September 20, 2013 -
As U.S. incarceration rates fall, private prison companies are taking steps to guarantee profits with contracts requiring states to either meet prison occupancy quotas or pay for empty beds. Louisiana and Virginia are among the states locked into the highest occupancy guarantee requirements.
September 19, 2013 -
The Texas chapter of the NAACP and the state's Mexican American Legislative Caucus are the latest groups to challenge the state's voter photo ID law as racially discriminatory. The Texas fight is likely to end up at the U.S. Supreme Court, where other states like Mississippi and North Carolina that recently passed similar laws will be watching closely.
September 12, 2013 -
The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments next month in McCutcheon v. FEC, a case that has social justice advocates worried about how looser campaign finance limits worsen America's growing wealth gap.
September 11, 2013 -
After the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act, Florida Gov. Rick Scott began planning to reinstate a voter purge program that had been challenged under the law. But his scheme to use a federal database of immigrant welfare benefits is drawing legal fire from advocacy groups that say it will discourage recently naturalized citizens from exercising their voting rights.
September 5, 2013 -
Inspired by the Moral Monday movement, students across North Carolina are organizing a college tour to raise awareness around election protection, planning a march on the governor's mansion to protest attacks on voting, and launching a group to protect voters from intimidation at the polls.
August 29, 2013 -
If we're going to claim New Orleans has made progress since the unnatural disaster of Katrina eight years ago, perhaps we should first define what we mean by "progress."
August 28, 2013 -
With events underway to commemorate a historic march for voting rights, legal battles are unfolding in Texas and North Carolina to defend students' right to vote and run for office, with students at historically black colleges and universities bearing the brunt of recent voter suppression efforts.
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