This July, just about 10 days after the country — and Philadelphia — celebrated the semiquincentennial of the Declaration of Independence, good governance nonprofit Committee of 70 welcomed hundreds of U.S. democracy fans to the sold-out Promise of Democracy 250th Summit. C70 President and CEO Lauren Cristella described the two-day event as exploring “the reason for the season.”

In other words, she said: “Get you thinking, or help you learn something, or inspire some new action to take for your community.”

Democracy-wise, the Summit offered something for everyone — at a critical moment in our democracy. Said Justin Villere, C70’s VP of Strategy and Partnerships, “There has never been a more appropriate time for our country to bring together leaders, people committed to public service, scholars, and voters: all serious about doing the work to realize the ideals of the nation’s founding.”

Pulitzer Prize-winning author John Meacham provided the keynote, a historical summary of the current moment in an address at the National Constitution Center that you quite literally had to be there to experience. The Summit’s second day consisted of five spirited, thoughtful panels and a closing keynote from two of the country’s most esteemed political thinkers at Houston Hall at the University of Pennsylvania.

Below, videos of each session, also available on C70’s YouTube channel.

1. Guardrails of Democracy: Defending the Rule of Law

Kermit Roosevelt, Professor for the Administration of Justice at the Penn Carey Law School moderated a discussion about how legal institutions hold up under political pressure, and how recent events shape the public’s understanding of Constitutional norms. Panelists included: Mary Smith, American Bar Association former president; Task Force for American Democracy; Judge John Jones III, former U.S. District Court judge and current president of Dickinson College; Jeh Johnson, Former U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security and co-chair of the Board of Trustees at Columbia University; and David Becker, Executive Director & Founder, Center for Election Innovation & Research.

2. The Information Crisis: Media, Trust, and Democracy

Errin Haines, Editor-at-Large for The 19th, guided the discussion about complexities of today’s information environment, which seems to take advantage of the ease of spreading misinformation and still-eroding trust in the media. How can news organizations cultivate healthier ecosystems? Panelists included: Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Director of Penn Annenberg Public Policy Center and creator of Factcheck.org; Renée DiResta, social media researcher at Georgetown University, former research manager at Stanford Internet Observatory; Rachel Lobdell, Executive Director of News Creator Corps; and Dannagal Young, Director of the University of Delaware’s Center for Political Communication.

3. The Participation Gap: Understanding and Reducing Voter Apathy

Celina Stewart, CEO of the League of Women Voters of the United States joined former Philadelphia City Commissioner Al Schmidt, now Secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; Marc Morial, President and CEO of the National Urban League; Rich Thau, President of Engagious and Creator of the Swing Voter Project; and moderator Heidi Przybyla, Founder, Get Real News to discuss the data around the country’s uneven (and often unimpressive) rates of election participation — and what that tells us about how we can transform apathy into civic engagement.

4. Bridging the Divide: Paths to Reducing Political Polarization

Renowned conservative commentator Michael Smerconish of CNN moderated a bipartisan panel about the notoriously wide divide between left and right in the United States. U.S. Representative Chrissy Houlahan, an Air Force veteran; Matt Levendusky, Director, Institutions of Democracy at Penn’s Annenberg Public Policy Center; Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, President & CEO of Global Refuge; and Max Stier, CEO of the Partnership for Public Service explored how leadership and practical reforms might rebuild bridges among Americans. Houlahan, Villieres says, “hustled up from a day of voting in Washington, D.C. … and provided valuable insights on the way she has worked with Representative Brian Fitzpatrick and several other of her Republican colleagues on multiple pieces of bipartisan legislation.”

5. The Rebalance of Power: Congress Reclaiming Its Role

Sarah Glover of WHYY explored the current state of checks and balances in Washington, D.C. with panelists former U.S. Representative Jim Gerlach of PA; Ramesh Ponnuru, nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute; U.S. Representative Mary Kay Scanlon of PA; and former U.S. Congressman from Virginia Glenn Nye, President & CEO of the Center for the Study of the Presidency & Congress, which has developed an interactive Democracy Innovation Timeline featuring more than 50 innovations encapsulating a living Republic

Plenary Keynote: David Brooks and Roxane Gay

The day wrapped with national commentary stars Roxane Gay, opinion writer at The New York Times and bestselling author, and David Brooks, formerly of The New York Times and currently of The Atlantic and PBS News Hour, talking “patriotism and national identity, the role of institutions and culture in shaping our democracy, and how we balance moral courage, critique, and protest with the need for civic cohesion and working together,” said Villere, with WHYY’s Cherri Gregg.

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