It’s been five years since the Supreme Court decided Citizens United, which allowed unlimited corporate money into the political system and increased the domination of democracy by the wealthy elite. Money has indeed overwhelmed the system since 2008.
If you're wondering why issues favored by a majority of Americans such as raising the minimum wage, gun control and net neutrality get scarcely any attention in the halls of Congress, the Citizens United case is the reason.
Five years ago this week, in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court decided to allow unlimited amounts of corporate spending in political campaigns. How important was that decision? At the time, some said criticism of the decision was overblown, and that fears that it would give outsize influence to powerful interests were unfounded. Now, the evidence is in, and the results are devastating. [...]
Five years after the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United v. FEC decision, what are the roles of large donors and average voters in selecting and supporting candidates for Congress?
In their seminal 1980 study on the question, using data from 1972, political scientists Raymond Wolfinger and Steven Rosenstone argued that “voters are virtually a carbon copy of the citizen population.” In 1999, Wolfinger and his colleague Benjamin Highton again came to the same conclusion: “Outcomes would not change if everyone voted.” Their argument rested upon the fact that polling data did not show large differences in opinions on most issues between those who voted and those who
One of the issues that helped fuel last week's national fast-food workers strikes is the growing income disparity between rank-and-file workers and the chief executives in charge of those multi-billion-dollar companies.
Branko Milanovic is a World Bank economist and development specialist. He's currently a visiting presidential professor at CUNY's Graduate Center and a senior scholar at the Luxembourg Income Study Center. His book, The Haves and the Have-Nots: A Brief and Idiosyncratic History of Global Inequality, examines—as the title suggests—income inequality. Milanovic and Demos Research Assistant Sean McElwee recently discussed Milanovic's research and the major shifts within the inequality research field.
Nearly half of the nation's employers investigate job applicants' credit histories as a condition of employment.
As a result, New Yorkers struggling with debt -- medical bills, school loans or car payments -- are often shut out of jobs. This unfair barrier to employment can be dismantled by outlawing employment credit checks.
Democratic Council Members Brad Lander of Brooklyn and Debi Rose of Staten Island have introduced a bill that would ban such checks in hiring except when required by state or federal laws. The measure is supported by 40 council members.
In the wake of increasing voter identification requirements in Texas, analyzing voter turnout is becoming critically relevant to fully comprehend political outcomes.
On November 10, 2014, the Brennan Center for Justice released a new report, Outside Spending and Dark Money in Toss-Up Senate Races: Post-election Update, which describes the rise in spending by outside groups—many of which do not publicly disclose all of their funds’ sources—in eleven competitive races. Highlights of the report include:
Polling showed that 70 percent of respondents believed SDR to be necessary to protect voter participation in Montana, with 66 percent also believing that SDR protects Montana’s democracy overall.
No matter who wins each of the hundreds of elections today, one thing's for sure: a relative handful of large donors and spenders are setting the agenda and terms of debate, while the rest of us are on the sidelines.