent voters to participate in party primaries.

• Consider alternative voting systems, such as ranked choice voting, to ensure a more representative outcome.

• Enhance the practical mechanisms of the voting infrastructure, including strengthening cybersecurity measures to protect voter databases and voting machines, upgrading voting machines to provide paper backup records for verification, and implementing backup systems to counter power outages or system failures on election day.

• Provide post-election audits to guarantee the integrity and accuracy of the vote count.

• Implement transparent vote counting processes, allowing representatives from different parties and independent observers to monitor the process.

• Enforce laws prohibiting voter intimidation or any form of coercion, including by partisan "election observers."

• Improve safeguards against foreign election meddling.

• Increase voter registration and turnout. Even if voters aren't always well-informed, the act of voting bolsters hope and combats cynicism and apathy. Details & Resources >>

• Require that voter registration databases be updated and maintained accurately.

• Prevent the purging of voters from rolls without thorough and rigorous notification and ensure a transparent re-enrollment process.

• Details & Resources >> More >>

End, reduce, or work around constitutional but anti-democratic voting power inequalities:

• Reduce or work around the undemocratic structure of the Senate.

• Change Senate rules and procedures to improve the relative influence of the larger states on legislation.

• Prioritize large states for committee assignments and committee leadership roles effecting the broadest national interests (budget, foreign affairs, etc.)

• Grant statehood to Puerto Rico. Details & Resources >>

• Grant statehood to Washington, DC. Details & Resources >>

• Expand the House of Representatives. Details & Resources >>

• Fight voter suppression and promote voter turnout in the big cities in swing states.

• Abolish or work around the Electoral College. Details & Resources >>

• Support the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.

Enhance the power of majority interests and desires to shape decisions about government policies, programs, budgets, laws, and regulations:

• Reduce the disproportionate power of elite interests and corporations in influencing who is elected to write laws and regulations and then in influencing how those laws and regulations are interpreted and implemented.

• Limit contributions from corporations, wealthy elites, and special interests.

• Impose more stringent transparency requirements, including real-time disclosure, for political donations and advertising at all levels of government.

• Create and enforce clear disclosure requirements for issue advertising, ensuring that funding sources are transparent and easily accessible to the public. Stop allowing interest groups to hide behind generic and misleading names like 'Citizens for Apple Pie'.

• Provide incentives for small donations, and consider partial public funding of campaigns, particularly as matching funds for small donations.

• Mandate the release of tax returns for all candidates seeking federal and state offices.

• Protect local, state, and national level activists from retaliation and persecution by governments or by other stakeholders.

• Strengthen ethics committees in Congress. state legislatures, and local governments.

• Implement stricter lobbying rules for Congress, state legislatures, and local governments, including mandatory "cooling-off" periods before ex-legislators can lobby former colleagues.

• Mandate full disclosure of any financial interest lobbyists may have in the issues on which they are lobbying.

• Reform federal House and Senate procedural rules, and related state and local government rules, to foster and enable more bipartisan compromise. Changes should include limiting the filibuster and reforming closure rules so that all perspectives can be considered.

• Reduce the unilateral authority of Congressional committee chairs to indefinitely stall or block legislation. Make similar changes to state and local government rules.

• Eliminate the power of individual Senators to unilaterally place indefinite "holds" on executive and judicial appointments. Make similar changes to state and local government rules to prevent individual officials from exercising undue power.

• Strengthen limits on Presidential power and privilege to ensure the maintenance of effective checks and balances. Make similar changes, as needed, to the powers of state governors, county executives, mayors, and related administrative officers.

• Increase devolution of power from federal to state to local governments and invest in capacity-building measures to strengthen state and local decision-making capabilities.

• Improve inter-governmental communication methods to strengthen coordination between different branches and levels of government.

• Prevent the excessive concentration of political or economic power by any interest or group.

• Empower community and majority-driven initiatives at the local and state levels by enabling or expanding mechanisms for direct democracy (where citizens can initiate and vote on policy matters or overrule decisions by legislative bodies). Include provisions to guard against these mechanisms being hijacked by special interests, which sometimes happens today.

