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May 30, 2012 6:34 pm | By Justin
Super PACs Make 2008 Look Like Child’s Play
In total, the candidates in the 2008 presidential election spent just over $1 billion on their campaigns. Just four years ago, President Obama raised $750 million, primarily via small donations from grassroots supporters. But the landscape looks pretty different in…
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May 30, 2012 6:28 pm | By Justin
Citizens United Turns 2012 Race into Billionaire’s Playground
If there was any question that the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United skews the balance of influence in our elections to the rich, an analysis by Rolling Stone shows that the real beneficiaries of the decision are really the…
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May 30, 2012 5:56 pm | By Justin
Medtronic Out of ALEC
The most recent spate of companies fleeing from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) have been from the education and retail sectors, but yesterday ALEC got a rebuke from the healthcare industry as well. Medtronic, the medical technology company, has…
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May 30, 2012 4:09 pm | By Dylan
Voter ID off the table in Missouri
The state legislature adjourned last week without having rewritten a ballot measure that, if passed, would have paved the way for voter ID in Missouri. Cole County Circuit Court Judge Patricia S. Joyce struck down the original draft, SJR 2,…
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May 29, 2012 9:29 pm | By Chris Larson
Guest Post: Fighting the Right in Wisconsin, by WI State Senator Chris Larson
Wisconsin has enjoyed a rich tradition as a state of opportunity, a state welcoming social innovation and embracing progressive values. However, today communities across Wisconsin today are bracing for our June 5th gubernatorial recall election in response to a divide…
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May 29, 2012 5:24 pm | By Miranda Blue
Florida Poised for Another Voter-Purge Disaster
Shortly before the 2000 election, the state of Florida undertook a massive purge of its voter rolls, eliminating the names of 12,000 residents who the state believed ineligible to vote because of felony convictions. The problem? The sloppy purge eliminated…
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May 25, 2012 6:34 pm | By Paul Gordon
For Judicial Nominees, The Hidden Obstruction Continues
Yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee was scheduled to vote on five well qualified nominees for federal district and circuit court seats. All five are strongly supported by both of their home state senators – three Republicans and three Democrats. All…
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May 24, 2012 9:22 pm | By Justin
Senators Argue for Constitutional Amendment, DISCLOSE Act on Senate Floor
On Capitol Hill yesterday, Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Jeff Merkely (D-OR), Tom Udall (D-NM) and others took to the floor to speak about the state of campaign finance today, thanks to the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United. Although the…
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May 23, 2012 4:12 pm | By Justin
Big Business: We’ll Spend Big Money on Elections
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce plans to take full advantage of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision to push its right-wing agenda, according to its president, Tom Donohue. As reported by USA Today, Donohue told reporters at a breakfast hosted…
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May 23, 2012 3:33 pm | By Jen Herrick
PFAW continues push for Paycheck Fairness Act
If you didn’t get to make your calls yesterday in support of the Paycheck Fairness Act (H.R. 1519/S. 797), there’s still time. Please click here for more information. The number is 888-876-9527. PFAW is supporting your efforts by sending its…
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May 23, 2012 2:48 pm | ByBain’s Not Just Fair Game, It’s the Only Game
This post originally appeared in the Huffington Post. Obama supporters are seething and the RNC is dancing with delight in the aftermath of Newark Mayor Cory Booker's nonsensical comparison of ads exposing Mitt Romney's real record on job creation with…
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May 22, 2012 9:15 pm | By Justin
ALEC Fails Scantron’s Test
Two more educational organizations, the for-profit Scantron Corporation and the nonprofit Lumina Foundation, have ended their association with the American Legislative Exchange Council, according to the Center for Media and Democracy. Scantron, the educational testing company that produces standardized test…
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May 22, 2012 8:12 pm | By Justin
NYT Profiles Private Schools’ Public Money Grab
Transferring public resources to private hands is a major component of the conservative agenda. An extensive profile of the push to weaken public schools and transfer wealth to private academies through tax credit programs is the subject of an extensive…
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May 22, 2012 6:42 pm | By Justin
Bipartisan Call to Re-examine Citizens United
As the Supreme Court decides whether or not to hear a challenge to Montana’s prohibition on corporate independent expenditures to affect state elections, Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) urged the court to let the Montana law stand,…
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May 22, 2012 6:41 pm | By Jen Herrick
Tell the Senate: We need the Paycheck Fairness Act!
Equal pay in America needed to be put back on track after the Supreme Court’s devastating Ledbetter v. Goodyear ruling, and the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act answered that call – as the first major milestone of the Obama Administration.…
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May 22, 2012 6:21 pm | By Justin
ALEC Tries to Hamstring Attorneys General
A major component of the American Legislative Exchange Council’s agenda is shielding corporations from liability by removing consumer protections and limiting the people’s ability to seek justice in a court of law. At their meeting last week in Charlotte, N.C.,…
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May 21, 2012 10:24 pm | By Jen Herrick
Broun introduces anti-VRA amendment. Lewis says not so fast, seeks to empower voters.
On May 9, Representative Paul Broun tried to prohibit the use of Department of Justice (DOJ) funds for enforcing Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. You heard me right. Representative Broun, a Republican whose home state of…
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May 21, 2012 8:00 pm | By Miranda Blue
Wisconsin’s Walker Tells a Big Lie About Voter Fraud
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who’s currently in a tough recall election battle, has a new line about what could tip the election against him. From the Weekly Standard via Dave Weigel: "I’ve always thought in this state, close elections, presidential…
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May 17, 2012 10:27 pm | By Miranda Blue
Poll Finds Voters Don’t Want a Romney Court
Think Progress alerts us to a recent Fox News poll which finds that a strong plurality of voters would prefer that President Obama, rather than Mitt Romney, pick the next Supreme Court justice. (46 percent said they’d prefer Obama make…
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May 17, 2012 9:51 pm | By Miranda Blue
How the Weakened House Version of VAWA Hurts Immigrant Women
Yesterday, we wrote about the House GOP’s effort to gut the Violence Against Women Act in response to a Senate reauthorization of the act that expands protections for gay and lesbian victims, Native Americans and immigrants. In the Daily Beast…