When millions of Americans stood in lines for hours to vote yet again in the 2012 elections, President Obama recognized that “we need to fix that.” Today, the Presidential Commission on Election Administration released a report with their recommendations on ways to improve election administration. The Commission’s recommendations are welcome but much more work remains to be done to ensure every eligible voter can exercise their right to vote.
Today is the fourth anniversary of Citizens United and in the wake of record electoral spending, the need for an antidote is even more pressing than ever. Luckily, there is one: public financing of elections. We’ve shown how once Connecticut adopted public financing, the legislature passed a slate of policies to help working families. And now, New York State looks to be the latest to see the benefits and adopt a public financing program.
Just three days before Kevyn Orr, the emergency manager appointed by Michigan Governor Rick Snyder to run the fiscally strapped city, filed thelargest municipal bankruptcy case in history, he signed a forbearance agreement with UBS and Bank of America/Merrill Lynch establishing a process to settle possible claims on default of $800 million of interest rate swaps.
Some of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s dreams have certainly come true. But when it comes to closing the economic gap between black and white Americans, we've got a long way to go.
Just three days before Kevyn Orr, the Emergency Manger appointed by Michigan Governor Snyder to run the fiscally strapped City, filed the largest municipal bankruptcy case in history, he signed a Forbearance Agreement with UBS and Bank of America/Merrill Lynch establishing a process to settle possible claims on default of $800 million of interest rate swaps.
Over the past four decades, business leaders have adroitly used that great American right, freedom of association, to advance their interests. They have banded together through groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Federal of Independent Businesses, and the Business Roundtable to create a unified front on a range of issues -- pooling hundreds of millions of dollars annually in membership dues for lobbying and advocacy. Beyond this, every last business sector in America has created its own trade association to push their particular interests.
As we wait for the Supreme Court to rule on McCutcheon v. FEC, which would strike down aggregate campaign contribution limits, a series of stories have come out highlighting how much damage money is doing to our democracy and our economy. In short: a lot.
Conventional wisdom among some liberals, conservatives, and moderates is that a "polarized Congress" will never update the Voting Rights Act. The Voting Rights Act bill introduced today in Congress (summary here, bill text here), however, shows that a bipartisan update is possible.
New Legislation Is Important Step Forward; Bill Can Be Strengthened
Representatives James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), John Conyers (D-MI), Steve Chabot (R-OH), Bobby Scott (D-VA), Spenser Bachus (R-AL), John Lewis (D-GA), Sean Duffy (R-WI) and others have introduced the Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2014, offering common sense fixes designed to modernize the Voting Rights Act (VRA). Demos President Miles Rapoport issued the following statement in response:
Monday is the national holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr., and Tuesday marks the fourth anniversary ofCitizens United, the case that dramatically widened the flood of big money in elections. Their confluence is opportune, for while each seems to invite reflection on a different core social problem—respectively racial inequality and the power of concentrated wealth—each teaches lessons relevant to the other.
Two major stories of corporate misconduct toward employees hit the headlines yesterday: in the morning, low-wage federal contract workers filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Labor alleging that more than 100 employees in the food court of federally-owned Union Station had been victims of wage theft—paid less than the minimum wage or denied overtime pay.
Eugenio Proto and Aldo Rustichini have written a new column for VOX in which they argue that once GDP per capita reaches a certain level, it actually begins to correlate with lower life satisfaction.
If you ask Cato's Michael Tanner, inequality is a non-issue for a bunch of reasons, including because it has nothing to do with unfairness. Tanner writes:
most wealthy Americans earned their wealth through talent and hard work. Roughly 80 percent of millionaires in America are the first generation of their family to be worth that much — they didn’t inherit their money.
Could Massachusetts become the next state to enact Election Day Registration? If today’s passage by the Commonwealth’s Senate chamber of omnibus voting bill S.1975 serves as indication, it very well could.
