(soft music) (dramatic music) - Welcome to "The Newsfeed."

In today's episode, consider this question.

What can we learn from our history that might help shape the future?

We preview a session from the Cascade PBS Ideas Festival that might help us better understand our nation's progress.

Plus, reaction is mixed down party lines as candidates campaign in the new Latino majority 14th legislative district.

I'm Paris Jackson.

In today's top story, we explore the fragile state of our democracy, from its founding to today and the potential long-term impacts of the upcoming presidential election.

Slate's "Hear Me Out" podcast host, Celeste Headlee, sat down with historian, Heather Cox Richardson, for a live podcast recording in early May, diving into what the Founding Fathers intended with the Declaration of Independence and how much progress we've made since then.

Take a listen.

- To say that there has been some progress doesn't mean that we've achieved progress.

You and I are still being paid far less than our male counterparts.

I think it wasn't until I was in my forties that I actually got the same pay as a guy doing the same work that I did.

And that has now changed the other way because of the pandemic.

As a person of color, no matter what level of education and achievement I have, I'm gonna get worse healthcare, I'm gonna pay more in interest on my house loan, all of those things.

So to say that we've come further than 1776 is an incredibly low bar.

I think if the intention of the Founders, and, again, I wanna give them the biggest benefit of the doubt I can, the largest grain of salt, if their intention was to create that kind of country, the one that they described in the Declaration, in the Constitution, especially.

- Give me the Declaration.

- Yeah, I know, the Constitution goes into property.

So let's stay with the Declaration.

- Let's do the Declaration.

- Let's be super idealistic.

If that was their intention, I would say they failed.

She says we failed.

And this is my question for you, is that, was it the failure of the documents or our failure to amend them as time changed or as we learned better?

- So I do wanna point out that was 250 years ago, and they are just documents.

- They're sacrosanct.

- Well, I didn't say that.

I didn't say that.

But I do think the concept of the rule of law is sacrosanct.

And the Constitution, I am a big believer in amending the Constitution.

But the 14th Amendment, that is sacrosanct, the 14th Amendment that says that everybody has to be treated equally before the law is gospel.

The fact that it has not been honored in our past is a problem.

So that goes back to where I started.

Are we a nation that really believes what was in that very problematic document that says we're all created equally and we have a right to be treated equally before the law and have a say in our government or are we a nation that says, "Well, those are very nice words, "but really a few white guys should run everything"?

- To listen to the full segment, check out the "Cascade PBS Ideas Festival" podcast wherever you stream podcasts.

(soft music) New Latino majority district, new round of candidates across the political spectrum.

But what's not new is the polarity in the races.

There's division, not surprisingly, among new and incumbent candidates vying for state legislative seats in central Washington's new Latino majority district.

This year's election will see major changes with the new legislative map.

Two incumbent legislators decided not to run in the 14th after being excluded from their old district's new boundaries, and several Latina and Latino candidates from across the political spectrum have filed to run in all three 14th district races.

Democrats say the newly drawn district levels the playing field, whereas a group of conservative Latino voters says the voting rights issue that Democrats filed suit over is a guise to help them win elections in the historically conservative central Washington region.

The new map now includes communities in East Yakima, the Latino majority communities in the lower Yakima Valley, and East Pasco and Franklin County.

It also keeps the entirety of the Yakima Reservation and nearly all of its offsite fishing villages and public lands in the 14th instead of splitting it across districts.

I'm Paris Jackson.

Thank you for watching "The Newsfeed," your destination for nonprofit northwest news.

Go to crosscut.com for more.

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