We need a Second Founding to build a stronger democracy. Young Americans must lead it

While the nation’s attention is captured by the 250^th, July 5 marks 55 years since the ceremonial signing of the 26th Amendment: which lowered the voting age from 21 to 18, and outlawed age-based voter discrimination. 

The role of young people in helping to build a freer and more democratic America has often been overlooked. Now, we propose that youth and their older allies honor both anniversaries by launching a Second Founding agenda to ensure a multiracial, multiethnic, and multigenerational democracy that is inclusive, secure, and safe for citizens and immigrants for the next 250 years.

The current legal, policy and cultural assaults on democracy are often driven by exploiting race, ethnicity, immigration and generation, as evident by rising voter suppression, hate crimes, campus divisions, and literal battles over immigration. America’s founders bequeathed to this generation an aspirationally beautiful, but deeply flawed Constitution under which young men once died in battle abroad without the right to vote at home, women were voteless citizens, and both African and Native Americans were denied the vote, citizenship, and humanity.  

Ever-weakening federal voting rights, particularly with respect to race, are at best anemically prohibitive, not affirmative. In other words, the “shall not” clauses found in the 15^th, 19^th, and 26^th Amendments, governing that the state cannot abridge or deny the right to vote on account of race, color, sex, or age, are textually focused on countering discrimination, rather than an affirmative expansion of democratic participation. Yet, the legislative record of both the 26th Amendment and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 speaks in broader terms: “to encourage greater political participation.” Even so, only 46% of eligible voters participated in the 2022 election, sadly, the highest midterm turnout since 1970. Nationally, only 23% of youth voted in that cycle, even falling below 15% in a handful of states. While internationally, age is one of the most important determining factors for voter turnout, the U.S. age voter gap is among the largest.

With the gutting of the Voting Rights Act and the Supreme Court’s repeated evasion of racial animus, America seems barely capable of addressing even the most obvious and most racist voter suppression. Yet, historically, it was in times of crisis, marked by both political and physical violence, that the nation has forged change — ratifying new constitutional amendments, passing legislation to enforce those rights, and even holding state constitutional conventions run by citizens, not lobbyists. Both the 26th Amendment and the amendment ratification process are underutilized today, although the nation once again calls out for emancipation from special interests, police impunity and endless efforts to sow discord, distrust and division.  

That’s why, using the 26th Amendment, the amendment ratification process, federal legislation, and massive youth mobilization, we propose the following ambitious agenda: 

• Honoring the 250^th, we must pass the Youth Voting Rights Act to fulfill the promise of the 26th Amendment. Doing so would remove age barriers to voting and increase participation by all voters. Note, it was a cross-partisan effort that expanded the youth vote, marking the fastest ratification in history. The campaign was led by youth organizers who built an ideologically diverse coalition with the support of Republican leadership, including Senator Barry Goldwater.

• With a Second Founding, America must embrace election modernization, particularly given technology advancements which allow for universal common-sense policies such as same day registration which causes little to no administrative burden, and is in effect in 24 states and Washington, D.C. We need new tools for full democratic engagement to ensure tracking and affirmative, timely notifications of the handling of voter registration forms, vote by mail applications and ballots, and provisional ballots, with opportunities to cure.

• Using the amendment process, our new founders should ensure that a majority of American voters can actually elect the president by eliminating the Electoral College, and they should guarantee that all citizens have representation by extending statehood to Washington, D.C.. Youth voters, as the most globally diverse citizens in American history, can lead in the adoption of proven democracy measures practiced abroad, such as universal voting. By treating voting as a duty, not merely a right, America can match the voting rate of other democracies by 85%, far above our highest presidential turnout of 62%.  

• We must embrace American Promise’s efforts to ratify a 28th Amendment to regulate campaign finance, now supported by 25 states.  A supermajority of Americans support such a constitutional amendment, notably, across partisan lines.

• Lastly, considering recent cynical Supreme Court decisions, we need a constitutional amendment to avoid legislative maps that are both hyper-partisan and racially gerrymandered. This would ensure fair, independent redistricting that allows voters, not the self-interested, to choose policies and leaders. 

As a young nation at 250, public opinion today reveals a pessimism and cynicism at odds with the hope and resilience we associate with young voters, leaders and democratic movements.  The democracy challenges of the present and the history of the youth advocacy for the 26^th Amendment demonstrate that a Second Founding is both necessary and possible.  July 5^th should be America’s first day of a bold Second Founding agenda. 

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Yael Bromberg, Esq. is a constitutional rights attorney and 26th Amendment legal scholar. She is Principal of Bromberg Law LLC, and teaches election law at American University Washington College of Law. She recently published Youth Voting Rights: Civil Rights, the Twenty-Sixth Amendment, and the Fight for American Democracy on College Campuses (De Gruyter, 2025). She also serves on the national cross-partisan advisory counsel of American Promise.

Cornell Williams Brooks is Hauser Professor of the Practice of Nonprofit Organizations and Professor of the Practice of Public Leadership and Social Justice at the Harvard Kennedy School. He is also Director of The William Monroe Trotter Collaborative for Social Justice at the School’s Center for Public Leadership, and Visiting Professor of the Practice of Prophetic Religion and Public Leadership at Harvard Divinity School. He is the former president and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), a civil rights attorney, and an ordained minister.