Blog Posts Archive - Page 171 of 286 - People For the American Way

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January 23, 2014 6:53 pm | By Jen Herrick

Presidential Commission Issues Report on Election Administration

In his 2013 State of the Union address, President Obama announced the formation of a nonpartisan commission focused on improving our country’s system of voting. Yesterday, nearly a year later, the Presidential Commission on Election Administration (PCEA) issued its report.…
January 22, 2014 10:34 pm | By Amanda

Marking the 41st Anniversary of Roe v. Wade

Today marks the 41st anniversary of the historic Roe v. Wade decision protecting every woman’s right to safe and legal abortion. Today, according to NARAL Pro-Choice America, seven in ten people support Roe v. Wade. A poll conducted by NBC…
January 22, 2014 3:57 pm | By Paul Gordon

Windsor’s Ripples of Equality

A unanimous three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit issued a ruling yesterday showing how the Supreme Court's Windsor case (DOMA) is helping to bring greater equality, even in areas unrelated to marriage equality. The court ruled that a lawyer cannot…
January 21, 2014 6:20 pm | By Paul Gordon

Report on Judge Cebull Shows Why Courts Matter

At the end of last week, America learned the extent of former Judge Richard Cebull's racist, sexist, and overtly political behavior before he was pressured to retire from his position as a federal district judge in Montana. Nearly two years…
January 17, 2014 8:35 pm | By Amanda

Judge Strikes Down PA Voter ID Law

In 2012, over the protests of thousands of Pennsylvanians, forty five organizations, and every Democrat in the state legislature, Governor Tom Corbett signed into law one of the strictest voter ID requirements in the country. The Speaker of the Pennsylvania…
January 16, 2014 9:09 pm | By Peter Montgomery

Celebrating Religious Freedom

January 16 is Religious Freedom Day, which commemorates the Virginia General Assembly’s approval of Thomas Jefferson’s historic Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, a precursor to the religious liberty protections in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In this year’s…
January 16, 2014 8:06 pm | By Jake

Students Take Action to Fight Money in Politics

In our continuing efforts to pass a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United and related cases and restore Government Of, By, and For the people, PFAW Foundation is helping coordinate the Students United For Democracy coalition – a group of…
January 16, 2014 4:15 pm | By Paul Gordon

The Senate Could Immediately Reduce the Vacancy Rate by a Third

Just a few days into the new session of Congress – with Senate Republicans having forced renominations of more than 50 judicial nominees – the Judiciary Committee has now fully vetted and advanced 29 of those nominees to the full…
January 15, 2014 3:32 pm | By

In Virginia, The Power of Showing Up

In elections, it doesn’t just matter who wins. It also matters how they win: who shows up to vote and why. We’re seeing this yet again in Virginia this week, as Terry McAuliffe kicks off his first term as governor.…
January 15, 2014 2:41 pm | By Paul Gordon

Sen. Burr Invents New Rule to Hide Obstruction of NC Judicial Nominee

North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr (like Marco Rubio before him) is in hot water for obstructing a judicial nominee who he himself had originally recommended to the White House. Burr is refusing to talk about his motives, but in trying…
January 14, 2014 10:59 pm | By Layne Amerikaner

Breaking: Federal Judge Rules Same-Sex Marriage Ban in Oklahoma Unconstitutional

Today a federal judge found Oklahoma’s ban on marriages for same-sex couples to be unconstitutional. While this is great news, same-sex couples are not yet able to marry in the state because the decision is stayed – in other words,…
January 13, 2014 5:25 pm | By Layne Amerikaner

PFAW Foundation Staffer Reacts to Utah Marriage Battle in CNN Op-Ed

It has been a roller-coaster few weeks for marriage equality in Utah, where a legal battle over the state’s ban on marriage for same-sex couples continues and more than a thousand marriages are caught in limbo. On Friday People For…
January 10, 2014 5:00 pm | By Peter Montgomery

On Contraception, Dumbing Down Tyranny

In recent years, conservative evangelical and Catholic activists have made "religious liberty" their culture war rallying cry as well as their primary legal and political strategy. In doing so, they often use irresponsible rhetoric about American Christians being subject to…
January 9, 2014 5:41 pm | By Paul Gordon

Republicans Obstruct Judicial Nominees They Supported Last Year

The Senate Judiciary Committee finally met this morning, only the second business meeting Republicans have allowed to happen since before Thanksgiving. But that doesn't mean the Senate GOP's campaign of petty obstruction is over. Because of the escalated GOP obstruction…
January 8, 2014 7:35 pm | By Miranda Blue

PFAW Writes Letter Supporting Nomination Of Debo Adegbile To Head DOJ Civil Rights Division

This week, People For the American Way sent a letter to every U.S. senator, urging them to confirm Debo Adegbile to head the civil rights division of the Department of Justice. Adegbile’s hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee was this…
January 7, 2014 7:15 pm | By Paul Gordon

Rubio Should Not Have the Last Word on Florida Nominee

Update (1/8/13): Last night, MSNBC All In host Chris Hayes explored the possible motivation behind Sen. Rubio's obstruction of William Thomas. Watch: Yesterday, we learned that state judge William Thomas's historic nomination for a federal judgeship was dead,…
January 6, 2014 3:38 pm | By Layne Amerikaner

Video: PFAW’s Drew Courtney Discusses Right Wing Extremism on Politics Nation with Al Sharpton

Last Monday, Right Wing Watch reported on an upcoming far-right rally, “Operation American Spring,” calling for the ousting of President Obama. Rally organizer Harry Riley predicts that “millions of Americans will participate” in this mission to “bring down the existing…
December 30, 2013 8:17 pm | By Jamie Raskin

Scalia Predicted It: Equal Rights Means Equal Rights

"It has never yet been discovered how to make a man unknow his knowledge, or unthink his thoughts." –Tom Paine, The Rights of Man "A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave…
December 27, 2013 4:33 pm | By

What We Left Behind in 2013

I think we all breathed a sigh of relief this week when Congress finally did what it was supposed to do and passed a basic budget. Although the budget left many behind, this time there were no shutdowns, no debt…
December 24, 2013 1:34 pm | By Ben Betz

Sarah Palin So Clueless About First Amendment Even Fox News Has to Set Her Straight

Sarah Palin has been notorious for propagating distortions of the First Amendment and the meaning of “free speech rights” – essentially, when she or one of her right-wing friends is criticized for some offensive thing they said, in her eyes,…