December 27

2024 is coming to an end. The 118th Congress has met for the last time, and this is your final MORE POWER for the year. Here is a look back at some of the times Americans moved the needle in politics this year. Democracy is participatory and 2024 was a year packed with civic empowerment.

This year, people influenced politics on:

Election Day
Israel and Palestine
Reproductive Healthcare
TikTok
Hazing

Election Day

Election Day was a flurry of participation with millions voting. Some people even waited in line for hours. Poll workers volunteered, working long hours to ensure everyone had a chance to cast their ballots. Additionally, several areas of the country experienced unprecedented turn out during early voting. Many Americans got informed, made a voting plan, and cast their ballots. In the end, over 153 million people voted in the presidential election.

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Israel and Palestine

Americans protested and donated all year to both pro-Israel and anti-genocide causes. The pro-Palestine protests led Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to put forth a series of joint resolutions, which would have blocked a $20 billion U.S. weapons sale to Israel. Though none of them passed, this was still a historic moment in U.S. politics as Israel has long been a strong ally that typically goes unchallenged. Additionally, around 60 Democrats boycotted Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu’s congressional address; and, according to the Working Families Party, more than 90 members of Congress are publicly calling for either a ceasefire or at least for an end to the hostilities.

On the other side, a longstanding alliance and the pro-Israel counterprotests and sentiments supported the federal government sending Israel over $17.9 billion in military aid since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel. Additionally, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) spent millions in primary races across the country against candidates and sitting members calling for the end to the genocide. The effort was a crucial factor in prominent Congressional Democrats, Reps. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) and Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), losing their seats to more pro-Israel candidates.

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Reproductive Healthcare

Abortion has undeniably become one of the most contentious issues in the U.S., particularly after the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Americans have been protesting, posting, speaking out, signing petitions, and donating all year. As a result of pro-choice people’s efforts, several state and local ballot measures, which are proposals voted on by the public to create, change, or repeal laws, became law this year. Montana, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Nebraska, South Dakota, Missouri, Florida, Maryland, and New York all had pro-choice ballot measures to vote on during Election Day; voters in seven out of these ten states passed pro-choice ballot measures.

On the anti-abortion side, similar activism contributed to significant policy outcomes in Congress: Senate Democrats attempted to enshrine a federal right to abortion, which was blocked by Senate Republicans. Additionally, Senate Republicans also blocked a bill meant to protect in vitro fertilization (IVF) at the federal level.

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TikTok

Since its popularization, TikTok has been a contentious platform in the eyes of the federal government due, in large part, to who owns it: TikTok is owned by a company called ByteDance, which is based in China. The concern many Americans – including congressmembers – have is that ByteDance may share all data gathered on TikTok about Americans with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which the U.S. has an adversarial relationship with. Some Americans have been speaking out against the app, while others have advocated for it, pointing out that the app has become a significant platform for free speech and other social media platforms similarly gather and sell data.

First, Congress passed and President Biden signed a bill banning the app in the U.S. unless ByteDance relinquished ownership. ByteDance sued the government to maintain its right to own and operate the app in the U.S. and the latest news is that an appellate court upheld the law, deeming it constitutional. Now, TikTok has appealed its case to the Supreme Court, which will hear arguments on Jan. 10.

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Hazing

After years of tireless organizing, parents of hazing victims met with Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and several other congressmembers this year, attempting to convince them to pass the Stop Campus Hazing Act. The bill will increase transparency by mandating that institutions of higher education include all hazing incidents in their annual security reports. These reports are submitted to the Department of Education and made publicly accessible. Both chambers of Congress passed and President Biden signed the bill, making it the first federal anti-hazing bill.

Hazing refers to any activity expected of someone joining or participating in a group that humiliates, degrades, abuses, or endangers them, regardless of their willingness to participate; typically, college students attempting to join sororities, fraternities, and other student organizations like sports teams or clubs will be hazed. Hazing can lead to death or injury.

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