6 Things We Need To Do To Repair America's Crumbling Democracy

By Steven Rosenfeld 

October 21, 2012  |   As the 2012 election crests with all its chaos—billionaire-driven [3] TV ad wars, legal fights over voter suppression [4] tactics, endless fundraising e-mails and worries about stealing the vote [5]—progressives need to remember what’s been destroying our democracy and what solutions are needed to restore the balance of power in America.

Now is the time to note precisely what’s wrong, what’s gotten worse and what’s completely broken in key corners of the electoral process. That’s because once the dust settles after Election Day, the impetus to fix things will wane among the political victors, media and much of the public—as it does after every big election. The winners will say there is not a problem because they won. The press will start covering the new administration. And weary voters will want to look ahead to solutions, not back to old problems.

That’s how our dysfunctional democracy may limp along until the next major election—2016’s midterms—or a national crisis. But the first year of a presidential term is the most likely time that Congress might do anything on a big enough scale to touch the underlying problems because it’s the ebb tide in the electoral cycle.