This content originally appeared on The Progressive — A voice for peace, social justice, and the common good and was authored by Michael Atkinson.

These four Task Forces—focused on lowering costs, ending corporate greed, fighting corruption, and securing better pay and benefits—are part of a broader effort by the CPC to define a Democratic governing agenda that is clear, popular, easy to understand, and quickly delivers material benefits to working people.

Among other work, the Task Forces will be focused on advancing a slate of policy proposals members have been working on internally for several months that are not only progressive, but also enjoy support from voters across the ideological and demographic spectrum—from suburban voters to non-college-educated to independents—and could be passed by a Democratic House after the midterms. New polling from Data for Progress finds these policies enjoy a supermajority and give a 9-point advantage for Democrats who lead with these themes compared to a generic Democratic message against a Republican opponent.

The four new Task Forces are:

• Lowering Costs

Chair: Rep. Yassamin Ansari

• Fighting Corruption

Chair: Rep. Dave Min

Vice Chair: Rep. Hank Johnson

• Ending Corporate Greed

Chair: Rep. Becca Balint

• Better Pay and Benefits

Chair: Rep. Emily Randall

Vice Chair: Rep. Mark DeSaulnier

In addition, CPC Deputy Chair Rep. Ilhan Omar will help lead the coordination of Task Force work and take over as Chair of the Caucus’s longstanding Peace & Security Task Force this Congress.

"Working people in America are getting screwed by corrupt politicians and big corporations that are driving costs up and keeping pay and benefits down,” said Rep. Greg Casar (TX-35). “Our four new task forces go directly at those big problems facing Americans: fighting corruption and corporate greed in order to lower costs and win better pay and benefits."

“In my home state of Arizona, families have been crushed by rising costs brought on by Trump and Republicans—whether it’s skyrocketing healthcare premiums, unaffordable housing, or the soaring costs of education, childcare, long-term care, and even just commuting to work,” said Rep. Yassamin Ansari (AZ-03). “I’m honored to lead the Lowering Costs Task Force as one of the ways we’re fighting back to deliver bold policies that will help working families.”

“Whether it was prosecuting fraud at the SEC or teaching the next generation of advocates as a law professor at UC Irvine, I’ve spent my career fighting to uphold the rule of law and root out corruption,” said Rep. Dave Min (CA-47). “Americans are fed up with an economy and a government that are rigged in favor of the powerful and well connected while failing to serve working people. I’m proud to continue the anti-corruption fight in Congress and look forward to working with my colleagues in the Progressive Caucus to fight for transparency and fairness.”

“I came to Congress to unrig a system that makes it so hard for so many Americans to get a fair shot,” said Rep. Becca Balint (VT-AL). “And today, I’m fired up to launch the Ending Corporate Greed Task Force alongside my progressive colleagues to do the real work necessary to build an America that gives people a real chance at an easier life. Corporate greed is at the root of so many of the struggles working people face. And it’s time we take back power over our rigged economy and fight back against the greed that makes everything harder for the rest of us. Because we have a vision for a reality where we can all afford to make rent, have affordable health care, get paid fair wages, and get an education without crippling debt. ”

“In my family and in my community, I’ve seen firsthand how good Union wages and pensions open doors to stability, to opportunity, to economic security. I’ve seen my grandparents, my teachers, my neighbors afford homes and vacations and childcare because they had good jobs. But over the years, affording a good life has gotten harder and harder,” said Rep. Emily Randall (WA-06). “Our neighbors deserve leaders who put people before profits and stand up for what’s right. They deserve leaders who understand that an economy that is centered on working people is a stronger economy for everyone. As Chair of the Better Pay and Benefits Task Force, I’m committed to fighting for fairer wages, stronger benefits, safer workplaces, and an economy that puts working people first – right at the center of our policies.”

“In a time of record-breaking income inequality and rampant corporate greed, it is more important than ever that we as Democrats reassert and reinforce our commitment to working people,” said Rep. Mark DeSaulnier (CA-10). “As both a former union member and small business owner, I have seen firsthand how American workers have for too long been taken advantage of by big corporations and greedy CEOs. I am proud to help lead the Task Force for Better Pay and Benefits as Vice Chair to restore power to working people, the engine of our economy, so they can continue to be the best, most productive labor force in the world while living with the respect and dignity they deserve.”

“I am thrilled to take over as Chair of the Promoting Peace and Security Task Force and follow in the footsteps of my mentor, the incredible Barbara Lee,” said Rep. Ilhan Omar (MN-05). “This task force is needed now more than ever to hold this corrupt administration accountable. Our task force will focus on limiting our global armed presence and instead investing in diplomacy that will allow us to reorient our engagement with the world.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Carrying boxes of over 30,000 petition signatures, organizers demanded that Sen. Gillibrand and other Democratic leaders who have so far withheld clear support publicly affirm Mamdani’s candidacy and reject coordinated efforts by billionaire donors and corporate-aligned groups to reverse the outcome of a democratic primary.

The group attempted to deliver the petitions directly to Gillibrand’s New York City office at the corner of 3rd Avenue and 49th Street, but were repeatedly denied entry by building security, who said the office “does not meet with constituents.” After multiple calls to both the NYC and DC offices, staff refused to accept the petition in person and directed organizers to submit it online—despite the urgent, NYC-specific nature of the issue.

The petition, launched by Our Revolution, continues to gain momentum across grassroots supporters throughout the country and highlights a growing frustration within the party: progressives are expected to unify behind establishment nominees, yet are often met with resistance or silence when they win themselves.

“Democratic leaders love to talk about unity—until a progressive wins,” said Joseph Geevarghese, Executive Director of Our Revolution. “Every cycle, we’re told to fall in line for the good of the party. Well, Zohran Mamdani is the nominee—and yet the establishment’s silence is deafening. It’s time for party leaders to live up to their own standards and stand with Zohran against these billionaire-funded attempts to undo the will of the voters.”

