Democrats Deliver is the only media outlet devoted to showcasing the hard-fought progress Democrats are making in zip codes all across this nation. Every week, we bring you the biggest wins so you can stay in the loop.

We are back for our third Democrats Deliver Weekly Roundup. We hope you enjoy it! For breaking news in real time, follow us at @DemzDeliver on X.

Senate Democrats spent the week reminding the country that you can force a vote and win the argument, state governors kept their pens busy on everything from vaccines to veterinary care, and city councils from coast to coast decided that public health is, in fact, good policy. Let’s get into it.

5. Senate Democrats Force the Iran War Vote Nobody in the GOP Wanted

Weeks into an undeclared war with Iran, Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer used the War Powers Resolution to force a Senate vote at the statute’s 60-day deadline. Sen. Schiff framed the resolution as a direct challenge to what he called Trump’s illegal war. The Senate rejected the Democratic war powers measure for the sixth time, voting it down 47 to 50. But it may pass soon.

Sen. Susan Collins of Maine crossed the aisle to support the Democratic measure, the first Republican senator to break with the party on Iran since the conflict began. One defection is a crack. Cracks have a way of spreading, especially in a midterm year. Let’s hope Democrats have their way and Trump’s inflated gas prices start coming down soon. I’ve got a road trip coming up!

4. Maryland Gives First Responders a Break

Gov. Wes Moore had a busy signing week in Annapolis, and one bill in particular deserves a standing ovation from every firefighter and paramedic in the state. Moore signed legislation providing employment protections for firefighters’ off-duty use of medical cannabis. The law prohibits employers from disciplining or firing covered workers who test positive while holding a valid patient certification, and takes effect October 1.

The people who run into burning buildings for a living should probably be allowed to manage their own pain on their days off. I certainly wouldn’t mind fronting their refill money.

3. Connecticut Tells Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to Stay in His Lane

Gov. Ned Lamont signed HB 5044, the Vaccine Standards Act, on April 27, and the subtext could not be louder if it had a megaphone. The law severs Connecticut’s immunization standards from the federal Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has destroyed in recent months. Instead, the state’s public health commissioner will now set vaccine standards using guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics and other independent medical bodies.

The law also guarantees insurance coverage for state-recommended vaccines, allows the state to purchase vaccine doses outside the federal CDC supply chain, and makes clear that the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act cannot be used to dodge school vaccine requirements. Connecticut decided that when the federal government starts tinkering with the science, the science does not have to follow. My TikTok doctor is not too happy about this, but I am.

2. Colorado Signs a Law for Babies

Gov. Jared Polis spent April 29 signing a bipartisan bill expanding Colorado’s Safe Haven protections, and it is the kind of legislation that is genuinely hard to argue against. The law extends the window for parents to surrender a newborn at a designated safe location from 72 hours to 30 days, giving families in crisis significantly more time to make one of the hardest decisions a person can face.

Crucially, the bill does not just open a door and walk away. It adds a reunification pathway, meaning parents who surrender a newborn and later change their minds have a formal route to reclaim their child. Safe Haven laws have always been about keeping babies alive, and this expansion keeps that goal intact while acknowledging that the parents on the other side of that decision are also human beings who deserve a second chance.

Colorado joins a growing number of states strengthening these protections at a moment when reproductive healthcare access is being debated and dismantled at the federal level. Whether or not that context was on every legislator’s mind, the timing is hard to ignore. Keeping newborns safe and giving families options is good policy, good politics, and frankly, very cute optics for a signing ceremony. Somebody bring the governor a baby to hold for the photo.

1. New York City Passes a Vaccine Education Package Because Someone Has To

With vaccine misinformation spreading faster than the diseases vaccines prevent, the NYC Council passed a package of legislation to increase public education on vaccinations, especially for children and parents. The legislation directs the city to develop a childhood and adolescent vaccination education plan by January 1, 2027.

Speaker Julie Menin’s chamber also passed a resolution urging Albany to authorize dentists to administer flu, COVID, and HPV vaccines, because at this point, if your dentist can help, let your dentist help. The package now heads to Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has 30 days to act. In the same week the federal government was busy dismantling the vaccine guidance infrastructure, New York City decided to build its own. The adults are still in the room, they just happen to be at City Hall, and vaccinated of course.

Democrats Deliver is the only media outlet devoted to showcasing the hard-fought progress Democrats are making in zip codes all across this nation. Every week, we bring you the biggest wins so you can stay in the loop.

We are back for our second Democrats Deliver Weekly Roundup. We hope you enjoy it! For breaking news in real time, follow us at @DemzDeliver on X.

5. Senate Democrats Turn a Republican ICE Budget Into a Cost-of-Living Referendum

Republicans thought they were passing a budget to fund ICE and Border Patrol, but Democrats had an ambush prepared. During an all-night vote-a-rama on April 22–23, Senate Democrats forced Republicans onto the record against amendment after amendment aimed at lowering healthcare, housing, food, and energy costs. Can I say, not a good look?

Minority Leader Chuck Schumer hammered the contrast, calling out Republicans who “should be working with Democrats to lower out-of-pocket costs.” Democrats also successfully blocked Republican attempts to attach voter-ID requirements to the reconciliation bill, a significant procedural win tucked inside an otherwise lopsided night.

The strategy is paying off. A Fox News poll released this week showed Democrats leading Republicans on the economy for the first time in 16 years, and every one of those no votes on food assistance and healthcare is already headed for a campaign mailer near you. I pray for your mailbox, swing state voters.

4. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore Signs Voting Rights and Immigrant Protection Into Law

Maryland Democrats used every last second of their legislative session. Hopefully without too much lost sleep.

