Media

ALBANY—Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman today announced new legislation to restore accountability and ensure access to the ballot box by eliminating baseless and intimidating challenges to voter eligibility at the polls on Election Day. Under current law, voters who are challenged at the polls are required to recite an oath affirming their right to vote. The challenger, on the other hand, has no such obligation.

There is nobody like a mom in the low-wage service sector to demonstrate the day-to-day meaning of financial responsibility. But for the large number of households facing stagnant incomes, erratic schedules, and a rising cost of living, making a monthly budget doesn’t guarantee meeting it. When paychecks and savings don’t cover the bills, low- and middle-income households with credit cards often turn to plastic just to get by.

People who challenge ballots at polling places would have to outline their reasons for a challenge in an affidavit, under a bill from state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

Under state law, any registered voter can challenge the validity of another person's voting status at the ballot box if there's an issue with their signature or they are suspected to be living out of state. When a challenge is raised, the challenged voter then has to recite an oath declaring they are legally able to cast a ballot before they are allowed to vote. [...]

At The Atlantic today, Derek Thompson shows how the top 0.01 percent of income earners have seen their earnings explode over the past few years. As Thompson explains, the explosion in earnings is not from wages but from capital gains.

One of every 13 African Americans is disenfranchised due to past felony convictions compared with one of 40 adults in general.

It's tough being a progressive mayor when you don't actually have much power. Bill de Blasio's hands aren't just tied when it comes to hiking taxes on the rich or raising the city's minimum wage, both of which hinge on approval in Albany, he also has scant power over the large economic forces that shape life in New York or the generosity of the Federal safety net that keeps roughly half the city's population afloat. 

Here's a radical idea: Capitalism needn't feature nonstop conflict between workers and owners, and can actually work better if these two sides cooperate. Things can work better still if government and nonprofits are partners, too. That's the basic idea behind corporatism, and decades ago, it had pretty wide traction among America CEOs and elites generally.