The event was organized to draw attention to the double standard and disconnect between party leadership and grassroots voters, especially in races where big money interests work behind the scenes to push out progressives.

The action was first reported by POLITICO, which highlighted the growing push to pressure top Democrats, including Gillibrand, to defend Mamdani and democracy itself.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

During the days of McCarthyism in the 1950s, and probably before then, self-righteous conservatives used this word as a smear against people on the political Left. “Comrade” was a word used before and after the Russian Revolution in 1917 by members of the Bolshevik Party which led that revolution and dominated the USSR government for decades afterwards. I suspect, without knowing for sure, that members of the Communist Party in the USA from the 1920s on, at least until McCarthyite repression in the 50s, used that term also, given the CPUSA’s very close connection to the Soviet CP during that time.

George Orwell’s Animal Farm, published in 1945, had a lot to do with the comrade word becoming much more widely discredited. Animal Farm is the story of a revolution gone bad, corruption of once-revolutionary and brave leadership upon gaining power, and even as those bad things happen and demoralization sets in among many of the animals, use of the word comrade is continued by those in power.

As a young person growing up in the 1950s and 60s, I absorbed much of the dominant conservative ideology of those days and as a result never used, and still don’t use, the comrade word in any way. To me, it has been seen as a problematic word.

But there are other-than-leftist groups in the USA that use the word. Doing some google searching I learned that it is in use in both the US military and among veterans groups, which is surprising. Why would that be the case?

In a Random House dictionary published in 1966, they give three definitions for the word: “1) a person who shares closely in one’s activities, occupation, interests, etc: intimate companion, associate, or friend. 2) a fellow member of a fraternal group, political party, etc. 3) a member of the Communist Party or someone with strongly leftist views.”

I think it’s telling that the US military and veterans groups apparently use the word. Clearly, their doing so would fall under definitions 1 and 2, not 3. There is something about the word, something about the idea of comradeship, that connects people who are working “closely” together in a shared task, shared “interests.”

Many of us today, literally millions, are standing up and taking action against the Trumpfascists. 5 million or more took part in 2,200 local actions in all 50 states on June 14, No Kings! Day. Probably millions are going to take part in local “Good Trouble Lives On” actions on July 17, the 5th anniversary of the death of longtime freedom fighter John Lewis; there are already over 1,000 planned. And I feel a sense of comradeship, progressive comradeship, with this so-very-important mass political force, this popular resistance movement.

“Progressive comradeship:” that’s a phrase I’m comfortable with. It fits with definitions 1 and 2 above. It clarifies that this movement is broadly-based, representing tens of millions of people, going from “strong leftists,” including communists, on one pole to decent, concerned people on the other who believe in “one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

During Hakeem Jeffries’ record-breaking, 8 hour and 44 minutes, impressive speech right before the Big Ugly Bill was narrowly passed in the House of Representatives on July 3rd, he quoted more than once a passage from the Bible that clearly resonated with the many Democratic Congresspeople sitting, and sometimes standing in loud applause, behind him. That passage? Matthew 25: 35-40. It’s one that should undergird all that we do as we keep building and strengthening the Resistance.

“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me. Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”

We must do all we can as long as we are alive to try to bring into existence a world motivated by these words in Matthew. It’s a certainty that the warped and twisted, pro-oligarch, obscene policies of the current federal government, combined with the day-to-day organizing of the millions of us, is going to lead to many more millions joining with us in this profoundly important task history has placed before us.

Our mass democracy movement is now and must continue to be characterized by progressive comradeship in the way we interact and a deep, abiding love for others and the natural world. Nothing can defeat that kind of movement, nothing. We really can change the world.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Ted Glick.

Progressive Democrats of America condemns Trump’s unconstitutional bombing of Iran. We’re outraged by these reckless, lawless, aggressive actions. We support the Khanna/Massie War Powers Resolution to curtail the abuse of war powers.

Donald Trump ordered a surprise bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities, including sites under international monitoring, without a vote from Congress. Without any public debate. The airstrikes on Iran’s Fordo, Natanz, and Isfahan nuclear sites shocked the Congress and the rest of the world including, U.S. allies.

Carried out without congressional authorization or clear evidence of an imminent threat, Trump’s actions blatantly violated the U.S. Constitution as well as U.S. and international law.

As Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) stated: “Trump said he would end wars; now he has dragged America into one. His actions are a clear violation of our Constitution.”

The U.S. intelligence community confirmed in March that Iran was not developing nuclear weapons. There was no emergency, no justification whatsoever. Only Trump’s irrational warmongering.

International leaders responded with horror. As expected, Iran called the attack “a grave violation of the UN Charter.” They’re far from alone in this, however. UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned it could spiral into catastrophe. The EU and other nations have also condemned this unprovoked aggression.

Trump’s own political allies expressed dismay. Trump loyalists including Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene called these attacks a betrayal of the “America First” mandate to avoid endless wars.

This is not foreign policy. This is militarized authoritarianism. We must act to stop it now, before it spreads to enflame the entire Middle East, if not the entire globe in dangerous, unnecessary conflict.

We are outraged, but this moment demands more than outrage. It demands organized, coordinated resistance. Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) is helping lead the charge, organizing with our allies inside and outside of Congress to push back.

We’re mobilizing support for the War Powers Resolution and coordinating protests demanding an immediate ceasefire and all party negotiations to achieve a just and durable peace treaty as soon as practicable.

Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) was founded in 2004 to transform the Democratic Party and U.S. politics by working inside and outside of the party. This, by electing empowered progressives and by building the progressive movement in solidarity with with peace, justice, civil rights, environmental, and other reform efforts. For more information about the organization, please see https://PDAmerica.org

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Well-over 90% of respondents supported endorsing Zohran Mamdani for Mayor.

