Politics

January 12, 2022 - Over 80 cities, counties, and states will raise their minimum wage this year, thanks to the Fight for $15 movement. But only two of those jurisdictions are in the South. 

January 6, 2022 - A text sent to the Trump White House the day after the 2020 election outlining a strategy to have the Supreme Court decide the outcome of the presidential race reportedly came from the phone of former Energy Secretary and Texas Gov. Rick Perry. Championing the election's overthrow didn't dim Perry's job prospects, though: He resigned his Trump administration post that December and the following month became a director for the general partner of Energy Transfer, the Dallas-based pipeline company led by billionaire Trump backer and longtime Perry associate Kelcy Warren, whose interests Perry profitably championed in Washington.

December 17, 2021 - Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi are among the states with the lowest vaccination rates. Grassroots organizations there are partnering with public health officials to battle misinformation and distrust in rural, Latino, and Black communities — but elected officials in those states aren't making their jobs any easier.

December 16, 2021 - Southern states' new Republican-drawn election maps would mean less political power for communities of color in the Black Belt region. Voters there are now asking state and federal courts to decide if the new districts violate state or federal law, including the Voting Rights Act.

December 10, 2021 - In its first lawsuit to come out of the latest round of redistricting, the U.S. Department of Justice has taken aim at Texas, arguing that the GOP legislature's new election district maps violate the Voting Rights Act by discriminating against voters by race or color. We look at some of the numbers cited in the lawsuit, which faces an uphill fight in the new legal landscape created by the Supreme Court's 2013 decision gutting the landmark civil rights-era law.

December 6, 2021 - Prisons inflate the political representation of the communities that host them — without any say from prisoners themselves.

December 3, 2021 - If the U.S. Supreme Court rolls back Roe v. Wade in deciding the Mississippi case it heard this week, the only states in the South where abortion would remain broadly accessible are Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia. Reproductive rights advocates there are girding for political battle to protect abortion access.