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Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler has come out swinging against a proposal to allow voters in his state to register on Election Day. Coloradans currently must register at least 29 days ahead of time, and Gessler is dusting the cobwebs off a well-worn bogeyman in an attempt to keep it that way. In a recent op-ed in the Denver Post, Gessler wrote:

I attended the oral argument in the Voting Rights Act case before the U.S. Supreme Court, and I came away even more convinced that the Court should uphold the contested parts of the law.

Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act requires that covered states "preclear" their proposed election law changes with federal officials. Nine states plus parts of seven others are "covered," and many of these areas are in the South.

The current "Debt for Diploma" system of funding higher education is not working, as Demos has documented. It leaves too many young people weighed down by loans and undermines our nation's economic future. Now there is yet another reason to worry about the failings of the U.S.

Today, the Supreme Court heard argument in Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder, a case challenging the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Brenda Wright, Vice President for Legal Strategies at Demos, released the following statement:

>>> Blog: The Voting Rights Act Should Survive <<<

While much of the country’s attention is focused on the need for job growth, a new report to be released Monday, March 4 by national public policy organization Demos reveals the ways in which the use of credit history in hiring acts as a significant barrier to employment and may lead to discriminatory hiring practices, particularly for people of color and the long-term unemployed.

Young adults are pulling back on credit-card debt for similar reasons, said Amy Traub, a senior policy analyst at Demos, a public policy research organization. It found that Americans age 25 to 34 cut their credit card debt in half between 2008 and 2012.

All around them, young adults are seeing signs of financial distress -- job insecurity, foreclosures, high college costs. That's making them think twice about applying for loans, she said.

President Obama and some members of Congress have made waves recently with calls for voting reform. But your access to the ballot probably depends more on what’s going on at the nearest statehouse.

With state legislative sessions well underway, lawmakers across the country have unleashed a raft of bills tweaking their states’ voting systems. Here are a few issues to keep an eye on.

Evidence keeps coming in that the culture war is winding down. Most recently, according to Politico:

More than 80 of the nation’s most prominent Republicans — including top officials of all recent Republican administrations and presidential campaigns – on Tuesday came out publicly in favor of a constitutional right to gay marriage in a brief to be filed this week with the Supreme Court.

What's problematic about the RATE Coalition's arguments is that it doesn't acknowledge basic facts about U.S. corporate taxes.