CLOSURE: Central Library will be closed Tuesday, July 21, through Saturday, July 25, while emergency repairs are made to the building’s cooling system. We expect to reopen Monday, July 27. Click for more details on holds, program schedules, and returns during the closure. 

How Democracy Works Now

Summary

These films started with the kind of question you wonder about sometimes: what would it take for a great idea to become the law of the land? How would that story work? How does democracy work, in fact? HOW DEMOCRACY WORKS NOW looks into the black box between elections and legislation, and seeks to understand what sorts of collaborations and pathways were actually there. The idea we chose was immigration reform, and the tale we followed took us all over -- Iowa, Kansas, California, and Arizona, as well as Capitol Hill. We've ended up with ten films linking dozens of fascinating people, each connected by a commitment to change the way that the United States handles the bedrock national identity issue of immigration. Together, the ten make up one very big story -- a story that's only visible at the end of the journey.