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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

Credit: 401(K) 2012 via Flickr President Obama recently announced his two nominees for the Federal Election Commission (FEC) -- Ann Ravel and Lee E. Goodman. Ravel, a Democrat, is the chair of the California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC). She has most notably spearheaded an investigation into an Arizona nonprofit group that spent 11 million dollars opposing Prop 30. She's also received criticism for attempting to regulate political blogs and websites in California. Goodman, a Rep

President Obama signs healthcare reform in 2010 // Credit: Reid.senate.gov Can a state unilaterally suspend the operation of ObamaCare within its borders? Of course not. That measure would violate the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. We fought a Civil War over that question. What if two states banded together to suspend the operation of ObamaCare within their common territory? Can they do that? The answer remains the same. No. But let's try this. Let's have those two states - and others

credit: Votecitizens.org Gerrymandering has become a prevalent hurdle to meaningful political participation across the country (with few exceptions, including California*). The duopoly at their finest: if you can’t win by playing fair—CHEAT. The third most important electoral reform—thy name is gerrymandering. Attention Democrats and Republicans these are Independents exhibiting open derision to your sleazy ways. Before we go on let’s review the first two important electoral reforms. The first

www.ncsl.org The need for voter ID laws is a contentious and politically driven argument that tends to crop up around election years following the passage of the first voter ID law in Indiana in 2006. Prior to 2006, not a single state had enacted a law that would require a citizen to bring a government-issued photo ID with them in order to vote. The law was upheld by the Supreme Court two years after its passing. Many states had laws that required voters to provide some form of identification,

An IVN article revealed the top five states with the highest number of registered independent voters. Surprisingly, a majority of these states still have primary elections that disenfranchise this growing segment of the population. Massachusetts, Alaska, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Connecticut lead the nation with the highest percentages of independent or no party preference voters, hovering between 43 and 52 percent. However, despite the fact that in each of these states independents are mor

Gerrymandering has been blamed for the increasingly partisan political environment in the United States. In 2008, Californians decided to take the redistricting process away from politicians by creating a citizen-based redistricting commission and it works. In most parts of the country, the redistricting process, meaning the redrawing of electoral districts after the decennial census, is left in the hands of elected officials. The legislatures have primary control of their own district lines in

Credit: UAS Blog On Tuesday, the US Senate voted by a large margin -- 84-15 -- in favor of moving the immigration reform bill to the floor for further discussions. Among the key elements in the upcoming debates will be to reach a balance between the naturalization efforts favored by the Democrats and the security of the borders required by the Republicans. The passage of the immigration reform bill to the Senate floor begins a negotiation process that will likely last for weeks and will offer

Research organizations are digging deep into why student debt is on the rise and if it's significantly hurting graduates' ability to be financially sound. The federal student loan interest rate is set to double next month if congressional action is not taken. The conversation of economic benefits from investing in college students continues. So, what should you know about this phenomenon before engaging in a discussion about it? Here are 7 key facts about student loan debt you may not have know

Credit: California Forward Online voter registration is a concept that has only recently been made available to U.S. citizens. At the moment, most states don't have a system set up for it. However, that could change in the near future, if current trends are any indication. Unfortunately, there are a few issues that currently keep it from being used nationwide.For starters, when President Obama was first elected in 2008, only two states -- Washington and Arizona -- had online voter registration