Election administration should not be affected by partisan goals.
Partisan election administration increases the risk of disenfranchisement.
Non-partisan election administration boosts faith and confidence in the electoral process and promotes fair and accurate electoral results.
If anything should be free from politics or partisan fighting, it should be our election administration. Regardless of political ideology, everyone can agree that our elections should be conducted in a non-partisan and transparent manner.
Since the days of Diner’s Club, credit cards have evolved to become a key element of American household finances. When emergency strikes we may not have cash in hand, but with access to credit cards a broken arm, a busted furnace, or a last-minute plane ticket doesn’t have to leave our families vulnerable to insolvency, abusive lending, or the knock of a loan shark on the front door.
The NVRA was intended to make voter registration widely available at agencies serving the public, and is an important tool for modernizing voter registration. Ensuring compliance with NVRA requirements increases voter registration rates, particularly among low-income populations. Expanding the number of designated NVRA agencies can further expand the reach of voter registration opportunities. Congress enacted the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) in 1993 with the goal of making voter registration more convenient and accessible.
Washington's centrist deficit hawks are both dedicated and well-financed, and they could hardly be better connected. But what exactly do they want? That can be hard to tell, and this lack of a super clear message is striking for a cabal that's otherwise so well organized.
About their dedication: Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, has been slogging away at this issue for over a decade, and Pete Peterson has been on the case for over two decades.
There is nobody like a mom in the low-wage service sector to demonstrate the day-to-day meaning of financial responsibility. But for the large number of households facing stagnant incomes, erratic schedules, and a rising cost of living, making a monthly budget doesn’t guarantee meeting it. When paychecks and savings don’t cover the bills, low- and middle-income households with credit cards often turn to plastic just to get by.
ALBANY—Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman today announced new legislation to restore accountability and ensure access to the ballot box by eliminating baseless and intimidating challenges to voter eligibility at the polls on Election Day. Under current law, voters who are challenged at the polls are required to recite an oath affirming their right to vote. The challenger, on the other hand, has no such obligation.
People who challenge ballots at polling places would have to outline their reasons for a challenge in an affidavit, under a bill from state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.
Under state law, any registered voter can challenge the validity of another person's voting status at the ballot box if there's an issue with their signature or they are suspected to be living out of state. When a challenge is raised, the challenged voter then has to recite an oath declaring they are legally able to cast a ballot before they are allowed to vote. [...]
At TheAtlantic today, Derek Thompson shows how the top 0.01 percent of income earners have seen their earnings explode over the past few years. As Thompson explains, the explosion in earnings is not from wages but from capital gains.
It's tough being a progressive mayor when you don't actually have much power. Bill de Blasio's hands aren't just tied when it comes to hiking taxes on the rich or raising the city's minimum wage, both of which hinge on approval in Albany, he also has scant power over the large economic forces that shape life in New York or the generosity of the Federal safety net that keeps roughly half the city's population afloat.
Same-Day Registration (SDR) allows eligible voters to register to vote and cast their ballots on the same day. SDR offers an easy, practical solution that works to fix many registration errors that can prevent eligible voters from casting their ballot.
Here's a radical idea: Capitalism needn't feature nonstop conflict between workers and owners, and can actually work better if these two sides cooperate. Things can work better still if government and nonprofits are partners, too. That's the basic idea behind corporatism, and decades ago, it had pretty wide traction among America CEOs and elites generally.
When Woody Harrelson's character got hired as a bartender on Cheers, he was so excited, he insisted on working for no more than the minimum wage. "I'd work like a slave," he said, "and, of course, I'd wash your car."
Most bar and restaurant workers would prefer to bring home a little more cash. They may be in luck.
Democrats are planning a yearlong campaign against economic inequality as the midterm elections approach, and President Obama will kick it off in earnest Wednesday when he signs an executive order raising the contracting standards for workers on federal contracts.
In the last year or two, something remarkable has happened in American politics. After decades in which future deficits, mostly caused by health care costs and conservative tax cuts, were invoked by those seeking to slash Social Security benefits for reasons of ideology or pecuniary interest, the national conversation has changed.
Today, President Barack Obama honored his promise from last month’s State of the Union address to raise the minimum wage for some workers indirectly employed by the federal government. In a new executive order, he raised the minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour, effective Jan. 1, 2015. The White House estimates the order will affect hundreds of thousands of workers employed by private companies with government contracts. [...]
For hundreds of thousands of low-paid employees of federal contractors, the executive order President Obama announced in his State of the Union address will make a important difference in their incomes and lives.
