In The News
Jessica Piper: Democrats Must Contest Every Seat
I grew up in the 80s and 90s as a feral Gen Xer. I did some wild and sketchy things, from riding in a laundry basket instead of a car seat as a baby, to living from dawn to dusk outside every summer as a child, to drinking from a bottle of Mad Dog 20/20 at a party in...
Maryville Forum: A letter to voters from Jessica Piper
Nov 3, 2022, Jessica Piper In politics, it’s so easy to lose sight of what matters. Our farms, our schools, and our communities here in Northwest Missouri show that we have lost sight of what matters. They show that our politicians have also lost sight of what...
Riverfront Times: BEST POLITICIAN: JESSICA PIPER
RFT, October 2022 Mix one part schoolteacher and one part fighter, and you’ll get Jessica Piper, a self-described dirt-road Democrat campaigning to be the state representative in Missouri’s First District, a rural district in the northwest corner of the state. She has...
NYT: Why Little-Noticed State Legislative Races Could Be Hugely Consequential
By Nick Corasaniti, Oct. 10, 2022 EASTPOINTE, Mich. — The conversation started with potholes. Veronica Klinefelt, a Democratic candidate for State Senate in suburban Detroit, was out knocking on doors as she tries to win a seat her party sees as critical for taking...
Gaslit Nation: Laboratories of Autocracy; The David Pepper Interview
Gaslit Nation, October 5, 2022 David Pepper has witnessed Ohio devolve into an electoral autocracy where extreme Republican gerrymandering ensures that the results of the state elections are pre-determined. This is happening across the country in so-called red states,...
Flatland KC: Meet Jessica Piper: Missouri’s ‘Dirt Road Democrat’
State House Candidate Runs Uphill To Win In Rural Missouri Published August 26th, 2022; Catherine Hoffman Jessica Piper wipes the sweat off of her brow and knocks on the 50th door of the morning. She’s painfully aware that someone on the other side may hate her...
BTL: State Legislatures Are Ground Zero on the Attack of Democracy
Interview with David Pepper, Blue Ohio co-founder, attorney and former chairman of the Ohio Democratic party, conducted by Scott Harris As the House Committee investigating Donald Trump’s failed Jan. 6 coup attempt continues to gather new evidence of the former...
New Yorker: State Legislatures are Torching Democracy
Even in moderate places like Ohio, gerrymandering has let unchecked Republicans pass extremist laws that could never make it through Congress. By Jane Mayer August 6, 2022 Ohio’s voters are moderate, but its legislature is to the right of South Carolina’s....
Gerrymandered Districts: Ohio Supreme Court Strikes Down Map as Unconstitutional
Another Unconstitutional Map The Ohio Supreme Court just ruled that the maps submitted by the Redistricting Committee violate our state Constitution, because they are unconstitutional gerrymanders. Again. This is the sixth time that the Court has stricken down the...
The Bizarre Legal Theory That Could Upend Federal Elections
Last week, amidst the dumpster fire that was the last SCOTUS term, we got the news that it will hear a case that centers on the Independent State Legislature ("ISL") theory. That's ... not good. Let’s talk about what ISL is, why it’s setting off...
