The posts in this category discuss our core issues.
You are going to hear more about this throughout the next year: growing consensus among reformers that an amendment is needed to the US Constitution to affirm the rights of real people over inert objects, e.g., corporations. John Bonifaz, a wizard on the subject provides this op-ed column with some of the context. The Occupiers already [...]
As mentioned a few days ago, county commissioners in several counties have adopted resolutions asking for authority from the General Assembly to impose a voter ID requirement in their local elections. Now comes word that the NC Attorney General’s office that such an approach would run into constitutional problems for a number of reasons. NC Policy Watch posted [...]
Wouldn’t it nice to have a glossary of political terms like “push polling” and “front loading”? Well, leave it to the BBC to create one for the United States political landscape. Learn the difference between hard money and soft money, a Super PAC and Super Tuesday, Medicare and Medicaid, blue dogs and red states. . [...]
Three individuals on the inside of Bev Perdue’s 2008 gubernatorial campaign were indicted today – not by the feds but by a Wake County grand jury. According to the News & Observer, the indictments allege that a top fundraiser for candidate Perdue “schemed to pay a staffer $32,000 for work that was kept off the [...]
The effort to impose a hard-line ID requirement on voters has moved to the county level in North Carolina. In the last few weeks, Republican majorities on four County Commissions have adopted resolutions asking the General Assembly for authority to make voters show a government photo ID in their local elections. All 22 white Republican [...]
Here are stories about two ways to disenfranchise voters: One, gut the Voting Rights Act and enact voter suppression measures that especially handicap a key constituency of your opponent’s political party. Noted constitutional scholar Richard Hasen has this op-ed in the New York Times about what should be done. Two, draw the new district lines after [...]
What can those new Super PACs do with their money. Stephen Colbert's ad with presidential candidate Buddy Roemer gives you the clue. Meanwhile, Larry Lessig of Rootstrikers is joining with Dylan Ratigan's "Get Money Out" to create a new organization to work against special-interest control of government: United Republic. Lessig also has a new book out about the corrupting [...]
Chris Fitzsimon of NC Policy Watch recently interviewed Bob Hall, our executive director, for his radio show. Their brief audio conversation amounts to a quick tour through Democracy NC’s hot topics: Duke Energy buying an inside track for its rate hike and merger, the dirt you find when you dig into piles of special-interest money, [...]
Following the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, the Federal Election Commission relaxed more of its rules to regulate political spending. Wealthy individuals and trade groups, as well as corporations and unions, now have a wide variety of ways to exert even more influence over an election’s outcome. The New York Times boils the campaign finance [...]
Three results from yesterday’s elections: (1) Arizona State Senate President Russell Pearce, a staunch opponent of the state’s successful Clean Elections program, was defeated on Tuesday by a political newcomer in a recall election. Pearce is the author of Arizona’s notorious anti-immigration law. He was also tainted by a corruption scandal involving tens of thousands [...]