Media

On the eve of National Voter Registration Day, California has taken a huge leap forward in reducing the barriers to voting. Governor Brown signed into law a Same Day Registration program, making California the 11th (and largest) state – plus Washington, D.C.

As a practical matter, government largely functions through bureaucratic regulations. But controversy is growing around the seemingly benign requirement that regulators consider costs and benefits when adopting new rules. Despite the rationality implied by the words “costs and benefits,” those who champion greater attention to these factors are, in fact, mounting an insidiously dangerous attack on government.

NEW YORK – National public policy organization Demos is joining hundreds of non-partisan groups for National Voter Registration Week, beginning September 24, to help counter attacks on the freedom to vote and ensure that the nation’s elections are free, fair, and accessible. Next week, for the first time ever, concerned citizens across the nation are coming together, pulling out all the stops, to make sure that every eligible voter is registered and able to vote in this critical election year.

Election integrity is impaired when eligible Americans are prevented from exercising their fundamental right to vote and having their voices heard on the issues that affect their lives. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania just said the same thing when considering a new voter ID requirement, writing “if the Law is enforced in a manner that prevents qualified and eligible electors from voting, the integrity of the upcoming General Election will be impaired.”

As we’ve written, New York is considering allowing fracking in limited areas of the state, despite the environmental and economic damage that comes with the practice.

Since 2005, the gambling industry has spent at least $9.5 million on lobbying and $1.5 million in campaign contributions per election cycle in New York. Compare this to the banking and financial service sector, which spent $16 million on lobbying each election cycle, and the energy sector, which spent $1.4 million in campaign contributions in 2010 alone.

As a New Yorker, the idea of surviving in Manhattan on less than $10,000 a year is pretty much unfathomable. But that's the harsh reality that the poorest fifth of Manhattanites face, according to new data from the New York Times. 

The wealth gap in this infamous borough is now so large that it rivals rates in notoriously impoverished sub-Saharan Africa: 

Mitt Romney’s complaint that nearly half of us are untaxed government dependents, poisoning the country with an “entitlement” mentality, is the strangest yet to emerge from the twisted moral universe of America’s most government-dependent class, the financial elite.

Conservatives are trumpeting a new video in which a younger Obama embraces the dreaded socialist sin of redistribution. His earlier words will no doubt hurt Obama among some segment of the electorate -- even though most voters in both parties, whether they realize it or not, actually favor a host of redistributive policies.