• Increase citizen avenues of influence by utilizing citizen panels or committees to recommend policies and programs, by greater citizen participation in budgeting, and by increasing the availability of government data for public review and comment.

• Strengthen conflict of interest disclosure requirements for elected and appointed officials.

• Increase the accountability and transparency of government officials, agencies, and decisions.

• Details & Resources >> More >> More >>

Reducing polarization, vilification & extremism while increasing cooperation and compromise:

• Facilitate dialogues that bridge divides on polarized issues and promote unity, compromise, and cooperation.

• Reduce incentives for media outlets to amplify and sensationalize conflicts and divisive narratives. Incentives arise from growing audience share and ensuing ad revenue, so reducing incentives could come from advertiser pressure, negative subscriber feedback, or in the case of broadcast media, from licensing provisions and requirements.

• Hold media outlets accountable for providing platforms to extremist ideologies and giving voice to vilification and hatred. Media criticism and documentation of bad behavior can feed into applying the same pressures just mentioned above.

• Introduce and strengthen incentives for media outlets to prioritize coverage of collaborative and constructive initiatives. Positive incentives can be created by public praise, awards from community organizations, sponsorship of positive content from public-minded advertisers, positive public comment submitted in the licensing process, and similar rewards.

• Advocate for limiting the use of algorithms that exploit and amplify divisive and confrontational content. Pressure could be created by requiring the transparency of algorithms and then publicizing the consequences in terms of rising polarization and hostility.

• Conduct educational campaigns about the importance of democratic values such as pluralism, coexistence, and the acceptance of diversity.

• Promote election reforms, including open primaries and ranked-choice voting, that reduce the incentives for polarization.

• Shift the political and media narrative from confrontation to cooperation when addressing difficult problems.

• Promote understanding of the value, virtue, and benefits of compromise.

• Actively encourage increased cooperation, especially at grassroots and community levels.

• Develop and implement trust-building measures and processes, both across partisan divides and between citizens and government agencies.

• Promote the redress of historical grievances to foster trust, reward cooperation, and reduce polarization.

• Greatly reduce the display of arrogance and condescension by high-profile elites, by partisan influencers on social media, and by powerful officials, all directed toward the "uneducated" and the relatively powerless. Arrogance is identifiable by the angry response of those on the receiving end. Replace arrogance and condescension with humility, respect, and restraint in the exercise of power. Success would be seen in the reduction of hostility from those previously insulted and aggrieved. In addition, public discussion in a community panel or commission (carefully balanced to reflect diverse perspectives) could reduce confusion and increase clarity for all concerned. It could also serve as a venue to heal bruised feelings and reduce the recurrence of divisive and hostility-producing commentary.

• Details & Resources >>

Build up a better-informed electorate:

• Reinvigorate civics and history education in schools across all grade levels. Details & Resources >>

• Ensure civics and history education are an ongoing part of the curriculum, not one-time courses. Integrate them with other disciplines.

• Support youth mock elections and debates.

• Incorporate current events education into curricula at all educational levels.

• Organize community-based civics workshops.

• Offer civics courses in colleges and universities. Make them required content for economics, sociology, and political science.

• Disseminate basic civics and history knowledge through the media.

• Utilize visual and auditory media, such as documentaries and podcasts, to make civics and history education engaging for all. Seek partnerships with local public radio and television stations as well as high school and college journalism programs, and explore use of content from PBS, NPR, and others. Explore funding from community foundations or service clubs.

• Identify local policy issues and promote understanding of policy options. A local committee could be engaged to identify issues of local interest.

• Encourage governments to create online user-friendly access to information about policy, program, regulatory, and budget decisions. Many local governments are already doing some of this, and League of Women Voters chapters, service clubs, or college political science or urban planning departments could be enlisted to suggest improvements. Local governments could form a citizen advisory commission to suggest what improvements would be most useful.

• Improve media performance in election coverage, moving from focusing on the "horse race" to giving attention to policies and issues. Details & Resources >>

• Establish and promote higher journalistic standards, starting in journalism schools.

• Strengthen public broadcasting, especially for local news.

