In the midst of a Twitter feed alight with stories about police being used to shut black people out of places to eat, drink, exercise, and relax, comes a story about Trump’s Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) using policy to do the same. The federal government is adding new and significant hurdles to communities of color — particularly black people — being able to access housing.
Millions of eligible voters remain unregistered. To fulfill the promise of the NVRA, states must do much more to ensure all Americans have a voice in our democracy.
According to the New York Times, full-time employees in retail generally make less than $33,000 a year. The same article states that “42 percent of retail workers earn a low hourly wage — defined as less than two-thirds of the median wage across the economy.”
On the same day California’s primary election produced decidedly mixed results last week — encouraging for Democrats, less so for progressives — progressive advocates gathered in Los Angeles learned about how politics in California (and nationwide) could be dramatically transformed by driving a stake through the heart of coded, dog-whistle racism, and by confronting it head-on with a call for cross-racial unity to create a better shared future.
Demos, the voting rights group that challenged Ohio’s voter purge law, said in a statement that the decision “threatens the ability of voters to have their voices heard in our elections.”
“The fight does not stop here. If states take today’s decision as a sign that they can be even more reckless and kick eligible voters off the rolls, we will fight back in the courts, the legislatures, and with our community partners across the country,” Demos senior counsel Stuart Naifeh said in the statement.
For the working poor, getting married is hardly a guarantee of ascendance, explains Amy Traub, an associate director of policy and research at the thinktank Demos. She highlights the reality of surviving with low wages, no paid sick leave, no paid parental leave, and no subsidized childcare. Traub’s research shows that a married couple will see their income go down by 14% after they have a child.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that Ohio could continue to use an aggressive process for removing people from its voting rolls, saying the procedure did not run afoul of federal voter protections.
[T]he public policy organization fights for racial equity, an expanded middle class and shaving the amount of money used in politics. Demos has just released a landmark report exclusively to theGrio explaining its studied view of why the Trump administration is bad for Black people and they have receipts.
The Supreme Court’s recent ruling to uphold Ohio’s controversial voter purge law spotlights the growing clout of right-wing “election integrity” groups that have aggressively bullied and sued states and jurisdictions into kicking thousands of voters off their rolls. [...]
“If states take today’s decision as a sign that they can be even more reckless and kick eligible voters off the rolls, we will fight back in the courts, the legislatures and with our community partners across the country,” Demos attorney Stuart Naifeh said.
It’s not just a disorganized group of citizens spontaneously challenging voters at the polls. It’s a coordinated campaign by groups like True the Vote that are well funded to try and reduce voting, often for partisan advantage.
Kavanaugh’s track record on democracy raises serious concerns,” said Chiraag Bains, director of legal strategies for public policy organization Demos. “A Justice Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court could set us back when it comes to voting rights.” [...]
Union groups and other campaigners see such moves as an attack on their power to secure higher wages for workers. “[This is] an often low-paid and vulnerable workforce of predominantly women of color who do critical work helping seniors and people with disabilities with daily tasks,” said Amy Traub, the associate director of policy and research for Demos, a public policy organization that has published research on federal government wages. “These rules slash at workers’ ability to join together to improve their jobs”.
Stuart Naifeh, a lawyer with the think tank Demos, which is representing Rivera and five nonprofit groups that work to mobilize Spanish-speaking voters, said they chose the 32 counties using census data to identify places where there were high concentrations of Puerto Ricans and people who aren’t proficient in English.
A lawsuit filed Thursday claims that Puerto Ricans living in Florida who have limited English proficiency will be prevented from voting because, according to a press release by the advocacy group Demos, “elections in many parts of the state are conducted only in English.” The suit alleges that 32 Florida counties are not planning to provide ballots in Spanish.
As the November midterm elections approach, several civic engagement groups filed a suit, on Thursday, against the Florida Secretary of State and 32 Florida counties for what they say is a violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, requiring bilingual voting materials and assistance be provided to Puerto Ricans. [...]