Declaration for American Democracy is a coalition of left-leaning activist groups that advocates for a series of governmental and electoral administration policy changes. The main priorities of the coalition are to criticize the 2020 election process and support Congressional legislation that would enact several left-leaning policy priorities surrounding elections including enacting automatic voter registration and placing restrictive regulations on political campaign-related speech acts. The organization is a project of Public Citizen Foundation, a left of center advocacy group founded by Ralph Nader. ¹

Background

The Declaration for American Democracy was publicly launched at the end of October 2018, one week before the 2018 midterm elections. In a statement announcing the Declaration for American Democracy on the website of left-leaning  advocacy group People for the American Way, Rio Tazewell said the organization had been operating in the background for months prior to the formal launch to lay the groundwork for support of many left-leaning electoral administration, campaign-speech regulation, and government-official ethics bills to be introduced when the 116^th Congress was sworn in in 2019. ²

Activity

The Declaration for American Democracy advocates for bills in Congress and publicly promotes the need for left-leaning campaign and electoral administration policies. In May 2020, the organization sent an open letter to all 2020 Presidential candidates urging them to adopt the coalition’s positions as part of their campaign platform and as policy priorities if elected. The coalition also launched a presidential candidate tracker to assess where each candidate stood on over 90 various policy issues. ³ Left-wing Democratic primary candidate Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) was listed as in support of the most of the policy positions on the Declaration for American Democracy’s platform. ⁴

The Declaration for American Democracy has called on Democratic nominee former Vice President Joe Biden to make their issues a larger part of his campaign platform. The group along with 29 other groups went public with their concern that Biden’s campaign had not focused on their preferred left leaning electoral and government oversight issues prominently enough. The letter that the groups sent to the Democratic Party’s platform committee called on the part to make the Declaration for American Democracy’s agenda a top priority in 2021 if Democrats were successful in taking back the White House. ⁵

Legislation Supported

After the Democratic Party took a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2018 midterm elections, the Declaration for American Democracy worked with Democrats in Congress to introduce a package of left-progressive electoral administration, campaign speech regulation, and ethics changes including adopting redistricting commissions, automatic voter registration, and taxpayer funding of congressional campaigns. The organization also supported the passage of the Voting Rights Advancement Act, another Democratic-led electoral bill that was passed by the House in December 2019. ⁶

During the 2020 COVID-19 Pandemic, the Declaration for American Democracy supported the $3.6 billion in election funding in the HEROES Act, a dramatic increase from the $400 million which was allocated to 2020 elections in the CARES Act. ⁷

1. “About.” Declaration for American Democracy. Accessed August 5, 2020. https://declarationforamericandemocracy.org/about/
2. Tazewell, Rio. “The Declaration for American Democracy.” People for the American Way. November 1, 2018. https://www.pfaw.org/blog-posts/the-declaration-for-american-democracy/
3. “The Positions.” Democracy Platform 2020. Accessed August 5, 2020. https://democracyplatform2020.org/the-positions/ 
4. “The Positions.” Democracy Platform 2020. Accessed August 5, 2020. https://democracyplatform2020.org/the-positions/
5. Theobald, Bill. “Democracy reform groups to Biden: Don’t you forget about us.” The Fulcrum. July 21, 2020. Accessed August 5, 2020. https://thefulcrum.us/democracy-reform-groups-to-biden-dont-you-forget-about-us
6. “About.” Declaration for American Democracy. Accessed August 5, 2020. https://declarationforamericandemocracy.org/about/
7. “Groups Urge Senate to Include Election Funding in New COVID-19 Relief Package.” Common Cause. July 22, 2020. Accessed August 5, 2020. https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2020/07/22/groups-urge-senate-include-election-funding-new-covid-19-relief-package