In The News

THIS may be little consolation to recent graduates who have sent out dozens of résumés with nary a response; who have been turned down for unpaid internships; who have vast amounts of student debt to repay as they continue in jobs as baby sitters and waiters.
But employers say they will hire 10.2 percent more college graduates from the class of 2012 than they did from the class of 2011, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers. read more >>

Since the beginning of 2011, lawmakers around the country abruptly enacted laws to curb voting rights and tighten registration rules. These measures are fiercely controversial. But lately the debate has taken a surprising turn. Suppressive voting laws have met resistance at the polls and in the courts. This surprisingly emphatic twist is good for our democracy. If the restriction of voting rights can be blocked or blunted, it will give us an opportunity to move forward with bipartisan reforms to our ramshackle registration system.

Consider the recent backlash.read more >>

President Barack Obama’s re- election campaign is likely to have more money than any presidential campaign in history. Republican Mitt Romney’s campaign, when you factor in the super-PACs supporting him, could have even more money than that.read more >>

AUSTIN - The U.S. Department of Justice has asked a panel of federal judges to postpone the trial in Texas' Voter ID case because of complaints that state Attorney General Greg Abbott continues to stall requests for information.

The inability to get documents and Abbott's fight to keep Republican legislators from having to testify make a July 9 trial date impractical, Justice Department lawyers said in their motion to a three-judge panel in Washington, D.C.

Abbott wanted a quick trial to put the Voter ID law in place for the Nov. 6 general election.read more >>

Companies giving at least $2 million to the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation -- nearly half of its reported 2010 donations -- also backed an organization championing voter identification laws that caucus members say “suppress” minorities’ right to vote.read more >>

There’s one key that always fits Washington’s locks: a big campaign check. President Obama boasts about the many small donors who propelled him to office, but it’s the biggest givers who find the White House doors smoothly swinging open. Mitt Romney has tried to appeal to those in the middle class, but they’re not invited to the retreats with those who give him $50,000.

And, despite decades of money abuses and scandal, neither presidential candidate has shown any interest in reforming the system.read more >>

The payday loan industry is spending big on politics in advance of expected scrutiny from the federal government’s new financial watchdog agency.

After lobbying heavily before the Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill became law in 2010, the top payday lenders did not slack off last year, and the companies have become a bigger source of campaign contributions for political candidates this election cycle, according to a report from the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).read more >>

The protesters arrived in the Wall Street neighborhood on Wednesday night carrying bedrolls, quilts and blankets. They spread pieces of cardboard on the sidewalk on Nassau Street. As several police officers stood nearby, the protesters made signs with anticorporate slogans.

“It’s really exciting to see people actually occupying Wall Street,” said Embi Weitzel, 25, a nanny from Colorado, who came with earplugs, apples, a flashlight, a bottle of water and an orange sleeping bag. “Finally, here we are, in the belly of the beast.”read more >>

A country that should be encouraging more people to vote is still using an archaic voter registration system that creates barriers to getting a ballot. In 2008, 75 million eligible people did not vote in the presidential election, and 80 percent of them were not registered. read more >>

The U.S. Census Bureau today released a 2010 Census brief, The Asian Population: 2010 [PDF], that shows the Asian population grew faster than any other race group over the last decade.read more >>

Madison - Two legal challenges to Wisconsin photo identification requirement for voters seem to be headed for the state's highest court.

On Wednesday, two separate appeals courts sent challenges to the law on to the state Supreme Court, which is expected to take up the issue. To do that, a majority of the seven-member court must decide to take up the cases as requested by the appeals court.read more >>

At the start of historic arguments on attempts to overturn President Barack Obama’s signature health care law, both sides at least agreed on one thing: They want the case tried now. And the justices seemed inclined to agree.

Justices on both the liberal and conservative wings of the court pressed attorneys for ways around an 1867 law that prohibits people from filing a lawsuit against tax provisions until after they have already paid the tax in question.read more >>

The Supreme Court’s 5-to-4 ruling in Citizens United in 2010 was shaped by an extreme view of the First Amendment: money equals speech, and independent spending by wealthy organizations and individuals poses no problem to the political system. The court cavalierly dismissed worries that those with big bank accounts — and big megaphones — have an unfair advantage in exerting political power.read more >>

WASHINGTON – Major payday lending companies and their owners contributed more than $250,000 last month to a super PAC supporting Mitt Romney for president, federal reports show.

Mitt Romney speaks Monday at Bradley University in Peoria, Ill. He has not addressed payday lending issues on the campaign trail.read more >>

The parties in the Texas voter ID case submitted a proposed trial schedule to the three-judge panel this afternoon.

Though there are a number of areas where the parties were able to agree, there also were a number of areas of disagreement which the court will need to resolve.

Under the proposed order, the parties are asking for a 5-8 day trial, with the trial to start July 30.read more >>

WASHINGTON -- The city of Pinson is about to be free from U.S. Department of Jus­tice oversight of its city elec­tions, the first exemption from a key section of the Voting Rights Act granted to anyone in Alabama.

Pinson and the Justice Department agreed in writing to excuse the small Jefferson County city from Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act because it has no history of discrimina­tion against minority voters.read more >>

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The Florida Supreme Court rejected the state Senate's redistricting plan for the next 10 years but upheld the House's map in a 5-2 opinion issued Friday.

The two dissenting justices said they would have upheld both maps drafted by the Republican-controlled Legislature.

The court said eight Senate districts are unconstitutional as well as the chamber's changes in assigning numbers to districts because that favors certain incumbents.read more >>

Deciding that the proposal was off topic, Senate leaders refused to allow African-American senators to tag a proposal expanding early voting onto voter identification legislation.

Sen. Chris Smith, D-Ft. Lauderdale, filed an amendment to HB 1461 that would have given counties the option of opening early voting locations on the Sunday before an election day. Last year, the Legislature approved sweeping new election law that, among other things, limited early voting hours and prohibited early voting within 72 hours of an election.read more >>

The rise of billionaire-driven super PACs that seem to take a loose view of the few rules they’re asked to follow has even late-night comics asking: Who’s in charge here?

Meet the Federal Election Commission, the agency tasked with enforcing campaign finance law. This six-person panel has long been slow-moving and frequently divided, but this year its members have taken their reputation to new heights just as money emerges as the biggest legal issue of the season.read more >>

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- Disheartened and angry over the latest Texas voting maps handed down by federal judges, Democrats and minority rights groups looked Wednesday to a separate court in Washington as their last likely hope of cutting deeper into a solid Republican majority in the 2012 elections.

The GOP stands poised to hardly lose any power under the latest Texas congressional and state House maps delivered this week by a San Antonio federal court, which confronted how the state's political boundaries should be changed with more than 3 million new Hispanic residents.read more >>

The presidential primary season is being brought to you by a handful of multimillionaires and companies who have propped up the candidates with enormous donations to their “super PACs.” Just two dozen or so individuals, couples and companies have given more than 80 percent of the money collected by super PACs, or $54 million, according to disclosure forms released on Monday.read more >>

The last time I considered Barack Obama’s re-election chances in this magazine, in mid-November, things were looking pretty bleak for the president. The statistical model I used measured three key factors — a president’s approval rating, economic growth and the ideological orientation of his opponent — and taken together, they showed that Obama had become a slight underdog to win re-election.

Three months later, his position is much stronger.read more >>