Sitting at the Gee Whiz Diner in Brooklyn last summer, Daniel Squadron and Vicky Hausman cooked up a simple plan they believed could save American democracy.
On Tuesday, they’re putting it into action, announcing a $20 million investment in state legislative races in what they think are three key states.
Squadron, a former New York state senator who resigned to start a group called The States Project (formerly Future Now), and Hausman, a despondent liberal who’d left a career in business to co-found the super PAC Forward Majority, were worried about one thing: preventing another attempt to overthrow the presidential election after seeing former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the election he lost in 2020.
Before Trump falsely claimed the 2020 election was stolen from him, the perfunctory process of states sending their votes to the Electoral College had rarely been questioned. The Electoral Count Act of 1887 was a musty piece of legislation only discussed in academic circles.