Two years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court gave business corporations and other groups the green light for unlimited independent campaign spending. That decision in the Citizens United case, says the AFL-CIO Executive Council, has “undermined democracy.”
Jennifer Angarita, AFL-CIO National Worker Center coordinator, sends us this report.
Since 2008, states across the country have witnessed a wave of restrictive voting changes, which limit individuals’ access to the polls and the ease with which they can register to vote. Advocates, community members and working people gathered this week at an advocacy roundtable at the Center for American Progress to learn about efforts to suppress voting rights on the state level.
Across the country, voters in a number of states will face obstacles to casting ballots in the 2012 elections, in large part because of model legislation drafted by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the organization backed by, among others, billionaires Charles and David Koch . It was ALEC’s draft legislation that inspired a spate of recently passed voter ID laws that, if allowed to stand, are expected to marginalize the impact of students and people of color at the polls in Texas, South Carolina, Wisconsin, Tennessee and Kansas. (Under the Texas law, for example, a college ID is not an acceptable form of identification for voting, but a military ID is.)
Voters in New Hampshire won’t be disenfranchised by what would have been one of the most regressive voter photo ID laws in in the nation after the state Senate today failed to override Gov. John Lynch’s (D) veto of the bill. In the state Senate, where Republicans hold a 19-5 majority, the vote to override was 7-17.
This is a cross-post by Eric Carlson from PRWatch .
On Wednesday morning, a group of Americans from across the political spectrum, and the country, held a press conference in New Orleans to highlight the devastating impact of the “model” legislation voted on by corporations through the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).
This is a cross-post from the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO by Karen Hickey in AFL-CIO Field Communications.
Scott Walker continued his attack on the people of Wisconsin today as he signed Act 22 into law.
It’s been four years since low-wage workers got a raise. Sign the petition to tell Congress it’s time to raise the minimum wage.
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