“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.
Without the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, lenders preying on communities of color would continue to pull in windfall gains, while widening the racial wealth gap and undermining the precarious financial stability of vulnerable households.
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.
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.
Black students are far more likely to take on debt for a degree than white students, and young black households have more student debt despite fewer educational opportunities and a more uncertain payoff in the job market.
Demos (pronounced with long "e") — a public-policy group trying to shape a Democratic agenda on working-class issues like household indebtedness, college affordability and economic challenges facing young people — tested economic messages with an online survey of 1,536 registered voters in June.
Methodology: Demos sponsored an online survey among 1,536 registered voters, conducted June 5 to June 14, 2017. The research included a base sample of registered voters and, for deeper analysis, oversamples of working-class African Americans, working-class Hispanics, working-class white Obama-to-Trump voters, and progressives, defined as people of all races who identify as extremely or somewhat liberal. The data in this survey is weighted by standard weights to make it fully representative.
“We think of education funding, particularly at the state level, as a spending issue, but it’s myopic,” said Mark Huelsman, a senior policy analyst at Demos, a left-leaning think tank. “There are all kinds of second order effects to investing in education — homeownership or wealth building is certainly one of them. If you don’t spend the money on students now and that means that they’re less likely to go to college or they’re more likely to take on debt, that is going to impact their future economic activity.” [...]
"State officials are rightly wary of the goals of the commission because it does seem that the whole purpose for setting it up is to justify a preordained conclusion that somehow millions of votes were cast illegally in the last election," says Brenda Wright, vice president for policy and legal strategies at Demos, a progressive think tank. "That's the verdict, and now they want to hold a trial." [...]