JUDY WOODRUFF: It was two years ago when the
240-year-old American Academy of Arts and
Sciences put together a bipartisan commission
to take a hard look at the state of our democracy.
The commission is today issuing a report detailing
31 recommendations on how to strengthen it.
Full disclosure: I'm a member of this commission.
And while I'm very much for a stronger democracy,
I do not advocate for any specific policy
changes.
Here's a look now at what the commission found.
These recommendations are meant to take a
fresh look at our founding ideals and documents.
The commission first defined the challenges
our democracy is facing, rising inequality,
political polarization, a surge of white nationalism,
a lack of trust in our nation's institutions,
a fragmented media environment.
To those challenges, it offers solutions,
broken down into broader themes. One theme
is aimed at equality of representation, changes
that would address governance.
The report recommends substantially enlarging
the U.S. House of Representatives, establishing
18-year term limits for Supreme Court justices,
and big changes to campaign finance laws.
It also calls for so-called ranked-choice
voting, where voters rank candidates in order
of their preference for elections at the federal
and state level. And it sees room for improvement
in how we vote.
The commission recommends switching to universal
automatic voter registration. It says federal
Election Day should be a holiday. And it recommends
making voting a requirement of citizenship,
much like jury duty.
It also wants changes in how we get information,
like a tax on digital advertising that would
go to a public media fund. And it calls for
a culture change towards service, with Americans
putting in a year to serve in programs like
AmeriCorps, the military, or other nonprofit
work.
All this is just a starting point. The commission
says it wants this report to be a call to
action and for the recommendations to inspire
debate.
To discuss the report, I'm joined now by two
of the three chairs of the commission.
Danielle Allen, she's a political theorist
and a professor at Harvard University. And
Stephen Heintz, he's president and CEO of
the philanthropic foundation The Rockefeller
Brothers Fund.
Welcome, both of you, to the "NewsHour."
Stephen Heintz, let me start with you.
Why did the commission think now is the time
to overhaul our democracy?
STEPHEN HEINTZ, Commission on the Practice
of Democratic Citizenship: You know, many
Americans, we have discovered, feel that our
representative democracy is neither truly
representative or very democratic.
They don't think their (AUDIO GAP). They don't
think their votes count. They think the system
is stacked against them. And so the American
Academy, which sponsored this commission,
felt it was time to listen to Americans, to
study the questions and the issues that confront
us, and to try to develop a comprehensive
plan for how we could reinvent our democracy
for the challenges we're facing in this century.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And you bring up inequality.
Danielle Allen, this report is issued at a
moment when the nation is feeling the cause
of racial injustice in the aftermath of the
death of George Floyd.
How much is that woven into the fabric of
what you're proposing here?
DANIELLE ALLEN, Commission on the Practice
of Democratic Citizenship: We have been working
on this report for two years, it must be said,
and with a sense of urgency the entire time.
That urgency has been fueled by the sense
that the social compact in this country has
cracked, it's fractured. Just as Stephen said,
people feel disempowered. People feel that
our political institutions have not been responsive.
We also feel separate and apart from each
other, divided and polarized.
So, these things have been the truth for some
time. This moment has brought out, clearly,
just how urgent the problems are.
And if one focuses simply on the question
of policing and racial justice, it's, in some
sense, the perfect example. People have been
pursuing change for a long time, but certainly
with renewed energy since 2014 with the death
of Michael Brown and others.
And although there have been some successes
for reform here and there, fundamentally,
what we have had to take away is that our
political institutions have been nonresponsive.
So, at the end of the day, what we are watching
now, as people come together, is a rediscovery
of common purpose, a rediscovery of the goal
of securing liberty and justice for all, and
a recognition that achieving that does require
knitting together responsive institutions,
genuine opportunities for empowerment, civil
society organizations that connect people
across lines of difference, and healthy information
ecosystems that help us all do our work as
civic participants.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Stephen Heintz, it's such a
polarized moment in American history. How
are people to believe that this is truly a
set of bipartisan ideas?