• Develop additional funding for local news – from donations, community foundation grants, and subscription drives linked to increases in local coverage.

• Encourage collaborative local news coverage. Local newspapers, radio stations, TV stations, and websites would work together to develop content for use by all. Collaboration would be an opportunity to showcase "civic mindedness" without breaking their limited budgets.

• Provide community journalism training through community colleges and adult education.

• Resist efforts by local interests to suppress investigative news. Use suppression efforts as an opportunity to amplify stories.

• Protect journalists and outlets from retaliation for exposing wrongdoing.

• Support anti-monopoly enforcement to reverse media consolidation.

• Combat misinformation by increasing media and online fact-checking. Utilize existing syndicated fact checking stories.

• Educate the public about how to recognize news bias and misinformation. Websites focusing on this could be publicized, and the local media could republish national stories on recognizing misinformation.

• Impose election information requirements on broadcast media as a licensing condition. Require that candidates have opportunities to explain their positions in depth without charge.

• Protect press freedom whenever and wherever it is threatened.

• Work to strengthen freedom of information laws at all levels of government. Use model codes as a starting point.

• Advocate for transparency of online news feed algorithms that distort and polarize public opinion. Promote best practices.

Create a more effective and efficient government:

• Establish metrics to measure performance and report regularly on the efficiency and effectiveness of governmental administration at all levels.

• Standardize metrics and reporting when it facilitates better decision making.

• Benchmark against best practices. Compare performance against the most effective and efficient programs in other agencies.

• Invest in upgrading to newer and better technologies and equipment to improve performance.

• Use online and digital technologies, as well as artificial intelligence, to make administrative and legislative processes more efficient and transparent.

• Engage the private sector, and citizens and customers generally, to help identify and assist in implementing performance improvements.

• Promote policy-making that uses data and evidence to determine what is working and what is not and increase the flexibility of governments to make changes in laws, programs, policies, and regulations as evidence and facts indicate.

• Periodic review of laws, policies, and regulations to change with changes in society. Involve citizens in this process.

• Reward efficiency. Stop cutting budgets when managers find efficiencies. Instead, let them reinvest savings in improvements.

• Ensure transparency and accountability in governmental administration and in regulation development and enforcement. Details & Resources >>

• Improve the rationality, efficiency, and accountability of regulation development and enforcement to reduce current extensive waste and delays for citizens and businesses. Details & Resources >>

• Simplify and streamline regulatory compliance reporting to minimize imposed costs.

• Identify departments and programs with overlapping functions and reward collaboration and consolidation to reduce wasteful duplication.

• Identify departments and programs that interface, handing off naturally related or sequential responsibilities. Reduce wasteful delays and bottlenecks in these handoffs.

• Expand cross-training of personnel, improving utilization of employees and increasing resiliency when emergencies, disruptions, staff shortages, or sudden changes in workload occur.

• Improve procurement processes to achieve bulk-buying savings, reduce duplicative buying steps, and guard against corruption and conflicts of interest.

• Reduce bureaucratic overhead with more flexible project management, design-build methods, and better use of customer feedback (both internal and external customers).

• Conduct regular audits of government agencies at all levels of government.

• Strengthen whistleblower protections.

• Strengthen watchdog organizations that monitor governments.

• Pass and enforce stricter laws and better enforcement against public corruption.

• Ensure transparency in investigations of political misconduct.

• Strengthen Freedom of Information Act and related transparency requirements.

• Protect and advance local governments’ right to make decisions that benefit their communities. Oppose state level preemptive legislation lacking a compelling rationale.

Ensure equal economic opportunity for all individuals and groups:

• Recognize that improving the prospects of those left out and left behind by economic change is crucial to sustaining support for democracy.

• Support geographically targeted industrial policies promoting job creation for "left behind" areas and populations, including the rust belt, rural and southern communities, and inner cities.

• Support other targeted programs to expand good job opportunities and otherwise lift the economic prospects of the poorest half of America, who today experience significant economic hardship. These populations deserve a "new deal," a "Marshall Plan for the left behind."

• Ensure that rural and underserved areas have access to high-speed internet. This provides expanded access online education and job opportunities.