Governor Wes Moore signed two landmark bills into law this week that plant flags on two of the defining fights of the Trump era. The Voting Rights Act of 2026 empowers the state attorney general and residents to sue counties and municipalities over vote dilution and polarized voting, building a legal firewall around the ballot box at precisely the moment federal protections are being dismantled.

The Community Trust Act bars state and local jails from assisting ICE detainers without a judicial warrant, drawing a firm line between local law enforcement and Trump’s deportation machinery. Moore did not mince words:“In this moment, we did not just push back, we pushed forward.”

Maryland now joins Virginia, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Washington state in passing state-level voting rights acts this cycle, a coordinated blue-state offensive that is quietly reshaping the legal landscape heading into November. For the record, I’d like to order a new federal voting rights bill in 2027 please! Yes, of course with fries.

3. Colorado Moves to Put Solar Power in Every Renter’s Hands

For years, the promise of clean energy has come with a catch; you have to own your roof. HB 26-1007, soon to be signed by Governor Jared Polis, allows residents to install plug-in solar devices of up to 1,920 watts, the highest cap in the country, and makes it illegal for landlords to block them. Paired with new energy meter connection rules that make the technology genuinely practical rather than just legal, this opens the clean energy economy to the millions of Americans who rent their homes.

A federal judge had to step in on April 21 just to keep the Trump administration from burying wind and solar permitting under a mountain of political appointee sign-offs, while Colorado was busy taking the grid directly to the people. Maryland passed a similar bill the same week, and the momentum at the state level is promising.

So it might be a good time to microwave that pizza and binge watch a new show, on solar power of course.

2. Albuquerque Rewrites Its Zoning Code to Actually Build the City People Want to Live In

Housing affordability can’t be improved without fixing restrictive zoning rules that block building (and a little YIMBY-pilled advocacy). Luckily, Albuquerque has discovered this signature cocktail recipe.

On April 20, the city's updated Integrated Development Ordinance took effect, implementing the most significant overhaul of Albuquerque's zoning rules in a generation. The reforms encourage walkable neighborhoods, expand housing options across more of the city, and directly target the kind of exclusionary single-use zoning that has driven up costs and hollowed out communities across the country for decades.

Critically, the update also includes an Anti-Displacement Toolbox, a recognition that rezoning without protecting existing residents is not a housing policy so much as a gentrification policy. While federal housing assistance faces cuts and the construction of affordable units stalls in cities nationwide, Albuquerque chose to use the tools it controls to start building the city its residents need. Fortunately for City office staff, contractors will handle the hammer and nail aspects of the implementation.

1. New York City Rings in Earth Day With a Sweeping Environmental Justice Package

New York City celebrated Earth Day in style, if passing legislation is your version of a party. It happens to be mine, thank you very much.

The NYC Council’s Earth Day package expands green space in underserved communities that have been shorted on parks and trees for generations (take that Robert Moses), launches a cool-pavement pilot to combat the urban heat island effect that kills hundreds of New Yorkers every summer, mandates organic waste separation by city agencies, and requires water quality testing at more than 15 sites across the five boroughs.

The legislation also increases transparency around the B-HEARD mental health response program, treating environmental health and public health as two dimensions of the same crisis rather than separate policy lanes. Speaker Julie Menin said the Council is making good on its commitment to a city that is “greener, healthier, and more equitable.”

In the same week the Trump administration was in federal court trying to choke off wind and solar permitting across the country, New York City was busy getting green. My second favorite color: thank you Mr. Mamdani!

With his poll numbers tanking and the cost of living squeezing voters, Trump has turned to gerrymandering as a lifeline, pressuring Republican state legislatures to redraw Congressional maps mid-decade to protect his House and Senate majorities. His approval rating has cratered to 35%, and Democrats now lead Republicans by 7 points on the generic ballot.

Trump can thank the Supreme Court for making this possible. In 2019, the Court ruled in Rucho v. Common Cause that partisan gerrymandering was a political question beyond their reach, handing full control of the mapmaking process to state legislatures with zero federal guardrails.

Republicans didn’t stumble into this advantage. For decades, dark money donors poured hundreds of millions into state legislative races to gain control over the maps. It worked. According to the Brennan Center, Republicans currently hold 16 additional seats they wouldn’t have without gerrymandering.

Now, Trump is trying to squeeze even more juice out of the Republican gerrymandering machine, pressuring Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, and Ohio to redraw their maps before the 2026 midterms. Thankfully, it’s already backfiring. Democrats pushed through redistricting measures in California and Virginia; now Democrats have gained more seats than Republicans.

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However, the need for a ban remains urgent. Republicans already hold over a dozen seats they do not deserve, and the Supreme Court could make it dramatically worse. Any day now, the conservative justices are widely expected to gut Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in Louisiana v. Callais, with prediction markets putting the odds at 90.8%.

The consequences would be devastating. Up to 19 House seats could be gerrymandered red through minority vote dilution. Nearly a third of the Congressional Black Caucus and 11 percent of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus could be drawn out of existence. In 10 Southern states, majority-minority state legislative districts could collapse from 342 to 202.

The Solution

(1) The Redistricting Reform Act

Here is the good news. Congress has the power to end gerrymandering for good, and Democrats are getting to work on exactly that. Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California has introduced the Redistricting Reform Act, which would ban mid-decade redistricting nationwide and require every state to establish an independent redistricting commission.

Each commission would have 15 members: 5 from the majority party, 5 from the minority party, and 5 independents, all required to reflect the demographics and regions of their state. Partisan gerrymandering would be explicitly prohibited.

