This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis.
On Sunday, in commemoration of the anniversary of Bloody Sunday, the Biden administration took its first major executive action on voting rights. And it was an important one, leveraging the power of federal agencies to lower the barriers to voting, particularly the barriers to voter registration. While this action was significant for many voters who have been historically left behind by our democracy, it was truly historic for one often overlooked constituency: those affected by the criminal justice system.
Voting is and has long been incredibly difficult for justice-involved voters. Because of complicated and arcane criminal disenfranchisement laws that vary state-to-state, justice-involved voters often do not know when contact with the criminal justice system impacts their eligibility to vote and, if they have been disenfranchised, what steps they need to take in order to have their rights restored. Th
LaVecchia s parting gift
politico.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from politico.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Bids to alter Wisconsin elections fall mostly along partisan lines
channel3000.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from channel3000.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories.
Transparency is the cornerstone of election regulation in the United States. Because the Supreme Court has limited the government’s ability to regulate election spending (in cases like
Citizens United), we citizens rely heavily on disclaimers and disclosures to monitor how politicians spend money.
But due to a loophole in campaign finance law, campaign spending disclosures fall far short of providing the transparency democracy needs.
As we discuss in a brief published last week by the Center on Science & Technology Policy at Duke University, while campaign committees and political organizations are required to report their spending to the federal government, ad agencies and consultancies disbursing money on their behalf are not. We can see money going into consultancies, but we can’t see money going out.