Given these overwhelming results PDA-NY and P4DA are singularly endorsing State Representative Zohran Mamdani for Mayor of New York City.

This is fitting for two organizations associated with Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) since Mamdani's platform is perfectly in line with PDA's policy positions.

Indeed! PDA has authored proposals for a 21st Century Economic Bill of Rights (which Mamdani's platform matches up with perfectly) and also a 21st Century Rural New Deal, and, most significantly, we are in the process of composing a 21st Century Template for Urban Renewal.

Zohran Mamdani's platform is exemplary, providing a vision of a dramatically improved life for urban dwellers.

On issue after issue, PDA-NY and P4DA feel that Mr. Mamdani is spot-on: from his extraordinary proposals to improve NYC housing, his visionary proposals for transportation, public safety, food security, child care, and higher education, as well as his sane approach to the climate emergency, wages, labor, libraries, healthcare, small businesses, and taxation, his call clarion call for peace and justice in the Middle East, and his compassionate support and protection for immigrants and the LGBTQIA+ communities, which are under hateful, bigoted attacks by Trump and the GOP.

And, yes, we love his proposal for Trump-proofing NYC!

Also, in these dark days in which the nation's politics are dominated by another native New Yorker, it's worth noting that Mr. Mamdani has proven himself to be as charismatic and as he is thoughtful. This is significant unto itself. The country and the world longs for such a leader in Trump's hometown, to be a countervailing force to the reprehensible, anti-democratic, and clearly fascist President. Comparisons will inevitably be made between the President and the next Mayor. We are confident that Mr. Mamdani will inspire people across the City, the State, the country and the world to recognize and support democracy over authoritarianism, and the people over the oligarchs

Lastly, it must be said, we at PDA are thrilled to endorse a Democratic Socialist candidate for Mayor!

Let us not forget that NYC's greatest Mayor, Fiorella La Guardia, was a socialist; and that the socialist Mayors of Milwaukee were consistently acknowledged as the best Mayors in the country during their multiple decades in office in the 20th century.

Likewise, no region in the world was more heralded for its local governance, than the socialist-led cities of Central and Northern Italy in their post-fascist era. And, to this day, no city in the world has better housing than Vienna, Austria where they've maintained the housing model established by their great socialist city leaders in the 1920s.

Socialist Mayors have an unrivalled legacy of urban governance and it's time again for the richest city in the world to do right by its working class majority – and, in the process, improve the lives of all New Yorkers, and the experience of all visitors to the Big Apple, by electing Zohran Mamdani the Mayor of New York.

Early voting begins today Saturday June 14 and election day is Tuesday June 24^th.

When you vote for Mayor of NYC, rank Zohran Mamdani first!

One final note: PDA-NY's and P4DA's endorsement of Zohran Mamdani is especially notable because PDA has rarely made state, county or municipal endorsements in NY State because of a quirk of PDA's history. When PDA was founded in 2004, the founding Executive Director had such respect for the Working Families Party that it decided not to emphasize organizing in NY State. So, as PDA grew rapidly across the country in the first decade of the century, there was one state where that wasn't the case, New York. Then, PDA transformed American politics by successfully drafting Bernie Sanders to run for President as a Democrat in 2016 (PDA launched the Run Bernie Run campaign in 2013!). As a consequence of that, PDA now has thousands of members across the State and in the City - and when we polled our NYC members the result was spectacular: over 90% support for Zohran Mamdani.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

“Trump politicizing and weaponizing the National Guard makes us all less safe and less free. His threat to deploy the Marines into the streets of an American city is an illegal and authoritarian escalation.

“Trump’s threats have nothing to do with keeping people safe—it’s about political theater. He’s scapegoating immigrants to distract from the GOP’s real agenda: ripping health care away from millions to pay for tax cuts for the ultra-rich.

“We will not be intimidated. Progressives are standing up to this administration, including by conducting lawful oversight at ICE detention centers in Los Angeles and across the country. We stand with Angelenos, and we stand with immigrant families everywhere. The President must return command of the National Guard to Governor Newsom.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

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Across the country, Republican lawmakers have been working to undermine or altogether undo the will of the voters by making it harder to pass amendments and laws through citizen-led initiatives.

In Missouri, the 2025 legislative session was dominated by Republican lawmakers trying to reverse two major measures that voters had put on the ballot and approved just months before; one made abortion in the state legal again, while the other created an employee sick leave requirement.

GOP lawmakers in Alaska and Nebraska also have moved to roll back sick leave benefits that voters approved last year, while legislators in Arizona are pushing new restrictions on abortion access, despite voters six months ago approving protections.

At the same time, Republican leaders in Florida, Utah, Montana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Arizona, Ohio, North Dakota and South Dakota have approved efforts to restrict citizen-led ballot initiatives or are considering measures to do so, essentially trying to make it harder for voters to change laws outside legislatures.

In some cases, legislators aren’t just responding to measures that voters approved; they’re acting shortly after citizen-led efforts failed but came too close for comfort, such as an abortion-rights initiative in Florida, which in November fell just short of the 60% of votes needed to pass and loosen the state’s ban on the procedure.

Republican elected officials across these states make strikingly similar arguments: They say the initiative process is susceptible to fraud and unduly influenced by out-of-state money. What’s more, they say that they, as elected officials, represent the true will of the people more than ballot initiatives do.

In his opening speech on the first day of Utah’s legislative session in January, Senate President Stuart Adams urged lawmakers to push back against citizen-led ballot initiatives, warning that “unelected special interest groups outside of Utah” were using the process to “override our republic” and “cast aside those who are duly elected.”