• Invest in schools in underserved areas and offer vocational and skill training programs to prepare students for a range of job opportunities.

• Develop rural-specific business development programs, such as investing in agriculture related businesses or rural tourism, to generate better jobs in less urbanized areas.

• Establish programs that offer education and skill-building throughout an individual’s life, ensuring they can adapt to a changing economic landscape.

• Establish programs where experienced professionals mentor less-experienced individuals by transferring knowledge and expanding networks to include them.

• Provide subsidies or tax credits for childcare, enabling parents to work or pursue job training and education to prepare them for better jobs.

• Offer economic support and resources for single parents, allowing them to go after better and more secure jobs.

• Encourage business to expand inclusive hiring practices that increase opportunities for groups disadvantaged by race, gender, age, or disability discrimination.

• Expand programs that focus on the rehabilitation and economic integration of former convicts. This provides job opportunities to individuals that often struggle to secure decent jobs.

• Partner with employers to create apprenticeship and internship opportunities, providing hands-on experience and skill development to improve employment opportunities.

• Encourage collaboration between local governments and businesses in the community to create community-specific economic opportunities.

• Act as the employer of last resort to ensure everyone has a job.

• Internalize external costs (costs not captured in the price charged to buyers) so that markets do not continue to impose costs on those not receiving the related products or services. Such costs often hit the poorest the hardest. This would also produce new revenues which could be used to support job creation.

• Prevent monopoly, reverse the growth of market and price setting power, reduce and reverse corporate consolidation, and reduce corporate and elite dominance in economic and taxation policymaking. Details & Resources >>

• Update and enforce stronger regulations to prevent predatory lending and related practices that harm economically vulnerable individuals.

• Provide small loans to individuals who might not have access to traditional banking or loans, especially for entrepreneurial endeavors.

• Support local banks and credit unions that invest directly back into their communities.

• Modify corporate charter laws to increase responsibility (and reporting) to all stakeholders instead of only to stockholders.

• Strengthen watchdog groups that monitor corporate actions.

• Require equal pay for equal work – for women, for minorities, for younger workers.

• Protect workers' rights and the right to unionize.

• Secure protections, benefits, and support for gig and freelance workers, similar to those available through traditional employment.

• Ensure more support and better wages for care work, such as childcare, eldercare, and care for disabled individuals.

• Offer programs that help workers transition from shrinking or dying employers by learning new skills needed in a changing economy.

• Protect our economy and affordable food by protecting limited supplies of vital but non-renewable natural resources, such as deep aquifers.

• Change immigration laws to allow migrants to work while they wait for the completion of legal processes.

• Engage community residents directly in identifying and seizing economic development opportunities.

• Shift government budgets to allocate resources where they are most needed and will produce the greatest benefit rather than further advantaging already well-off areas.

• Support tax reform to tax the rich fairly, so that the wealthy do not pay lower taxes than their "domestic help." These new revenues could pay for many of the job and opportunity creation efforts described above.

Enhance government’s capacity and performance in protecting public health and safety:

• Establish, in both politics and law, that a clean, healthy, ecologically intact natural environment is a fundamental human right.

• Establish, in both politics and law, that a clean, healthy, ecologically intact natural environment is a fundamental human right.

• Plan for community environmental protection and environmental restoration with robust citizen participation across the political spectrum.

• Present community environmental and sustainable economy programs as serving the value of intergenerational equity.

• Neighborhood level citizen groups should be established and guided in crime prevention, fire prevention, disaster preparedness, and disaster response.

• Communities should be supported in preparing defenses (hardening structures and infrastructure) against fires, flooding, wind, and other dangers.

• Communities and citizens should plan for how they will restore communities after disasters. Tailor plans to address the specific needs and vulnerabilities of a community.

• In areas prone to wildfires, work with local authorities to clear brush, create firebreaks, and educate residents about fire-resistant landscaping.

• Governments should provide public insurance options as a last resort for homeowners, businesses, and individual health.

• Building codes should be updated.

• Flood and soils maps should be updated so residents understand their risks.

• Structure retrofitting should be supported or required.