STEPHEN HEINTZ: Well, from the very beginning
of our work back in 2017, we were committed
to recruiting a very diverse group of commissioners
from all across the country, and people with
different backgrounds, different experiences,
different political perspectives, and partisan
ideologies.
The one thing we all shared was a love of
country and a concern about our democracy.
And we worked together for two years. We (AUDIO
GAP) data. We did the analysis. But the most
important thing was that we listened Americans
all across the country. And we benefited from
their experiences of how our democracy has
enduring strengths, but how it is also leaving
us with unmet promises.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Danielle Allen, audacious,
bold ideas, increasing the size of the House
of Representatives by 50 more members, putting
an 18-year term limit on Supreme Court justices.
Many people are going to look at this and
say, can this really happen? What are you
trying to accomplish here?
DANIELLE ALLEN: It really can happen.
The first thing for people to recognize is
that a healthy democracy depends on a virtuous
circle linking effective, functional political
institutions, civil society organizations
that bridge differences and that connect people
to their institutions, and a civic culture
that cultivates a commitment of Americans
to one another and to our constitutional democracy.
So, our -- our recommendations are not just
a sort of hodgepodge, a sort of grab bag of
policy ideas. They're very considered things
that interact with each other.
So, yes, a requirement for universal voting,
but, at the same time, a recommendation to
make voting easier. And across the slate of
our recommendations, there are champions for
all of them, people are already working hard
on these things.
We spent a lot of time, actually, evaluating
feasibility. We also sought to make sure that
the actions could be moved forward on many
levels of our system.
So, there are some things that municipal leaders
can move forward, some that state leaders
can move forward, some that require actions
by Congress, only one constitutional amendment.
That was our goal, was to try to avoid constitutional
amendments whenever possible. So, that one,
we do think we need with regard to issues
of campaign finance.
But, for example, even the change with the
Supreme Court, term limits, that is a change
that can be made within our existing constitutional
parameters.
And across the board, we saw a pathway to
implementation that was highly aligned with
usability, taking 2026, the 250th anniversary
of the nation's political birth, as our target.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, Stephen Heintz, 31 recommendations.
Priority? What do you start with here? What
you say to the American people, these are
our priorities?
STEPHEN HEINTZ: Well, I think what we're saying
to the American people is that we're issuing
an invitation to them to pick the recommendations
that mean the most to them and to begin to
work together on them.
We're not establishing priorities for them.
That's the work of the citizens of our country.
We're offering them a comprehensive plan.
We think all the recommendations should be
carefully debated and expanded on and developed
in the years ahead.
But I want to stress one thing about the challenge
here. We are at a moment, I think, where there
is greater receptivity to change and a greater
need for change.
Both this pandemic that we have been living
through and the racial justice crisis make
the flaws in our democracy all the more vivid
and the need for reinvention all the more
urgent.
And I think people in America understand this
and want the change. And they want to believe
in this democracy. They want to be connected
to each other. And they want it to work.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And, Danielle Allen, finally,
that was going to be my question.
Do you believe American -- the American people
are receptive to these kinds of ideas right
now?
DANIELLE ALLEN: Absolutely.
This country is full of brilliance and full
of can-do energy. The most inspiring part
of our work was listening sessions all over
the country, and the opportunity to see the
ways in which people are already rebuilding
political institutions, rebuilding trust in
their own community, inventing forms of civic
media that can be antidotes to the corrosive
effects of social media, for example.
So, yes, the American people is hungry for
this. The American people is full of ideas,
full of can-do energy. I am 100 percent confident
that we can bring about the transformation
that we all desperately aspire to.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And, Danielle Allen, finally,
where do the -- where do people go if they
want to read this?
DANIELLE ALLEN: The Web site is Amacad -- that's
short for American Academy -- /ourcommonpurpose.
JUDY WOODRUFF: All right, we are going to
leave it there.
But we thank you both so much for joining
us, two of the co-chairs of this commission
on strengthening American democracy.
Danielle Allen, Stephen Heintz, we thank you
both.
DANIELLE ALLEN: Thank you so much, Judy.