Utah lawmakers then passed a law tightening the process. They required initiative sponsors to detail how their proposal would be funded and, if it makes the ballot, pay for costly publication of the ballot language in newspapers across the state — potentially adding $1.4 million in expenses. They also voted to put a 2026 measure before voters that would require a 60% supermajority for any tax-related initiatives.

The battle between direct democracy and representative government isn’t new, and it hasn’t always been the domain of just Republicans. Democrats have done the same thing, although perhaps not with the same frequency, when voters have taken steps they had campaigned against.

What’s different now, political observers say, is that the tension has reached a new level. State lawmakers, primarily Republicans the past few years, are routinely trying to undermine voter majorities.

“This is very much connected to the rise of authoritarianism that we’ve seen across the country,” said Chris Melody Fields Figueredo, executive director of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, a nonprofit that tracks and supports ballot measures across the 26 states and the District of Columbia that allow some form of direct democracy. “They can’t win fairly, so they’re trying to rewrite the rules to get their way no matter what a majority of folks in their state wants.”

In Missouri, overturning the will of voters has almost become the legislature’s main business. Lawmakers wasted no time moving to undo a constitutional amendment that legalized abortion up to fetal viability, advancing a new measure to place another amendment on the ballot that would ban it again.

They also moved to repeal a sick leave requirement and portions of a minimum wage increase, which had also passed through the initiative process but which Republicans have said are harmful to businesses.

The bill has gone to Gov. Mike Kehoe, who has indicated that he will sign it.

In addition, Missouri lawmakers passed, and the governor signed, a new law that limits the ability of courts to intervene when the legislature writes ballot language for proposed constitutional amendments.

Critics say the law opens the door to misleading ballot language, giving politicians and partisan officials more power to frame initiatives in a way that could mislead voters. Kehoe said in a statement that the law “streamlines complex procedures while protecting the rights of every Missourian.”

State Rep. Brian Seitz, a Republican from Branson, has supported multiple failed efforts to change the state’s initiative process — he’d prefer a 60% threshold rather than a simple majority, as it is now — and backed the sick leave repeal and the amendment to restore Missouri’s abortion ban.

“We’ve been elected in a representative republic to see to the needs of the people,” he said, “and that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”

State Rep. Ashley Aune, a Democrat from Kansas City and the House minority leader, recalled that one of her first fights as a lawmaker was over the expansion of Medicaid, which voters approved in 2020 but Republican lawmakers refused to fund the following year.

“They thought they were being clever — and of course, the courts told them they are not clever. They had to fund it,” Aune said. “But I’ve seen this nearly every year I’ve been here, and this year has been the absolute worst.”

In response to lawmakers’ efforts, a new campaign called Respect Missouri Voters is recruiting volunteers to collect signatures for a statewide ballot measure in November 2026. The measure would bar lawmakers from overturning voter-approved initiatives or undermining the citizens’ ability to use the initiative process.

In several states, Republican legislators are trying to change the initiative petition process by imposing stricter rules on who can collect signatures and how petitions are submitted and raising the threshold for passing amendments. They are also trying to limit out-of-state funding, shorten signature-gathering windows and give themselves more power to rewrite or block voter-approved measures.

Arkansas is one example of where this is playing out. Last year, abortion rights supporters turned in more than 100,000 signatures for a ballot measure that would have loosened the state’s near-total abortion ban. But the state Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s ruling blocking the proposal from making the ballot, deciding that organizers had made a technical error in how they submitted paperwork for a portion of the signatures that had been collected by paid canvassers.

This year, state Sen. Kim Hammer, a Republican from Benton, led a push to pass a series of laws aimed at the ballot initiative process. They place requirements on petition circulators and signers, including mandates that the signer read the ballot title in the presence of a canvasser or have it read to them, that canvassers ask signers to show photo ID and that they inform signers that petition fraud is a crime. They also expand state oversight, giving officials more power to disqualify petitions.

The League of Women Voters of Arkansas has filed a lawsuit challenging some of the new laws, along with existing restrictions, arguing that they violate the U.S. Constitution. Arkansas Secretary of State Cole Jester said in a statement that they were “basic, commonsense protections, and we look forward to fighting for them.”

Hammer said he’s concerned that outside groups are using Arkansas as a testing ground for policy changes, and he wants to prevent that by keeping the ballot process “as pure as possible.”

“They drop the rock in the state, and it just ripples out from there,” he said in an interview. “So it’s to the benefit of abortionists and to the benefit of the marijuana industry and others to be able to do whatever they have to do to get a foothold.”

Dan Smith, a political scientist at the University of Florida who studies direct democracy, said it wasn’t long ago that voters might punish a candidate for opposing a popular policy — like raising the minimum wage or expanding health care.

But that connection has largely been severed in the minds of voters, he said. Today, many voters experience a kind of cognitive dissonance: They support abortion rights or paid sick leave at the ballot box but continue voting for politicians who oppose those policies.

They don’t see the contradiction, he said, because partisanship has become more about team loyalty than policy.

Smith said the disconnect is reinforced by gerrymandered legislative and congressional districts, which are drawn to favor Republican candidates and help maintain their supermajority control. They can override or ignore voter-backed initiatives with little political risk.

Direct democracy in the United States took root during the Progressive Era of the late 1800s and early 1900s, especially in the West and Midwest, where newer states had less entrenched political structures and were more open to reform. These regions were often skeptical of centralized power, and reformers pushed for tools like the initiative and referendum to give citizens a way to bypass political machines and corporate influence.

The first state to adopt the initiative process into its constitution was South Dakota in 1898. Now it’s one of the states where legislators are trying to undermine it.

Most East Coast and Southern states never adopted initiative processes at all. Their constitutions didn’t allow for it, and lawmakers have shown little interest in surrendering power to voters through direct legislation. Some academics have argued the process is barred by Article IV, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution, which requires states to produce governments by electoral processes.

