Politics

September 29, 2021 - Governors and legislatures across the South have banned public schools from requiring masks to prevent the spread of the deadly coronavirus. The bans have been successfully challenged in lower courts, but appellate courts overturned some of those rulings. Federal courts in several states are taking up the question of whether mask mandate bans violate the rights of students with disabilities.

September 29, 2021 - Senate Democrats recently introduced the Freedom to Vote Act, a compromise alternative to the For the People Act, far-reaching pro-democracy legislation blocked by a Republican filibuster. If the GOP again uses the filibuster to obstruct the bill, Democrats say they'll take on reforming the Senate policy, which requires 60 votes to end debate on a measure. But that will require moving conservative Democrats like West Virginia's Joe Manchin, a filibuster defender who's also among the new bill's sponsors.

September 24, 2021 - Earlier this year, Congress approved expanding the child tax credit and paying it out in advance as part of the American Rescue Plan economic stimulus bill. As Democrats discuss extending the credit, advocates argue that making it permanent would slash child poverty rates, which are especially high across the South.

September 17, 2021 - Though a lawsuit seeking to restore the voting rights of North Carolinians on probation or parole suffered setbacks in recent court rulings, the broader movement to re-enfranchise people with felony convictions has made gains in Southern states in recent years.

September 16, 2021 - With far-right activists planning to gather in Washington, D.C., and other cities on Sept. 18 to protest the arrests of those involved in the attempted Jan. 6 overthrow of the presidential election, we look at how the prosecutions of the violent domestic terrorists known as "accelerationists" are progressing.

September 13, 2021 - The North Carolina NAACP is challenging the racially gerrymandered legislature's authority to put a voter ID question on the ballot, which voters passed in 2018. The state's highest court has postponed arguments while it decides whether two justices closely connected to the legislature must sit out the case. 

September 3, 2021 - Even before the pandemic, evictions disproportionately hurt Black people living in the South. Now, with the moratorium lifted, Black communities will be hit even harder. Meanwhile, Southern states have been slow to distribute federal aid aimed at avoiding evictions.