Is it too late to save American democracy? I don’t think so. For years, I’ve been making a list of 10 ideas that would make our democratic institutions work better for everyone. Some of these can be more easily achieved than you might think. Others are more long-term. But if we want to see these changes, we have to start demanding them now, so please share this video.

Let’s start with the Electoral College. In a democracy, shouldn’t the presidential candidate who gets the most votes win? You’d think, but the Electoral College has put the popular vote loser in the White House six times now. There’s a way we can fix this. Watch.

National Popular Vote

Should someone else's vote count more than yours?

For 80 percent of Americans, that’s exactly what’s happening. Their vote for president isn’t nearly as valuable as the vote of someone in a so-called “swing state.” Why?

Most of us live in states that have become so predictably Democratic or Republican that we’re taken for granted by candidates. Presidential elections now turn on the dwindling number of swing states that could go either way, which gives voters in these states huge leverage.

The 2020 election came down to just over 40,000 votes spread across just three swing states.

2016 came down to fewer than 80,000 votes also across three states.

In those elections, the national popular vote wasn’t that close. In fact, in the last five elections, the winners of the popular vote beat their opponents by an average of 5 million votes.

The current state-by-state, electoral college system of electing presidents is creating ever-closer contests in an ever-smaller number of closely divided states for elections that aren’t really that close.

Not only that, but these razor-thin swing state margins can invite post-election recounts, audits, and lawsuits — even attempted coups. A losing candidate might be able to overturn 40,000 votes with these techniques. Overturning 5 million votes would be nearly impossible.

The current system presents a growing threat to the peaceful transition of power.

It also strips us of our individual power. If you’re a New York Republican or an Alabama Democrat, presidential candidates have little incentive to try and win your vote under the current system. They don’t need broad popular support as much as a mobilized base in a handful of swing states. Campaigning to a smaller and more radical base is also leading to uglier, more divisive campaigns.

And it’s become more and more likely that candidates are elected president without winning the most votes nationwide. It’s already happened twice this century.

But there’s an alternative — and it starts with getting our states to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. Don’t let that mouthful put you off. It could save our democracy.

This compact would guarantee the presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes nationwide without a constitutional amendment.

How does it work?

The Constitution assigns each state a number of electors equal to its number of representatives and Senators. As of now, the total number of electors is 538. So anyone who gets 270 or more of those Electoral College votes becomes president.

Article 2 of the Constitution allows state legislatures to award their electors any way they want.

So all that’s needed is for states with a total of at least 270 electoral votes to agree to award all their electoral votes to the presidential candidate who wins the national popular vote.

The movement to do this is already underway. 17 states and the District of Columbia have joined the compact, agreeing that once enough states join, all their electoral votes will go to the popular vote winner.

Together, states in the compact have 209 electoral votes. So we just need a few more states with at least 61 electors to join the compact and it’s done.

Popular vote initiatives have recently been introduced in Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, and Virginia, which if passed, would bring the total to 270 and put the compact into effect.

Naturally, this plan will face legal challenges. There are a lot of powerful interests who stand to benefit by maintaining the current system.

But if we keep up the fight and get enough states on board, America will never again elect a president who loses the national popular vote. No longer would 80 percent of us be effectively disenfranchised from presidential campaigns. And a handful of votes in swing states would no longer determine the winner — inviting recounts, audits, litigation, and attempted coups that threaten our democracy.

If you want to know more or get involved, click the link below to read about the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.

If your state is not already a member, I urge you to contact your state’s senators and reps to get your state on board.

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Some of the biggest blows to our democracy have come from the Supreme Court. It increased the power of Big Money over our politics with Citizens United and decreased the power of voters by gutting the Voting Rights Act. And by striking down Roe v. Wade, it’s even stripped Americans of power over their own bodies.

Fortunately, there are three ways we can improve the Supreme Court. Take a look at this.

How to Fix a Broken Supreme Court

The Supreme Court is off the rails — and it’s only going to get worse unless we fight to reform it.

Trust levels and job approval ratings for the Court have hit historic lows due in large part to a growing number of ethics scandals.

Here are THREE key reforms Congress should enact to restore legitimacy to our nation’s highest court: 

1) Establish a code of ethics

Every other federal judge has to sign on to a code of ethics— except for Supreme Court justices.

This makes no sense. Judges on the highest Court should beheld to the highest ethical standards.

Congress should impose a code of ethics on Supreme Court justices. At the very least, any ethical code should ban justices from receiving personal gifts from political donors and anyone with business before the Court, clarify when justices with conflicts of interest should remove themselves from cases, prohibit justices from trading individual stocks, and establish a formal process for investigating misconduct. 

2) Enact term limits

Article III of the Constitution says judges may “hold their office during good behavior,” but it does not explicitly give Supreme Court Justices lifetime tenure on the highest court — even though that’s become the norm.  

Term limits would prevent unelected justices from accumulating too much power over the course of their tenure — and would help defuse what has become an increasingly divisive confirmation process. 

Congress should limit Supreme Court terms to 18 years, after which justices move to lower courts.

3) Expand the Court

The Constitution does not limit the Supreme Court to nine justices. In fact, Congress has changed the size of the Court seven times. It should do so again in order to remedy the extreme imbalance of today’s Supreme Court.    

Now, some may decry this as “radical court packing.” That’s pure rubbish. The real court-packing occurred when Senate Republicans refused to even consider a Democratic nominee to the Supreme Court on the fake pretext that it was too close to the 2016 election, but then confirmed a Republican nominee just days before the 2020 election. 