• Assist neighborhoods in forming community watch groups to deter crime and report suspicious activities.

• Foster better relationships between the police force and the community by having officers engage in regular foot patrols, attend community meetings, and collaborate on local initiatives.

• Provide police ongoing training in areas such as de-escalation techniques, mental health response, cultural sensitivity, and implicit bias awareness.

• Establish community police liaisons who understand and work closely with disadvantaged communities.

• Establish recreation centers, sports leagues, and after-school programs to provide safe spaces for youth.

• Develop and maintain safe walking and biking paths, and crossings for students traveling to and from school.

• Offer seminars or workshops on personal safety and house hardening against crime.

• Offer alternatives to incarceration for minor offenses, focusing on rehabilitation and community restoration.

• Establish and promote resources for addiction recovery. Offer prevention programs targeting at-risk populations.

• Fraud protection programs should be expanded. Identity theft, credit card theft, and stealing passwords are all ongoing threats. Advanced AI enabled fraud is becoming a bigger threat. Local law enforcement should step up with fraud resistance training and enforcement services, and state and federal agencies need to work harder to root out and prosecute such crimes.

• Strengthen and enforce laws against shoplifting, graffiti, tagging, littering, and other “minor” crimes.

• Provide homeless shelters and enforce laws against camping on public property.

• Establish and enforce laws against aggressive panhandling and panhandling at the entrances to stores or public facilities.

• Strengthen and enforce reckless driving and red-light running laws.

• Enforce laws against driving under the influence of any intoxicants.

• Recognize the role of mental health in public safety by providing resources, community-based counseling and support groups, and crisis intervention services.

• Partner with organizations to provide accessible mental health counseling and resources at local community centers.

• Have police work with mental health professionals on calls where mental illness may be a factor, ensuring a safer and more empathetic response.

• Collaborate with schools, businesses, and community organizations to increase mental health awareness.

• Ensure that mental health services are affordable and easily accessible.

• Develop and maintain parks, playgrounds, and community centers in disadvantaged areas, offering safe spaces for recreation and community gatherings.

• Engage leaders or representatives from disadvantaged communities in decision-making processes to ensure that their specific needs and concerns are addressed.

• Offer free legal clinics or partnerships with organizations that can advise on issues like housing rights, workplace discrimination, and access to social services.

• Establish initiatives like community gardens, nutrition workshops, or subsidized farmers' markets to provide access to nutritious food.

• Recognize and address disparities in health outcomes within the community, targeting interventions to at-risk populations.

• Establish mobile health units or pop-up clinics to reach remote or underserved areas or transient groups, ensuring that no community is left behind.

• Actively reach out to groups that face barriers to health care access, such as the homeless, immigrants, or those with disabilities. Design campaigns that address the unique challenges faced by disadvantaged populations.

• Offer free or affordable health screenings for conditions like high blood pressure, diabetes, and certain cancers in community centers or mobile units.

• Offer community center and adult ed classes on nutrition, exercise, mental health, substance abuse, and sexual health.

• Collaborate with educational institutions to offer health programs, vaccinations, and mental health support for students.

• Foster trust and ensure that services are aligned with community needs by creating platforms where residents can provide feedback, express concerns, or ask health-related questions.

• Address issues like pollution or contaminated water sources that often disproportionately affect disadvantaged areas. Ensure clean and safe environments for these communities.

• Details & Resources >>

Provide more and better opportunities for civic and community engagement and participation:

• Increase opportunities for local participation and direction setting.

• Establish or support youth councils that allow young people to advise local government on issues affecting them.

• Allocate funds for grassroots initiatives aimed at enhancing community and civic engagement.

• Offer programs explaining how local government operates, making it easier for citizens to engage and participate.

• Develop outreach initiatives focused on engaging disadvantaged communities in civic activities.

• Identify and support individuals from within disadvantaged groups who can act as leaders in encouraging participation.

• Organize focus group discussions within disengaged communities to understand the reasons behind their disengagement and tailor strategies accordingly.

• Establish resource centers in disadvantaged neighborhoods that provide information on voting, local government, and available resources. These centers can also host workshops and community meetings.

