democracy

Anti-democratic moves by state lawmakers raise fears for 2024 election

BY: - September 22, 2023

In Wisconsin, Republican lawmakers are threatening to impeach both the state’s election administrator, who is highly regarded nationally, and a state Supreme Court justice despite a ruling by the state’s judicial commission that the justice had done nothing wrong — effectively nullifying a recent statewide election she won, Democrats say. In North Carolina, a bill […]

COMMENTARY
Signage at an early voting center on Sept. 23, 2016 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

On Democracy Day, newsrooms unite for pro-democracy coverage

BY: - September 15, 2023

It’s no secret: U.S. democracy is under serious threat. Politicians use rigged maps to entrench themselves in power, allowing them to ignore the will of voters. Hundreds of members of Congress, state lawmakers, and top state officials — including chief elections officials — deny the results of the last presidential contest. And a leading candidate […]

COMMENTARY
Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders shakes hands with Senate President Pro Tempore Bart Hester, R-Cave Springs, at a bill signing event Thursday, Sept. 14, 2023. House Speaker Matthew Shepherd, R-El Dorado, applauds. One of the bills Sanders signed was an amendment to Arkansas' Freedom of Information Act that exempts Arkansas State Police records regarding her security. (John Sykes/Arkansas Advocate)

Secrecy added to Arkansas public records law serves only those with secrets

BY: - September 15, 2023

This commentary was updated at 5:25 p.m., Sept. 16, 2023, to correct the day when the Legislature submitted the bill to the governor. This week’s hastily called — and unnecessary — special session of the Arkansas Legislature yielded some ugly changes to the state’s sunshine law but also provided a shining example of democracy at […]

A parade in favor of women's suffrage, the right to vote, in 1913. (National Archives)

Congress and nonprofit working to put women’s suffrage monument on National Mall

BY: - September 6, 2023

As Congress considers a bill to place a women’s suffrage monument on the National Mall, a nonprofit is working to raise the estimated $50 million needed to build it. The Women’s Suffrage National Monument Foundation, the nonprofit backing the effort, launched a donation campaign Tuesday in an effort to raise funds for a memorial honoring […]

Changes in state election laws have little impact on results, new study finds

BY: - July 16, 2023

In recent years, U.S. politics has been consumed by partisan fights over states’ election policies. But a new study by two political scientists is causing a stir by finding that state legislators’ changes to election laws — both those that tighten election rules in the name of integrity, and those that loosen rules to expand […]

States with low election turnout did little in 2023 to expand voting access

BY: - June 19, 2023

This year’s state legislative sessions are almost all wrapped up. And on voting and elections policy, the headlines have largely focused on a new wave of restrictive voting laws passed in big Republican-led states like Florida, Texas, and Ohio, as well as expansive laws approved in Democratic-led states like Michigan, Minnesota, and New York. But […]

COMMENTARY
A security guard confronts a protester as former U.S. Vice President Mike Pence speaks during the Advancing Freedom Lecture Series at Stanford University on Feb. 17, 2022, with a speech titled “How to Save America From the Woke Left.” (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Free speech used to be honored by both left and right

BY: - May 8, 2023

Students’ shutting down campus public speakers has become increasingly common at universities across the U.S. Recently at Stanford Law School, student protesters shouted over a Trump-appointed federal judge and disrupted the speech he had been invited by students to give. Instead of telling the students that they were in violation of Stanford’s speech policy, the […]

COMMENTARY
Members of the Louisiana Republican Party held a protest on the steps of the Louisiana State Capitol on March 21, 2023, when they expected the former president to be arrested. (Greg LaRose/Louisiana Illuminator)

Here’s how reporters should cover Trump’s campaign

BY: - May 5, 2023

On the evening of Jan. 6, 2021, CNN personalities tried to interpret for viewers across the world what had transpired that day in the nation’s capital. “I would just like to remind our viewers that President Trump now for years has referred to journalists as the enemy of the American people,” anchor Jake Tapper said, […]

A Stop The Steal sign is posted inside of the U.S. Capitol after a pro-Trump mob broke into the building on Jan. 6, 2021. Alabama, Indiana, South Dakota, and Wyoming all elected deniers in their secretary of state races in 2022. (Photo by Jon Cherry/Getty Images)

Five election deniers who control state voting systems

BY: - February 20, 2023

Americans concerned about the health of democracy breathed a sigh of relief when a pack of election deniers in 2022 lost their attempts to control voting in key battleground states — making it unlikely that a rogue state election official could subvert the 2024 presidential election. Candidates for secretary of state who denied the result […]

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris seated at a table.

White House targets economic development in Central America to reduce migration

BY: - February 6, 2023

WASHINGTON — The White House Monday announced nearly $1 billion in investments to address economic causes of migration in several Central American countries, an effort being spurred by Vice President Kamala Harris.   Spread over several years, 10 private companies from Target to Nestlé are pledging $950 million to create economic development in Honduras, El Salvador […]

COMMENTARY
American civil rights leader the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. (1929 - 1968) delivers his "I have a dream" speech at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Washington DC, Aug. 28, 1963. (Photo by Washington Bureau/Getty Images)

How the distortion of Martin Luther King Jr.‘s words enables more, not less, racial division

BY: - January 17, 2023

U.S. Rep. Chip Roy of Texas is just the latest conservative lawmaker to misuse the words of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to judge a person on character and not race. In the protracted battle to elect Rep. Kevin McCarthy as speaker of the House, Roy, a Republican, nominated a Black man, Byron Donalds, […]

President Joe Biden embraces Gladys Sicknick, the mother of late Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, on Jan. 6, 2023, as she accepts a Presidential Citizens Medal on behalf of her late son during a ceremony to mark the second anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Biden awarded Presidential Citizens Medals to police officers who defended the Capitol and state officials who resisted pressure to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Biden honors more than a dozen Americans for upholding democracy on Jan. 6

BY: - January 6, 2023

WASHINGTON — On the second anniversary of the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, President Joe Biden on Friday awarded citizen medals to 14 Americans who protected democracy and law enforcement officers who defended the Capitol. “Two years ago on Jan. 6 our democracy was attacked,” Biden said at the White House. “Our democracy held because […]