Rights and Democracy
Driving Government Out of Business
Republican operative Grover Norquist used to quip about shrinking government to the point where it would get small enough to drown in the bathtub. You probably thought he was kidding. His joke could be on us all soon enough. Pollsters say the Republican Party is...
The GOP’s Sharp Teeth
Speech for Sale
When five Supreme Court justices decreed that corporations are entitled to full free speech rights in our elections and that corporate money is a form of speech that can't be restricted, they produced a nightmare tsunami of corporate cash that is now drowning our...
Sticking Texas-Sized Hurdles on the Path to Polls
Supporters of the right to vote just suffered a huge setback. On October 9, voter ID laws that could have disenfranchised nearly a million voters in Wisconsin and Texas were ruled unconstitutional. The timing of these rulings — one by a Supreme Court majority and the...
Unfriending ALEC
Exactly 54 days after Lisa B. Nelson started her job as the CEO of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), she got some bad news from a major supporter: The tech giant Google wanted out of its relationship with ALEC. Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt...
It Takes a Mentor
As high school seniors start to churn out their college applications, elite campuses are trying to catch the attention of high-achieving and gifted low-income students around the country. It may be hard to believe, but schools like Harvard University and Amherst...
Head in the Tar Sands
Revealing Corporate Largesse
Some people have a recurring nightmare of rising to give a speech, but realizing they know nothing about the topic — and then discovering they're naked. It turns out that corporations also have such nightmares. OK, corporations aren't people, no matter what the...
We’re All in This Together
Lolita Lledo spends all day talking on her cell phone, texting, and checking her Facebook page, though not for the reasons you might think. As the associate director of the Pilipino Workers Center in Los Angeles, she relies on social networking to keep in touch with...
Restoring Government by the People, for the People
One of the many privileges of living in a democracy is the ability of each of us to have an equal say about how we are governed. Through elections, our lawmakers can be held accountable for how well they fight for the interests of the people they represent. In theory,...