While efforts to override or undermine voter-approved initiatives are now almost exclusively driven by Republicans, Democratic-controlled legislatures have also tried to rein in direct democracy when it clashed with their priorities.

After California voters passed Proposition 13 in 1978 to limit property taxes — and later Proposition 209 in 1996 banning affirmative action — Democrats sought ways to blunt or undo their impact through legislation and legal challenges.

In the mid-2000s, Colorado Democrats began pushing to restrict the initiative process after a wave of conservative-backed measures passed at the ballot box. A key example was Amendment 43, a 2006 initiative placed on the ballot by citizen petition, which amended the state constitution to define marriage as between “one man and one woman.” It passed with 55% of the vote and effectively banned same-sex marriage in the state until the U.S. Supreme Court overturned such bans in 2015.

In 2008, Colorado’s Democratic-controlled legislature placed a referendum on the ballot that would have made it harder for people to petition to change the state constitution. The measure, also backed by some Republicans, failed at the polls. But in 2016, voters approved a citizen-initiated measure that raised the bar for constitutional amendments by requiring signatures from every state senate district and a 55% supermajority to pass. More recently, Democrats have sought to overturn Colorado’s “taxpayer bill of rights,” which voters enacted through initiative petition in 1992. The measure prohibits tax increases without voter approval. Democrats have argued the law may be unconstitutional because it strips the legislature of its budgetary authority.

But most of the states that allow citizen-led ballot initiatives are Republican-controlled, which means the fight over direct democracy is often playing out in red states. At the center of the GOP argument is the claim that voter initiatives are driven by outside influence and funding. Smith called it “hypocrisy.”

“If you ask lawmakers to not take any outside contributions when they are running for office, they would find every reason under the sun to oppose it,” he said.

Efforts to change the initiative process have themselves drawn heavy outside funding. In August 2023, Ohio voters decisively rejected Issue 1, a Republican-backed proposal to raise the threshold for passing constitutional amendments from a simple majority to 60%. The measure also would have made it harder to place initiatives on the ballot by requiring signatures from at least 5% of voters in all 88 counties.

Backers claimed the changes were needed to protect the constitution from out-of-state special interests — but the campaign itself was funded mostly by $4 million from conservative Illinois billionaire Dick Uihlein.

Just three months later, Ohio voters returned to the polls and approved a new Issue 1 — this time a constitutional amendment guaranteeing abortion rights up to fetal viability. It passed with nearly 57% of the vote.

In 2006, Florida voters approved a constitutional amendment to raise the threshold for future amendments to 60% — but the measure itself passed with just 57.8% of the vote, a margin that wouldn’t meet the standard it created.

That irony came into sharp focus in 2024, when a ballot measure to protect abortion rights received 57% of the vote — more support than a similar measure in Missouri, which passed with just under 52% — yet failed in Florida due to the supermajority rule.

After the election, Gov. Ron DeSantis and Republican lawmakers began pushing for even tougher restrictions on the process, pointing to a report issued by the governor’s administration alleging “widespread petition fraud” in the push for the abortion rights measure. The governor signed a law prohibiting felons, non-U.S. citizens and non-Florida residents from serving as petition circulators; limiting the number of signed petitions a volunteer can collect before being required to register as an official canvasser and requiring signers to write either the last four numbers of their Social Security or driver’s license number on petitions.

In response, several groups have filed a federal lawsuit challenging the new restrictions. Florida Decides Healthcare, which is working to place a Medicaid expansion initiative on the 2026 ballot, has argued that the law imposes vague and punitive restrictions that chill political speech and civic engagement. The state has not yet responded to the lawsuit; the lead defendant, Secretary of State Cord Byrd, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“I think that what happens here is being watched and copied,” Mitch Emerson, executive director of Florida Decides Healthcare, said in an interview. “And if these attacks on democracy work in Florida, they’ll spread.”

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Jeremy Kohler.

On Friday (May 30), the DNC’s powerful executive committee will convene. That meeting, in Little Rock, Ark., will be the executive committee’s first since mid-December.

The petition, with 7,000 signers, warns that “the Democratic Party has failed to confront the urgency of this perilous moment for the future of the United States.” The petition contends that the DNC, the governing body of the Democratic Party, “should convene an emergency meeting of all its members – fully open to the public – as soon as possible. Waiting until the next regular meeting in late summer would be irresponsible and unacceptable.”

The petition adds: “Business as usual must give way to truly bold action that mobilizes against the autocracy that Donald Trump, Elon Musk and their cronies are further entrenching every day. The predatory, extreme and dictatorial actions of the Trump administration call for an all-out commensurate response, which so far has been terribly lacking from the Democratic Party.”

The “Emergency Petition to the Democratic National Committee” with signers and their comments is posted here.

Click here to sign up for full livestream coverage of the DNC’s executive committee meeting on Friday, provided by RootsAction’s Progressive Hub.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

“This unprecedented breach of data privacy puts every taxpayer’s data at risk. Every American should be deeply concerned that the Trump Administration is politicizing the use of taxpayer data and starting down a slippery slope that could hurt any one of us next.

“This illegal move is especially concerning because it is a bait and switch from how millions of taxpayers were promised their data would be used. For decades, the federal government encouraged immigrant families to pay their taxes, and now that same information is being used against them. We should all be able to trust that when we share information with the government, it will not be used against us.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

“With this order, Trump is trying to destroy unions and labor rights as we have known them for 100 years. Trump’s attempt to end federal labor unions is his most dangerous attack on working America so far. We must all rise up to stop this — in the streets and in the halls of Congress — or else Trump will hand over every last one of our rights to the billionaires.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

Progressives, put aside your justifiable detestation of Donald Trump and his Musky minions for one second, and answer this question:

Q: What’s the most important difference between MAGA Republicans and Democrats?

