Same Day Registration is powerful means to reduce the barriers to voting, by making registration and voting a one-stop process that doesn’t depend on navigating confusing pre-election deadlines.
The idea of a property-owning democracy is no longer the reality in the United States. Edward Wolff finds that the wealthiest 10 percent own 90.9 percent of all stocks and mutual funds, 94.3 percent of financial securities but only 26.5 percent of the debt. For the middle class, their home makes up 62.5 percent of their limited wealth.
The human tragedy of Flint, Michigan is agonizing. Thousands of children have been subjected to lead and other chemical poisoning, not to mention adults, just to save a few dollars in a process driven by raw politics and underlying racism.
Today, the Supreme Court hears arguments in a pivotal case on union rights inFriedrichs v. California Teachers Association. If they decide on behalf of the plaintiffs, the justices would overturn a 1977 Supreme Court decision allowing public sector unions to collect fair share fees from all employees to help pay for the costs associated with collective bargaining.
Federal Reserve Board Chair Janet Yellen is living in a bubble because the Fed just doesn’t see that. Perhaps the Fed wants to put the brakes on an economy already struggling up a hill on low fuel? Amy Traub, a senior policy analyst at Demos, believes the Fed’s interest-rate hike is a “small step toward slowing down the economy.”
Demos and the ACLU of Ohio, on behalf of the civil rights-labor organization the Ohio A. Philip Randolph Institute (APRI), sent a pre-litigation notice letter to Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted demanding that the State stop illegally removing voters from its voter registration rolls.
Although the Paris Climate Deal certainly represents a step forward for the international community, there are still many potential pitfalls to addressing climate change. New data suggest that the overwhelmingly white donor class may be one such obstacle.
In my latest at Salon I explore a new working paper by political scientists Stephen Ansolabehere and Brian Schaffner, the most comprehensive examination of voters and nonvoters that has ever been performed. As I note my piece, studies of non-voters have been difficult because of small samples and because people often misrepresent whether they voted.
What’s up with working-class whites? It’s a question that’s been asked for decades, and has been raised again recently in the discussion surrounding an Alec MacGillis piece examining Matt Bevin’s recent election gubernatorial win in Kentucky, which could leave many in Kentucky without Medicaid.
Despite its reputation as an antidote to inequality, the U.S. higher education system has reinforced and even exacerbated racial wealth inequality, by preventing many students of color from accessing college and loading black students with debt when they do attend.
Late Monday night, while protesting the recent police killing of Jamar Clark, a 24-year old Black man, in Minneapolis, 5 people were shot. They were just a block away from the Minneapolis Police Department’s 4th Precinct, where protesters have held daily demonstrations for the past nine days. Demos President Heather McGhee:
”Protesters represent the very best of our democracy and every candidate for president should denounce last night’s shooting in the strongest possible terms."
In light of the terrorist attack in Paris, lawmakers across the country are demanding President Obama shut down our borders and stop the resettlement of Syrian refugees in America, stoking widespread fear about these men, women and children. At this moment, twenty-four governors have announced that their states will not accept Syrian refugees.