I’ve met a lot of white people who believe that black students get so much financial aid and scholarships that they don’t have to pay for college. [...]
But the A. Philip Randolph Institute, an African-American trade union group, the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless, and Larry Harmon, a man who was purged from the rolls, are suing the state over the law.
The Trump Justice Department is undermining the ability of people to vote, said Brenda Wright, the vice president of policy and legal strategies at Demos, which is representing the plaintiffs in the Ohio case.
The Justice Department released an amicus brief in the case, currently before the Supreme Court, over whether Ohio can continue to remove “infrequent voters” who fail to cast a ballot over a six-year period.
The Department of Justice abandoned a principled position that it has held for decades through three presidencies. By reversing course and choosing to stand with Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted and his practice of purging countless eligible Ohioans from the rosters, the DOJ has confirmed many peoples’ worst fears that it will no longer work to protect and expand the right to vote, but instead undermine it.
Larry Harmon, 60, hadn’t voted in a while when he drove to the high school in November 2015 to weigh in on a local referendum in Kent, Ohio. But he wasn’t allowed to cast his ballot. [...]
“We got involved in this case because we’re concerned that overly aggressive efforts to purge voters off the rolls result in removing eligible people, something we’ve seen happen in other states, including Ohio and Georgia.”
It’s worth noting, first of all, that black and Hispanic college students are more likely to have to borrow to pay for a college education and that they end up having to borrow more money to cover college costs. A study from Demos analyzing federal data found that 86 percent of black students and 87 percent of Hispanic students got loans to attend private universities, compared to 72 percent of whites.
August 2, 2017 (New York, NY) – In response to reports today that the U.S. Department of Justice plans to investigate higher education institutions’ affirmative action policies, Heather McGhee, President of Demos and Demos Action, issued the following statement.
Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted filed his opening brief in Husted v. Ohio A. Philip Randolph Institute (APRI)—a case that will be argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in its upcoming term. The case addresses Ohio’s Supplemental Process, a practice that targets voters who fail to vote in a two-year period for eventual cancellation of their registrations – even if they have not moved and are still fully eligible to vote.
The top three economic issues for young people are debt-free public college, paid family and medical leave and a higher minimum wage (followed closely by affordable childcare).
Washington, DC – Today, Adam Lioz, Demos Counsel and Senior Advisor of Policy & Outreach, released the following statement in support of the Fair Elections Now Act, introduced by Sen. Richard Durbin.
“Demos applauds Senator Durbin and his colleagues for re-introducing the Fair Elections Now Act, the strongest public financing legislation in the U.S. Senate.
f the Trump Commission uses the data it says it wants to use, it will target this group of citizens with false allegations of illegal voting. We must fight against the purges of these voters, because in America, it is assumed that there are no two classes of citizenship, regardless of what the current President believes.
NEW YORK, NY – In response to the first Pence-Kobach Commission meeting tomorrow, Brenda Wright, Vice President, Policy & Legal Strategies at Demos, released the following statement:
“The Pence-Kobach Commission is the Trump Administration’s latest attempt to shrink the electorate. It has no legitimacy and no agenda other than to bolster the President’s lies about illegal voting in the 2016 election. The Commission is a blatant political ploy to suppress voter turnout and kick eligible voters off the rolls.
Many states have rightly refused to provide private data from their voting rolls to the commission. However, the commission will still have access to highly inappropriate federal immigration data to “study” Trump’s theory that millions of noncitizens have voted.