Latinos have various national origins and ancestries, as well as generational, citizenship, and political differences. Even within our diversity, Latino unity is on the rise thanks to the emergence of the Latino counterpublic.
The University of Pennsylvania Law Review Online has released a Special Issue on Campaign Finance exploring alternatives to the Supreme Court’s analysis in Buckley vs. Valeo, the foundational money in politics case decided 40 years ago this year.
About 94% of donors to Emanuel's campaign were white, even though white people comprise just 39% of Chicago's total population, according to the new report, from progressive think tank Demos. Emanuel's donors almost entirely (84%) gave large contributions of $1,000 or more. A staggering 80% of his donors had an annual income of at least $100,000 or more, despite just 15% of Chicagoans making six figures.
In May, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review Online will publish a series of essays examining the role that political equality could play in the Supreme Court’s campaign finance jurisprudence. The authors in this collection are helping to relaunch a conversation that has been stagnant for forty years.
Automatic Voter Registration (AVR)—meaning voter registration that occurs without a proactive effort by individual citizens—has caught fire. Here are three major factors that stakeholders must address.
However, money still matters a lot, and it probably matters more on the local and state level than it does nationally. As McElwee notes, the donor class has sharply different ideological beliefs than the public at large. For obvious reasons, they tend to resist the tax increases necessary to pay for better services, and tend to support "centrist" austerity derp like the Bowles-Simpson program. In other words, they're more conservative.
In a nutshell: Rahm Emanuel relied overwhelming on large donations from a very nearly exclusively white pool of donors — who also, as further analysis shows, largely live in the same few rich wards of the city (save for non-Chicagoans, as Emanuel also did a lot of fundraising outside the city). Even Garcia's donors were disproportionately white, though to a much lesser extent. "We expected going in there would be some demographic disparities," McElwee told The Week.
When Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel ran for re-election in 2015, his opponents accused him of representing the elite in a city starkly divided by race and class. A new analysis of campaign finance data shows that, at least from a fundraising perspective, the mayor’s support did indeed come largely from a narrow band of Chicago’s citizens.
2016 will likely be remembered for a deeply polarizing presidential election that brought out huge numbers of voters. It should also be remembered for massive voter disenfranchisement.
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.
"There are no other countries that we would think of as advanced that don't offer some paid maternity leave," said Amy Traub, a senior policy analyst at Demos, a left-leaning public policy group. "So many countries started guaranteeing maternity leave as more woman started to enter the workplace, and the U.S. just has been a laggard."
The latest challenge of voting procedures contends the state’s system eliminates names of registered voters based on their failure to vote. The lawsuit naming Secretary of State Jon Husted specifically alleges the illegal cancellation of registered voters who are homeless.
I want to know what’s going to happen with the farm workers,” she said, through a translator. “Are you going to include us in this?”
Bhandary-Alexander said the hearing “couldn’t have been any better,” as a way to connect policy issues with individual narratives.
The board heard from economic experts from the Economic Policy Institute and Demos think tank in previous hearings about how minimum wage increases have affected other cities.
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.