We know this works. After Michigan voters approved an independent commission in 2018, the maps drawn for the 2022 cycle were the most balanced the state had seen in half a century, with no significant advantage to either party. All registered voters were eligible to serve, public meetings were required, and legislators were kept out entirely.

(2) Banning Gerrymandering

Congress could also give courts the tools to strike down partisan gerrymanders directly. Right now they have no standard to apply. That can be fixed.

One of the most powerful measures ever proposed is the efficiency gap, developed by professors Nicholas Stephanopoulos and Eric McGhie. The concept is straightforward; every vote cast for a losing candidate is a wasted vote, along with every extra vote cast for a winner beyond what they needed to win. Gerrymanders work by forcing the opposing party to waste as many votes as possible. The efficiency gap measures exactly that.

Here is how the math works. Take a county with 10 districts and 1,000 total votes. Republicans win 8 districts, Democrats win 2. When you add up every wasted vote, Democrats wasted 350 while Republicans wasted only 150.

Efficiency gap = (350 - 150) / 1,000 = 20%

A gap that large is a strong signal of a Republican gerrymander. Stephanopoulos and McGhie propose an 8% threshold. Any map that exceeds it would be presumptively illegal. Congress could write that standard into law tomorrow.

Despite every solution on the table, Republicans have not lifted a finger. The Redistricting Reform Act has been collecting dust in the Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee since last September, while over 50 Democrats have signed on as cosponsors.

This is not new. Republicans blocked the Freedom to Vote Act, which would have eliminated partisan gerrymandering, in both 2019 and 2021. Both times, Democrats voted overwhelmingly to pass it. Both times, Republicans killed it.

75% of Americans said partisan gerrymandering was a major problem in 2025. Democrats are with the public. Republicans are not.

Republicans can block these bills today. But when Democrats take back power, this is first on the agenda. The maps will be fair. The votes will count. And the era of rigged districts will be over.

That day can’t come soon enough.

Illinois is short 142,000 homes. In the past five years alone, new home listings in the state dropped 64 percent, and new construction permits fell 13 percent. Chicago rents are growing faster than almost any other city in the country, even as national rents fell. And for years, the state did basically nothing about it.

That just changed. In his State of the State address in February, Governor JB Pritzker unveiled the Building Up Illinois Developments plan, known as BUILD. It is the most comprehensive state-level housing reform package in the country right now, and every Democrat who cares about affordability should study it closely.

Pritzker’s diagnosis is simple: “The problem is clear, rent is too high, and home ownership is too far out of reach. The cause is clear, too. We are not building enough homes fast enough.” He is right. This is a supply problem. And BUILD goes after supply with a seriousness Illinois has never seen.

1. The Core Problem

Developer demand to build in Illinois is real. What stops them is a patchwork of local regulations, arbitrary permitting delays, irrational parking requirements, and zoning rules that effectively ban everything except single-family homes on most residential land in the state.

Illinois permits housing at nearly half the rate of the national average. Since 2015, the state has averaged 848 permitted units per month. The national average over that same period was 1,426. That is not a small gap. And it is not a gap explained by a lack of demand. It is a gap created by policy.

Illinois real estate researchers found that the municipal side of housing costs, zoning approvals, permit timelines, impact fees, and local taxes, accounts for nearly 50 percent of total project costs. That is not the cost of lumber or labor. That is the cost of bureaucracy. And it is a cost that can be entirely eliminated with different policy choices.

2. Reviving the Missing Middle

The first and most consequential piece of BUILD is statewide zoning preemption for missing middle housing. Under current law, most residential land in Illinois is zoned exclusively for single-family homes. Duplexes, triplexes, and four-plexes, the kind of modest, neighborhood-scale housing that filled American cities for a century before mid-century zoning rewrote the rules, are simply illegal to build on most lots. BUILD makes them legal everywhere, statewide, by right. Not by special permit. Not by variance. By right.

The second piece legalizes Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs), granny flats, backyard cottages, and above-garage apartments on all residentially zoned properties across the state. Right now, even in Chicago, building one of these is nearly impossible in most neighborhoods. The BUILD plan ends that entirely. A homeowner who wants to add a unit, house an aging parent, or generate rental income to cover their mortgage could just do it. The ADU bill (SB 4071) also prohibits municipalities from imposing parking, size, or other restrictions on ADUs beyond what they impose on single-family homes.

The third piece eliminates irrational parking minimums. Developers would face far more sensible parking space requirements for new housing. This is not a small thing. Parking mandates force developers to build expensive underground or structured parking that adds thousands of dollars per unit in costs, all of which get passed directly to renters and buyers. Under BUILD, local governments could not require more than half a parking space per multifamily unit, or any parking at all for dwellings under 1,500 square feet.

All three of these reforms share the same logic: the state is overriding local rules that have, in practice, functioned as a veto on housing construction. Local governments retain their zoning classifications. They retain their discretion. They just lose the ability to use those rules to ban the kinds of housing Illinois desperately needs.

3. Cutting the Red Tape

Even when a project clears zoning, it can die in permitting. BUILD attacks this directly.

First, it standardizes permitting timelines statewide, giving developers clear and predictable deadlines for permit reviews and inspections. The open-ended waiting game, where a local department can sit on an application indefinitely, goes away.

Second, and this is the most important piece, if a local government misses its deadline, the developer can bring in a qualified third-party reviewer to sign off on the permit. That third party follows all applicable local and state standards.

Third, the plan standardizes impact fee practices across the state. Impact fees today vary wildly by municipality and are often unpredictable. Standardizing them gives developers the cost certainty they need to make projects pencil out, while still preserving local decision-making on how fees are set.

