Not long ago, the emphasis was on encouraging voter turnout. Nowadays, it’s on shutting down access to the polls. The efforts have become so numerous that New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice has taken to keeping a running tally of the restrictions. A recent count: • “At least 180 restrictive bills introduced since the [...]

Any day now the Roberts court will release its Affordable Care Act ruling. It could be 5-4 against all or some of Obamacare, or as much as 6-3 in favor. Some people see Anthony Kennedy as the swing vote and that of course is possible. I’d look to Chief Justice John Roberts instead. I think [...]

Republican lawmakers are fond of talking about voter fraud to justify measures to make it harder to vote. Wendy Weiser of New York University’s Brennan Center of Justice put her finger on the nation’s biggest source of voter fraud when she said, “Every year, election officials strike millions of names from the voting rolls using [...]

Intrigued by Republicans who say GOP stands for God’s Own Party and that the Iowa GOP is controlled by the religious right, the Almighty is considering sending Archangel Gabriel to Des Moines to take in the Iowa GOP state convention, Saturday, June 16. Such a visit might result in this exchange between Gabe and the [...]

If Republicans are interested in starting to dig themselves out of the hole they dug for themselves with women, they might consider dedicating the coming GOP national convention, in Tampa, to the memory of Mary Louise Smith, the first female chairwoman of the Republican National Committee. She held the post from 1974 to 1977, and [...]

If you were worried that you wouldn’t be allowed firearms at the Republican national convention this year in Tampa, relax. Florida Gov. Rick Scott stepped in to assure that there would be no firearms-free zone on his watch in Florida. Tampa’s mayor had written to Scott to request an executive order that would temporarily waive [...]

How appropriate! The Iowa Republican Party is among those finding a way to celebrate the centennial of the sinking of the Titanic. Yes, the Grand Old Party is hard at work — re-arranging the deck chairs of the Iowa caucus. A committee and three sub-committees want to fashion a guarantee — not that the caucus [...]

The idealistic view of the Supreme Court as a disinterested institution above politics took a hit during the recent oral argument over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Paul Krugman expressed the disquiet many Americans who idealize the court must have felt when he wrote, “The second day of hearings suggested that the justices [...]

To paraphrase Thomas Hobbes, the Republican presidential nominating contest is nasty, brutish and long. Not to mention costly. The contenders are exhausting themselves, their bank accounts and the public’s patience. Low voter turnouts are evidence of how fed up the public is with the endless campaigning and tasteless attacking. And that’s just from one party. [...]

Paul Krugman in a February 17 column noted that many Americans make use of government programs but are oblivious that they are beneficiaries. He quoted a Cornell University professor who found that 44 percent of Social Security recipients, 43 percent of those receiving jobless benefits, and 40 percent of those on Medicare say they “have [...]