“As Pepper chronicles in his book Laboratories of Autocracy: A Wake-Up Call From Behind the Lines, a small group started out with a meeting in 2017 to devise a detailed roadmap. They recognized that by so flagrantly gorging on political gerrymandering, state Republicans had angered and energized a cadre of activists, and made moderate voters more receptive to a message of clean, fair elections.”

“There's a booming literature on the erosion of democracy in America, as well as around the world, but David Pepper's book Laboratories of Autocracy: A Wake-Up Call From Behind the Lines stands out as arguably the most important for three reasons: It brings the subject down to earth, connects democratic erosion to corruption and the decline in America's quality of life, and provides a wealth of ideas about how to fight back to protect democracy.”

“It was a really bad day at the statehouses when Republicans won those races,” said David Pepper, a former chair of the Ohio Democratic Party and the author of a new book on state legislatures. “Almost as if Trump had won.”

"Pepper has written a book titled Laboratories of Autocracy: A Wake-Up Call From Behind the Lines, which persuasively argues that the site of the most pernicious corruption and assaults on democracy is not where congressional Republicans roam. It’s in the statehouses, which Pepper calls ‘the most corrosive danger America faces.’”

“The long-term health of American democracy is in peril, to a degree far worse than people imagine. But not where most people are looking.”

“You may not know the name David Pepper, but you should know and be interested in what he’s up to. Pepper, who chaired the Ohio Democratic Party from 2015 to 2020, is out with a book called Laboratories of Autocracy: A Wake-Up Call From Behind the Lines. It’s a smart critique—and it comes with proposed solutions.”

“Pepper has written a book titled Laboratories of Autocracy: A Wake-Up Call From Behind the Lines, which persuasively argues that the site of the most pernicious corruption and assaults on democracy is not where congressional Republicans roam. It’s in the statehouses, which Pepper calls ‘the most corrosive danger America faces.’”

“That’s the intriguing question raised by former Ohio Democratic leader David Pepper in his new, incredibly well- timed book, Laboratories of Autocracy. (The title is clever play on a Supreme Court justice’s hope the states could be “laboratories of democracy.”) Pepper tells how state GOP-led moves on voter suppression, extreme gerrymandering, and reproductive rights could erode the union from within. An important read.”

“So bad, in fact, is the disconnect between the popular agenda and the political one at the state level that one former chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party has rightly lampooned it in a new non-fiction book published this week, Laboratories of Autocracy. The book keeps pace with David Pepper’s earlier works, political thrillers that hit a little too close to home for anyone actively following campaigns in America. He’s an avowed Democrat and an unsuccessful two-time candidate for statewide office, but his observations aren’t partisan hackery.”

“If you think Washington is broken, David Pepper is here to tell you things are worse in Columbus. And Tallahassee. And Atlanta. And Austin.”