Fourth, the plan modernizes outdated building codes to maintain safety, free up space for more units, and reduce construction costs. One provision worth noting: allowing single stairways in smaller buildings up to six stories that meet other safety requirements. This is already common in Europe and a number of other states. It allows for more efficient floor plans and more units per building.

4. $250 Million to Back It All Up

The regulatory reforms are the core of BUILD. But Pritzker paired them with money, which matters for two reasons. It makes the overall package more politically durable, and it directly addresses the one somewhat reasonable critique of zoning reform, that new density can strain existing infrastructure.

$150 million goes through the Illinois Housing Development Authority: $100 million in capital funding for middle housing construction and $50 million in down payment assistance for first-time homebuyers. The other $100 million goes through the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity as capital grants to help municipalities cover upfront infrastructure costs, sewer improvements, stormwater systems, and site access, which block viable housing projects before they even get started.

That last piece is smart politics and smart policy. One of the reasons local governments resist density is the legitimate concern that their infrastructure was not built for it. BUILD gives municipalities money to fix that.

5. Why This Approach Works

The critics of supply-side housing reform always make the same argument: building more housing does not make it affordable. That argument has not survived contact with any city that actually tried it. The reason housing costs so much is that demand far outpaces supply, and local regulations make it almost impossible to close that gap. BUILD addresses every layer of the problem simultaneously.

By-right zoning for missing middle housing removes the political veto that neighborhood opposition currently holds over new construction. ADU legalization adds units without requiring new land, new infrastructure, or large-scale development. Parking minimum reduction cuts real per-unit construction costs. Permit timeline reform means that projects that clear zoning actually get built instead of dying in a queue. And slashing impact fees cuts direct production costs.

The BUILD plan is also modeled on similar state laws already passed in Oregon and Washington, two states where housing reform advocates have been further along in the fight. What Pritzker is doing is not novel in concept. It is only novel in scale and in the political will required to push it through a big, fragmented, home-rule state like Illinois.

6. The Path Forward and the Obstacles

The BUILD plan has real momentum. House Speaker Emanuel Welch told a room of real estate professionals in Springfield that “you cannot solve a housing shortage without building more houses,” and he has been publicly supportive. Pritzker has built an impressive coalition: housing advocates, the building industry, and the Illinois Realtors Association, which represents 50,000 members. A recent poll showed broad public support for each individual component of the plan when framed around affordability, starter homes, and keeping people in their communities.

The opposition is coming from local governments. The Illinois Municipal League called BUILD a broad preemption of local authority. Some suburban mayors held press conferences against it. A handful of Democratic legislators have been cautious, too, arguing that municipalities deserve more say.

This opposition deserves very little sympathy. Local governments created this crisis. For decades, they have used zoning power to ban apartments, block ADUs, drag out permitting, and effectively wall off their communities from the people who can no longer afford to live in them. The Illinois Municipal League is not defending local democracy. It is defending the right of local officials to say no to housing forever, consequences for everyone else be damned. Oregon called their bluff. Washington called their bluff. Rents went down. No neighborhood collapsed. The suburbs did not turn into Manhattan. They just got a little more housing.

Despite this, there is some real political vulnerability here. When voters were told the plan could mean more crowding, traffic, and strain on schools, 45 percent said they were less likely to support it. That is the message local officials will run with. It is also, to be blunt, the same message that has been used to block housing in every state, in every decade, for the past century. It is the message that got us here.

The most likely outcome is a negotiated version that preserves the core, by-right middle housing, ADU legalization, permit reform, while giving local governments some additional flexibility on implementation. Whether that compromise retains enough force to actually move the needle is the real question, and the answer depends entirely on how much Pritzker is willing to hold the line and how hard advocates are willing to push.

What is not in question is that JB Pritzker has already done more on this issue than nearly any Democratic Governor in the country. He is going all in on the exact kind of bold change Illinois needs. If BUILD passes in anything close to its current form, it will be the most significant state-level housing reform in the country.

If you live in Illinois, find your state representative and state senator here and email them today. Tell them you support the BUILD Plan. This is the best shot at real housing reform anywhere in the country right now. We can’t miss this opportunity.

One would think that voter suppression would be a thing of the past, given how much my generation and others have been taught about the evils of poll taxes, grandfather clauses, and literacy tests in our schooling.

Whenever I consider this history, my mind returns to a scene from the introduction to Robert Caro’s Master of the Senate, as he notes the trials faced by Black Americans to register to vote in Alabama in 1957:

When those in power restrict the voting rights of a particular group, it is out of fear: fear that accountability to the preferences of that group might lead to political defeat. Rather than question the merits or popularity of their policies, the offending politico would rather relegate the source of that opinion to second-class status where it matters most, at the ballot box.

Ah, but today’s deniers of civil liberties are more cunning than in 1957, knowing that such a brash appeal to prejudice won’t sell as well today. Instead, they wax about matters of ‘integrity’ and ‘security,’ reinforced by unfounded claims and conspiracy theories about voter fraud.

Last year, the Michigan Department of State completed a review of noncitizen voting in the 2024 general election and found that only “15 credible cases [were] identified – 0.00028% of more than 5.7 million total ballots cast…1” These findings have been supported by investigations in states as varied as Iowa, Louisiana, and Utah2. On the opposing side, there is no evidence, so on the basis of known facts, one must conclude that voter fraud is not a major issue in this country.

The Republicans’ newest solution in search of a problem is the SAVE Act, which would require citizens to provide extensive proof of citizenship documentation in order to register to vote. (It should be noted that defrauding the government when registering or voting as a noncitizen is already illegal.)

On its face, this may seem reasonable; surely every citizen has some form of identification. But as noted by an excellent policy brief by Vote.org3, the effects of the SAVE Act in practice would be catastrophic:

In short, young, poor, and female voters will especially suffer, and people of color will be among the worst impacted.