A: MAGA Republicans have a program for change.

Yes, it’s a terrible program: a toxic mix of pro-oligarchy economic policy, tribal-nationalist politics, patriarchal social values, and hatred of the public sector.  But MAGA policies are based on a relatively coherent ideology that identifies what right-wingers consider the main sources of oppression – the administrative state, left-leaning universities and news media, undocumented immigrants, street criminals, and foreign competitors – and that promises to eliminate or transform them.

MAGA leaders believe that the American system is broken and that they know how to rebuild it.  Therefore, once in power, they implement immediate measures to change existing institutions. True, these initiatives tend to be poorly thought through, arbitrary, and inhumane, and they generate legal challenges to the authority of the President and other executive officials.  But social movements with a program for change frequently strain or violate existing norms.  Furthermore, their advocates tend to take strong action, while defenders of the established status quo seem content just to talk.

Talk about role reversals!  By acting as change-agents, the MAGA-pols have maneuvered the Democrats into the position of acting as backward-looking defenders of the Establishment.  The anti-Trumpers mean well, but all their handwringing about the President’s authoritarianism, venality, and cruelty will not change the fact that his forces have a program for change, and they do not.

Most Democratic politicians do not think that the system is broken, only that it needs minor repairs.  As a result, the policies and public actions they envision for the future differ hardly at all from those of a Joe Biden or a Bill Clinton. Most of them embrace a mishmash of liberal (but not too liberal) attitudes regarding domestic political issues and militaristic flag-waving (which they call “American global leadership”) in foreign affairs.  Raise the minimum wage they say – but not too high, and don’t even think about altering the established system of private financial power and “management rights.”  Tax the rich, but not too severely, and never talk about redistributing wealth to poor and near-poor working people.  Support clean energy and environmental protection – but protect the fossil fuel industries!  Work for international peace – but don’t antagonize the military-industrial complex!

This sort of vacuous, passive thinking, not just the benighted views of the MAGA base, were responsible for the disastrous decline in Democratic votes in the last election and, therefore, for the Trump victory.  On the other side, MAGA leaders working through right-wing think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and correctly assessing the high degree of civic discontent developed radical policies purporting to solve working people’s problems.  That these policies made no sense was politically irrelevant.  In 2024, there was no leftist alternative to the rightists and their Project 2025.  When there is no Left, and when the existing system fails to satisfy people’s basic needs, discontented voters predictably turn Right.

The Urgent Need for New Discussions and Organization

What would a genuinely progressive program look like?  I have a few ideas about this – and I’m sure you do, too – but we desperately need discussions starting immediately and continuing through the year to surface key ideas, assess their effectiveness and practicality, and convert them into workable policy proposals. Think tanks can sponsor some of these exchanges, but people of all ages and backgrounds can meet in churches and clubs, high schools and universities, town halls, popular bars, and other public forums to let their views be known.

One goal crucial to these deliberations is the need to unite key sectors of the population that Trump and MAGA-ism have divided: in particular, workers in high tech and public service industries and those in older industries and occupations.  Note that the need for unity does NOT require that we become more “moderate.”  On the contrary, it means developing problem-solving solutions radical enough to make problems based on unnecessary scarcities and manipulated insecurities disappear, and to change key elements of a dysfunctional market-driven system.

Here are a few of the specific issues that I would raise at a public discussion. But make up your own list – the more, the merrier!

Problem: The Oligarchy.  Solution: Redistribute wealth and power.  Like drunks after a bad night before, pretty much all the Dems now declare themselves allies of the People against the Bad Oligarchs. But raising the minimum wage and taxing the rich a bit more will not change the system that has produced fifty years of wage stagnation, deep urban poverty, rural decay, and gross inequality.  

Why not consider a 100% income tax on incomes over $1 million, and a wealth tax designed to lessen our exploding social disparities?  Why not talk about nationalizing Big Pharma and the high-tech giants that depend on government grants and research to survive?  Oligarchical capitalism inevitably produces authoritarian politics designed to serve the billionaires’ interests by crippling the labor movement and privatizing social services. Why not reverse Citizens United, finance election campaigns publicly, and stop the legalized bribery of American politicians?  How about slashing the administrative state’s vast corporate welfare programs instead of the public interest programs that MAGA hates?

Problem: Unnecessary scarcities. Solution: Democratic planning.  Politicians of both major parties spend most of their time arguing about conflicts that need not exist at all if the scarcities that generate them could be eliminated.  But it takes planning to reduce scarcity, and to all Reps and most Dems planning is a dirty, “socialist” word.

Isn’t this absurd?  Since economic planning is tabooed, deep poverty persists, along with the street crime and mass incarceration that it generates.  Because Trump hates industrial policy, he relies on tariffs (i.e., corporate welfare) to stimulate domestic industry and gives us — ta dah! — trade wars.  With a modicum of community-controlled planning we could develop a rational, humane immigration policy – but the politicians would rather play anti-immigrant games.  In one of the world’s richest countries, marginalized social groups compete against slightly better-off groups for jobs and college admissions.  Why fight over DEI, when with popular control over our economy we could easily create enough jobs and college slots for everyone?

Problem: The American Empire and its endless wars. Solution: Positive peace.  Many of Trump’s opponents are enraged by his apparent unwillingness to maintain the system of “global order” instituted by regimes since World War II – a system designed to maintain American hegemony as the world’s leading military power and international decision-maker.  They don’t seem to understand that most of the world’s people consider Trump’s weird mix of selective imperialism, nuclear militarism, and “America First” isolationism an improvement over Biden-era warmongering.

The progressive opposition needs to consider what America’s foreign policy should be other than a revival liberal gun-running masquerading as democracy promotion.  What does genuine internationalism look like in an era of increasing nationalist prejudice and threats of war?  How can peaceful conflict resolution leading to positive peace become the chief driver of U.S. global policy?  Reducing the trillion-dollar U.S. military budget by at least half would open the door to secure funding of social security and other needed public services.  In international as well as national politics, there is nothing to fear but fear itself.

