The Moral Call for Repairing our Broken Democracy

For much of its modern history, the U.S. has viewed itself as a model democracy. But as I watch the 2020 election unfold, I see a shameful display of the profound influence that racism, sexism, and money continue have on our elections. Billionaires have flooded the airwaves with unlimited spending to buy our elections, Republican primaries have been canceled, and candidates of color have been sidelined. On Super Tuesday, we saw hours-long lines in impoverished districts with reduced polling locations. Watching it unfold has been discouraging. Sometimes it feels like the democratic experiment is failing. As a Catholic Sister, I see this as a moral call to find a way to heal our broken democracy.

One year ago, the House of Representatives passed the For the People Act (H.R. 1), the most transformative bill to address flaws in our democracy since the Watergate era. However, like most bills the House has passed this year — like lowering prescriptions drugs — H.R. 1 went straight to Senate Majority Leader McConnell’s graveyard.

A new report from the University of Cambridge’s Centre for the Future of Democracy shows that people around the world are collectively losing faith in democratic systems. The drop in satisfaction with democracy has been especially rapid and consequential in the U.S. For the first time on record, a majority of citizens (55 percent) are dissatisfied with their system of government. This marks a profound shift in our nation’s view of itself — and its place in the world.

Most voters sense that our democratic systems are on life support. Vulnerable, outdated election infrastructure is under attack by foreign influences. Suppression tactics to hamper voter participation has become campaign strategy. Gerrymandered districts reflect the needs of the party in power. It can be impossible to know the source of campaign attacks and fear-mongering half-truths. A lack of trust in meaningful participation stifles civic engagement.

The group of white men that were our Founding Fathers were also men of deep faith. They attempted to instill the underlying values of that faith into the foundation of our government. We know a government by the people and for the people has inherent contradictions when it is built on a political economy fueled by slavery. But, the underlying principles are worth saving — and the work in progress is at a standstill. Democracy, at its best, looks to the collective wisdom of the people while upholding the dignity of the individual. This ideal is expressed in Christianity as the Body of Christ.

We built our democratic systems of representation, elections, and civil political engagement to enable each person’s inner voice to speak, to choose, and to influence the political realm. Elections, campaigns, voting are all mechanisms for allowing our communal wisdom to choose leadership and enable our lawmakers with authority.

A barrage of distorted messages playing to our weaknesses subverts the good-faith discernment of individuals. The “free speech” of big money drowns out the voice of people. Gerrymandering wipes out the voice of people. Administrative rules that create barriers to voting quash the participation of people. This is a moral issue of the highest concern.

The For the People Act is a comprehensive package of policy fixes that are far-reaching in scope. They run the gamut from automatic voter registration and publicly financed election campaigns to ethics rules for elected and appointed officials. The For the People Act is the best chance we have to end the dominance of big money in our politics, to ensure that public servants work for the public interest, not special interests, to make voting easier, and to protect our elections from foreign influence.

If the For the People Act looks like a partisan bill, that is only because one party refuses to engage in meaningful efforts to fix our broken democracy. Only one party is currently working for the people. Outside of Capitol Hill, this effort is the hope for transformative change that voters are yearning for.