Institute Index

April 23, 2015 - The U.S. Supreme Court sent North Carolina's redistricting challenge back to the state's high court this week, asking it to reconsider whether the legislature relied too heavily on race in drawing voting lines. The decision comes following similar rulings in cases out of Alabama and Virginia, offering hope for an end to racial gerrymandering.

April 17, 2015 - While major corporations like Walmart and McDonald's have recently taken steps to boost some workers' pay, tens of thousands took to the streets this week calling for a real livable wage. In what organizers have said was the largest demonstration yet, fast-food workers, child care providers, adjunct university faculty and others rose up in the Fight for $15.

April 10, 2015 - The current field of declared and soon-to-be declared presidential candidates includes politicians who've gone to bat for tax avoiders -- and have sought to avoid taxes themselves.

March 26, 2015 - This week marked the fifth anniversary of President Obama signing into law the Affordable Care Act, and a "People's Grand Jury" in North Carolina handed down a symbolic indictment of the state's Republican leaders for refusing to expand Medicaid to cover more uninsured low-income people as the law allows.

March 20, 2015 - Passed after the infamous "Bloody Sunday" attack on civil rights protesters in Alabama in 1965, the Voting Rights Act successfully blocked hundreds of potentially discriminatory election changes -- until the Supreme Court struck down a key provision in 2013. There's an effort underway in Congress to fix the hobbled law, but what are its chances of passing?

March 13, 2015 - After a protracted political fight over immigration policy, Congress recently passed a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security. The final bill doesn't repeal the president's recent deportation relief programs, but it appropriates billions of dollars for draconian immigration enforcement.

March 4, 2015 - The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments today in King v. Burwell, a case challenging the legality of subsidies for Affordable Care Act policies bought on the federal exchange. If the justices strike down the subsidies, residents of the South would be disproportionately affected.