florida

July 20, 2018 - With President Trump nominating a judge with a record of hostility to voting rights to the U.S. Supreme Court, state courts and constitutions are likely to play an increasingly critical role in protecting those rights — but those institutions are under political assault by conservatives.

June 29, 2018 - Dealing a blow to the labor movement that will disproportionately affect people of color, the conservative majority's ruling that public-sector workers represented by unions should be able to pay nothing for that representation endorses a policy first promoted in the 1940s South by pro-segregation business interests hostile to organized labor because of its work on behalf of racial justice.

June 29, 2018 - In the final days of its 2018 session, the General Assembly approved a series of constitutional amendments for the November ballot that if passed would restrict voting and expand the legislature's power over the courts and the executive branch.

June 18, 2018 - Once deemed among the most restrictive states for ballot access, North Carolina changed its law recently and will have two new parties on this year's ballot. But other Southern states are less welcoming to political newcomers.

June 15, 2018 - A North Carolina voter charged with violating the state's ban on voting while on probation for a felony is arguing that the policy violates the U.S. Constitution's equal protection clause. 

May 11, 2018 - With protests ongoing over the planned Bayou Bridge oil pipeline, the Louisiana legislature advanced a bill this week creating new crimes with stiff penalties for conspiracy to trespass on pipeline property — part of a broader trend of states and the federal government targeting protest actions.

May 10, 2018 - As federal courts have released some school districts from orders requiring desegregation, schools in the South have become more racially segregated than they've been in 50 years. Trump's judicial nominees and his Department of Justice could make things worse.

April 27, 2018 - A federal appeals court recently ruled that Florida can keep its harsh re-enfranchisement system in place. But a November ballot referendum there could lead to reforms, which have also recently come to states including Alabama and Virginia.

April 25, 2018 - The first peer-reviewed study of ads bought on Facebook to influence the 2016 election is renewing calls for Congress to pass the Honest Ads Act, which would close disclosure loopholes for political ads on social media. The stalled bill is opposed by groups including Americans for Prosperity and an anti-regulatory think tank with a connection to Senate leader Mitch McConnell.

April 19, 2018 - A law targeting white-supremacist terrorism is being used to sue a conservative Virginia activist who falsely accused people of voting illegally — the latest example of how the Reconstruction-era statute remains relevant today.