Both economic and racial justice are core progressive priorities, but too often we discuss them separately. On the contrary, racial and economic harms are intertwined, as are our desired solutions to them. Wealthy elites exploit racial fears to turn working people against each other and government; economic pain increases racial resentment and facilitates scapegoating, fueling support for punitive measures against people of color.
Hundreds of Thousands Were Added to Rolls or Updated Their Voter Information in First 10 Weeks of Motor Voter Program
Sacramento – California has expanded the number of people ready to participate in democracy by modernizing its voter registration system, according to numbers released today by the California Secretary of State’s office. Under the new program, called California Motor Voter, eligible voters are added to the rolls when they interact with the Department of Motor Vehicles, unless they opt out.
Chiraag Bains, the Director of Legal Strategies for Demos, issued the following statement tonight in response to the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Trump:
“With the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, Donald Trump’s second nominee to the Supreme Court in less than two years, the stakes couldn’t be higher for individuals and families whose lives are directly impacted by the Court’s decisions.
Once an institution accepts the premise that all people, regardless of their background, have the potential to thrive and contribute to the success of an organization, they can begin to recognize systemic disparities and gaps as flaws to be addressed.
WASHINGTON – In a 5-4 ruling in Husted v. APRI, the U.S. Supreme Court today upheld an Ohio voter purge practice that removes infrequent voters from the registration rolls. The decision creates a danger that other states will pursue extreme purging practices to disenfranchise millions of eligible voters across the country.
For the last year, we—Demos, Anat Shenker-Osorio (ASO Communications) and Ian Haney López (author of Dog Whistle Politics), —have partnered in an ambitious multi-phase project to build an effective new narrative on race, class, and democracy. The central question we’ve explored is how to engage simultaneously around race and class in ways that strengthen social solidarity, reduce division and scapegoating, and create a viable foundation for progressive policy victories.
FLORIDA – Today, voting rights organizations Demos, LatinoJustice/PRLDEF and 18 other social justice groups sent letters to 13 Florida County Supervisors of Elections, urging them to provide bilingual voting materials for their Puerto Rican residents, as required by the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Coalition cheers final passage of bill, calls for full funding and implementation of landmark democracy reform
WASHINGTON, D.C.- Advocates and activists celebrated on Tuesday as Mayor Bowser signed the Fair Elections Act, a major democracy reform that will bring small donor public financing to local elections. The campaign to pass the bill has been supported by dozens of economic, social, and racial justice organizations, as well as the entire D.C. Council.
Indiana—On Thursday, Demos, the ACLU, the ACLU of Indiana and the law firm Davis Wright Tremaine, on behalf of Common Cause of Indiana, filed a motion for a preliminary injunction to halt the implementation of a new Indiana law that would allow the state to kick voters off the rolls based on flawed data, beginning on July 1.
MASSACHUSETTS - Yesterday, Demos, Rock the Vote, SEIU, and Massachusetts Community Action Network (MCAN), represented by attorneys from Cooley LLP, filed an amicus brief in a case challenging Massachusetts’s 20-day voter registration cutoff. In the case, Chelsea Collaborative v. Gavin, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts is being asked to determine whether the state’s voter registration deadline violates the Massachusetts Constitution.