The suit is against LATFOR and DOCS. They will be defended by the state attorney general's office. AG Eric Schneiderman was a senator last year, and sponsored legislation to count prisoners at their former homes. Proponents of the law argue that prisoners should count in the communities they were a part of, not ones where they can't vote.
"It's unbelievable, probably half the states in the country have bills in play and more than a dozen are seriously in the pipeline," Tova Wang of the left-leaning think tank Demos told TPM in an interview. "It's really unprecedented in terms of geographic scope. I've never seen anything like it certainly since I've been working on voting rights issues that voter suppression bills would be introduced in so many places at the same time."
Redistricting too often succumbs to gerrymandering. Instead of the people choosing their elected officials, the elected officials choose their constituents.
Wherever the final line is drawn, Democrats appear willing to accept a deal close to Republican leaders’ original plan. White House aides say that such a deal could pay political dividends when the bigger fights start because the agreement would establish the president as the most reasonable politician in Washington. Progressives are not happy, however, even if Democrats are able to remove controversial GOP policy riders, such as those that eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood and hamper the implementation of the health care law.
Among the other states taking up the issue are Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas and Ohio. In all four of those states, Republicans advanced their Voter ID bills last week. Those states look to join the eight states that require photo ID and the 19 that require some form of ID, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
The state attorney general wants federal regulators to take enforcement action against the Indian Point nuclear plant for what he called the company's failure to comply with fire safety requirements.
"In the wake of Japan's crisis, our country's nuclear facilities should be bolstering their safety measures, yet Indian Point is looking to weaken its precautionary measures," Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said Monday.
The bottom half of American households now controls less than 5 percent of our total net worth. Our republican founders could not have imagined a distribution of wealth so concentrated, nor a democracy so threatened by the rule of property.
Today's 20-somethings are likely to be the first generation to not be better off than their parents." This is the first line of Economic State of Young America, a report released by Demos, a nonpartisan public policy think tank in New York City. And that's a troubling thesis for a generation that grew up being told they can do and be anything.
As President Obama takes office, and the nation reflects on the historic moment and its significance, Demos Senior Fellows John Schwarz and Lew Daly remind us that America is more than just “common blood, or race, or ethnic background or religion.” America is about freedom, they argue, and its up to government to help establish the conditions for economic independence that have become central to the ideals of American freedom.
The Veterans Voting Support Act required that the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) agree to state designations of its facilities as voter registration agencies under Section 7 of the NVRA.
Testimony of Demos Counsel Lisa J. Danetz before the United States House of Representatives Subcommittee on Elections on the challenges the National Voter Registration Act presents to public assistance agencies.
Although photo ID and proof of citizenship proposals are offered as necessary to prevent fraud in elections, we know that the facts do not warrant these extreme measures.
Senior Fellow Algernon Austin and Jared Bernstein discuss how the "bad culture" arguments about African-Americans are misguided at best and destructive at worst. By creating an erroneous causal link between "bad culture" and black poverty, the "Cosby consensus" prevents the country from recognizing success and building on it to create the economic opportunities that are missing for too many African-Americans.