In 1907, Congress banned corporate contributions to federal candidates in the wake of the robber baron-era scandals. In 1947, the ban was formally applied to corporate expenditures and extended to cover labor unions.
To the Republican supporters of laws that would treat the poll booth like an exclusive nightclub that asks for photo ID and other qualifications before allowing entry, the answer to why anyone would oppose this is simple: They must not want to vote bad enough.
During his Senate hearing yesterday, Debo Adegbile, President Obama’s pick for Justice Department Civil Rights Division chief, was asked by Sen. Chuck Grassley if he would block state voter ID laws if confirmed. In his previous capacity, Adegible served as attorney and one-time acting president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which has been in litigation with Texas over its voter ID law for the past three years. Adegbile also twice argued before the U.S.
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.
One way to think about politics today is that we have a bunch of public servants making chump change who spend an inordinate amounts of time hanging out with rich people, their noses pushed up against the window of an affluent lifestyle that they can't afford. Bad things happen in this situation.
What I learned from an Al-Jazeera America news segment last night: 16- and 17-year-olds in North Carolina could be arrested and charged as adults, in one of just two states in the nation where this is law.
We secured another win for voters in our Ohio voter purge case, A. Philip Randolph Institute (APRI) v. Husted. Voters who were removed from the voter rolls in Ohio without adequate notice will now be able to participate in Tuesday’s midterms.
Yesterday, Demos and 4 other civil rights legal organizations filed an emergency motion to stop Texas from discriminating against voters of color and purging naturalized citizens who are eligible to vote from the voter rolls.
The New York State Senate and Assembly heard arguments for public financing of elections, the best policy tool we have to push back against the presence of big money in politics and to push forward on the march toward racial equity.
Florida Republicans in Jacksonville have been busy compiling and disseminating lists that many believe will be used to challenge minority voters today.
(A report, "Securing the Vote, a Report on Election Fraud," would suggest the Republicans' concerns are overstated. The paper, released by the nonprofit group Demos, shows that election fraud is at most a minor problem across the 50 states and does not affect election outcomes.)
Steve Carbo, director of the Democracy Program, said voters should be allowed to cast provisional votes even if they vote in the wrong precinct, a practice many states now forbid.
Why is it important for civil rights and good government groups to to be granted status as intervenor defendants in a lawsuit about counting prisoners in redistricting?
Because the legislative commission charged with drawing the lines, LATFOR, hasn't exactly been vigorous in defending itself in a lawsuit filed about the issue, they say.
Redistricting too often succumbs to gerrymandering. Instead of the people choosing their elected officials, the elected officials choose their constituents.
As currently drawn, five Massachusetts House districts would have too few residents to meet the Supreme Court's standard - if inmates are not counted as living there, according to Brenda Wright of Demos, a public interest group with a Boston office. She testified before the committee in Dorchester last month.
The mutual admiration between the two has been apparent for some time. Herbert has been a speaker at Demos and has also cited the think tank over his years as a New York Times columnist. He wrote in one that almost exclusively centered on Demos that the think tank has responded to right-wing zealotry with “admirable real-world scholarship, a highly respected fellows program to encourage new writers and thinkers and steadfast efforts to promote civic engagement. (It’s a big champion, among other things, of same-day voter registration.)”
Flaw-proof election machines. Easy-to-read ballots. Registration systems that catch double-voters or dead voters still on the rolls. For top state election officials meeting here, the pressure is on to make sure the election changes demanded after President Bush's disputed 2000 victory are in place by the Jan.
