The public is divided over last week’s Supreme Court rulings on same-sex marriage: 45% approve of the court’s decisions, while 40% disapprove. The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center conducted June 27-30 among 1,003 adults, finds that most Americans are aware of the ruling and its implications. Two-thirds […] Read more »
Race and voting after the Voting Rights Act: What you need to know
Last Tuesday, a narrow Supreme Court majority struck down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act. … Most observers are skeptical that Congress has the will to craft a new formula, despite the apparent support of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.). … Any revisiting of this formula has to take […] Read more »
Why did court treat two minorities so differently?
Gays win, blacks lose. That’s the upshot of this week’s landmark Supreme Court decisions. … Why did the Supreme Court treat the two minorities so differently? Because the two minorities face significantly different problems. Since the civil rights laws were passed in the 1960s, inequality has become a bigger problem […] Read more »
Can the Republicans expect a midterm election bump in 2014?
Barack Obama won the 2008 presidency by 7.3pt. Two years later, his Democratic party lost 63 seats and control of the House of Representatives. Two years after that, Obama won re-election by 3.9pt. The incongruity of the middle result has led people to wonder why Democrats did better in the […] Read more »
How Should We Vote? Considering alternate ways to cast a ballot
… Voting rules reform wouldn’t automatically guarantee better candidates, more electoral competition, higher voter turnout, lower citizen apathy or a more responsive and responsible Congress. But it almost certainly couldn’t make matters worse. So what sort of voting rule reforms might significantly alter the composition of Congress, encourage greater voter […] Read more »
Inside the 2012 Latino Electorate
A record 11.2 million Latinos voted in the 2012 presidential election, but Latinos’ voter turnout rate continues to lag other groups significantly, according to an analysis of new Census Bureau data by the Pew Research Center. [cont.] Mark Hugo Lopez & Ana Gonzalez-Barrera, Pew Read more »