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Prior to Governor Newsom’s announcement of state assistance for California’s immigrant and undocumented workers impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, TPR spoke with San Diego City Council President, Georgette Gomez, on the critical value of providing accessible and factual information and resources to the city’s diverse constituents during this unprecedented public health crisis. President Gomez stresses how the pandemic is magnifying systemic inequalities—including income, language, and  digital b

Sisters Maria and Jennifer Salvador start their days before the sun. The Southern California teenagers report to work at an Oxnard strawberry farm with one goal: To harvest as many bright red strawberries as they can. Each 20-pound box of stemless strawberries they collect brings in $3. In the evenings when school was still in session, albeit remotely – and after chores at home were done — Maria and Jennifer turned to their school work. The two relied primarily on their father’s cell phone bec

I. The marches in Bensonhurst are a distant memory for me. They were 30 years ago. I don’t recall many of the specifics, the details. We rode on busses to the Slave Theatre in Brooklyn and congregated there before heading to the site of the march, but most of it is a blur. Still, I do remember the feeling, the tension of being on those streets, of being part of a crowd of protesters who had come to lay down markers: The injustice stops here. As Yusuf Hawkins’ father, Moses Stewart, said plai

Editor's note: This article originally appeared on The Fulcrum and has been republished on IVN with permission from the publisher. Absentee voting refers to when a voter requests a ballot for an election and is then sent one in the mail. Vote-by-mail, which is what Sen. Tom Cotton is most likely referring to as "mass mail-in voting," is a system of sending every registered voter (an important distinction from "everyone") a ballot without a request. Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, Colorado, Hawa

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared on The Fulcrum, and has been republished on IVN with permission from the publisher. ‍ Iowa's governor decreed Wednesday that most felons in the state may vote starting this fall, ending the state's status as the only place in the country where convicted criminals are denied the franchise forever. Expanding the political rights of people who've been to prison has been a top cause of voting rights groups for years, but the cause has gained fresh

After failing to submit enough valid signatures for a People’s Veto, Maine’s Republican bosses are again trying to kill ranked-choice voting (RCV). In this case, the GOP leadership is hiding behind four Maine voters who claim that they may be disenfranchised by the system. The beyond frivolous suit filed July 22 claims that Mainers who choose not to fill out their ballot completely are “denied full participation” in the election. This is ridiculous. All voters are treated equally on the RCV bal

There is growing consensus among pro-voter reformers that when we discuss comprehensive solutions to provide voters with better elections, primary election reform has to be a part of the conversation. As it stands, millions of voters nationwide have no meaningful voice in the elections process because taxpayer-funded partisan primary elections are designed to explicitly give an advantage to the two dominant political parties and their members. Most elections are safe for one party or the oth

The Richmond Times-Dispatch is the latest newspaper to publish an endorsement of a constitutional amendment that would end single-party control over redistricting in Virginia and bring transparency to the process. The Times-Dispatch joins other major newspaper endorsements in Virginia, including The Virginian-Pilot, The Washington Post, Daily Press, The Roanoke Times, and others. “It’s time to bring a system that has been cloaked in darkness into the public spotlight,” writes the paper. “This

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared on The Fulcrum and has been republished on IVN with permission from the publisher. ‍ With fewer than a hundred days to the presidential election, almost half the states have now altered some normal laws or regulations to make casting a ballot easier and safer in light of the coronavirus. Most of the changes so far, but not all of them, are designed to promote voting by mail — the healthiest way to exercise the franchise this year, but a practic

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in The Fulcrum and has been republished on IVN with permission from the publisher. ‍ Businesses that finance super PACs could be exploited by foreigners who want to secretly and illegally spend millions to influence American elections, a campaign finance advocacy group warned Wednesday. So long as they disclose their donors, super PACs are allowed to raise and spend unlimited amounts in support or opposition of candidates for president and Congr