Imagine you are a recently married woman who has changed their last name, and therefore you have a legal name that is different from their birth certificate and current passport. In 45 states, you will need to secure new ones to re-register to vote, now in-person, a challenging process to say the least.

Imagine again you are an elderly man in a small town in Montana, and you don’t drive anymore. How will you be able to update your expiring registration when the nearest election office is 4 hours away?

These impacts aren’t hypothetical. According to that same policy brief:

The crux of the issue is this: voters who have struggled to gain representation and exercise their voting rights are now being targeted to depress their turnout. Not coincidentally, these voters tend to support Democrats in higher numbers. It turns out the only people this Act intends to save are unpopular Republican members of Congress.

In addition, according to leading constitutional scholars such as Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law, the SAVE Act is likely unconstitutional. This is because it imposes an implicit tax on voting by requiring to obtain additional voter identification, such as passports4. The Act also imposes a greater burden on voters than generally allowed under the Equal Protection Clause.

Here’s the good news: While the SAVE Act passed the House against strong Democratic opposition, it is stalled in the Senate by a Democratic filibuster5. Democrats are taking a stand for the voting rights of all Americans, including those who may oppose their policies, as Republicans champion the opposite course.

Try as Trump may, as long as the filibuster remains, the SAVE Act will be frozen still, and for that we can thank Democrats.

What do you guys think about this situation? Let us know in the comments!

Blue states are losing people. New York, California, Illinois, and Massachusetts have all seen population decline or stagnation over the last decade, and the trend is accelerating. People are leaving for Florida, Texas, and Tennessee — not because those states have better governments, but because they have cheaper housing.

This is not just an affordability problem. It is a political crisis. Congressional reapportionment is based on population, and if blue states keep hemorrhaging residents through the 2020s, the 2030 census will hand Republicans a structural advantage in the House that Democrats may not be able to overcome for a decade. California already lost a congressional seat after the 2020 census. New York nearly lost two. If current trends continue, the next round will be worse.

The root cause is not hard to identify. Many local governments in blue states have development laws that make it damn near impossible to build anything. State Democrats have the power to fix this. Most blue states have trifectas. They have the governor’s office, the state senate, and the state house. There is no Republican blocking these reforms.

The only thing standing in the way is the political will to take on the powerful interest groups that have benefited from keeping housing scarce. This needs to be done. Here are 7 ways it can be.

1. Legalize Missing Middle Housing Statewide

• Legalize medium-density multifamily housing by right in all residential zones

• Legalize townhomes by right in all residential zones

• Legalize accessory dwelling units by right on any residential lot, with no owner-occupancy requirement

Single-family zoning is the original sin of American housing policy. Across many blue states, it is still illegal to build a townhome, ADU (granny flat), duplex, triplex, or small apartment building on the vast majority of residential land.

Legalizing missing middle housing means allowing medium-density multifamily by right in every residential zone in the state. No special permits. No local vetoes. No discretionary review. If the lot is residential, you can build it.

This is the single most powerful thing a state can do to increase housing supply. Every unit of missing middle housing that gets built is one fewer family priced out of the neighborhood.

2. Legalize Mixed Use Development Statewide

• Convert all retail and office commercial zones to mixed-use residential and commercial zones

• Allow adaptive reuse of office and retail buildings for residential use by right, without requiring a full rezoning

It should be legal to build an apartment above a store anywhere in America. In most blue states, it isn’t, because retail and office commercial zones prohibit residential uses entirely.

Converting all retail and office commercial zones to mixed-use by right opens up enormous amounts of land for housing without touching a single residential neighborhood. Main streets, strip malls, and dead office parks — all of it becomes fair game for the housing that people actually need.

There are many other benefits, too. Mixed-use areas provide easy access to amenities for those who live in them. They also allow people to cut their commute by living within walking distance from where they work, thereby also reducing street traffic.

3. Lower Housing Production Costs

• Reform building codes to allow single-stair construction in multifamily buildings

• Legalize manufactured housing that meets HUD standards in all residential zones

It costs too much to build in America, and a significant chunk of that cost is unnecessary. Two reforms can bring it down fast.

Current building codes in most states require two stairwells in any multifamily building over a certain height. Europe has allowed single-stair construction for decades with a strong safety record. Allowing single-stair design unlocks building configurations that are cheaper to build, more efficient to use, and actually better for residents. It is one of the most impactful and least talked-about housing reforms available.

Modern manufactured homes built to HUD standards are safe, durable, and significantly cheaper to produce than site-built homes. Most residential zones still prohibit them through aesthetic requirements designed to keep out lower-income residents. Requiring all residential zones to permit HUD-standard manufactured housing puts homeownership back within reach for people who have been shut out for a generation.

4. Tear Down Permitting Barriers

• Cap permitting fees at a level that reflects actual administrative costs

• Cap permitting wait times with automatic approval if the government misses the deadline

Even when housing is technically legal to build, local governments can kill it through the permitting process. Fees pile up. Applications sit for months. Approvals get delayed indefinitely with no accountability.

States need to cap permitting fees at a level that reflects actual administrative costs, not a revenue stream for local government. And they need to set hard deadlines for permit approvals, with automatic approval if the government misses the deadline. If a city wants the housing, it will process the permits. If it doesn’t process the permits, the housing gets built anyway.

5. Ban Impact Fees on Housing

• Ban impact fees on all new housing development statewide

Impact fees are charges that local governments impose on new housing developments to fund infrastructure. In theory, developers pay for the roads and schools their projects create demand for. In practice, impact fees have become a tool to price housing out of the market and protect wealthy homeowners from new neighbors.

