President Obama and some members of Congress have made waves recently with calls for voting reform. But your access to the ballot probably depends more on what’s going on at the nearest statehouse.
With state legislative sessions well underway, lawmakers across the country have unleashed a raft of bills tweaking their states’ voting systems. Here are a few issues to keep an eye on.
Today, the Supreme Court heard argument in Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder, a case challenging the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Brenda Wright, Vice President for Legal Strategies at Demos, released the following statement:
While much of the country’s attention is focused on the need for job growth, a new report to be released Monday, March 4 by national public policy organization Demos reveals the ways in which the use of credit history in hiring acts as a significant barrier to employment and may lead to discriminatory hiring practices, particularly for people of color and the long-term unemployed.
Young adults are pulling back on credit-card debt for similar reasons, said Amy Traub, a senior policy analyst at Demos, a public policy research organization. It found that Americans age 25 to 34 cut their credit card debt in half between 2008 and 2012.
All around them, young adults are seeing signs of financial distress -- job insecurity, foreclosures, high college costs. That's making them think twice about applying for loans, she said.
A new report from a Wisconsin state agency makes clear that Same Day Registration is not just a low-cost way to make voting more accessible. It can even be a budget-saver.
The report from the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board dealt a blow to advocates of repealing the state’s Same Day Registration policy. It pegged the cost of such a change as high as $14.5 million. Some of the costs are one-time expenditures, but many will be ongoing.
Same Day Registration is a proven reform that can substantially increase voter turnout among eligible voters -- particularly among those with traditionally lower rates of voter participation -- without compromising the integrity of elections or substantially increasing costs.
Despite millennials' lingering reputation as financial delinquents, it turns out not everyone drowning in credit card debt has a newly-printed college diploma and a stack of student loan bills.
Harsh, an IT professional from Tuscola, Illinois, is 62, around the age at which a lot of people start actively planning to retire to a white-sandy beach with a frozen margarita in hand.
Harsh's debt snuck up on her as she helped her two daughters with college and living costs. She went back to school after a divorce and dealt with unexpected expenses such as big dental bills. Now she has about $300 a month in minimum payments, spread across three credit cards, and the balance never seems to go down because of all the interest she is paying.
Easthampton, MA – Today, more than 200 civil rights, voting rights and criminal justice organizations sent a letter calling on the U.S. Census Bureau to seize a timely opportunity to research alternative ways to count incarcerated people in the decennial Census.
After a campaign season marked by climate silence, the President’s inaugural call for action on climate change left hope that the administration was serious about making climate a priority. And, there were parts in last night’s State of the Union that were promising, beyond the simple fact that he addressed the issue at length. First and foremost, the President tied extreme weather events to climate change.
New York, NY -- In his State of the Union last night, President Obama hit on four key issues where Demos is engaged and where progress is long overdue: voting reform, the minimum wage, universal pre-K, and higher education.
On the bipartisan voting commission, Brenda Wright, Vice President of Legal Strategies:
High unemployment and underemployment forced one in four Americans to pull money out of a retirement plan to make ends meet.
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A separate study on credit-card debt done by Demos, which surveyed some 997 households, warns that middle-income households of those nearing retirement are running up huge credit-card bills.
According to the study, “Older Americans now have higher overall credit-card debt than younger people — a reversal of the trend Demos found in its 2008 survey.”
Here’s another reason why income inequality is so destructive—it’s ruining our planet and increasing the severity of climate change. A new paper from the Center on Economic and Policy Research looks at a novel way to slow climate change: reduce the hours that we work. For reasons that are not entirely understood, shorter work hours are linked with lower greenhouse gas emissions.
The Pew Charitable Trusts released a nifty interactive report this week that compares the 50 states and the District of Columbia on their administration of elections.
Pew gathered information from the Census Bureau, public surveys, and other sources to develop its Elections Performance Index. So far, the data is available only for the 2008 and 2010 elections, but it makes clear that the security of your voting rights depends heavily on where you live.
President Obama raised eyebrows during his inaugural address last month when he put the fight against long election-day lines in the context of the nation’s movement toward “tolerance and opportunity, human dignity and justice.” Now the New YorkTimes says Congress is preparing for a showdown on the issue.
Alfred Carpenter, 52, was working for a high-end shoe store in 2007, when the recession put the company out of business. A long-time salesman, Carpenter wasn't worried about getting another job, but then broke an ankle a few months later and ended up in the hospital. With no insurance and a $50,000 emergency room bill, he filed for bankruptcy protection.
Then his troubles got worse. One employer after another rescinded job offers after checking his credit report, he says. He finally found work, but at a fraction of his usual pay.
Democratic lawmakers say allowing voters to register and cast ballots on the same day would increase election participation, but some county officials worry that it would further complicate the voting process.
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States with same-day registration have turnout rates nearly 6 percent higher than states that don’t offer it, according to Demos, a progressive public policy research group.
Annapolis, MD – A coalition of government reform groups praised efforts by Governor Martin O’Malley and Delegate Kiril Reznik that would help Marylanders vote and make sure every vote is counted. The groups also encouraged the Governor to further strengthen his voting package and fix the range of problems Marylanders encountered last year at the polls. Those would include an increase and fair distribution of early voting sites and funding for a new voting system.