Tuesday, May 23 (NEW YORK, NY) – Tamara Draut, Vice President of Research and Policy at Demos, a New York-based public policy organization and think tank, issued this statement following the unveiling of President Trump’s full budget to Congress:
“The deeply alarming budget released by the Trump administration today would wreak havoc on working- and middle-class people, including many of the very people who sent him to the White House, by cutting services and programs that support our most vulnerable communities.
Today, the Supreme Court declined to review a lower court decision upholding limits on so-called "soft money" in politics. Congress enacted these limits as part of the McCain-Feingold Act in hopes of stopping wealthy donors from funneling huge sums of unregulated or “soft” money to political parties as a way of evading campaign contribution limits.
Senate Republicans on Thursday advanced President Trump’s first lower court nominee, setting up a floor vote. [...]
A coalition of 24 groups, including Demos, Every Voice Center, End Citizens United and Free Speech for People, wrote to the committee this week to urge members to reject Thapar’s nomination. The groups claim Thapar's record shows he will exacerbate the growing role of big money in American politics.
New York, NY - Following yesterday’s reporting that former FBI Director James Comey recorded a contemporaneous account of President Trump urging him to end the agency’s investigation into Russian interference with the U.S. election and earlier revelations that Trump shared highly sensitive intelligence with Russian officials in the Oval Office, Heather McGhee, President of the New York-based public policy think tank Demos, issued the following statement:
New York, New York — Today, Demos, Every Voice, People for the American Way, and 21 other organizations sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee opposing Judge Amul Thapar’s confirmation to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. The organizations called into question Judge Thapar’s troubling record on money in politics, noting that they are deeply concerned with the growing role of big money in American politics.
Despite important advances with ballot initiatives and the rise of the powerful Fight for $15 movement, there is still progress to be made on raising the minimum wage.
The National Retail Federation was expecting a Mother’s Day bonanza on Sunday, predicting consumers would “spend more than ever… as they shower moms with everything from jewelry to special outings at favorite restaurants.” If their projections proved correct, many individual moms got a lot of love last weekend—or at least abundant gifts. Unfortunately, our society as a whole does a great deal less to honor and support mothers.
This Mothers’ Day, as the mother of two stepsons who came from Guatemala and one son born here, I’m grateful that all three of my children and their father have their papers. That was literally the first thing that crossed my mind after Donald Trump was elected.
Dear Governor Abbott,
We the undersigned faith, labor, civil rights and social justice organizations, which represent a wide cross section of America’s diverse communities, strongly condemn your decision to sign into law the unconstitutional, racist and anti-immigrant Senate Bill 4. As Governor of Texas, your duty is to protect and defend the rights of ALL Texans -- undocumented immigrants are Texans through and through -- but you have clearly failed in doing this.
You may have first seen Heather McGhee on Meet the Press or Real Time with Bill Maher or Hardball with Chris Matthews, but on Saturday, May 6, the progressive pundit made an appearance at All Souls hosted by the Women’s Alliance. As the featured speaker at the Alliance’s Spring Event, she covered a wide range of topics from the economy to last fall’s election to immigration and racial prejudice.
Washington, DC – President Trump signed an executive order today formatting a “Presidential Commission for Election Integrity.” In response to these reports, Brenda Wright, Vice President for Policy and Legal Strategies at Demos said:
Dear Governor Abbott:
On behalf of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and the undersigned national civil and human rights organizations, we write to express our strong disappointment over the enactment of S.B. 4, a bill that threatens to drastically and unwisely expand the involvement of state and local law enforcement authorities in the enforcement of federal immigration laws. This bill raises profound legal, constitutional, and public policy concerns that must be addressed.
LatinoJustice and Dēmos submitted an amici curiae brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in support of a petition for certiorari challenging Michigan’s controversial Emergency Manager Law, Public Act (PA) 436.
May 10, 2017 (New York, NY) – Following yesterday's announcement that President Trump fired the director of the F.B.I., James B. Comey, Heather McGhee, President of the New York-based public policy think tank Demos, issued the following statement:
In a letter sent today to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, twenty-four groups and individuals with expertise in government integrity and accountability expressed deep concern about President Trump’s inappropriate firing of FBI Director James Comey yesterday.
The letter called on Rosenstein “to promptly appoint an independent Special Counsel, as authorized by Justice Department regulations, to now oversee and conduct the Russia investigation that Director Comey was leading for the FBI when he was fired yesterday.”
A 2015 report by Demosfound that California had one of the country’s the lowest ratios of DMV voter registration applications to DMV transactions, between 0.01 and 0.1. [...]
Summary
Priorities USA is in the midst of a research project analyzing “swing voters” and “turnout voters” in the 2016 election in order to glean lessons that can be applied to strengthen Democrats in elections in 2018, 2020 and beyond. The initial analysis, conducted via polling and focus groups, has now continued with an examination of the impact of voter identification laws.
Since 2006, states across the country have implemented strict voter ID laws, which require photo identification at polling places. Extensive research has suggested that these laws are motivated by racism and partisanship.
