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In 2025, state and local policy proposals aligned with the recommendations in Our Common Purpose: Reinventing American Democracy for the 21st Century met both momentum and resistance. Below are some highlights from the state policy landscape in 2025.  

Independent Redistricting

Partisan gerrymandering is one of the practices that cause Americans to feel disempowered, and the Our Common Purpose report called for widespread adoption of independent redistricting commissions as a remedy. 

While more states have adopted independent redistricting commissions over the past several years, in 2025, California’s voters Proposition 50, which alters how congressional maps will be drawn for the 2026–2030 period, temporarily overriding the state's independent redistricting commission. California took this step in response to Texas’s efforts to redraw its Congressional maps for partisan reasons. Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio their maps in 2025. 

In 2026, South Carolina, Washington, Florida, and Maryland are considering redistricting measures. These efforts are in various stages, and some may still be blocked by the courts or otherwise fail to come to fruition.

In other states, new maps and proposals were rejected. The Indiana legislature new proposed maps in December. In Utah, a state court maps that had been improperly gerrymandered, finding them to violate the state’s voter-approved independent redistricting law. And just recently, a Virginia court an attempt to redistrict that state.  

Ranked Choice Voting (RCV)

Ranked-choice voting (RCV) was adopted at the local level in several new places, including and , and successfully used it for a . 

If passed, proposals under consideration in the Virginia General Assembly and Washington legislature would make it easier for localities in those states to adopt RCV as well. 

While there were state-level victories for RCV in the 2024 elections – Alaska voted to preserve RCV, and it was adopted in the District of Columbia – no new states enacted RCV in 2025. Further, passed laws banning RCV: Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, North Dakota, West Virginia, and Wyoming.  

Voting Rights Restoration 

Efforts to restore voting rights to citizens with past convictions, as recommended in OCP, have taken on renewed urgency in at least one state. Virginia voters a referendum in November 2026 to automatically restore these rights upon the completion of sentences (including parole or probation).  

America’s 250^th & Civic Education 

Across the nation, state-level efforts to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence are underway. A of semiquincentennial initiatives developed by the federal America250 committee includes a range of examples, such as arts projects, film festivals, historical reenactments, parades, volunteer service events, and more.  

Some of the 250th work is supported by more than $150 million in grants that the U.S. Department of Education has pledged to support expert-led seminars around the country to focus on the significance of the semiquincentennial and improve American history and civics education in K-12 classrooms. The National Endowment for the Arts has also provided $16 million in grants to provide opportunities for Americans to “experience and participate in the arts while celebrating our nation’s history.” More information on the Department of Education grants can be found , and further updates on civics education issues can be found on , a civic forum of diverse voices committed to working towards a pluralistic, constitutional democracy.