In many California jurisdictions, impact fees add $50,000 to $100,000 to the cost of a single unit. That cost does not disappear. It gets passed on to renters and buyers. Blue states should ban impact fees on housing entirely and fund infrastructure through broad-based taxation instead.

6. Stop Frivolous Litigation from Blocking Housing

• Reform standing requirements so only parties with direct, genuine harm can challenge housing projects in court

In most states, virtually anyone can sue to block a housing project on environmental or procedural grounds. You do not need to own property near the project. You do not need to demonstrate actual harm. You just need a lawyer and enough money to drag the process out until the developer gives up.

States should reform standing requirements so that only people with a genuine, direct stake in a project can challenge it in court. Projects that comply with state housing law should not spend years in litigation before a single unit gets built.

7. Enforce the Law

• Create a state housing appeals board where developers can challenge local denials that violate state housing law, with real enforcement teeth

None of the above matters if local governments can ignore state housing law without consequence.

Blue states need a state housing appeals board with real teeth. When a local government denies a housing project that complies with state law, developers need a fast, low-cost way to challenge that denial and win. Not a years-long court battle. A state administrative process with clear timelines, binding decisions, and penalties for local governments that repeatedly violate state housing mandates.

California has spent years passing housing laws that cities quietly ignore. The lesson is clear: transparency without enforcement is just paperwork. If blue states are serious about the housing crisis, they have to be serious about making sure their own laws get followed.

The housing crisis is not a mystery. We know why housing is expensive. We built a system of laws designed to make it expensive, and the people who benefit from high home prices have fought to keep that system in place. Democrats have the power in blue states to dismantle it. The only question is whether they will.

Some Democratic Governors have taken the lead on this. Including JB Pritzker recently with his bold new BUILD agenda. We need more Governors, and just as importantly, state legislatures to follow suit.

Our democracy hangs in the balance.

Welcome to the first Democrats Deliver Weekly Roundup, your weekly scoop on the top 5 Democratic policy victories across the country.

Democrats Deliver is the only media outlet devoted to showcasing the hard-fought progress Democrats are making in zip codes all across this nation. Every week, we bring you the biggest wins so you can stay in the loop.

We hope you enjoy it. For breaking news in real time, follow us at @DemzDeliver on X. Gavin Newsom already does.

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5. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore Protects Vaccine Access

In light of increasing vaccine skepticism, largely charged by social media misinformation since the COVID pandemic and the Trump Administration’s embrace of RFK Jr., the most notorious anti-vax proponent in the country, Maryland has enacted The Vax Act to ensure uninterrupted vaccine access in the state1. The state will create and provide its own vaccine standards and schedules for adults and children and separate its efforts from those of the federal government.

4. House Democrats Pass Extension of Haitian Temporary Protected Status

Haiti has been torn apart by gang violence in recent years and is one of the poorest countries on Earth. The Trump Administration has repeatedly tried to revoke protections for these vulnerable immigrants, at a time when they have little to return home to, along with infamous dogwhistles about their presence in the U.S. 10 Republicans broke with their party line to join over 200 Democrats to pass this bill through the House2. Given the current mass deportation policy of the Administration, which is becoming increasingly unpopular, immigration reform seems to be far out of sight, but the possibility of these protections give hope for more productive conversations in the future, as courts ponder these cases.

3. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear Signs Law Reducing Prior Authorization Blocks

Insurance companies have become too comfortable with denying coverage for care licensed medical professionals have deemed necessary for their patients. Each prior authorization results in delays as doctors or staff must reach out to insurance representatives and make a case about why treatment is needed, taking them away from serving their patients, as healthcare costs and care shortages increase. The bill signed by Gov. Beshear insists that insurance companies create programs for medical professionals to be exempt from prior authorizations for procedures or care that is relevant to their practice3. Beshear demonstrates how Democrats can work on a bipartisan basis to reduce healthcare costs and delays, even in red states.

2. Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger Secures Large Agriculture Commitment

Most Americans don’t spend much time thinking about how their food, from fresh vegetables to poultry, lands in their grocery stores, but ensuring domestic supply chains are thriving is a linchpin of our economic strength (especially in times of war). In furthering that goal in Virginia, Gov. Spanberger announced a nearly $114 million investment by the Virginia Poultry Growers Cooperative to fund in-state facility expansions that will contain the largest grain storage capacity on the East Coast and create over 140 jobs4. Strong economic development requires diversification across industries and public-private partnerships, which is exactly what we see in getting this project across the line.

1. California AG Rob Bonta Blocks TV Merger

As media continues to consolidate (as we see with the proposed Paramount-Warner Bros. merger), there is concern not only about undue influence by government regulators who oversee such transactions (DOJ, FCC), but also about the reduction in unbiased local and state specific reporting by knowledgeable journalists, as cuts are made and larger entities control messaging. AG Bonta secured an injunction in federal court to pause the Tegna-Nexstar merger which would create a single owner with media access to about 4/5 of American households5. Not only would this reduce competition, potentially leading to higher consumer costs and job cuts, but also lead to the loss of quality news reporting in affected localities.

It’s commonly said ‘as California goes, so goes the nation.’ And if that is the case, communities across the country may be about to experience some positive changes. The state does face its fair share of challenges, namely in affordability and housing accessibility, but no one can deny its economic dynamism and strength in civil rights, plus I have to admit the weather isn’t too shabby either as I peer out my window in San Francisco.

The 2025-26 California Legislative Session (which remains ongoing) has been incredibly active, with over 1000 bills and resolutions passed so far. Let’s take a look at the most impactful legislation constituents can look forward to taking effect.

