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Progressive politicians and pundits are collectively celebrating the Supreme Court's ruling that North Carolina illegally used racial gerrymandering to draw its congressional districts. But even author and journalist Greg Palast says those celebrating need to pump the brakes a little. He first prefaced his statement. "It was a good decision one way in that it defeated the idea of dumping every black person into a single congressional district," said Palast. The bad news, Palast believes, is th

There has been a lot buzz in Washington lately over the new leaks coming out of the Trump administration, as well as the ongoing investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. However, a recent story that has gone largely unreported could potentially have rather large implications concerning the election results this past November, more so than Russian interferences. Earlier this month, Ari Berman wrote an article for The Nation in which he reported on a new study

Reports released Friday morning that Swedish prosecutors have discontinued an investigation into rape allegations against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Assange has been living in the Ecuadorian embassy in London since August 2012 to avoid extradition. At 6:04 am PDT, Assange tweeted his own statement: https://twitter.com/JulianAssange/status/865553683387367425 There is, however, a snag for Assange. If he leaves the Ecuadorian embassy, UK police will still arrest him. That is because the U

Last week, Congress avoided a government shutdown by agreeing to a continuing resolution to keep the federal government funded for another week. Then over the weekend, US lawmakers agreed to a deal that will extend funding through September while Congress and the White House continue to negotiate longer-term fiscal policy priorities. The US House passed the budget deal Wednesday. But amidst Washington's annual kabuki theater dance around fiscal policy and possible government shutdowns, a litt

From the ongoing legal battle against the Commission on Presidential Debates to taking nonpartisan election reform to the nation's largest battleground state, here are 5 key stories on election and political reform from this week. 1. Appeals Court Hears Johnson/Stein Debate Commission Lawsuit The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals is scheduled to hear oral argument in Gov. Gary Johnson and Dr. Jill Stein's antitrust lawsuit against the Commission on Presidential Debates. The court agreed to hear t

“Are American elections working well?” [...] “All of this said, things could work much better." The first of these two sentences appears in Chapter 1 of Changing How America Votes, edited by Todd Donovan (published, 2017). The second caps off the end of Chapter 15. In the ellipses are 13 innovative ideas about how to assess our democracy and make elections in the United States better. FairVote’s reform vision is well-represented in the collection. FairVote executive director Rob Richie and I

More than a decade after the 2000 presidential election debacle in Florida, the litigation following the 2016 presidential election demonstrated that our electoral system is still not equipped to confront challenges and uncertainties. Five states saw petitions for recounts, but only one state (Wisconsin) conducted a full recount. In between Election Day and Inauguration Day, what could have been a smooth series of recounts to verify our electoral system instead devolved into breathless headlines

Last November, in the first such ruling in 30 years, partisan gerrymandering suffered a huge defeat when a district court in Wisconsin ruled that the state’s partisan redistricting plan was unconstitutional and served no legitimate government purpose. Now, attorneys for the State of Wisconsin are challenging that ruling before the Supreme Court. This gerrymandering battle is a big deal. In any given state, the party in power has used partisan gerrymandering to their advantage in order to help

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: George Penn, 608-244-6436, geo_penn@charter.net Nine Communities to Vote to Reclaim Democracy from Moneyed Interests Madison, WI (March 27, 2016) – On Tuesday, April 4th, Wisconsin residents in nine communities will vote on whether to amend the U.S. Constitution to clarify that only humans should have constitutional rights and that money is not the same as speech and political spending can be limited to allow all Americans to participate in the democratic proces

Student loan default rates are a major problem for many students. In fact, according to a recent analysis from the Consumer Federation of America (CFA), millions of Americans have fallen behind on their student loans. This data reveals that nearly 42.4 million people in the U.S. owed at least $1.3 trillion in federal student loans by the end of 2016. Since then, the average amount owed per borrower has increased by at least 17 percent. Under the previous administration, however, students were