Shawn Griffiths1. On Monday, August 11, Lawrence Lessig's Mayday Super PAC announced its support for 3 more congressional candidates.
"In addition, today Mayday PAC announces three more of the eight total candidates it will support: Walter Jones (R, NC-3), Carol Shea-Porter (D, NH-1) and Ruben Gallego, Democratic candidate in Arizona’s seventh congressional district to replace retiring Congressman Ed Pastor."
The PAC is endorsing candidates committed to campaign finance reform.
2. Roll Call's Beltway Insiders takes a closer look at what Congress' productivity really looks like.
"A three-dimensional look at the changing numbers, size and content of laws over the last three decades (1983-2012) reveals the following: the number of public laws has dropped 62 percent, the number of pages per statute has increased by 52 percent and minor laws (suspensions) have jumped from 35 percent to 79 percent of all laws. Put another way, Congress is shying away from more substantive, controversial legislation today in favor of passing home crowd pleasers."
Lawmakers are more interested in passing legislating for campaign messaging than actual policymaking.
3. According to The Washington Post's The Fix, the number of states controlled by one party is the highest in 50 years.
"The recent history of state legislative elections can be summarized with one word: homogeneity. In 1992, 16 states had single-party control of their state politics. In 2013, that number was 35. And, in a not unrelated note, that shift has been strongly toward Republicans. Of those 16 states in 1992 that were single-party run, 13 were Democratically controlled. By last year, Democrats controlled 12 -- and Republicans had leapt from three to controlling 23 states."
Since 1992, states have transitioned to single-party control 78 times -- 68% of these shifts have happened after midterm elections.
4. Independent U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders says don't "anoint" Hillary Clinton just yet.
"When pressed on whether the former secretary of state would make a good president, Sanders said he didn’t know, noting that she hasn’t made her platform known. “What is her agenda? I don’t know. You don’t know. She hasn’t said,” the senator responded."
Sanders believes that running on a platform of fighting income inequality and protecting social security, a message he focuses on, would be a "damn good platform" for president.