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It's graduation season and while colleges are advertising pictures of happy graduates in caps and gowns on their websites, there is one distinctive feature about the class of 2015 across the country: they have the most student loan debt in history.The average student who borrowed money for their bachelor's degree has just over $35,000 in debt. What is perhaps most alarming about this number is how much and how quickly this number is rising. Just from 2014, the number rose almost $2,000 and from

The 2012 presidential election was certainly the most expensive in American history. President Obama's re-election effort cost $1.1 billion, including nearly $700 million spent directly by his campaign. Mitt Romney's campaign spent over $400 million, but he received almost $800 million in additional outside help. The cost of the 2016 presidential election, however, is expected to surpass these figures. One estimate reaches as high as $5 billion, and Hillary Clinton's campaign might spend as muc

It is time for America to rethink its position on grass. While one notorious weed commands attention from the media, the government, and the public, another less assuming grass is quietly exacerbating some of America’s most pressing issues — without any partisan baggage.Since the advent of the suburbs, American homes have featured green, manicured lawns -- as much a staple in the imagery of the American Dream as white picket fences, mailboxes, and smiling children. But with drought, air pollut

In February 2015, Edwin Gomes became the first candidate running solely on the Working Families Party (WFP) line to win a seat in a state legislature. Gomes beat out four other candidates in a special election to represent Connecticut’s 23rd senate district. On May 5, 2015, the WFP won another special election – this one to fill a vacant seat in New York’s legislature. Diana Richardson now represents the General Assembly's 43rd district, covering Crown Heights and Prospect-Lefferts Gardens. Th

According to the Sentencing Project, an estimated 5.85 million American citizens today are denied the right to vote because of state laws that prohibit voting by people with felony convictions. The Maryland Legislature recently voted to join 13 states like Michigan, North Dakota, Ohio, and Utah in restoring voting rights to citizens convicted of a felony upon release from prison. However, these convicts will still be denied suffrage rights while they are incarcerated. Current debate over this

As discussed in the first part of this story, Hillary Clinton has spent the last few years repairing her image for the 2016 presidential election. An important aspect of this image-repair involves combatting the perception that she is a member of the corporation-backed, establishment wing of the Democratic Party. Read More: This is What Inevitability Looks Like: How Hillary Clinton Won the Invisible Primary (Part 1) While Mrs. Clinton has not severed her ties to big business (she has received

Gerrymandering. Acrimonious partisan rhetoric. High-dollar campaign financing. Systematic barriers to full participation by minor political parties. Bipartisan support for international trade agreements, perpetual war, and the national security state. In such an environment, we sympathize with the disillusioned and voter apathy can be rationalized. We might even consider giving up on the process ourselves. Although many have done just that, a growing number of citizens (especially among young p

I was impressed to find such a far-reaching conglomerate of individuals at the National Conference of Independents in New York City, which took place during the weekend of March 13-15. Illinois, California, Maine, Maryland, New Mexico, Virginia, Oregon, Mississippi, Colorado, Kentucky, New York, Arizona, and the list could go on and on. We all know that New York City is not cheap, let alone travelling from the other side of the country, but we were primed and ready for a fine weekend of events.

On Monday, March 2, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in the case, Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission. The high court will consider the constitutionality of independent redistricting commissions, something that could also affect the ballot initiative process in several states. The main issue before the Supreme Court is whether the justices will agree with a lower court’s interpretation of the phrase “by the Legislature thereof” in the Election Cla

Redistricting has been a contentious process since the early 1800s, when Governor Elbridge Gerry signed a bill that reshaped electoral districts in Massachusetts to benefit the Democratic-Republicans. This manipulation of the redistricting process was nicknamed a Gerry-Mander, partially after Governor Gerry, and partially after the shape of one of the Boston districts, which resembled a salamander. The practice, now commonly referred to as gerrymandering, presents a challenge to the U.S.'s repu