Departments

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voting rights

  • SOURCE: Bolts
    10/27/2022

    Florida's Arrests of Voters with Felony Convictions Echoes Post-Reconstruction Era

    Felon disenfranchisement dates back to Florida's first constitution in 1838; after Florida's voters approved a constitutional amendment, Governor Ron DeSantis's administration has instituted loopholes to prevent people from exercising that right and making public arrests that are likely to make many convicted Floridians think better of trying. 

  • SOURCE: The Forum
    10/17/2022

    The Democrats Haven't Learned the Lessons of the Nation's First Voting Rights Act

    by Ed Burmila

    Beginning with the failure of the Lodge Act in 1890, parties have treated voting rights as just one of many policy priorities competing for space on the agenda and scarce political capital, instead of a basic precondition of functioning democracy. Democrats today are repeating this mistake. 

  • SOURCE: Mississippi Free Press
    8/24/2022

    Court Upholds Mississippi's 1890 Jim Crow Voting Law

    The framers of the state's voting laws were explicit in their intention to use the law to strip as many Black men of their right to vote as possible. A federal court recently ruled that the law, amended with nominally color-blind language, is acceptable. 

  • SOURCE: Washington Post
    6/28/2022

    3 Law Profs: Connecting Abortion and Voting Rights at SCOTUS

    by Leah Litman, Melissa Murray and Kate Shaw

    The Supreme Court has turned reproductive freedom over to state elected officials who are increasingly unaccountable to the public because of the Court's decisions eviscerating the Voting Rights Act. 

  • SOURCE: The Guardian
    1/19/2022

    Now or Never to Stop US Descent to Authoritarian Rule

    by Thomas Zimmer

    The Republican Party has operated on the core propositions that the Democratic opposition and its core constituencies are fundamentally illegitimate long before Donald Trump. Biden's victory shouldn't obscure how close they are to establishing permanent minority rule. 

  • SOURCE: Substack
    1/17/2022

    Of Course the Federal Government Can Regulate Elections

    by Heather Cox Richardson

    The Constitution not only enables, but requires the federal government to act when state authority violates the principles of democracy, something President Harry Truman realized in 1946.

  • SOURCE: The Atlantic
    1/17/2022

    Manchin and Sinema are Fulfilling John Roberts's Vision

    by Ronald Brownstein

    "Roberts, who served as a young clerk to conservative Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist and as a Justice Department assistant in the Reagan administration, has long expressed hostility to federal oversight of voting and election rules."

  • SOURCE: Raleigh News & Observer
    1/9/2022

    NC GOP Carrying on Tradition of Muting the Black Vote

    North Carolina's gerrymandered legislative and Congressional district maps were drawn without consideration to race, say state Republicans. But it's difficult to miss the parallel between the 1890s and today: a conservative bloc of white voters subverting the will of Black and progressive coalition, say James Leloudis and Robert Korstad.

  • SOURCE: Aspen Institute and Craig Newmark Philanthropies
    1/12/2022

    The State of Democracy: Jan. 22, 2022 (Feat. Carol Anderson)

    "One year after the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, 92Y’s second annual State of Democracy Summit—co-presented with Aspen Digital—will explore the most important questions facing the country right now."