Meanwhile, the overall cost of net tuition, fees, room and board rose 69 percent at public universities between 1997-98 and last year, even after being adjusted for inflation, according to the College Board. That’s a period during which the Census Bureau reports that median household earnings fell.
Yesterday’s election results were a major step forward for inclusive, multi-racial democracy in America. The country voted in candidates who look like America: Sharice Davids and Deb Haaland, the first Native American congresswomen; Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, the first Muslim congresswomen; Ayanna Pressley, the first black member of Congress from Massachusetts; Jared Polis, the first openly gay governor; Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the youngest female member of Congress; and at least 98 women were elected to the House of Representatives.
In the lead up to this year’s midterm elections on Nov. 6 we’ve heard about how young adults, women and people of color are running for office in record numbers.
We just filed this emergency lawsuit to protect the rights of eligible Ohio voters who were recently arrested and are being held in jail, unable to get to the polls.
Under the current system, eligible voters who are detained pretrial by the state are being unconstitutionally denied their fundamental right to vote. Ohio’s disenfranchisement of these qualified voters violates the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
“For some 40 years now, the Supreme Court has been issuing decisions that make it difficult to regulate [money in politics],” Chiraag Bains, director of legal strategies at Demos, told WhoWhatWhy. “Citizens United is the crowning achievement of that effort.”
Voter suppression is alive and well in Florida where our election protection volunteers reported multiple voting rights violations as well as coercion during early voting and we secured an emergency order in response to the violation of a federal injunction
Connie Razza, vice president of policy and research at progressive think tank Demos, argues that Democrats need to use policy ideas to directly counter the president’s identity-based appeal.
“If progressives are silent on race, then the other side gets to try and reframe it so that they can take what is clearly not in the interest of working and middle-class white folks and make it palatable because they’re vilifying people of color,” Razza said.
Our elections are fairer—and our democracy works better—when politicians listen to the entire public instead of only to big donors. A review of donations from individuals to Mayoral and City Council races in 2015 and 2016 shows that those who contribute to campaigns—and therefore are more likely to have their voices heard—do not reflect Baltimore City’s diverse population. Instead, the donor class is largely white and rich.
Such lawsuits from the right have yielded mixed results, in part because voting rights advocates like the ACLU, Common Cause, Demos, the Lawyers’ Committee, the League of Women Voters and the NAACP have successfully fought back in court. Private groups defending voters have filed more suits to protect voters than the Justice Department itself in recent years. [...]
Chiraag Bains, who served for about seven years in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, told the NewsHour that there are many ways these radical ideologies can be normalized.
One of the ways is when violence occurs and the government and high-ranking officials don’t do enough to condemn those acts, said Bains, who served under former President Barack Obama.
Similar interim rules were in place for the 2016 elections and more than 7,500 residents used them to vote, said lawyers for Demos and the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, two groups that sued the state.
“In a state where elections have been won or lost by only one vote, protecting the right of eligible voters to have their voices heard will uphold the fundamental principles on which our democracy is supposed to operate.”
The Harris tax credit bill, called the LIFT the Middle Class Act, could also have implications for higher ed access -- although the legislation wouldn’t have the same focus on assisting students from the poorest families. The proposal would function like a beefed-up version of the earned income tax credit and phase in quickly for individuals and married couples who work. [...]
Leaders from more than 150 organizations mobilize voters against antisemitism
WASHINGTON – Prominent leaders from labor, civil rights and community organizations today published an open letter calling out President Trump and the National Republican Congressional Committee for embracing antisemitism, and seeking to mobilize voters against those who campaign on antisemitism.
In 2013, President Barack Obama ordered a review of election procedures after the 2012 presidential election was plagued with long lines. One of the “signal weaknesses” of the U.S.
Despite elite colleges’ efforts to diversify, they are still limited in their ability to serve as true engines of economic mobility, said Mark Huelsman, a senior policy analyst at Demos, a left-leaning think tank.
“It does go against what we think higher education should be and it goes against our belief in a meritocracy,” he said. [...]
The American education system is defined by its decentralization; states, local areas, and schools wield considerable power over how students are educated, from preschool through college. But federal government's role in education is to still make sure American students have both a champion and a protector, an agency dedicated to the notion that when all students are able to thrive, our communities, our economy and our civic life become stronger.
This unfinished legacy is what makes the tenure of Betsy DeVos as secretary of education so tragic.