The Corporate Reform Coalition – made up of institutional investors managing a combined total of $800 billion in assets, as well as public officials, legal scholars, good government groups and CEOs – will hold a telephone press conference to discuss a petition calling on the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to issue rules on corporate political spending.
The Montana Supreme Court in Helena stands just off the main drag, dramatically called Last Chance Gulch Street. The picturesque setting is fitting for an institution that has just challenged the U.S. Supreme Court to a legal showdown on the enormously important question of whether corporations should have an unfettered right to dominate elections or whether citizens have the right to adopt commonsense protections to defend democratic government from corruption. Get the kids off the streets, because this could be an epic confrontation.
The Montana Supreme Court in Helena stands just off the main drag, dramatically called Last Chance Gulch Street. The picturesque setting is fitting for an institution that has just challenged the U.S. Supreme Court to a legal showdown on the enormously important question of whether corporations should have an unfettered right to dominate elections or whether citizens have the right to adopt commonsense protections to defend democratic government from corruption. Get the kids off the streets, because this could be an epic confrontation.
We can’t afford to let Wall Street keep taking us for a ride: Americans need a strong Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to bring fairness and accountability to the financial sector.
NEW YORK -- On Friday, Dec 23, a federal three-judge panel unanimously upheld the constitutionality of Maryland’s landmark “No Representation Without Population Act,” which counts incarcerated people as residents of their legal home addresses for redistricting purposes.
How long do working mothers stay home after having their first child? If you guessed the answer might be 12 weeks (not an unreasonable assumption, since that’s the amount of time allotted by our national family leave law), you’d be sadly mistaken. According to recently released census numbers, a majority of mothers who worked during pregnancy go back before that, some way before. More than a quarter are at work within two months of giving birth and one in 10—more than half a million women each year—go back to their jobs in four weeks or less.
On Tuesday, December 13th, the Congressional Progressive Caucus unveiled the RESTORE the American Dream for the 99% Act. The bill, if passed, would create more than 5 million jobs and save more than $2 trillion. This is a comprehensive plan to put America back to work by reversing the failed policies of the past, which the “Super Committee” could not achieve.
BOSTON - Citing clear evidence that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is failing to provide low-income residents with a legally-mandated opportunity to register to vote, attorneys from Demos, Project Vote, and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law of the Boston Bar Association sent a pre-litigation notice letter on December 8, 2011 to Secretary of State William F. Galvin, on behalf of New England United for Justice. The letter was also forwarded to the state’s human services officials.
Baltimore, MD – Strongly contending that the Republican-sponsored challenge to Maryland’s landmark 2010 civil rights law, the “No Representation Without Population Act,” runs directly contrary to its plaintiffs’ goal of increased representation for Maryland’s African-American community, a coalition of civil rights groups today announces that an amicus brief has been filed to counter misinformation and defend the landmark civil rights law.
Albany, NY – New York Supreme Court Justice Eugene Devine today upheld New York’s law ending prison-based gerrymandering in the Little v. LATFOR lawsuit. His decision squarely rejects the plaintiffs’ claim that the New York law violated various provisions of the New York State Constitution.
New York, NY—Today, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 3463, a bill that would effectively terminate the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) and federal financing for presidential election campaigns. Demos, a non-partisan public policy research and advocacy organization committed to building an America which achieves its highest democratic ideals, vehemently opposes this legislation.
NEW YORK -- In a new analysis released today, national policy center Demos announced a major milestone in its work to build a more inclusive democracy: Across five states, more than one million additional low-income Americans, the most vulnerable of “the 99%”, have filled out voter registration forms at public assistance agencies since 2007.
Proof that when laws to protect peoples’ democratic rights are put into practice, they can have a major impact on bringing more voices into the political process.
The existence of the U.S. middle class is in peril. Young people between the ages of 18 and 34 are living in a more fragile economic environment than 30 years ago. If something isn't done to help them lead more economically stable lives, they'll never make it into the middle class.
That's the conclusion of a new report "The State of Young America" from Demos, a combination think-tank and advocacy organization based in New York.
A coalition of civil rights groups are preparing an amicus brief to defend the “No Representation Without Population Act” challenged in Fletcher v. Lamone. Maryland’s first-in-the-nation law requiring the state to count prisoners at their home addresses is protective of minority voting rights.
WASHINGTON— The assault on the right to vote witnessed in 2011 is historic in terms of its geographic scope and ferocity, according to new testimony submitted by national policy center Demos to today’s House Judiciary Committee forum entitled “Excluded from Democracy: The Impact of Recent State Voting Law Changes.”
Occupy Wall Street has, in the words of John Paul Rollert, “come to embody a common sense that something is wrong with American capitalism.” The problem Rollert points to is not with capitalism itself, but with a particular American version that has ceased to work for broad cross-sections of its population. Given America’s Depression-level income inequality and near-record levels of public and private indebtedness, it is extremely tempting to focus on bad outcomes as the problem.
NEW YORK-- On Tuesday, voters in Maine decisively voiced their support for fair and open elections. By a 3 to 2 margin, voters restored the option of Same Day Registration, rejecting the Republican-sponsored effort to make voting more difficult. Miles Rapoport, President of Demos, former Secretary of the State of Connecticut and long-time Same Day Registration advocate, issued the following statement:
Demos just released new comprehensive polling about the opinion of young adults. Politically the most interesting data point that stuck out for me is their finding that an overwhelmingly 68 percent of young people say it is harder for them to make ends meet now than it was four years ago. From the poll results: