Give Smart

The Supreme Court was never going to save us.  Don't get mad, get even.

Friends,

Minority rule is the bedrock of today's Republican Party. They depend on Americans being governed by a shrinking, conservative ruling class. Never has that been more evident than in the Rucho case, where a 5-4 court, led by four justices appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote, decided that the only way to stop legislatures from entrenching themselves in seats that entrench minority rule is to vote them out of the seats that have entrenched minority rule.  

This is horrible for democracy and the principles of checks and balances and separation of powers. Anyone who’s watched Schoolhouse Rock knows that. So where do we go from here?

The only place we can go: states. First stop: we flip the damn Virginia House. You can help by donating here:

This is a hard lesson for all of us, but not one without cause for hope. The federal government has serious problems in all three branches. The executive branch is increasingly lawless and tyrannical. The legislative branch is a malapportioned gerontocracy. The judicial branch is stacked with unaccountable ideologues focused on comfort for the comfortable and harsh justice for everyone else.

But on the state level? Well, those problems are either nonexistent or less dire. And states can fix the problems plaguing the federal government. Frustrated with today's decision? States can require nonpartisan redistricting. They can ensure the right to vote. They can even vote on amendments to the Constitution when the Supreme Court rules incorrectly.  

But  states can only do those things when their legislatures aren’t controlled by the same forces controlling the federal government. And special interests saw 40 years ago that by taking over the Republican Party and investing in state legislative dominance they could thwart any meaningful progress. Which they have... but our past doesn’t have to be our destiny.

In the past year we’ve become one of the largest funders of state elections, flipping state legislatures nationwide, taking them back from the tyranny of the minority. We’re sending money to races where it makes the biggest difference, not just in a campaign’s budget but in people’s lives.  

John Roberts won’t deliver fair districts in Virginia. But we can.

At the risk of getting a little too Beto O’Rourke on you, my favorite band is The Hold Steady. My third favorite song of theirs is “Constructive Summer,” where they remind us:

Raise a toast to St. Joe Strummer
I think he might've been our only decent teacher
Getting older makes it harder to remember 
We are our only saviors
We're gonna build something this summer

We are our only saviors. Nobody else is going to do it for us but we shouldn’t deny the power that we have when we work together on a problem. We’re gonna build something this summer (and fall).

Best,
Aaron