Tuesday's New York Times editorial on the Chamber of Commerce's clandestine intrusion into American politics didn't go far enough in explaining why hiding the identities of donors to political ads is harmful to our democracy.
Preparing the terrain for Senator Marco Rubio, his Florida colleague and friend, Representative David Rivera (R-Fla) introduced this week the Studying Towards Residency Status Act or STARS Act. This act is Rep. Rivera’s alternative to the DREAM Act that has stalled in Congress for nearly eleven years. Complimenting this Act, last January Rivera introduced similar legislation, the Adjusted Residency for Military Service Act or ARMS act.
Gary Gensler, Chairman of the US Commodity Futures Trading CommissionThe massive and lavishly funded opposition to reasonable financial reform still wages a multi-front war to preserve the risk-oriented business model that produced the financial crisis of 2008.
The big stock market slide of the past month has been bad news for the over 50 million Americans with 401(k) plans. Many of these investors have yet to recover from the 2008 crash and have been counting on a market upswing to make up for lost ground.
I recently posted a piece about legislation pending in Congress that would restrict the extraterritorial jurisdiction of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission over the derivatives market. Chapter two of that story is the struggle of the CFTC Commissioners to provide formal guidance establishing the scope of its own jurisdiction under Dodd-Frank Act over activities taking place beyond the U.S. borders. The outcome is critically important.
A main obstacle to economic growth is that consumers don't have much money to spend, which is why the U.S. government needs to engage in more stimulus spending -- an imperative that was dramatically underscored by last Friday's bleak job numbers.
This afternoon, two New York state lawmakers, Senator Michael Gianaris and Assemblymember Brian Kavanaugh, introduced legislation that would empower the voters of New York by providing more access to the ballot and giving the voter registration system a much overdue 21st century makeover.
One aggravating element of today's economic debate is how conservatives oppose stimulus spending even as they trumpet the economic record of past Republican presidents.
We hear so many depressing stories of Dodd-Frank rules that haven't yet been written, or are being held up by court challenges, that it is easy to forget that powerful parts of the 2010 reform act are already in effect.
One of the major barriers to renewable energy expansion is the unequal treatment renewables receive in tax credits and incentives. As we’ve highlighted, fossil fuels enjoy much more preferential treatment through permanent tax credits and incentives.
The Federal Election Commission (FEC) voted unanimously to allow Americans to contribute to candidates and political organizations through text messaging.
Here's a statistic that I found surprising and also troubling: Roughly 730,000 master's degrees will be awarded this spring. And it's estimated that another 2.2 million master's degrees will be handed out over the next three years.
(NEW YORK, NY) – This morning, the White House announced that President Obama will sign a “Good Jobs” Executive Order requiring government contractors to raise the minimum wage for their lowest-paid workers to $10.10 for all new and renegotiated contracts. The president will include this announcement in his State of the Union Address tonight.
"Helping build Demos has been hugely rewarding, and it's been thrilling to see the emergence of a larger and stronger progressive infrastructure that, 15 years ago, was just a dream for many of us,” said Callahan.
WASHINGTON DC — Today, Demos applauded Leader Pelosi and Representative Sarbanes for co-sponsoring H.R. 20, The Government by the People Act, new legislation aimed at raising the voices of all Americans in the political process and allowing congressional candidates to run competitive campaigns by relying on small dollar contributions.
“Everyone should have an equal say in our democracy through the principle of one person, one vote—not one dollar, one vote,” said Heather McGhee, incoming President of Demos.
NEW YORK—Today, Demos released the following statement applauding Attorney General Eric Holder’s support for restoring the voting rights of people with past felony convictions. Holder spoke at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C., saying “It is time to fundamentally reconsider laws that permanently disenfranchise people who are no longer under federal or state supervision.”
Demos’ Vice President of Legal Strategies, Brenda Wright, said this of the news:
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.
