News Headline

Blacks Face Voting Obstacles

OurFuture.org Staff — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 08:09:50 -0400

While formal poll taxes were declared illegal in 1965 with the passage of the Voting Rights Act, versions of it remain in place — for instance, in the cost of taking time off work, travelling to the polls, or obtaining identification. African American votes are now discounted by many other means, as well. In Florida in 2000, the suppression of black votes changed the final outcome of the presidential election. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights found "widespread disenfranchisement and denial of voting rights" in Florida, which was ten times more likely to affect African Americans.

Prisoner Count Benefits Rural Districts

OurFuture.org Staff — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 09:50:37 -0400

Concerns about so-called prison-based gerrymandering have grown as the number of inmates around the nation has ballooned. Similar disparities have been identified in upstate New York, Tennessee and Wisconsin. Critics say the census should count prisoners in the district where they lived before they were incarcerated. In 2006, experts commissioned by the Census Bureau recommended that the agency study whether prison inmates should be counted in 2010 as residents of the mostly urban neighborhoods where they last lived rather than as residents of the mostly rural districts where they are temporarily housed against their will. Any such change would probably require Congressional approval. It could benefit Democrats, since it would add population to the party’s urban strongholds and subtract from the Republican-dominated rural areas where most prisons are.

Judge Sides with Voting Rights Groups

OurFuture.org Staff — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 10:43:40 -0400

A federal judge ruled Monday that the current practices to purge the voter rolls in Michigan are illegal and ordered Republican Secretary of State Terry Lynn Land to immediately stop the cancellation of registered voters whose voter identification cards are returned as undeliverable in the mail. The purging of registered voters, many of whom lost their homes to bank foreclosure, in the state of Michigan prompted the federal lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union, United States Student Association Foundation and the Advancement Project, and resulted in calls in Congress for a Justice Department investigation.

Moves to Block Voters May Be Illegal

OurFuture.org Staff — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 10:32:05 -0400

Tens of thousands of eligible U.S. voters in at least six swing states have been removed from the rolls or have been blocked from registering in ways that appear to violate federal law, according to a review of state records and Social Security data. The actions do not seem to be coordinated by one party or the other, nor do they appear to be the result of election officials intentionally breaking rules, but are apparently the result of mistakes in the handling of the registrations and voter files as the states attempted to comply with a 2002 federal law, intended to overhaul the way elections are run.

Disabled Vets Face Red Tape in Voting

OurFuture.org Staff — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 00:29:47 -0400

With the presidential polls just over a month away, tens of thousands of U.S. war veterans are still wondering whether or not they will be able to vote for the candidate of their choice. About 100,000 former soldiers who are currently residing in government-run facilities can no longer vote because they cannot register without assistance from volunteers due to disabilities and serious illnesses. Rights groups say they want to help war veterans with the registration process but officials at the Department of Veterans Affairs are creating hurdles for them.

Democrats Defend Right to Vote

OurFuture.org Staff — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 10:42:36 -0400

The Obama campaign went to court to block what it alleged was an attempt by Republicans in Michigan to stop people who lost their homes in the mortgage crisis from voting in November's election. The suit, filed in a Michigan court yesterday, is the latest sign of contention over voting procedures. In Macomb county, Michigan, a swing constituency, Republican officials for the first time tried to use America's housing crisis as a way of striking people off lists. The situation came to light when the Republican party chairman of Macomb county told a local newspaper he planned to draw on publicly available lists of home foreclosures to bar people from casting their vote.

Obama Wins Historic Nomination

OurFuture.org Staff — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 03:19:17 -0400

Senator Barack Obama was nominated by his party today to be the 44th president of the United States. The unanimous vote made Obama the first African-American to become a major party nominee for president. It brought to an end an often-bitter, two-year political struggle for the nomination with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, who, standing on a packed convention floor electric with anticipation, moved to halt the roll call in progress so that the convention could nominate Obama by acclamation. That it did with a succession of loud roars, followed by a swirl of dancing, embracing, high-fiving and chants of "Yes, we can."

Lawsuit Details ICE Detainee's Death

OurFuture.org Staff — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 09:53:36 -0400

A lawsuit filed in federal court a year ago by a Dominican detainee makes complaints about health care at a detention center in Rhode Island that are similar to accounts of how the center treated a Chinese New Yorker who died Aug. 6 in immigration custody. That inmate was suffering from a fractured spine and extensive cancer that had gone undiagnosed until five days before his death. Lawyers and relatives of Hiu Lui Ng said that when he was racked with pain and too weak to walk, detention officials refused him a wheelchair, failed to take him to scheduled appointments for an M.R.I. exam or a CT scan, and instead took him in shackles to Hartford — where he was pressured to withdraw his appeals and accept deportation.

Self-Deportation Program Scrapped

OurFuture.org Staff — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 09:23:17 -0400

A pilot program allowing illegal immigrants to surrender to authorities and have more control over their deportation has been dubbed a failure. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says it is ending its "Scheduled Departure" program when the three-week trial concludes. Only eight people participated in the program, officials said. "Quite frankly, I think this proves the only method that works is enforcement," Jim Hayes, acting director of ICE's detention and removal operations said.

Sallie Mae Spent $640K Lobbying

OurFuture.org Staff — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 21:10:33 -0400

Sallie Mae, the nation's largest student lender, spent $640,000 lobbying in the second quarter for government help to shore up the troubled student loan market and on legislation related to other issues affecting the industry, according to a recent disclosure report. The company lobbied on access to capital for student lenders and a variety of legislation touching on student lending, education spending and banking. Congress sets the interest rates borrowers pay and the subsidy levels lenders receive under the federal student loan program. Lawmakers last year cut about $20 billion in federal subsidies to lenders to pay for increases in student aid. That cut into lenders' profits, as did the credit crunch, making it expensive to raise the capital they need to offer student loans.