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ALABAMA -- While Alabama officials adamantly oppose a federal court's decision to strike down the state's ban on gay marriage, LGBT groups are celebrating victory in the Heart of Dixie. "I think the fact that Alabama is now the 37th state in the union to have marriage equality says volumes about where this issue is heading," said Stuart Gaffney, communications director for Marriage Equality USA. "This is not an issue that is about blue states or red states; it's really about a growing nationwid

There is an ongoing lawsuit attempting to close Montana’s open primary system. This lawsuit is being joined by the Montana Republican Party. State Republicans support closing their primaries because they argue Democrats and other nonmembers have been influencing their elections for years. "One example given during the state GOP’s meeting to make the case for joining the lawsuit was a vote in the state House of Representatives ... in which some Republicans supported an amendment to House procedu

On December 16, 1773, a group of colonists dressed as Indians boarded three British cargo ships to destroy 342 cases of tea -- a "tea party" over a 90 percent tax cut. Tea throughout the Empire had been taxed at 30-pence a pound, which had been reduced to 3-pence a pound in the colonies to combat sluggish sales and smuggling. But that wasn't good enough; we wanted tax-free tea. From the very beginnings of the Republic, Americans have hated taxes. Looking at modern political discourse, one woul

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration published state-level data from it's National Survey on Drug Use and Health this month. The data examines marijuana use in each state from the last two years. In a state-by-state comparison of marijuana use, Rhode Island topped the chart with 14.8 percent of residents age 12 and older consuming the substance monthly. A number of states that have recently passed legislation to legalize the drug for adults over 21 were also near the t

When looking to the Founders on the topic of education, probably the finest example to turn to is Noah Webster. Often called the "Father of American Scholarship and Education," his primers were used for more than five generations. teaching children to read and write while secularizing their education. Common Core education is a modern political hotbed, mostly along the red/blue divide. It's a revolutionary way of teaching students and is an attempt to standardize learning throughout the United

Although the midterm election fever has largely subsided, the courts are heating up over the issue of redistricting and gerrymandering lawsuits. For the 2014 term, the U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear three cases on redistricting commissions, and the Florida Supreme Court has also heard its own case over redistricting. Elections are contentious contests and at the heart of these arguments is who has the power to draw district lines that influence the outcomes on Election Day. All of these case

Money and power go hand in hand in the current discussion over the state of politics in America. A 2014 study by the California Public Interest Research Group, CALPIRG, found a relatively small number of large donors made up over half of spending in California's 2014 nonpartisan, top-two open primary election. According to CALPIRG, 67 percent of all campaign contributions in the 2014 California primaries came from large donors -- those who contributed more than $1,000. Just 864 individuals spen

According to a recent report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), a think tank based in Washington, D.C., Kansas had the fourth biggest drop in per-student funding (total dollar amount) for schools in the United States since the beginning of the recession. In terms of overall percentage, Kansas is tied with Wisconsin for fifth largest decrease at 14.6 percent. The three states with larger spending cuts to K-12 education were Alabama, Wisconsin, and Idaho. While state lawmake

The 2014 midterm elections are less than a month away and the GOP is poised to seize a majority in the Senate, though that would require winning some close races. Some are expected to come down to just a proportionally small amount of votes. RealClearPolitics rates 10 Senate races as “toss-ups” and 7 of them involve Democratic incumbents. The difference between victory and defeat will come down to voter turnout, which in turn depends on voter access laws, which state governments have been keen

One of the fundamental laws of psephology (the study of elections) is Duverger’s Law. This “law” affirms that in single-member districts, where the winner is whoever wins the most votes (plurality voting), the system will produce two major parties. The presence of third parties naturally encourages strategic voting, in which a voter will not choose his or her favorite candidate in order to avoid a “worse” outcome, such as the victory of his or her least preferred candidate. Though this law has