Hours before Thursday’s Democratic presidential debate, the Supreme Court issued two rulings that could greatly affect our democracy. One decision failed to stop the drive toward increasingly partisan gerrymanders, and the other temporarily blocked the Trump Administration’s attempt to leverage the decennial United States Census for partisan advantage.

Despite this timely news peg, the debate moderators failed to ask a single question about the state of American democracy. This oversight is particularly egregious given that voter suppression, the deluge of big money in politics, and the rigging of district lines has undeniably limited the Democratic Party’s success over the past decade.

Fortunately, a few candidates chose to integrate democracy reform into their talking points, even without the prompt. And if Democrats want to convince voters they are serious about enacting meaningful, progressive legislation, everyone, across the party, should learn from what was said during the debates. Above all else, these candidates articulated a realistic theory of change, one that made their policy proposals more believable and spoke to the sense of powerlessness most Americans feel today.

“We’ve heard a lot of good ideas on this stage tonight,” New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand explained. “But the truth is, until you go to the root of the corruption, the money in politics, the fact that Washington is run by the special interests, you are never going to solve any of these problems.”

For Gillibrand, political inequality is the roadblock to reform. And mounting evidence suggests that this is indeed the case; the wealthy hold significant sway over politics whereas the rest of the population is virtually devoid of meaningful influence. If political power is democratized, the senator argued, “We can guarantee healthcare as a right, not a privilege. We can deal with institutional racism. We can take on income inequality, and we can take on the corporate corruption that runs Washington.” And to do this, she called for the public financing of elections.