Southern Politics

October 10, 2013 - With elections fast approaching, officials in Florida and Virginia are hard at work striking names from their lists of eligible voters. But their efforts are the target of legal challenges by those who say questionable purge methods threaten to disenfranchise eligible voters.

September 26, 2013 - A record number of Americans receive food stamps, with residents of Southern states especially dependent on the anti-hunger program. So why are Southern politicians who in turn depend on the political support of hungry constituents so eager to cut the program's funding?

September 23, 2013 - Whites who live in parts of the South once dominated by the slave economy are much more likely than other Southerners to express resentment toward blacks, to oppose affirmative action, and to vote Republican, according to a new study by political scientists at the University of Rochester.

August 20, 2013 - A union organizer and a third-generation organizer working in the South offer their ideas for building a culture of unionism in the region -- or anywhere the idea of collective development and exercise of power has waned.

August 1, 2013 - Across the South, Republican governors and state legislatures have turned down federal funding to expand Medicaid, excluding millions of uninsured, working-poor residents from health care coverage -- and missing an opportunity to shift costs away from expensive emergency-room care.

July 31, 2013 - From Arkansas to North Carolina, Mississippi to Florida, elected leaders are speaking out and taking action against laws that would restrict citizens' access to the ballot.

June 28, 2013 - A website publicizing details about people arrested in nonviolent protests at the N.C. legislature expanded this week to include salaries of arrestees who are public workers -- and suffered a setback when local officials said they'd no longer take arrestees' mugshots. Meanwhile, private data-gathering efforts in another state are generating controversy over their use for political retaliation.