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Housing

• AB130 (Faster Housing Review)- Exempts most infill housing development from review under the California Environmental Quality Act

• AB1308 (Faster Housing Inspection)- Requires local building departments to conduct an inspection of completed permitted work for certain new residential construction projects and residential additions within 10 business days of receiving a notice that the work is done.

• SB79 (More Housing Near Transit)- Overrides local rules that block taller, denser housing near train stations and bus lines.

• AB246 (Social Security Hardship Eviction Protection)- Allows a residential tenant to use Social Security hardship as a legal defense in an eviction proceeding for nonpayment of rent.

• AB455 (Toxic Home Disclosure)- Requires sellers of single-family homes to disclose in writing to buyers if they have knowledge of past smoking or vaping inside the property.

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Budget and Taxes

• SB101 (State Budget)- Decides funding for everything state government does, including Medi-Cal, roads, courts, wildfire response, and social services. There is $114.6 billion in funding for K-14 education for the 25-26 fiscal year.

• AB102 and SB105 (Budget Trailer Bills)- These go along with the main budget and contain most of the actual policy details: who qualifies for Medi-Cal and CalWORKs, changes to prisons, how school funding formulas work, where climate money goes, and more. Notably, $3.3 billion in climate bond funds are directed across natural resources, environmental protection, wildfire, water, and resilience programs

• SB132 (Tax Changes)- A broad overhaul of state tax rules affecting both individuals and businesses, including credits, deductions, reporting requirements, and a Film & Television Tax Credit Expansion.

• SB711 (Emergency Tax Code Update)- States that California will not conform to the federal One Big Beautiful Bill for personal and business tax purposes.

• SB293 (Inherited Property Tax Rules)- Provides targeted property tax relief for wildfire victims under Proposition 19’s generational transfer rules.

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Energy and Environment

• AB1207 (Cap and Trade Extension)- The bill extends the California Global Warming Solutions Act’s market-based compliance mechanism, California’s greenhouse gas cap, through January 1, 2046

• AB1417 (Offshore Wind)- Updates and clarifies the rules for building offshore wind farms in California waters.

• SB593 (Voltage Surge/Drop Reporting)- Requires large electric utility companies in California to conduct studies examining incidents where a significant voltage surge or drop, possibly causing property damage.

• AB39 (Electrification Plans)- Requires cities and counties with populations over 75,000 residents to develop a comprehensive electrification plan between 2027 and 2030 as part of their general planning process, including EV charging and solar planning.

• SB567 (Oil Well Retrofit)- Creates a pilot program allowing up to 250 already-plugged idle oil and gas wells to be converted into gravity-based energy storage systems, with strict monitoring and safety requirements, through January 1, 2035

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Healthcare

• AB1041 (Faster Healthcare Worker Credentialing)- Requires every health insurance plan and health insurer in California to subscribe to and use a standardized credentialing form.

• AB260 (Reproductive Health Access Expansion)- Strengthens and expands access to reproductive and sexual health care across pharmacies, doctors’ offices, and insurance plans, with rules that took effect immediately.

• SB386 (No Fees for Dental Providers)- Requires health care plans and insurers to use a non-fee-based payment method as the default when paying dental providers, keeping costs lower for patients.

• AB1264 (Healthier School Food)- First-in-the-nation law that phases out the most concerning ultra-processed foods from school meals in California.

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Privacy and Technology

• SB53 (AI Oversight Law)- Sets up a broad framework for making AI more transparent and accountable, covering both businesses using AI and state agencies that use AI tools.

• AB316 (AI Injury Liability)- If an AI system injures or wrongs someone, the company or person that built or used that AI cannot escape responsibility simply by arguing that the AI acted on its own.

• AB621 (Deepfake Revenge Imagery)- Strengthens legal remedies against AI-generated fake intimate imagery, including both doctored real photos and fully AI-fabricated content.

• SB50 (Smart Device Privacy Rules)- Gives domestic violence survivors a formal legal process to revoke their abuser’s access to shared smart devices.

• AB1043 (Stronger Child Data Privacy)- Requires operating system providers, such as Apple and Google, to provide age verification “signals” to app developers when a user downloads or launches an app.

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Labor

• AB692 (Limits on Employer Repayment)- Bans so-called stay-or-pay clauses in employment contracts, provisions that require workers to repay their employer money if they leave their job before a specified date.

• AB406 (Job Protection for Abuse Survivors)- Stops employers from firing, demoting, or punishing workers who take time off for reproductive health decisions, domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking.

• SB642 (Equal Pay and Salary History)- Strengthens the state’s Equal Pay Act by expanding what counts as wages, now including bonuses, stock awards, expense reimbursements, and other forms of compensation, to ensure workers doing substantially similar jobs are paid equally regardless of sex, race, or ethnicity.

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Education

• AB1454 (Improved Reading Teaching)- Updates and enforces teacher training around how reading actually works.

• AB461 (No More Criminal Charges for Parents of Truant Kids)- Repeals the misdemeanor law that could be used to prosecute parents when their child repeatedly missed school.

• AB962 (School Phone Rules)- Schools can ban phone use on premises at all times, but only if the school has explicitly addressed emergency phone access in its comprehensive school safety plan

• AB1005 (Water Safety in Schools)- Requires public schools to teach kids about water safety and drowning prevention.

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Public Safety

• AB379 (Human Trafficking Crackdown)- Strengthens laws against human trafficking by adding tougher penalties for traffickers, exploiters, and those who buy trafficking victims, and by strengthening victim protections.

• AB250 (More Time for Sexual Assault Lawsuits)- Extends how long survivors of sexual assault have to file a civil lawsuit.