It’s time to talk together about all these issues – and many, many others.  Some influential liberals will no doubt warn that “divisive” discussions are dangerous since they could split the party and strengthen Trump – but listening to this sort of “wise advice” is what got us where we now are.  By contrast, right-wing ideologues like Steve Bannon risked splitting the Republican party to give it a philosophy and program reflecting their values and capable of energizing a mass base.  On the strategic level, the left-hating Bannon understands Marx and Lenin a good deal better than most of those declaring themselves leftists! To prevent Trump and his successors from consolidating a permanent dictatorship of the oligarchs, the Democratic Party needs to become a force for systemic change – or else yield to those capable of forming a genuinely progressive party.

This is why we need discussions now.  Reacting to every Trumpian initiative with anger and despair, while refusing to formulate an alternative program to change a broken system, simply plays the MAGA game.  I don’t want to hear any more denunciations of Trump by outraged Congresspeople or cable news anchors longing for a return to power by the “good” oligarchs and “responsible” generals and spy chiefs.  You don’t defeat the Far Right by sentimentalizing the Respectable Center.

We need to learn from our mistakes.  We need a genuine people’s party.  And a people’s party needs a credible program for positive change.  Let’s stop obsessing over the Demagogue-in-Chief and get on with the business of creating that program.

The post We Need A New Progressive Program, And We Need It Now! appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Richard Rubenstein.

Dave Zirin (The Nation, 2/28/25): “MSNBC’s programming is now politically monochromatic—and moving as far to the right as the Democratic Party will allow.”

At a time when the Democratic Party’s opposition to the ongoing right-wing authoritarian assault on US government is failing miserably (FAIR.org, 2/27/25), MSNBC’s recent purge means it is all the more unlikely that the cable news network will have any role in holding Democrats’ feet to the fire.

The news channel has nixed or demoted their most progressive anchors, all of whom are people of color. These are the hosts who have drawn the most ire from Donald Trump’s online warriors, according to Dave Zirin of The Nation (2/28/25). They are also some of the few who were willing to air the network’s rare criticism of Israel. In their stead, MSNBC has elevated Democratic Party apparatchiks and a center-right never-Trumper. This rightward shift reflects the reality that the channel’s corporate ownership has never cared for its left-of-center brand.

The network’s overhaul, led by its new president Rebecca Kutler, cancels Joy Reid’s ReidOut, Alex Wagner’s nighttime spot and Ayman Mohyeldin’s weekend evening show, with Reid fired, Wagner demoted and Mohyeldin’s voice diluted into a co-anchor position.

The ReidOut is getting replaced by a panel show consisting of Symone Sanders-Townsend, the former Biden and Harris advisor; Alicia Menendez, the daughter of disgraced ex-Sen. Bob Menendez; and Michael Steele, the former Republican National Committee chairperson, now a Democrat whose politics symbolize the Democratic Party’s disastrous fetish for centrist triangulation. Wagner’s 9 pm slot will now be anchored by Jen Psaki, another Biden alum.

As an indication of just how disruptive Kutler’s new vision for MSNBC is, even Rachel Maddow—the network’s biggest star with the most popular show—is getting a staff downsizing. The move seemed almost retaliatory, as it came after Maddow aired her grievances during one of her nightly shows (2/24/25). “Personally, I think it is a bad mistake to let [Reid] walk out the door,” Maddow said. “It is not my call and I understand that, but that’s what I think.” She added:

It is also unnerving to see that, on a network where we’ve got two, count ’em, two non-white hosts in primetime, both of our non-white hosts in prime time are losing their shows, as is Katie Phang on the weekend. And that feels worse than bad, no matter who replaces them. That feels indefensible, and I do not defend it.

Bucking the trend

Alana Wise (NPR, 2/25/25): “Reid’s firing takes one of the most high-profile Black women off the network at a time when the Trump administration has made attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion policies.”

Joy Reid has had her disagreements with the left. Her ardent defense of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential bid veered frequently into baseless accusations, online scolding of Bernie Sanders and promotion of the Russiagate conspiracy theory (FAIR.org, 9/3/16, 6/30/17, 8/24/16). Altogether, that contributed to Democrats’ refusal to conduct a true postmortem of the Clinton loss, the ramifications of which still aid Donald Trump’s dominance.

But during Joe Biden’s presidential tenure, Reid proved to be progressive, relative not just to MSNBC’s other anchors, but many in the corporate media writ large. As New York’s skies turned orange amid historic Canadian wildfires in the summer of 2023, for instance, Reid was one of the few who called out the role of fossil fuels (FAIR.org, 7/18/23).

While other outlets were overemphasizing the inflationary impact of President Biden’s paradigm-shifting economic stimulus in the wake of the Covid pandemic, Reid bucked the trend, drawing the ire of right-wing media (FAIR.org, 7/13/23).

Perhaps most notably, Reid was an outlier in her coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza and its backlash in the US. A FAIR study (8/15/24) found that Reid’s show was the only weekday news program studied to feature students expressing pro-Palestinian sentiment during coverage of the student Gaza solidarity encampments that cropped up at college campuses across the country last spring. The same study found that her show was the only one studied to have mentioned the words “divestment” and “police violence” more than “antisemitism” in relation to the encampments.

Similarly, as outlets like the New York Times provided Israel cover for its bombing of the densely-populated Jabalia refugee camp that killed and wounded 400 Palestinians, Reid questioned how Israel could justify such a disproportionate attack (FAIR.org, 11/15/23).

