Justice
July 14, 2017 -
When the North Carolina legislature passed its so-called "raise the age" law last month, it became the last state to stop automatically treating 16- and 17-year-olds as adults in the criminal justice system. But some still will be, and that puts them at risk of serious harm.
July 14, 2017 -
A ballot initiative campaign in Florida and a lawsuit against Louisiana seek to restore voting rights to people convicted of felonies after they're released from prison. The efforts are parts of a broader movement to overturn felony disenfranchisement laws rooted in white-supremacist politics.
July 12, 2017 -
A perennial bill to create a national single-payer public health insurance program has record support in this Congress. Though none of the cosponsors are Republicans, they include a growing number of conservative Southern Democrats, signaling a shift in health care politics.
June 28, 2017 -
With the 2020 count approaching, concerns are mounting that budget cuts and turnover at the U.S. Census Bureau could lead to missing significant numbers of historically undercounted residents — many in disadvantaged Southern communities that depend on accurate numbers to apportion political power and fund services.
June 16, 2017 -
Arkansas, Louisiana and West Virginia are among the 10 states with U.S. senators considered key to blocking the deeply unpopular Republican health care plan, which is expected to come up for a vote before the July 4 recess. They're also among the states with the sickest residents.
June 16, 2017 -
Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty launched its Florida chapter this week, its fifth in the South. The group makes the case that capital punishment is out of step with core conservative values.
June 16, 2017 -
Rural areas draw the ire of Trump opponents on the left and right who charge that residents voted against their own interests. But in the South, which has the country's biggest rural Black population and growing numbers of rural Hispanics, many of the rural communities most threatened by Trump's policies did not vote for him.
