It's time to ensure that workers, no matter what their immigration status, have the same rights, and that their status isn't used an excuse to justify abusive behavior.
The U.S. political system is increasingly gamed against Americans of modest means — a situation exacerbated in recent years by major changes in the nation's campaign laws.
I attended the oral argument in the Voting Rights Act case before the U.S. Supreme Court, and I came away even more convinced that the Court should uphold the contested parts of the law.
Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act requires that covered states "preclear" their proposed election law changes with federal officials. Nine states plus parts of seven others are "covered," and many of these areas are in the South.
Today, the Supreme Court heard argument in Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder, a case challenging the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Brenda Wright, Vice President for Legal Strategies at Demos, released the following statement:
In the aftermath of the financial crisis, plenty of Americans have seen their credit scores tank. But can that really affect your ability to get a job? Yes, because employers increasingly are relying on workers' credit histories in screening applications.
Easthampton, MA – Today, more than 200 civil rights, voting rights and criminal justice organizations sent a letter calling on the U.S. Census Bureau to seize a timely opportunity to research alternative ways to count incarcerated people in the decennial Census.
New York, NY -- In his State of the Union last night, President Obama hit on four key issues where Demos is engaged and where progress is long overdue: voting reform, the minimum wage, universal pre-K, and higher education.
On the bipartisan voting commission, Brenda Wright, Vice President of Legal Strategies:
Democratic lawmakers say allowing voters to register and cast ballots on the same day would increase election participation, but some county officials worry that it would further complicate the voting process.
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States with same-day registration have turnout rates nearly 6 percent higher than states that don’t offer it, according to Demos, a progressive public policy research group.
This Explainer explores how the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is used in measuring our economic growth and whether alternative measures are also needed to provide a more comprehensive outlook of economic progress.
Using political power to keep employees from organizing unions can be highly effective. That’s one forceful lesson to draw from the new figures on union membership.
A scheme under consideration in Virginia to rig the Electoral College in Republicans’ favor could well violate a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, experts on the law say. But that very provision is itself under challenge by the GOP, and could be struck down by the Supreme Court later this year.
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Brenda Wright, a top lawyer at Demos and an expert on voting rights, agreed. “I think there would be strong arguments” that the change harmed minority voters, she said.
Washington, DC: Today, a petition on the White House website urging President Obama to “use the State of the Union to call for a constitutional amendment to get big money out of politics” exceeded the 25,000 signatures necessary to guarantee an official White House response. The petition, launched by the groups Free Speech For People, Avaaz, People For the American Way, and Demos on January 8 took less than two weeks to cross the threshold.
NEW YORK - Today, Demos and O’Melveny and Myers LLP filed an amicus curiae brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in support of respondents in Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona (No.
US labor markets ended 2012 with a whimper, as Friday’s release of the December unemployment numbers showed all major indicators essentially unchanged.
New York -- In response to the late night passage of a tax deal by the US House of Representatives, Miles Rapoport, president of the national nonpartisan public policy organization Demos released the following statement:
"It is in the nature of a complicated bipartisan agreement that it looks very different depending on what prism you look at it through. Two elements are critically important: what is actually in the bill that passed and the President will sign, and how its passage ‘sets up’ the future fiscal debates.
Perhaps the most breathtakingly obscene aspect of American society is our absolute and utter refusal to deal with the murderous gun violence that lays its awful blanket of blood and sorrow across the families of thousands upon thousands of victims each and every year.