The panel of Sanders-Townsend, Menendez and Steele promises none of that nonconformity. Instead, they represent MSNBC’s decision to represent an even smaller sliver of the Democratic elite. By elevating the former Biden and Harris advisor Sanders-Townsend, MSNBC has empowered someone with an interest in defending the current Democratic guard’s rule.

The Lincoln Project–affiliated Steele similarly owes his ascendancy to the sort of Democratic group-think that spurred Kamala Harris’s ruinous gun-touting, Cheney-approved centrist presidential bid. Expect Hakeem Jeffries praise.

Pointing out hypocrisy

MSNBC‘s Ayman Mohyeldin (1/13/25) declared that “the US’s head-in-the-sand attitude toward Israel is not only inconsistent with its treatment of other countries, but it’s also a clear act of moral cowardice.”

Though not fired, Mohyeldin and Wagner are two more MSNBC figures who have elevated criticism of Israel and are now facing a demotion. Following ex-Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s finding that Sudanese military forces had committed genocide against the Sudanese people, Mohyeldin (MSNBC, 1/13/25) took to the airwaves to point out Blinken’s hypocrisy:

The horrific atrocities committed against the Sudanese should be labeled as genocide. But Blinken’s declaration begs the question: Why is the US unable to apply that same standard to Israel?

If the Biden administration is calling out the famine in Sudan, why not also address the ongoing famine in Gaza, which has been condemned by independent experts from the United Nations?

After New York Mayor Eric Adams sicced the NYPD on Columbia and CUNY students who had erected Gaza solidarity encampments, Wagner (5/1/24) brought on Jelani Cobb, the dean of the Columbia School of Journalism, and CUNY journalism professor (and MSNBC contributor) Peter Beinart, a well-known critic of Israel. During the show, Wagner said she agreed with Beinart that it’s “probably a good thing for our national discourse” if the encampment movement is remembered in history as a turning point for debate about US support for Israel. She also suggested that common misrepresentations of the student protestors as treasonous were a “cudgel” to distract from the issue of US foreign policy towards Israel.

Mouthpiece for elite interests

Julia Rock (Jacobin, 5/13/22): “Apparently, serving as press secretary to a Democratic president is great training to run interference for corporations.”

Wagner’s replacement is Jen Psaki. No one is more qualified to execute MSNBC’s crusade to become nothing more than a mouthpiece for elite Democratic interests. As Julia Rock wrote in Jacobin (5/13/22) when Biden’s former press secretary left the administration for her first MSNBC gig:

The skills required to act as a press secretary in corporate Democratic presidencies—saying little of substance, committing to nothing, dispensing snark and scoffs, and never even accidentally challenging power—appear to carry over well to playing pundit on MSNBC, the corporate network that serves as the Democratic Party’s de facto propaganda outfit.

As press secretary, Psaki was known for insensitive and condescending quips in response to the public’s desire for good things. After the Democrats’ John R. Lewis Act, which would have enacted broad voting rights reforms, failed to pass the Senate in January 2022, Psaki suggested the public “go to a kickboxing class” or “have a margarita” to rejuvenate their spirits (Business Insider, 1/21/22).

Then there was the time when Psaki got short with NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson in response to her question asking why the United States, unlike other wealthy nations, couldn’t distribute free Covid-19 test kits to every US household (Jacobin, 12/8/21). Psaki, suggesting the best way to provide tests was Biden’s convoluted plan for reimbursements through private insurance, asked Liasson, “Should we just send one to every American?” Feigning ignorance, she continued, “Then what happens if every American has  one test? How much does that cost, and then what happens after that?”

Psaki’s knack for subduing the electorate’s impulse for government to meet their needs will serve MSNBC’s priorities well. Add to that her gig as a “crisis consultant” (Jacobin, 3/20/21) for the Israeli AI facial recognition startup formerly known as AnyVision, whose services were used to surveil Palestinians in the West Bank (NBC, 10/28/19), as well as her consultancy for the ride sharing giant Lyft (Business Insider, 4/1/22), and it’s no wonder she got the primetime 9pm slot.

Ideological thrashing

Other right-wing hosts featured on MSNBC before it accepted its leftish branding included Don Imus, Oliver North and Alan Keyes (FAIR.org, 8/28/21).

MSNBC’s rightward tack may come as a surprise to those who think it was born fully formed as Fox News’ liberal opposite. But its ideological thrashing over the years—oscillating between right-wing pundits like Laura Ingraham, Tucker Carlson and Michael Savage, and liberals like Phil Donahue and Keith Olbermann—before donning its current liberal identity in 2008, with the hiring of Rachel Maddow, shows the network is more akin to a cable news version of John Carpenter’s The Thing (FAIR.org, 8/28/21).

The owners of MSNBC—once Microsoft and General Electric, then GE alone, now the cable giant Comcast—have never held a commitment to its center-left brand beyond its capacity to capture as large a fraction of the market as possible. Now, as other mainstream corporate outlets like CNN are making similar adjustments (FAIR.org, 2/17/22), MSNBC seems to believe its best path to profit is shirking progressives.

The Democratic Party is facing an unprecedented—and justified—crisis in confidence among the public. A recent Quinnipiac University poll showed Democrats with just a 31% approval rating, the lowest since the school began measuring party approval. Meanwhile, a poll by the Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project found that “ending Israel’s violence in Gaza” was a top issue for voters who supported Biden in 2020, but cast their ballots for someone other than Harris in the 2024 election.

MSNBC’s firing and demotion of its most progressive ranks, the ones who aired criticism of Israel, means that the Democratic Party—currently America’s sole opposition party in Congress—is all the less likely to be held accountable as the authoritarian right attempts to steamroll through our democracy.

ACTION ALERT: You can send a message to MSNBC at MSNBCTVinfo@nbcuni.com.

Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective. Feel free to leave a copy of your message in the comments thread here.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Luca GoldMansour.