“It indicates that the focus of DOJ is going to be on pushing states to take more and more people off the rolls, instead of enforcing the provisions of the NVRA that assist voters in getting registered and staying on the rolls,” said Brenda Wright, vice president of policy and legal strategies at the progressive policy and legal group Demos.
Brenda Wright, a lawyer at the left-leaning advocacy organization Demos, emphasizes that progressives want voter rolls to be accurate. What her group opposes, she said, are purging practices that are known to sweep up eligible voters.
Washington, DC – Today, Demos, Every Voice, People for the American Way, and 23 other organizations sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee opposing John Bush’s confirmation to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth District and Damien Schiff’s confirmation to the Court of Federal Claims. The organizations opposed Bush and Schiff due to their troubling views on the issue of money in politics.
Dear Senators:
We the undersigned organizations write to oppose the confirmation of John K. Bush to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and Damien Schiff to the Court of Federal Claims due to their troubling views on the issue of money in politics.
"It's very concerning," said Brenda Wright, vice president of policy and legal strategies at Demos, a liberal advocacy group that's been fighting state efforts to purge voters from the rolls. Wright notes that the main purpose of the motor voter law is to expand opportunities to register to vote, but that millions of eligible Americans are still unregistered.
FESSLER: Brenda Wright is with Demos, a liberal advocacy group. She notes that the main purpose of the motor voter law is to make it easier to register but also harder to remove legitimate voters from the rolls.
WRIGHT: The problems that DOJ should be focusing on are that too few eligible people have access to the vote and are voting. DOJ going after states to force them to do more purging is exactly the opposite of what the department should be doing.
This report assesses the impact of better Motor Voter compliance on voter registration rates and shares model procedures that state motor vehicle departments should consider.
This week we're bringing you a deep dive into how an intersectional approach to money in politics brings new voices to the movement and helps those who are most harmed by big money politics take a stronger leadership role within the movement to stop it.
The League of Women Voters of Missouri and the St. Louis and Greater Kansas City Chapters of the A. Philip Randolph Institute Call on State to Fix Voter Registration at DMVs
“It’s clear that the exact cohort that they were tracking has gone through a fairly tumultuous young adulthood,” said Mark Huelsman, a senior policy analyst at Demos, a left-leaning think tank.
In an otherwise bleak landscape for progressive policy, the Fight for $15 has been one of a very few rays of light. Since the day in 2012 when 200 fast food workers in New York City walked out on strike, calling for $15 an hour and the right to join a union, cities and states across the country have raised their minimum wages, and several large private employers have increased pay for their low-wage workers.
“The EAC is responsible for creating voting systems guidelines that are intended to help ensure the accuracy and accessibility and security of voting systems that states use,” Brenda Wright, vice president for policy and legal strategies for the public policy group Demos, said in a phone interview.
Clinton’s gun-control positions also appear to have hurt her among voters who flipped from Obama in 2012 to Trump four years later. Demos analyst Sean McElwee constructed an index of views on gun policy. Using data from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study, he created a logistical model to predict Obama-to-Trump voting, controlling for race, religion, political party, education, gender, racial attitudes, ideology, and age. Views on guns turned out to be a statistically significant predictor of former Obama voters switching to Trump.