When I started Democracy Docket in 2020, I had no idea how to build a pro-democracy platform. But I knew that the legacy media was failing democracy.

They were too interested in false neutrality. Their focus was on their corporate owners and commercial advertisers, not the public they served.

As the general counsel to Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign, I had seen these outlets fawn over Donald Trump while attacking her at every turn. As a voting rights litigator, I grew tired of news stories that presented voter suppression as just another policy choice.

As the 2020 elections approached, I was fighting Trump’s attacks on voting rights in court — and winning. But I grew increasingly frustrated that there were too few voices pushing back on Trump and telling the truth.

So, in March 2020, I launched Democracy Docket to be the leading digital news platform dedicated to information, analysis and opinion about voting rights and elections in the courts. Most people I told about Democracy Docket thought I was joking. Others thought it was just a phase I was going through.

But I was serious. And even before we had published our first article, I insisted on several principles that continue to this day.

First, I made clear that Democracy Docket would provide both original news reporting and incisive commentary. The problem facing the media is not only a lack of expert analysis. It is an underinvestment in pro-democracy reporting.

Second, we would stay focused on our core mission: Explaining what is happening to voting, elections and democracy with a particular emphasis on the courts. We would not chase other political stories or pretend to be experts on topics that we are not.

Most importantly, I decided that, as we built Democracy Docket, we would always be protected from outside pressures to pull our punches or tone down our coverage. In other words, we would be proudly independent and unapologetically pro-democracy.

That decision is more important today than it has ever been.

For example, we insisted on building our own tech stack. We don't run on Substack or any other newsletter platform. That might sound like a minor technical detail, but it isn't.

When you build on someone else's platform, you are a tenant, not an owner. Your ability to be discovered and to publish lives at the pleasure of a company whose priorities may not always align with yours, and whose terms of service can change overnight.

Being independent meant we wanted to own our home, not rent it. That took more time, more money and more headaches. But it also meant no one could lock us out of it.

We also decided that we would not rely on corporate advertising.

Advertisers are, by definition, businesses with interests to protect — and those interests do not always align with holding the people and institutions that threaten democratic norms to account.

A newsroom funded by advertising has a quiet, constant incentive to avoid alienating advertisers. We refuse to build that incentive into our foundation. While we have, from time to time, accepted advertising from allied non-profit groups, we have ensured it would not become a dominant source of revenue.

Finally, Democracy Docket is a for-profit company but has no outside investors.

Being for-profit requires us to operate with discipline and accountability — we have to actually deliver value to the people who support us. It also means that no one person or foundation can have leverage over our mission through their donations.

Having no outside investors means we don't answer to venture capitalists, private equity or wealthy backers who might have their own agendas, their own business relationships or their own reasons to ask us to soften a story or look the other way.

That leaves membership. Your membership.

Premium members are not nice-to-haves for us — they make up the financial foundation of Democracy Docket. Premium members allow us to cover Trump's attacks on voting rights, election officials and the courts without flinching, without softening and without wondering whether we can afford to make someone powerful angry.

They also allow us to keep the content on our website free for everyone. They provide the resources that allow us to send daily and weekly newsletters to anyone who signs up. And they allow us to continue to grow Democracy Docket in size and influence.

To be clear, premium members do receive additional newsletter content from me and are invited to exclusive events. But their most important role is ensuring Democracy Docket's independence.

If you believe — as we do — that this moment demands media that answers to readers and to no one else, I hope you'll consider becoming a premium member today.

Thank you for reading, for trusting us and for supporting us.