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.
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.
July 21, 2017 (New York, NY) – In honor of the sixth anniversary of the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Tamara Draut, Vice President of Policy and Research, issued the following statement.
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.
The League of Women Voters of Missouri and the St. Louis and Greater Kansas City Chapters of the A. Philip Randolph Institute Call on State to Fix Voter Registration at DMVs
Illinois also becomes one of 4 states (Colorado, Connecticut and Vermont) to offer both AVR and Same-Day Registration (SDR). These reforms in tandem complement each other in the effort to best expand voter access and increase turnout.
New York, NY - With the House of Representatives poised to vote on H.R. 10, the Financial CHOICE Act, Amy Traub, Associate Director, Policy and Research at Demos, issued the following statement:
What happened in 2016? In a recent Monkey Cagepiece, I discussed the research Demos is performing with political scientists Bernard Fraga, Brian Schaffner and Jesse Rhodes on how depressed turnout contributed to Trump’s electoral college victory. However, the piece doesn’t discuss what caused that decline in turnout and what it means for the future of the Democratic Party.
The nation is experiencing a crisis of care. Across the country, parents are trapped in an economic bind without paid leave or affordable child care, even as older Americans and people with disabilities contend with their own unmet needs for care. At the same time, we face a desperate need for good jobs. While unemployment has fallen, millions of working people still struggle to make ends meet with low wages, precarious work schedules, and a lack of basic benefits and job security.
It's time to recognize that in a world where most students must borrow for a credential, borrowers should receive the same failsafe protections on these loans as they do on any other consumer loan.