I hope that Unrig will bring you insight and inspiration. My personal mission is to fix our democracy because it’s the key lever of change to make America work for everyone. It covers the biggest concepts in our democracy, meticulously researched, with unprecedented clarity. Unrig is fast-paced, with art by George O’Connor that’s engaging and fun. I wanted to write a book that I would be excited to read myself. This may come as a surprise, given my profession, but I don’t love reading books about democracy. I wrote Unrig to show that change is not only possible, but that it is already happening. Unfortunately, these success stories are mostly absent from the media and from other books. And in 2016, we won! The new unrigged system became part of the city’s constitution.ĭuring the last 15 years at MapLight, I’ve learned about the solutions that are helping our democracy work for everyone and met the people making these changes happen. That new humility, in the face of the uncertainty of politics, allowed me to try again. My job was to make the best effort I could, regardless of the outcome. I realized I needed to separate my success as a person from the success of the campaign. What if I attempted another campaign and it lost?

My desire for change was just as strong, but I was held back by my past feelings of despair. Over the next decade, the Supreme Court ushered in even more money in politics, generating more energy than ever to change our broken system-including momentum for another local effort in Berkeley.

I was dejected, feeling like a failure for more than a year. I had never run a campaign before and was thrilled at the prospect that when the ballot measure passed, I would have accomplished something significant.īut the measure didn’t pass. I was fed up with big money controlling government, so I had started a campaign to introduce publicly-funded elections in Berkeley, California so that candidates wouldn’t have to depend on wealthy interests.

Newman and published by First Second of Macmillan publishing.Īs Election Day approached in 2004, I was buzzing with excitement. Unrig: How to Fix our Broken Democracy is a nonfiction graphic novel written by MapLight President and Co-Founder Daniel G.

Unrig by Dan G. Newman