• Implement educational programs in underprivileged schools and community centers that emphasize the importance and benefits of civic engagement.

• Create civic mentorship programs where experienced civic leaders can mentor young people in the skills of civic leadership.

• Improve the quality of those serving on boards & commissions.

• Hold annual awards to recognize individuals and organizations that have made significant contributions to enhancing community and civic engagement.

• Promote freedom of assembly. Provide free public spaces for meetings to discuss and debate public policies and programs. Provide digital “spaces” for the same purpose.

• Strengthen local grassroots organizations, particularly voting activist groups, pro-democracy activist groups, and low-income and minority neighborhood organizations.

• Facilitate formation of neighborhood organizations where residents come together to discuss and plan community projects.

• Create incentives and give recognition for volunteering in local community projects.

• Provide more opportunities (including digital tracking and input mechanisms) for the public to weigh in on legislation (and local decision making) as it is being developed.

• Offer programs focused on improving digital skills in disadvantaged communities, ensuring they can utilize digital platforms for civic participation.

• Increase opportunities for citizens to voice their desires and discontents, especially where they want to see government performance improved.

• Proactively solicit public input on new policy proposals.

• Instead of expecting marginalized communities to come to public forums, take the forums to their doorsteps by organizing small group discussions and feedback sessions.

• Improve opportunities for public input on government budgets.

• Increase town halls and public meetings with elected officials.

• Offer free childcare during town halls and on voting days, or other civic events, reducing barriers for parents from low-income families.

• Increase and publicize opportunities for citizens to work as partners with government agencies to better accomplish public objectives.

• Create “citizen engagement toolkits” that provide resources and guidance for individuals looking to lead community projects.

• Develop feedback systems where marginalized communities can voice their concerns and feedback directly to local officials without fear of backlash.

• Promote conflict resolution skills training for citizens, government officials, and advocacy groups.

• Provide for community-based conflict mediation services.

• Details & Resources >>

Build up the skills and capacities of pro-democracy activists and democracy-promoting organizations:

• Strengthen activists' abilities to convey to citizens that they have power, have agency, and can, if they try, effect major changes.

• Promote local success stories of democratic activism to inspire and motivate others.

• Develop strategies to recruit, retain, and manage volunteers, ensuring they are motivated and effective.

• Create online platforms dedicated to sharing best practices, resources, and success stories among democracy activists.

• Enhance storytelling skills to better convey personal experiences and narratives that resonate with people, making abstract democratic principles relatable.

• Learn how to stage sit-ins, boycotts, and other direct actions to be impactful and newsworthy.

• Learn how to use techniques such as door-to-door canvassing, community meetings, and other outreach methods.

• Increase awareness of the communication opportunities available.

• Learn to use community media, how to communicate with journalists and handle press conferences.

• Identify community radio and TV public access channels and community affairs programs and learn how to use them.

• Learn to live stream your events and workshops.

• Identify text message platforms for rapid communication and mobilization.

• Develop local methods to communicate effectively during crises.

• Develop strategies to collaborate with local social media influencers to broaden the reach of local campaigns.

• Learn to train other activists, ensuring knowledge and skills transfer at scale. Develop and offer skills training workshops in grassroots organizing, mobilization techniques, group facilitation, consensus building, conflict resolution.

• Identify opportunities for collaboration between local organizations.

• Create small tight-knit groups within larger local movements to facilitate tasks and provide mutual support.

• Enhance fundraising skills, learn to write compelling grant proposals, and use digital crowdfunding platforms effectively.

• Learn to manage budgets, ensure transparency in financial dealings, and maintain accountability for funds received.

• Learn to use data-driven insights to better target campaigns, understand voter behavior, and predict areas that need more attention.

• Learn brand building to be able to create a recognizable and trusted identity for your organization.

• Increase capacity to align pro-democracy activism with local environmental concerns, linking the health of the community with the health of local democracy.

• Increase capacity to communicate effectively about the dangers and harms of authoritarian and autocratic government.

• Identify and promote existing ways to register your preferences to elected officials regarding legislation.