Rather than allow Republicans to continue exploiting the system, expanding the Supreme Court would actually unpack the court. This isn’t radical. It’s essential. 

Now, I won’t sugar-coat this. Making these reforms happen won’t be easy. We’re up against big monied interests who will fight to keep their control of our nation’s most important Court.

But these key reforms have significant support from the American people, who have lost trust in the court.

The Supreme Court derives its strength not from the use of force or political power, but from the trust of the people. With neither the sword nor the purse, trust is all it has. 

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We’ve now covered how to make the White House and Supreme Court reflect the will of the people. Now, how can we improve Congress? Here’s one big way.

End Partisan Gerrymandering

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We also need to make sure the people we send to Congress are more focused on us than using their positions to make a quick buck. Here’s one commonsense way to do that.

Ban Members of Congress from Trading Individual Stocks

Members of Congress use privileged information to make money on the stock market, while they’re supposed to be working for you.

Make no mistake, it’s legalized corruption.

There’s no good reason for elected officials to trade individual stocks at all.

Unless you have special insider knowledge, buying and selling individual stocks is a terrible way to get rich. It’s gambling, plain and simple. That’s why many Americans with retirement accounts prefer to invest in index funds — which are tied to the performance of the entire stock market.

But many members of Congress continue to invest in individual stocks, and some do quite well.

How do they do it?

Consider this: just before the economy crashed in 2008, several lawmakers frantically shifted their holdings to “safer” investments. This frenzy came just after private meetings with Treasury officials, who had warned that an economic disaster was imminent.

I imagine most of you weren’t invited to these meetings — I certainly wasn’t. But those lawmakers were — and likely chose to act on that information.

When this story came to light, people were naturally outraged.

After immense public pressure, Congress passed the STOCK Act in 2012. The act required lawmakers to disclose their stock sales, and those of their spouses, within 45 days. By forcing these transactions to be public, the hope was that lawmakers would stop making questionable trades.

And it worked. Well... partially.

In January 2020, a handful of senators — including Richard Burr, Dianne Feinstein, and Kelly Loeffler — all made significant trades after receiving a classified briefing on COVID-19, well before the public knew the full extent of the threat.

Few, if any, lawmakers have faced serious consequences for violating the spirit or the letter of the law, as insider trading is notoriously difficult to prove.

In 2021 alone, news outlets identified 43 lawmakers who failed to properly disclose their trades. Their punishment? Nothing. Lawmakers are supposed to face a paltry $200 fine for failing to report on time — but congressional ethics officials usually waive it.

There is an obvious solution to all this: bar members of Congress from trading individual stocks.

The proposed Ban Conflicted Trading Act does just this. Lawmakers would have six months after being elected to sell their individual holdings, transfer them to a blind trust over which they have no control, or hold onto them until they leave office without trading them.

But Congress has yet to hold a vote on this bill, even though 67 percent of Americans agree it’s a good idea to prevent members of Congress from trading individual stocks.

There’s good precedent for this. In October 2021, the Federal Reserve — following its own stock-trading scandal — announced that Fed policymakers would no longer be allowed to trade individual stocks and bonds.

Why shouldn’t Congress do the same?

As usual, follow the money: a majority of lawmakers are millionaires, who likely get a sizable chunk of their wealth from investments and trades. So they won’t support this bill unless there’s enough public outcry to make them. And that’s where you come in.

With distrust in government near an all-time high, even the appearance of a conflict of interest hurts our democracy. Members of Congress are elected to represent the interests of the people, not the money in their brokerage accounts.

Banning members of Congress from trading individual stocks is a no-brainer. Let’s get it done.

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Now that we’ve tackled the three branches of government, it’s time to talk about the so-called “fourth estate” — the media. There’s a specific media bias that’s endangering our democracy, and it’s not the kind of bias most people talk about. Here’s what I mean

The Media Bias Nobody is Talking About

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The most important part of our democracy is the people — the voting public, us. And there’s something we could be doing a lot better. Watch this message from my friend, author Heather McGhee.

What if Every American Voted

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With all these ideas to strengthen our democracy, there’s one major thing working against us: Big Money! Here’s how it took control of our politics (and how we can take it back).

The Supreme Court Cases that Ruined Democracy

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We’ve talked about some big ideas so far. It’s time to get more specific. There’s a bill that specifically takes on voter suppression, partisan gerrymandering, and the corrupting influence of Dark Money. Here’s what you need to know about it.

The Freedom to Vote Act

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Now that we’ve addressed the most fundamental challenges to our democracy, there are two more ideas I want to share that might feel a little outside the box.

The last time I checked, members of Congress were less popular than cockroaches, root canals, or head lice, so you might be skeptical when I say we need more of them, but watch this.

Make the House Bigger

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This final idea addresses one of the complaints about voting I hear most frequently. People often feel like neither of the two main choices perfectly represents what they want. But they also worry (with good reason) that voting with their heart for a third choice would be throwing their vote away.

What if I told you there’s a simple reform that would let you vote with both your head and heart, while also making our politics less ugly?

And what if I told you our video about it also features adorable pets? Watch this.

Ranked Choice Voting

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Implementing these 10 ideas won’t be easy or fast, and no single elected leader can do it on her own. Like all big changes, it’s going to take broad, grassroots, popular support. The work starts with spreading the word, so please share this video compilation. Let’s make our democracy better together.