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Our city governments make decisions that affect us most, yet we know very little about the ways that money influences them. In a previous post I explored new evidence that people of color are not well represented by their councils. One possible reason is the overwhelmingly white municipal donor

Miami is in the midst of the most spirited campaign-finance debate it's had in years.

A Miami-Dade lobbyist [Eric Zichella] on Monday joined the court fight against a ballot item that would sharply limit campaign donations as advocates release a study claiming smaller donors to local races better reflect the county’s diversity.[...]

BREAKING CAMPAIGN UPDATE: The 127K petitions sit untouched, Mayor Gimenez refuses to act, and the campaign coalitions have begun holding direction actions and have filed a lawsuit in attempts to get the county to do their job and count the petitions.

There's no one reason for the routine neglect of African-American areas, but a study released today by the civil rights advocacy group Demos pinpoints a huge government-access problem in South Florida: Black people, the study says, can't keep up with the deluge of campaign money coming from Miami's

Black people make up one-fifth of Miami-Dade County's population. It doesn't exactly take a Nobel Laureate to see the county hasn't always treated its majority-black neighborhoods with a ton of respect. ( See: Beckham, David.)

Black political power is declining in cities across the country, including Oakland, St. Louis, Cleveland and Atlanta — even as African-Americans are gaining majority status in an increasing number of suburbs. At the same time, African-American emigration to the South has started to weaken Republican

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision vacating the federal bribery conviction of former Virginia Governor Robert McDonnell. The Court’s ruling narrowed the scope of federal bribery laws and required clearer jury instructions on the kinds of “official acts” that can be prosecuted when

D.C. politicians are funded by donors who are whiter and wealthier than the constituents they serve, an analysis by the liberal think tank Demos found.[...] While it comes as no surprise that wealthy people are more inclined to spend on political races, the Demos analysis is the first comprehensive

The biggest political donors aren’t just wealthier than the median voter. A study from the think tank Demos suggests they also tend to be disproportionately white, male and right-wing.