• Offer conflict resolution training through schools and adult education classes.

• Learn and teach the concepts, skills, and methods of trust building, transparency, accountability, and inclusiveness.

• Learn to create projects designed to build trust and related networks in communities.

• Implement and conduct structured community engagement sessions to understand local issues, sentiments, and needs.

• Learn to use surveys, focus groups, and online feedback to gather community input.

• Take local history courses to understand your community and local challenges to and for democracy.

• Promote and teach the concept that in a rapidly changing world, a strong democracy must be flexible and adaptive in response to new threats and new opportunities.

• Details & Resources >> More >> More >> More >> More >> More >> More >>

Increase the capabilities and the democratic values of people who are elected to office:

• Ask all candidates for elected office (local offices, including school and utility district boards and town councils, statewide offices, and national offices) to complete questionnaires on the governing principles and concepts that will guide their decision making.

• Require public officials and elected officials to undergo training in regulatory and legislative history, governmental and constitutional principles and concepts, conflict resolution, collaborative decision-making, consensus building, and ethics.

• Establish codes of conduct for elected and appointed public officials.

• Define best practices for legislators and other elected and appointed public officials.

• Encourage a culture of public service as opposed to political careerism as a manifestation of personal ambition.

• Put community benefit above seeking partisan advantage.

Protect freedom, civil liberties, minority rights, equal rights, women’s rights:

• Build institutional resistance to authoritarian and autocratic takeover.

• Join and strengthen international organizations and alliances that support and reinforce freedom, rights, and democratic principles.

• Protect women’s access to reproductive health care, including abortion rights.

• Stop anti-abortion zealots from blocking US programs to support global health, including the US global AIDs program.

• Ensure the rule of law.

• Police and emergency responders should be trained in citizen rights and minority rights.

• Governments at all levels should provide and publicize ways for citizens to report rights violations, code violations, and dangerous conditions.

• Ensure online privacy is protected. Regulate data mining.

• Pass immigration reform so that immigrants have the right to work and have other basic human rights.

Ensure an independent judiciary:

• Require all candidates for judicial office to demonstrate their knowledge of legal and regulatory history, the rule of law, and the principles and history of equality under the law.

• Reform the judicial appointment processes. Imbalanced power in federal and some state judicial selection processes has resulted in a political judiciary that blocks the majority’s democratic will.

• Non-partisan appointment of judges.

• Insulate the courts (particularly at the state level) from political interference.

• Strengthen judicial oversight.

• Reform the Supreme Court appointment process.

• Subject the Supreme Court to ethics requirements.

• End lifetime judicial appointments.

• Term limits for Supreme Court justices, federal and state.

Ensure civilian control of the police:

• Police should halt the policing of minority and poor communities as if they were suppressing an insurgency.

• Police should, to a far greater extent, be from the communities they serve, be accountable for abuses of power, and stop using military equipment and tactics.

• Institute mechanisms for the transparency and accountability of police services.

• Reform qualified immunity.

• Establish national standards for de-escalation training.

• Police departments should be subject to civilian oversight or review and, when on patrol or with suspects or arrestees, officers should be required to wear (and keep turned on) body cameras.

• Details & Resources >>

Ensure civilian control of the military:

• Ensure that defense and related (CIA, NSA) budgets be auditable and audited.

• Depoliticize the procurement process. Institute mechanisms for transparency and accountability.

• Require mission statements for foreign bases and deployments that reveal and discourage use of military assets to protect the foreign investments of US based multinational corporations.

• Reverse the militarization of the culture (i.e., military flyovers for football games, etc.)

• Ensure that recruitment and retention policies are structured to guard against the development of an entrenched military subculture and ensure that both the officers and the enlisted personnel represent a broad cross section of citizens.

Please Note:

The above is intended as a "living list." It is far from complete, and far from perfect. Additional explanation and explanatory resources are added throughout in the form of "Details & Resources >>" linked pages. These will also be expanded and improved over time. Please suggest additional points or clearer or more specific and practical wording for existing points. Email comments and suggestions (or questions) to ecoiq@ecoiq.com.

D.C.
Published:September 2023
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