• AB992 (Better Police Training Standards)- Updates the minimum qualifications and training required for California peace officers, and establishes a stronger framework for how those standards are set and maintained.

• SB627 (Police Mask Ban)- Makes it a crime for law enforcement officers to wear face coverings that conceal or obscure their identity while performing their duties in California

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Elections

• AB604 (Redistricting Procedures)- Sets temporary rules for redistricting, the process of redrawing political district boundaries.

• ACA8 (Redistricting Constitutional Amendment)- Puts a constitutional amendment about redistricting on the ballot for voters to decide. (Approved by voters via Proposition 50, November 2025)

• AB930 (Longer Mail-In Period)- Extends the deadline for mail-in ballots to be counted from 3 days after Election Day to 7 days after Election Day.

• AB1286 (More Financial Disclosure from Officials)- Mandates that public officials disclose the identity of their prospective employer and the date of the arrangement if they are leaving office to prevent immediate lobbying.

• AB827 (Voter Registration and Mail Ballot Updates)- Requires that voters be given until the 22nd day after a regular statewide election to submit a vote-by-mail ballot signature verification statement.

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Immigration

• AB495 (Protections for Immigrant Students and Families)- Strengthens protections for immigrant students and families through updated school safety policies, caregiver authorization rules, and legal processes designed to shield students from immigration enforcement.

• SB281 (Immigration Warnings for Non-Citizen Defendants)- Requires judges to give clearer warnings to non-citizens before accepting a guilty plea, about how the plea could affect their immigration status.

• AB1261 (Legal Counsel for Immigrant Youth)- Guarantees free legal counsel to immigrant youth in California, including unaccompanied undocumented minors in the custody of the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement or living with a family member or sponsor in the state.

• AB1362 (Foreign Worker Contractor Oversight)- Positions California as a leader in protecting agricultural workers from predatory foreign labor recruiters.

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Transportation

• AB1340 (Ride Hailing Unionization)- More than 800,000 drivers for ride-hailing companies in California can now join a union and bargain collectively for better wages and benefits

• SB480 (Self-Driving Vehicle Equipment Standards)- Updates the equipment and lighting rules for autonomous vehicles.

• AB382 (Slower Speeds Near Pedestrians)- Lets cities set lower speed limits in pedestrian-heavy areas like near schools and on residential streets.

• AB366 (DUI Rules and Ignition Interlocks)- Requires the use of in-car breathalyzers for all first-time DUI offenders.

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Other

• AB268 (Diwali as a State Holiday)- Officially recognizes Diwali as a state holiday for courts, school districts, and government employment.

• AB977 (Native American Remains Protections)- Strengthens protections for Native American human remains and expands tribal authority over how they’re handled and returned.

• SB82 (Forced Arbitration Limits)- Targets infinite arbitration clauses, provisions buried in consumer contracts that attempt to force customers to arbitrate essentially any future dispute with a company.

• AB1527 (Tribal Gaming Compact)- Approves a new gaming compact between the state and a federally recognized Native American tribe.

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As you can see from this small sampling, tons of major reforms are taking place in California. As the state is among the first to tackle issues such as AI and autonomous vehicle regulation, and one of many facing affordability and housing access concerns, legislators across the country would do well to keep an eye on how this legislation impacts California constituents to take the best-performing measures back to support theirs.

What do you think about this legislation? Let us know in the replies!

The electoral college just got one step closer to going away forever.

The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is an agreement by states to allocate their electoral votes to whichever candidate wins the national popular vote, rather than their individual state’s popular vote. The compact takes effect once states totaling at least 270 electoral votes sign on.

The green states on the map above are members. The yellow states are ones that could foreseeably join in the near future. The map looks unusual because each state is sized to its electoral vote count. Once over half the map is green, the electoral college will be gone.

Virginia Democrats, led by newly elected Governor Abigail Spanberger, just made Virginia the latest state to join, and they did it within three months of her taking office. This is an incredible achievement. Every single time a candidate won the popular vote but lost the presidency due to the Electoral College, that candidate was a Democrat. Without the Electoral College, neither Bush nor Trump would have been initially elected.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone. A party that campaigns on an expansive social safety net and inclusive social policy will be more popular than one that has welcomed fascist ideologues into its coalition and openly opposed the democratic will of the majority, even when the Electoral College overrides it.

Spanberger’s win in Virginia is significant, but astute readers will notice that every state in the compact enacted it under full Democratic control. That’s no accident. Republicans understand that the Electoral College is essentially DEI for their party. It lets them campaign in a handful of states, run on a radically unpopular platform, and still win, because rural voters are caught in a vortex of right-wing media.

Every blue state should be working to join the compact. Doing so could either force Republicans to purge the fascists from their coalition or deliver a generation of Democratic dominance. Not only this, but it’s also what the American people want. Polls show 63% of voters want a popular vote for President.

The path to 270 is closer than it looks. Nevada Democrats nearly got there in 2023 before a Republican governor vetoed it, and a Democratic governor elected in 2026 could revive a statutory path. Wisconsin’s liberal Supreme Court, which flipped to a liberal majority in 2023 and just expanded to a 5-2 supermajority in April 2026, has already struck down the Republican gerrymander, with fairer maps in effect since 2024. That could make Wisconsin’s legislature a realistic target. Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire could all join with the right Democratic wave.

Those states alone would push the compact past 270. Democrats may be one blue wave away.

But there’s one more thing blue states need to do. Right now, every state has joined the compact through statute, meaning a single Republican trifecta could pull a state out. That vulnerability has to be closed. Blue states need to enshrine the compact in their state constitutions before that happens.

What do you think? Do you support the Electoral College going away? Which states do you think we can get to join next? Let us know in the replies!!!