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This year, it falls on November 6... which, as always, is a Tuesday.  It's Election Day.  But why does our election day fall on a Tuesday of all the days of the week?  In a time when we are fighting against voter turnout that only gets around 50%, shouldn't we think about moving the day? Election Day was officially set up by Congress in 1845.  Before that, Congress permitted states to conduct presidential elections at any time in a 34-day period before the first Wednesday of December.  But as c

Credit: Dailykos.com A new Marquette University Law School poll shows Democratic US Representative Tammy Baldwin with a nine percentage point lead over former Governor Tommy Thompson (R) in the US Senate race in Wisconsin. The statewide poll marks a complete turnaround from March, which had Thompson at a nine point advantage. Baldwin and Thompson are competing for the senate seat left vacant by Democratic Senator Herbert Kohl, who announced his retirement in May. The open-seat race is bound to

Photo: © Caleb Long This November, Gary Johnson will appear on the ballot in forty-seven states as the Libertarian Party presidential nominee. Oklahoma will not be among those states. Last week, the Oklahoma Supreme Court denied Gary Johnson ballot access under the Americans Elect Party. When the Libertarian Party failed in its attempt to gain the necessary amount of signatures in Oklahoma, the state’s Americans Elect chapter nominated Johnson as its party’s candidate. One day prior to nominat

Photo: Wikimedia Commons / Author: Florian Hirzinger What is the fiscal cliff? The fiscal cliff is a set of automatic spending cuts and tax increases that will take effect in January 2013. The Bush tax cuts will expire as well. Over $400 billion in mandated spending cuts will then strap government agencies across the board, from defense to domestic programs. What is the worst that could happen? If Congress is incapable of finding a solution, dramatic tax increases and spending cuts could sen

Credit: businessinsider.com Senator Robert Portman (R-Ohio) has introduced the Independent Agency Regulatory Analysis Act (IARAA) of 2012. Bill S.3468 creates an avenue whereby independent regulatory agencies like the SEC or FTC could affect legislation in favor of reducing the ‘economic burden’ of new and existing financial regulations. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Mark Walker (D-Virginia) are both cosponsors. The most contentious measure of the bill offers the President an avenue to unilatera

Egyptian Prime Minister Hesham Kandil. Credit: cnbcpakistan.com Countries all over the world are releasing official reactions to the U.S. Embassy attack in Benghazi, Libya, which took the lives of four American diplomats, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens. While most western countries have denounced the attack, this reaction has not been unanimously shared around the world. A number of Muslim countries, joined by the Vatican, have highlighted the original provocation for the protests in

Credit: commons.wikimedia.org None of the officials involved in Vermont’s first taser death can explain why it’s almost three months since a Vermont State trooper tasered Macadam Mason, a 39-year-old epileptic artist who died almost immediately, and there’s still no completed autopsy report. The same officials in two states, Vermont and New Hampshire, also failed to reveal last June that Taser International, the taser manufacturer, almost immediately intervened in the investigation, submitting

Credit: voterocky.org As Romney and Obama march toward November, all eyes are focused on the two parties and their battle for the White House. Many Americans are unaware of the struggle of third-party candidates such as Justice Party candidate Rocky Anderson to gain media attention and ballot access. Rocky Anderson's fight for ballot access depends on a web of laws governing elections. Although ballot access laws vary from state-to-state, naturally most of them favor candidates who can obtain

San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro will deliver the keynote address on Tuesday evening at the 2012 Democratic Convention The Democratic National Convention Committee released the following excerpts of San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro's remarks at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. Mayor Castro was selected to deliver the keynote address in a move that mirrors the Democratic Party's selection of then-Senator Barack Obama as keynote speaker in 2004. A well-received speec

On Thursday, the California State Senate passed a bill to allow Election Day Registration (EDR), which will allow citizens to register to vote up to and on the day of an election. The bill, AB 1436, passed the State Assembly in May. The bill will now return to the Assembly for a final vote before going to the desk of Governor Jerry Brown for final approval. However, if the bill does become law, which is likely, it will not take effect until 2016. The passage of EDR by the California legislatur