Media

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and his administration are trying to walk a fine line on the future of fracking in the state. A few months ago, word leaked from the Cuomo administration that fracking might be allowed on a limited basis in towns that approved the practice.

Oops, I completely forgot to register

But evidence is mounting that it is the last point — the fact that people move — that is key, and that past assumptions about why tenants don't vote may be incorrect.

Political scientists who have been re-evaluating reams of voting data have found that whether a tenant votes is less about political will and more about the cumbersome and at times elusive process of registering.

We hear so much about polarization these days, that it can be easy to forget that Americans are actually quite unified around certain core values -- most notably, the importance of work, community, and individual responsibility.

The problems posed by unpredictable work schedules are starting to get attention, and it's about time. As Susan Lambert recently wrote in a New York Times op-ed, such schedules are increasingly the norm for low-income workers.

Yesterday brought the sad news that noted environmental advocate and scholar, Barry Commoner, had passed away. As pointed out in the many tributes to his life and achievements, Commoner was one of the founders of modern environmentalism and embraced a more complex, holistic view of environmental issues.

This morning saw a big victory for Pennsylvania’s voters when a judge partially enjoined Pennsylvania’s strict new voter ID law in advance of next month’s elections.  Pennsylvania’s voters will not have to show a photo ID in order to vote a regular ballot this November. This victory will remove an unnecessary burden that threatened the freedom to vote for tens of thousands of voters this fall.

How would the 2012 election be different if many more young, poor and minority citizens paricipated? We would find out if we were to modernize our elections system. In most parts of the country, our elections system is stuck in the 19th century. Often intentionally, the patchwork of laws at the state and local level makes it difficult for voters to know how, when, and where to register.

If there are any truths to hang your hat on in the ongoing debate about the future of American healthcare, it’s this one: Medicare is really expensive.

Perhaps the volume hasn't been quite as loud as it was in 2008, perhaps a lot of the discussion has been subsumed into coded language, but the 2012 presidential election is still very much about redistribution: when it's fair, when it isn't, and, perhaps most importantly from a political perspective, whether Americans like it.