Miles Rapoport
Miles Rapoport is a longtime democracy advocate who served as secretary of state in Connecticut, and president of both Dēmos and Common Cause. He is the Senior Practice Fellow in American Democracy at the Ash Center of the Kennedy School at Harvard and a member of the board of The American Prospect.
Recent Articles
From a Contentious Election to a Stronger Democracy
Strengthening democracy is the key to all other reforms.
Oct 06, 2016
This article appears in the Fall 2016 issue of The American Prospect. Subscribe here. Reviving our democracy will be a paramount challenge for the new administration. The intertwined issues of race, inequality, and democracy have been at the center of the 2016 campaign. Hillary Clinton put it well at the Democratic National Convention in July: “Our economy isn’t working the way it should because our democracy isn’t working the way it should.” The close primary challenge to Clinton by Senator Bernie Sanders was driven by the widespread feeling that big money is crowding out the voices and views of the people. Fights over voting rights have roiled states around the country. And in a perverted way, these issues have fed Donald Trump’s appeal, too. Many Americans feel unheard and unrepresented. Trump conflates real issues of the dominance of money with the paranoid message that voter registration and voting tallies are “rigged” as well. Fifteen...
McConnell Uses Misinformation to Protect Secret Political Donors
How the Kentucky senator is trying to block an executive order on political spending.
Jan 29, 2016
Six years after U.S Supreme Court’s disastrous Citizens United decision, voters across the political spectrum are tired of a system that prioritizes big donors over everyday voters and are ready for bold solutions. Simply put: The debate about the problem of money in politics is over. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell thinks otherwise. McConnell last week unleashed a blizzard of misinformation aimed at knocking down an effort to help voters learn more about who is buying influence in government, specifically when our tax dollars are used in the contracting process. As The New York Times and The Washington Post recently reported, President Obama is seriously considering an executive order requiring federal contractors to disclose their political spending. This would be an important step toward making good on everyone’s right to know who is trying to influence elections and who is paying for the attack ads polluting our politics. In today’s anything-goes...
Democracy's New Moment
Feb 17, 2015For a very long time, those of us committed to strengthening American democracy felt we were—if not voices crying in the wilderness—standing on the sidelines, stamping our feet for attention. Fights over the right to vote and other civil rights are as old as the Republic, as are efforts to restrain the influence of money in politics. But until lately, the health of democracy itself was not quite a first-tier public issue. When the 2000 election showed just how important a few votes could be, we hoped this debacle would galvanize a broader movement for democracy. In March 2001, I wrote an article for this magazine entitled “Democracy’s Moment,” calling for a movement with the broad agenda of expanding voting and reining in runaway campaign spending. The closing sentence was “If the democracy movement is successful, America’s real and diverse majority will emerge and change our country for the better.” It was slightly wishful thinking, at...
McConnell’s Appeal to Millionaire Donors Makes Case for Constitutional Amendment on Political Money
The constitutional amendment deemed "radical" by the Senate minority leader simply affirms that money is not speech and that no one, however wealthy or powerful, has a constitutional right to spend unlimited sums to influence our elections.
Aug 28, 2014
He surely did not intend it, but Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has made a stunningly compelling case for a constitutional amendment allowing Congress and the states to restore sensible limits on the influence of money in politics. We appreciate his help and his clarity. The good news is that the Senate will vote on just such a proposal next month, the Democracy for All Amendment (S.J. Res 19). Senators still undecided about the amendment should study Sen. McConnell’s remarks carefully. Speaking to a roomful of ultra-rich political investors in June (audio here ), McConnell voiced his delight at their collective success in unharnessing political money. “The worst day of my political life” was when then-President George W. Bush signed the McCain-Feingold law with its limits on independent political spending, he declared. He paid particular tribute to industrialists Charles and David Koch, the country’s most prolific political spenders: “I don...
Challenging the Myths of the Libertarian Right
Aug 21, 2013
The emergence of Rand Paul as a leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination marks an important turning point: Extreme libertarianism has entered the mainstream of American politics. This shift has been coming for 30 years, a period of growing attacks on government as "the enemy" combined with extolling the laissez-faire idea that the free market can solve all our problems. These attacks have not emerged out of thin air. Billions of dollars have been spent by corporations, foundations, and wealthy individuals to fund a large conservative policy and media infrastructure on the right, led by think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, and the American Enterprise Institute. In recent years, though, the right has moved even further to the right, as more base Republican voters have embraced libertarian ideology and deep-pocketed funders like the Koch brothers have put more resources behind promoting this extreme worldview. Meanwhile, a new generation of...
