Friends,
The elections are over, and Americans spoke loudly at the ballot box, but in the words of the immortal NBA legend Kobe Bryant, the “job’s not finished.” Not for any of us.
Our job at ILSR is clear. A Harris Poll conducted a week before the election revealed that cost of living/inflation and government corruption were the top issues for voters. The message was clear, and it speaks to a need to address the underlying, structural problems.
If policymakers attempt to tackle affordability and accountability without targeting corporate control to return agency to people in local communities, the change will be insufficient. Policies like tax holidays and temporary rate freezes are band-aids on a shark bite. Weak legislation won’t solve the problems they’re intended to address and will lead voters to lose even more faith in a democratically elected government’s ability to improve their lives.
Now is our moment. The dozens of ballot measures across the country that limited AI data center development, along with referendums in Michigan and Montana prohibiting corporate spending in political campaigns, are encouraging, clear signals of the kind of democracy we desire.
We are essential voices in ensuring policymakers join voters in dismantling corporate power and creating space for changemakers to build communities with locally accountable power. We’re going to work on breaking up Big Utilities and Big Tech, and restoring local institutions, so that our bills and our lives can’t be controlled from a few distant corporate boardrooms. We’ll build on recent wins in Rhode Island ending an anticompetitive corporate practice that keeps grocery stores out of communities, and in Maryland helping establish funding for farmers to keep wasted food out of landfills.
More is necessary, and more is possible. We hope that you, like us, embrace the commitment that does not end when the campaign ads and mailers cease. The job is not finished, and we need your support to secure enduring change.
In solidarity,
Stacy Mitchell and John Farrell
ILSR Co-Executive Directors
We see the signs everywhere — communities challenging concentrated corporate control and asserting their power to shape the essential systems they depend on.
We analyzed how the 2026 midterm elections affected the balance of power between utilities and communities.
An ILSR event in Arizona gathered small business owners, community advocates, congressional staff, and antitrust leaders to develop policy ideas for taking on corporate power.
Communities can assert their power against the big tech monopolies driving the harmful expansion of massive data centers.