Native Americans rank lower than any other ethnic group in the US for voter turnout, and it’s not because they’re less passionate about voting. There’s a long history of changes in voter rights laws in several states which has made it harder for them to take advantage of this constitutional right.
Washington, D.C., is the latest jurisdiction to consider legislation to prevent employers from conducting credit history screens for most job applicants.
Currently 11 states, New York City and Chicago have passed legislation limiting the use of credit checks in the hiring process. The states include California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont and Washington.
[...] So-called “challenge statutes” have long been a subject of controversy. A 2012 Demos study referred to “bullies at the ballot box” measures, arguing that “There is a real danger that voters will face overzealous volunteers who take the law into their own hands to target voters they deem suspect.
In a letter sent Tuesday to the New York State Board of Elections and DMV, the groups accused the DMV of flouting a federal law requiring that citizens be able to register to vote whenever they apply for, renew, or change their address on a driver's license or state-issued identification card.[...]
The remarkable advance of same-day registration was not an accident. National organizations, including Demos and Common Cause, and numerous state organizations led the fights in legislatures around the country.
Elections are decided by who votes — and increasingly, in America, by who cannot. Barriers to voting participation skew policy outcomes and elections to the right in the United States. One of the most racially discriminatory of these barriers is felon disenfranchisement.
If you’re a senior struggling with credit card debt like Green, you’re not alone. In 2012, for the first time, middle-income households headed by someone over 50 years old carried more credit card debt on average than households of people younger than 50, according to the Demos National Survey on Credit Card Debt conducted with AARP’s Public Policy Institute. Half of those over 50 had medical debt on their credit cards, and a third said they used credit cards to finance daily expenses. [...]
Georgia Republicans are pushing a bill that would dramatically shorten early voting for city elections. The effort is the latest to take advantage of the Supreme Court’s ruling last year on the Voting Rights Act (VRA), which made it easier for certain areas to change election rules in ways that hurt racial minorities.
North Carolina’s recent voting law changes will disproportionately affect black voters in the state, according to a study published Wednesday by Dartmouth University.
“The study provides powerful ammunition for the pending legal challenges,” says Brenda Wright, a voting rights expert with the liberal think tank Demos. “It shows that virtually every key feature of North Carolina’s election legislation will disproportionately cut back on registration and voting by African Americans in North Carolina as compared to whites.”
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. [...]
The good folks at Demos, led by the redoubtable Liz Kennedy, have produced yet another study, this one outlining strategies to roll back the laws passed out in the country aimed at restricting the franchise of groups of people that conservatives and Republicans would rather not have voting, thank you very much.
This week, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York offered continuing evidence of the student debt crisis. Outstanding student debt again topped $1 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2013, making it the second-largest pool of debt in the nation behind mortgages. This has tripled in just a decade, as higher-education prices increased faster than medical costs, up 500 percent since 1985.
Economist Kenneth Boulding famously said, “Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.” But it's not just economists who believe that anymore. Such ideas are still widely accepted by thought leaders, journalists, and politicians who, together, form a strong consensus that the U.S. recovery should be bolstered by natural gas exploration and production.
Biola Jeje, 22, graduated Brooklyn College last May with a degree in political science and a mission: Force lawmakers to address the $1.2 trillion student debt crisis. [...]
Jeje left college with $9,500 in student loans, less than half the $29,400 national average for four-year college graduates. She and her fellow activists are mobilizing support to march on Albany, New York state’s capital, to deliver a message to legislators. [...]
New York is on the cusp of adopting a campaign finance reform that would amplify small donations with matching funds, reducing the power of big special interest money over the state's politics. It would also allow New Yorkers to claim the mantle of the first state to take back their democracy in the era of Citizens United and unprecedented campaign spending.
But adopting Fair Elections would accomplish something else badly needed in our democracy: more diverse representation in our political leadership.
A photo voter ID law signed by Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry is unnecessary, unfair, restrictive and intentionally discriminates against African-American and Latino voters, a coalition of civil rights groups will argue in a letter to the Justice Department on Wednesday.
More than a decade later, National Voter Registration Day has been endorsed by national associations and the federal government. More than 5 million voters have been registered to vote on the holiday since 2012.
A study of 10 states’ voter purge policies released earlier this month identified potential barriers to voter participation and urged reform in Indiana and nine others.