Electoral Reform

Build a democracy that actually represents us.

Neither party truly represents most Americans because our electoral system turns everything into a false binary: red versus blue, left versus right, us versus them. The world is more complex than that and the people of this country are more complex than that. We deserve a democracy capable of reflecting who we actually are, what we actually believe, and what we actually want from our government.

Pushing for Proportional Representation

I support proportional representation, which is the gold standard for representative democracy and would almost certainly have been chosen by the framers of the Constitution had it been invented at the time. Under our current winner-take-all system, a candidate can win a seat with a narrow plurality and millions of votes for losing candidates do not translate into representation at all. The result is a Congress that systematically under-represents large portions of the country and that calcifies into two parties incapable of reflecting the actual range of American views.

Proportional representation works differently. Seats in a legislative body are awarded in proportion to the share of votes each party or coalition receives, so that a party winning 30% of the votes wins roughly 30% of the seats. Voters across the political spectrum get representation that actually matches their numbers. Coalitions form around real policy agreements rather than around the desperation of choosing the lesser evil. Most other established democracies use some form of proportional representation. Evidence consistently shows that it produces higher voter turnout, more diverse legislatures, more responsive policy, and lower levels of partisan polarization.

I will support federal legislation, including the Fair Representation Act, that would move our country toward proportional, multi-member House districts. This will be a painstaking long-term project, but it’s the most important structural reform available for actually fixing what is broken in our democracy.

Promoting Ranked-Choice Voting

In the near future, ranked-choice voting is a practical, achievable reform that strengthens democratic representation right now. Under ranked-choice voting, voters rank candidates in order of preference rather than choosing only one. If no candidate wins a majority outright, the lowest-ranked candidate is eliminated and their voters' next choices are counted, and the process repeats until a candidate has majority support.

Ranked-choice voting eliminates the spoiler effect and frees voters to support the candidates they actually prefer without worrying about throwing the election to someone they oppose. It rewards candidates who help build broad coalitions rather than candidates who appeal to a narrow base and demonize everyone else. Cities and states that have adopted it, such as Maine and Alaska, have seen higher voter satisfaction. I support federal legislation enabling ranked-choice voting in federal elections and will work to make it standard across the country.

Defending Legitimate Elections from Bad-Faith Attacks

The biggest immediate threat to American democracy is the coordinated, well-funded campaign to convince Americans that voter fraud is rampant, used to justify laws and administrative actions that strip eligible voters of the ballot. Voter fraud is not rampant. Most of the recently confirmed cases of voter fraud came from right-wingers trying to vote more than once. The Trump admin and the GOP are pushing draconian laws to make it more difficult to vote, seeking to disenfranchise people who don’t vote in their favor. 

The SAVE Act is a textbook example of these efforts. Portrayed as bolstering election security, the bill would require documentary proof of citizenship–a passport or a birth certificate–to register to vote. This sounds reasonable until you realize that more than 21 million eligible American citizens do not have ready access to those documents. Married women whose names do not match their birth certificates, low-income Americans without passports, rural voters, and elderly people whose paperwork was lost decades ago would all face difficult barriers to voting. Meanwhile, state-level audits have repeatedly found that there is not substantial fraud, and particularly not fraud coming from noncitizens. There’s no good reason to pass it.

I will oppose any form of the SAVE Act and any other similar legislation. These voter ID laws are designed to disenfranchise the elderly, the poor, and people of color. They work through mass voter roll purges that remove eligible voters along with ineligible voters as well as restrictions on mail-in and early voting that target communities of color. In Congress, I will fight to:

• Pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, restoring the federal preclearance requirements that the Supreme Court gutted in Shelby County v. Holder. 

• Pass the Freedom to Vote Act, establishing nationwide standards for voter registration, early voting, mail-in voting, and ballot access. 

• Establish nationwide same-day voter registration, so that no eligible American is turned away from the polls because of an arbitrary registration deadline. 

• Restore voting rights for Americans with felony convictions, including those currently incarcerated. Disenfranchisement strips millions of citizens of their voice in our democracy and falls disproportionately on Black and brown Americans. People convicted of crimes should still have a say in how their government works.

• Defend election workers from harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence that have flooded local election offices since 2020. 

• Push back, in clear and public terms, against the lies about election integrity that have somehow become acceptable in the mainstream. Democracies do not survive when one of their major parties refuses to accept the results of elections it loses.

Abolishing the Electoral College

A presidential candidate who loses the popular vote should not win the presidency. The Electoral College is a holdover from a constitutional compromise designed to protect the institution of slavery. Two of the last seven elections have produced presidents who lost the popular vote. I support abolishing the Electoral College through constitutional amendment and electing the president by a national popular vote, the way almost every other elected office in this country is decided.

Ending Partisan Gerrymandering

Gerrymandering, where politicians redraw districts in favor of their preferred party and candidates, has become far more aggressive in the past two decades, especially in the past few years. Gerrymandering effectively disenfranchises a substantial portion of voters and maintains the power and reach of incumbent politicians. 

Efforts like Prop 50, which created this district, need to be viewed in a wider context of gerrymandering. We shouldn’t have to redraw districts to favor Democrats, but when the Republicans have taken extreme steps to centralize their power in states like Florida and Texas, the choice is either let the GOP entrench its authoritarian takeover or fight fire with fire. As a country, we need to establish clear standards for drawing districts, barring partisan gerrymandering across the board. 

I will promote federal legislation requiring independent redistricting commissions in every state. Commissions should prioritize contiguous and compact districts that don’t unnecessarily split up communities. The current administration's push to reopen mid-decade redistricting in friendly states, in order to manufacture a partisan advantage, is a textbook example of the abuse this legislation would prevent. Voters should choose their representatives, not the other way around.

Considering Statehood and Self-Determination

Washington, DC has more residents than several states and pays full federal taxes, but it has no voting representation in Congress. Puerto Rico and other US territories are home to millions of American citizens who similarly lack full democratic representation. I support DC statehood. I also believe that US territories, including Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and American Samoa, should have meaningful representation, including voting member rights in Congress. Further, if the people residing in those territories wish, we should pursue statehood to codify their representation in our government.

Reforming the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court has become an unaccountable, partisan institution wielding extraordinary power over the lives of everyone in the US. A handful of unelected judges, appointed for life and serving for decades, routinely overturn settled precedent, strike down legislation passed by elected majorities, and alter constitutional interpretation to match the priorities of the political movement that put them on the bench. The Supreme Court does not foster equitable, representative government, eroding its legitimacy as part of our governing structure. 

I support two major structural reforms to restore the legitimacy of the Supreme Court:

• An 18-year term limit for Supreme Court justices with a regular schedule of appointments so that every president gets the same number of nominations and no single vacancy becomes a generational political crisis. Term limits would end the perverse incentives created by lifetime appointments, such as retirements timed to political advantage and the promotion of younger nominees to entrench ideological control of the court for decades to come.

• Expanding the Supreme Court to thirteen justices. The size of the court has been changed multiple times in American history. The Constitution doesn’t require a specific number of justices. Expanding the Court would reduce the power of the current right-wing majority and restore balance after years of norm-breaking confirmation tactics. This would also align the court with the thirteen federal circuit courts. Combined with term limits, expanding the court could restore balance and reduce the partisanship of what is supposed to be an apolitical judicial body. 

I will also support binding ethics rules for Supreme Court justices: firm disclosure requirements, standards for recusal, limits on the gifts and travel, and enhanced restrictions on political activity for active judges. These standards already apply to lower courts and judges–there’s no reason the Supreme Court should be exempt from them.