The good folks at Demos, led by the redoubtable Liz Kennedy, have produced yet another study, this one outlining strategies to roll back the laws passed out in the country aimed at restricting the franchise of groups of people that conservatives and Republicans would rather not have voting, thank you very much.
This week, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York offered continuing evidence of the student debt crisis. Outstanding student debt again topped $1 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2013, making it the second-largest pool of debt in the nation behind mortgages. This has tripled in just a decade, as higher-education prices increased faster than medical costs, up 500 percent since 1985.
Biola Jeje, 22, graduated Brooklyn College last May with a degree in political science and a mission: Force lawmakers to address the $1.2 trillion student debt crisis. [...]
Jeje left college with $9,500 in student loans, less than half the $29,400 national average for four-year college graduates. She and her fellow activists are mobilizing support to march on Albany, New York state’s capital, to deliver a message to legislators. [...]
New York is on the cusp of adopting a campaign finance reform that would amplify small donations with matching funds, reducing the power of big special interest money over the state's politics. It would also allow New Yorkers to claim the mantle of the first state to take back their democracy in the era of Citizens United and unprecedented campaign spending.
But adopting Fair Elections would accomplish something else badly needed in our democracy: more diverse representation in our political leadership.
The Supreme Court’s ruling earlier this spring in McCutcheon v F.E.C., which increased the amount of money donors can contribute to political campaigns for federal office, has added new fuel to an 80-year-old debatebetween those who contend that the Supreme Court decides cases on the basis of abstract principles of law and those who argue
“Did you know millions of Americans live with debt they can not control? That’s why I’ve developed this unique new program for managing your debt. It’s called, Don’t Buy Stuff You Can’t Afford.”
All across the country, public services are increasingly outsourced to private contractors in the name of efficiency and cost savings. But a new report from the non-profit research group In the Public Interest (ITPI) shows that outsourcing public services hurts middle and working class communities as well as workers.
Did you know millions of Americans live with debt they can not control? That's why I've developed this unique new program for managing your debt. It's called Don't Buy Stuff You Can't Afford.
On the 60th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, we honor those who strived for that victory by defending its true legacy—one that demands not just political participation, but economic justice as well.
SB 153 is a sweeping elections bill that imposes significant administrative burdens on county election officials and erects new barriers to the ballot for Ohioans of all backgrounds.
More data from the 2012 election is in, and it’s tough to deny that the health of democracy and safety of your voting rights vary widely depending on where you live.
Demos applauds California Governor Brown for signing AB 420, a bill to end prison-based gerrymandering. The legislation ends the practice of treating incarcerated individuals as residents of the districts where they are temporarily confined, for redistricting purposes.
Demos has conducted extensive research on credit card debt among low- and middle-income households. As part of this research, we have become increasingly concerned with how families are being financially penalized for being in debt, making it difficult, if not impossible, for them to ever get out of debt.
An influential state lawmaker in North Carolina is launching an effort to make it harder for his state’s citizens to vote. It’s a development that should trouble voters, especially because North Carolina’s election process has been improving lately.
In this report, Dēmos and Southern Coalition for Social Justice expose a crisis in North Carolina's democracy and its voter rolls, and share commonsense policy solutions to fix it.
Effective language access is essential for ensuring that every voter can fully participate in our democracy. Our new case study examines how the Connecticut Voting Rights Act (CTVRA) has become a model for expanding language access beyond what federal law requires.
Dēmos and the grassroots mobilization nonprofit Organize Tennessee analyze who Tennessee’s nearly 2.3 million “missing voters” are and why they are absent or unrepresented at the ballot box.
