[3] The New York Times described the institute in this fashion: "In a small office a few miles from Capitol Hill, a handful of top advisers to Senator John McCain run a quiet campaign.
In addition to its work at the federal level, the institute also engaged in efforts at the state and local level to enact reforms including initiatives on public campaign funding of state and local elections, redistricting reform to eliminate gerrymandering of electoral districts, ballot access, open primaries, and election administration and voter assistance.
In 2007 the institute partnered with Brickfish in an online contest to draw attention to the issue by encouraging entrants to express the message they thought the border fence conveyed by virtually designing a portion of it.
[13] The institute's political reform work has included endorsing the successful California Proposition 11 (2008) redistricting ballot initiative, partnering in a national voter assistance hotline in 2008,[14] warning of the threats to judicial independence of the rising sums being raised and spent in judicial elections,[15] supporting public campaign financing initiatives in states like Maryland, Hawaii and Wisconsin, and offering recommendations for Congressional reform.
Notable members of the advisory committee included Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), former Senator David Boren (D-OK), former Congressman Charles Bass (R-NH), Timothy Farrell of Bank of America, Marie Royce of Alcatel-Lucent, Marc Spitzer of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Matthew Freedman of Global Impact, Inc., Don Murphy of Genn & Murphy, LLC, Robert Kelly of CenTauri Solutions, LLC, Ken Nahigian of Nahigian Strategies, LLC, Dan Ortiz of the University of Virginia School of Law, Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution, and Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute.