A variety of urgent democracy reforms are needed, such as ending the filibuster and restoring and strengthening the protections that were once covered by the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
Some of these reforms, including restraints on executive power and secrecy, protection of the independence of inspectors general, expansion of the Supreme Court and the size of the U.S. House, and even D.C. statehood, can be done by Congress—if Democrats can win a larger majority in Congress or get rid of the filibuster.
Many others, however, such as direct election of the president, will require amending the Constitution. By design, the Constitution makes it extremely hard to amend our fundamental document. It takes two-thirds of both houses plus ratification by three-fourths of the states.
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