No matter who wins each of the hundreds of elections today, one thing's for sure: a relative handful of large donors and spenders are setting the agenda and terms of debate, while the rest of us are on the sidelines.
In my recent Explainer, I discussed the implications of the voting gap on policy and elections. Numerous studies show that in states where low-income voters turnout at a higher rate, inequality is lower. That is because in these chambers, policymakers tend to be more liberal and favorable to policies to decrease economic inequality.
The biggest campaign donors and spenders have long played an outsized role in most U.S. elections—for legislators, governors, right on up to the president. But, this year there’s an extra twist, showing that judicial elections are no longer an exception.
City council races seldom get the attention of their up-ballot brethren, especially on a day like today when the fate of the U.S. Senate is up for grabs. But local elected officials probably hold greater sway over decisions that directly affect your life. And their ranks tell us something important about who holds power in any community — and, equally important, who doesn't. [...]
When many think of 21st century voter suppression, the first thing that might come to mind is the network of unnecessary voter ID laws that disproportionately affect the young, the elderly and voters of color. There is, however, a minefield of other voter suppression tactics at work, many of which are on display in the great state of Georgia.
My new study out this week from Demos and the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) looks at credit card debt in the Latino community. But it isn’t ultimately about credit cards at all.
In the wake of the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, after the Aug. 9 shooting of black teenager Michael Brown by white police officer Darren Wilson, there has been a focus on racial disparities in representation. A recent study found that while people of color make up 37.2 percent of the U.S. population, they account for only 10 percent of elected officials at the federal, state and county levels. By contrast, white men, who make up 31 percent of the population, account for 65 percent of representatives.
Last week, Demos and U.S. PIRG released a report, Big Money Dominates in Congressional Primaries, which shows how a small number of large donors play an outsized role in the candidate-selection process.
With Election Day approaching on November 4th, Americans are faced with a perennial question: to vote or not to vote? In the last midterm election, in 2010, only 47 percent of the eligible population voted. Voting patterns typically break down along clear demographic lines: Non-voters tend to be low-income, young and people of color, while those who vote tend to older, whiter and richer than the population at large.
In the aftermath of the Great Recession, Americans battered by job loss, foreclosure, and plummeting home values tightened their belts and paid down debt. The Latino community, hit particularly hard by the housing crash, was no exception. Yet new research from Demos’ National Survey on Credit Card Debt of Low- and Middle-Income Households finds that even as Latinos are carrying less credit card debt, four in ten Latino households with credit card debt are relying on their cards to pay for basic living expenses.
The soaring pay of corporate chief executives is spurring efforts to pass laws to limit their compensation and close the widening gap in earnings between workers and top executives.
Such laws have been proposed in at least three states, including Massachusetts, as well as in Switzerland. Proponents have yet to succeed in enacting these measures, but they vow to keep pressing the issue. [...]
That Texas' discriminatory and partisan voter ID law was allowed to continue is evidence of the Supreme Court's failed understanding of its constitutional responsibilities.
Last night, I had the honor of attending an Intelligence Squared debate on the proposition that, “Income Inequality Impairs the American Dream of Upward Mobility.” It was an engrossing debate.
That’s how Walmart spokesperson Kory Lundberg described the concerns of Walmart workers and their allies who protested the mega-retailers low wages and poor employment policies in New York City last Thursday. “Wal-Mart doesn’t have any locations in New York City,” explained Lundberg, trying to reach those of us still too silly to grasp the fact.
Connecticut’s investment in higher education has decreased considerably over the past two decades, and its financial aid programs, though still some of the country’s most expansive, fail to reach many students with financial need.