Last week I had the privilege of testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee about President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Neil Gorsuch. Wth the Court split four-to-four on so many critical issues, the stakes couldn’t be higher.
But even beyond issues, what’s at stake with this nomination is the very shape of our democracy: the way we make decisions about everything from who gets health care to whether working families will live in poverty—and whose voices are heard in that process.
Nearly a year ago, a colleague (Taylor Lincoln, the research director of Public Citizen) and I made five recommendations for then-candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump to run a transparent presidential transition.
Friends and foes of Neil Gorsuch lobbied the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday both for and against confirmation of the Colorado-based judge to the Supreme Court.
Heather McGhee, president of Demos, a liberal policy think tank, lambasted Gorsuch for not distancing himself from the court’s decision in Citizens United v. FEC, which struck down limits on campaign contributions.
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (RI) confronted Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch about the vicious cycle facing our democracy: of severe concentration of economic power yielding severe concentration of political power.
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (RI) confronted Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch about the vicious cycle facing our democracy: of severe concentration of economic power yielding severe concentration of political power.
Today the Election Law Journal published Beyond Corruption, a peer-reviewed symposium on money in politics and the Supreme Court. The symposium was guest-edited by Professor David Schultz and contains pieces by several Demos attorneys, including a Foreword by Demos President Heather McGhee.
We’ve created our own bracket here, matching up colleges not by the number of McDonald’s High School All-Americans on their roster, but by whether or not they provide access to an affordable education and whether they are engines of upward mobility for working-class students.
“There are approximately zero students that would see a net benefit if this budget were enacted into law,” said Mark Huelsman, senior policy analyst at Demos, a left-leaning think tank. [...]
“Consolidating or reforming campus-based aid programs is not a bad idea, but at the end of the day students have to come out ahead,” Huelsman said. “Indiscriminate cuts to work-study absolutely would harm the low income students or middle class students on campuses who absolutely do receive the money.”
The remarkable advance of same-day registration was not an accident. National organizations, including Demos and Common Cause, and numerous state organizations led the fights in legislatures around the country.
Democratic lawmakers and liberal interest groups are intensifying their pressure on senators to probe Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch’s views on campaign finance law during his confirmation hearings next week. [...]
Senate Judiciary Committee Must Focus on Judge Gorsuch’s Troubling Money-in-Politics Record
Dear Majority Leader McConnell, Minority Leader Schumer, Chairman Grassley, and Ranking Member Feinstein:
As organizations representing tens of millions of Americans, we write to express our deep concern regarding the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States because of his troubling record on money in politics.
More than 90 percent of voters (including 91 percent of Trump voters) say that it is important for Trump to nominate a Supreme Court justice open to limiting big money in politics.
Published by public policy organization Demos,Court Cash: 2016 Election Money Resulting Directly from Supreme Court Rulingsquantifies for the first time the direct impact of the Supreme Court's four most significant money-in-politics cases, using the highly competitive presidential race, as well as the 22 congressional races won by 5 percentage points or fewer, as the study's focal point. [...]
[...] In short, our analysis indicates that Donald Trump successfully leveraged existing resentment towards African Americans in combination with emerging fears of increased racial diversity in America to reshape the presidential electorate, strongly attracting nativists towards Trump and pushing some more affluent and highly educated people with more cosmopolitan views to support Hillary Clinton. Racial identity and attitudes have further displaced class as the central battleground of American politics. [...]
1. Do you agree that wealthy donors translating their massive economic power directly into political influence is a problem that should be taken into account when considering rules governing spending on elections?
[...] Judge Gorsuch’s approach “has created a system in which single individuals and corporations can spend tens of millions of dollars to influence elections, and in which candidates and elected officials are significantly more responsive to the priorities of an elite donor class than to Americans on the whole,” the CLC said.76 A recent report from Demos found that the ove