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Demand, meet Supply Amidst some disenchantment with both major political parties, the chart above shows, when looking across the 50 states, the share of votes earned by candidates that were not either Democratic or Republican has fallen significantly for U.S. House of Representative elections since 2000. The State Data Lab resource (Votes Cast for House Election – Other), developed by Truth in Accounting, shows that states with relatively high shares of non-major party votes in 2000 also had s

Today, the Internet isn't accessible for two-thirds of the world. Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg is asking us to "imagine a world where it connects us all," with the launch of a global partnership to increase Internet accessibility worldwide. The partnership incorporates technology leaders, nonprofits, local communities, and tech companies such as Samsung, Nokia, Qualcomm and Ericsson, dedicated to providing worldwide connectivity. Put eloquently in a recent New York Times article, "With Internet.

Credit: cpsc.gov I have a lot of libertarian friends, including some of the extreme variety who believe that government should not even be providing things like police, fire, roads, and sewers. Because, in their view the competition of the free market could provide such services better, more cheaply, and without the coercion and corruption that often comes with government. At that point, I have to tell them the story of Marcus Crassus. Marcus Licinius Crassus was the richest person in ancient

Although it is a statement widely attributed to Abraham Lincoln relating to a temporary suspension of habeas corpus under the Suspension Clause of the Constitution (Article 1, Section 9, clause 2), the first actual recorded quote that the U.S. Constitution is "not a suicide pact" was made by Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson in his Terminiello v.  Chicago dissent, not quite 100 years later.  It was used again almost 15 years later in another SCOTUS decision in 1963, also about freedom of s

Rule number one in effective communication is to establish the relevancy of the topic to the audience. Why should they care? How does it affect their quality of life? Truthful accounting might do just that. For one measure of the states’ quality of life, we turn to the recent work done by Ballotpedia, a “collaborative encyclopedia designed to connect people to politics.” The site focuses on providing a comprehensive and non-partisan analysis of numerous candidates and political efforts. The Lu

Credit: ARENA Creative / Shutterstock.com After the 2004 scandal, which found then-Governor John G. Rowland guilty of accepting free vacations, unpaid flights and pro-bono construction work from various state contractors, Connecticut became a trailblazer of publicly financed campaign reform with the 2005 Clean Elections bill. Thus far, the bill has helped rid the state of its former derogatory title: “Corrupticut.” The Citizen’s Election Program (CEP), created by the bill, prohibited special i

The landmark immigration reform, Bill S. 744 recently passed through the Senate 68-32 during the afternoon of June 27. It includes reforms which focus on border security, economic opportunity, and immigration modernization act, according to the US Senate’s website. But questions on the upper house’s ability to fairly legislate an issue in regard to its relevance in each selective state may have come up. According to the Center for Immigration Studies, California, the state with the highest numb

Maryna Pleshkun // Shutterstock.com There has been a lot of discussion about campaign finance reform. Many advocates suggest publicly financed elections, where each candidate gets access to an equal amount of taxpayer funds or additional donations are matched by a public coffer. All the while, donations are to be capped at certain thresholds. Critics of these types of policies say that since money equals speech, limiting donations violates the First Amendment. However, there's another idea tha

In 2012, states with higher taxpayer burdens had a lower recovery in home prices. The American dream is to own a home, and it’s every American’s dream that the price of his/her home rises continually. Of course, there are many reasons for a change in the price of any single house—the local housing market, a neighborhood renovation, the construction of a nuclear power plant—but there are also broad statewide trends, which leads to an important question: Can political decisions influence the pri

Credit: Shutterstock.com A divide is growing amongst campaign finance reforms on how to re-democratize the political process. On the one hand, reformers are pushing for a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United v FEC. On the other, publicly funded congressional elections facilitated by a more radical and arguably less democratic solution – the ‘money bomb.’ In this instance, the ‘money bomb’ is the brainchild of Harvard Law professor and Rootstriker