New York, NY — Today, Miles Rapoport, President of the national public policy center Demos, sent a letter of support to Senators Clinton, Feinstein, Leahy, Schumer, Kerry, Wyden, Reid, Murray and Obama for their sponsorship of S. 3308, introduced in the Senate on July 22, 2008. This legislation would require the Secretary of Veterans Affairs (VA) to permit facilities of the Department of Veterans Affairs to be designated as voter registration agencies, in accordance with the National Voter Registration Act.
Voting Rights Groups Encourage Voter Registration at VA Facilities
Washington, DC — Today, leading voting rights groups called on James B. Peake, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), to reverse a recent decision that prohibits VA offices and facilities from offering voter registration and potentially registering tens of thousands of veterans.
Demos' Public Works Senior Program Director, Michael Lipsky and Demos Fellow Nicole Kazee argue that small business interests have been hijacked by powerful interest groups that do not full represent the views or interests of small-business owners. So then, who speaks for small business?
Fifteen years after NVRA passed Congress, many states are still ignoring their duty to low-income voters. Recent research and field and field investigations have indicated that states throughout the country are neglecting their responsibility to offer voter registration at public assistance offices.
Demos Legal Director Brenda Wright helps examine how high limits on individual campaign contributions disproportionately benefit the incumbent in an election.
"...a terrific new book on our dysfunctional health care system..."
-Paul Krugman, "The New York Times"
Recently named a finalist for Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, the New York Public Library Helen Bernstein Award and World Hunger Year Harry Chapin Media Award
Voters ranging in age from roughly the late teens to the early 30s, are part of the so-called millennial generation. This is a generation that is in danger of being left out of the American dream — the first American generation to do less well economically than their parents.
The Economic State of Young America is a comprehensive databook offering proof that a combination of declining incomes, growing debt, and high costs of education, homeownership and healthcare are conspiring to make this generation the first to not surpass the living standards of their parents. The report examines the financial condition of today's young adults across key economic indicators, including jobs and income, debt and savings, college access and attainment, and housing affordability.
TOP FACTS:
Demos and The Center for American Progress Publish New Studies
Washington, DC — Today's young adults are feeling the impact of a massive shift in the U.S. economy — changes that are documented in a new data report from Demos and an analysis of public opinion polling by The Center for American Progress. The studies were announced today with a press teleconference.
Not only is money tight with food and gas prices rising, but credit is tougher to come by and homes are no longer available as an ATM. At the same time, the spread of eco-consciousness into mainstream culture is shining a spotlight on waste and prompting many consumers to reconsider how they shop.
2007 was the first year that the North Carolina General Assembly seriously considered Same Day Registration. SDR bills had been introduced in prior years and attracted legislative support, but never gained sufficient traction. This report recounts North Carolina's road to Same Day Registration from three different perspectives: legislative supporters, elections officials and the advocacy community.
Field investigators who interviewed people leaving state social service offices in the last year in Jackson, Clay and St. Louis counties and St. Louis city said almost none of those people were asked if they wanted to register, according to Scott Novakowski, a senior policy analyst for Demos, one of four national advocacy groups representing the plaintiffs. Three of the sites visited did not have voter registration applications available, he said.
[State Rep. Lois DeBerry] is sponsoring a bill that would prohibit credit issuers from recruiting students on campus or from offering gifts to students on campus to entice them into applying for a credit card, usually at major athletic events. So far, she's having trouble getting the bill through the Legislature.
Leading National Advocacy Organizations File Suit to Enforce Federal National Voter Registration Act
Kansas City, MO — The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) and St. Louis resident Dionne O'Neal have filed a federal lawsuit today charging that the state of Missouri has failed to provide voter registration services to clients of state public assistance agencies, as required by the federal National Voter Registration Act ("NVRA"). The NVRA is a federal law enacted in 1993 to ensure all Americans have access to voter registration services.
According to a Demos calculation based on the Survey of Consumer Finances, a higher proportion of women ages 25 to 34 carry credit card debt compared with their male peers-76 percent vs. 67 percent-but the men carry higher amounts of debt, which is what really matters when you're trying to stay on top of monthly bills.
