For FairVote’s Research department, 2017 was quite an eventful year. We produced several substantial reports, and found critical data for our allies in California, New Mexico, Massachusetts and elsewhere. We also said farewell to a few colleagues and welcomed a few more onto the team. Some highlights:

• We published two marquee reports. The first was Monopoly Politics 2018, which as part of our ongoing Monopoly Politics series, details how representation and competition in the House of Representatives are compromised by hyper-partisanship and winner take all districts. The second, the Fair Representation Act Report, looks at how Congressman Don Beyer’s bill, HR 3057, would reshape the demographics and politics of the House of Representatives by fixing many of the problems identified in Monopoly Politics.
• Additionally, several smaller reports for our redistricting reform series was published, as well as discrete reports on Proportional Representation in New York, and an upcoming report on congressional apportionment.
• Thinking about how we can best communicate our research, the team developed new formats, such as graphic-oriented 1 pagers, a monopoly politics spreadsheet for our sample super district map, and weekly blogs tracking congressional retirements and their implications.
• And, we said goodbye to our research director, Sarah John, a fellow, Kelsey Kober, and an associate, Haley Smith. We also welcomed two new fellows, Johnathan Nowakowski, and Madeline Brown to the research team, and  hosted six incredible interns, Lane Baldwin, Jesse Docter, Michael Pattison, Marie Lemieux, Daniel Greenberg and Lev Cohen.

Going into 2018, we expect a high degree of political upheaval, which will require both careful analysis and concerted action. We’ve had a great year of contributing supportive evidence and research to the cause of ranked choice voting everywhere from Broward County Florida to Santa Clara California, and of course, nationally via our support of the Fair Representation Act. We look forward to continuing to provide this support, and conducting more innovative and insightful research in the new year.