A newly released report provides the first-ever comprehensive study of how municipal level elections and policymaking are dominated by big donors. How Chicago’s White Donor Class Distorts City Policy shows that in the 2015 Chicago mayoral election, candidates raised more than 90 percent of their funds from donors giving over $1,000.
In this election season, reining in Wall Street is clearly a burning issue for many voters. The passion for Wall Street reform is closely wrapped up with working class anger and anxiety driven by wage stagnation and economic insecurity, all within a climate of accelerating wealth and income inequality.
Demos, the Center for Popular Democracy, Maryland Working Families, Casa de Maryland and Maryland Communities United encourage broad and inclusive access to voting
April 12, 2016 (Annapolis, MD) – A voting rights coalition recognized the Maryland General Assembly for passing the Freedom to Vote Act, legislation that will ease the path to voting while cutting red tape for Maryland citizens. The coalition includes partners such as Demos, the Center for Popular Democracy, Maryland Working Families, Casa de Maryland and Maryland Communities United.
Over the weekend, we learned some exciting news in the effort to end prison gerrymandering: a federal judge struck down a Florida county’s districting plan due to unlawful distortions caused by counting a prison population in the wrong place.
(Raleigh, NC) – Yesterday, a coalition of voting rights advocates and North Carolina citizens asked a federal judge in Winston-Salem to issue an interim order to prevent widespread disenfranchisement in the November 2016 general election before the lawsuit they filed is resolved.
Action NC, Democracy North Carolina, the A.
Today President Obama fulfilled his constitutional duty by nominating Judge Merrick Garland to succeed Justice Antonin Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court. Now the question is whether U.S. Senators will do their jobs.
LAS VEGAS and NEW YORK (March 7, 2016) – Voting rights advocates have sent a pre-litigation notice letter to Nevada officials, warning that the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles is failing to meet its federally-mandated voter registration obligations and threatening litigation if the state does not comply with the law.
With the 2016 Presidential election bringing renewed attention to rising college costs, UC Berkeley researchers have just released a groundbreaking study on broad and growing financial inequalities in U.S. higher education. Entitled “The Financialization of U.S. Higher Education,” it’s available online here.
When we agreed to help reform the NYPD’s stop and frisk practice in the landmark class action Floyd v. the City of New York, we knew we were taking on a great responsibility.
Public financing of elections, as a state and local democracy reform, can help enhance the political voice and power of working-class people and people of color. It is an effective antidote to the outsized influence corporations and major donors currently have on both politics and policy.
The human tragedy of Flint, Michigan is agonizing. Thousands of children have been subjected to lead and other chemical poisoning, not to mention adults, just to save a few dollars in a process driven by raw politics and underlying racism.