congress
July 29, 2016 -
This week 69 state lawmakers from the Carolinas and Georgia, both Democrats and Republicans, sent a letter asking the Obama administration to block seismic testing permits for oil and gas deposits off the East Coast. They joined hundreds of other local communities, elected officials, business groups and scientists opposed to offshore exploration and drilling.
July 27, 2016 -
This is the first time in 40 years the Democratic and Republican presidential nominating conventions will not receive public financing, the culmination of an long trend of growing private funding of the gatherings.
July 8, 2016 -
Since the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013, states have made a slew of changes to election laws. A new report documents how these changes could impede Latino voters' access to the polls in a critical presidential election year.
June 17, 2016 -
After the June 12 massacre at an Orlando nightclub, some politicians refused to even acknowledge the targets were LGBT people. Could it be because of their own animus toward LGBT people, which has found expression in a record number of anti-LGBT bills introduced in recent years?
June 3, 2016 -
North Carolina will hold a special primary election for Congress on June 7 because of a court ruling that the legislature unconstitutionally gerrymandered districts. The election is costing the state millions, with turnout expected to be extremely low. Will the debacle boost the case for independent redistricting?
April 27, 2016 -
While offshore drilling in the Atlantic is canceled for now, plans are still underway to conduct seismic blasting for oil and gas reserves. As scientists, environmentalists, local communities and some elected leaders press to block the tests, the industry has been contributing unprecedented amounts of money to influence key federal lawmakers.
February 25, 2016 -
This week a bipartisan group of House and Senate leaders bestowed the Congressional Gold Medal on the Alabama protest marchers who helped win passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. But there's little bipartisan unity on restoring provisions of the law gutted by the Supreme Court, and some marchers are speaking out about it.
