Politics

November 15, 2019 - Hundreds of teachers and thousands of students left the classroom this week to protest the state Board of Education's refusal to return governance of the district from the state to a locally-elected school board. Critics of the state board say it's motivated by money, not students.

November 8, 2019 - Facing criticism that's hurting stock prices, private prison companies have banded together to create a new industry advocacy group called the Day 1 Alliance. Its spokesperson previously led a Virginia super PAC that targeted career EPA employees who criticized President Trump and NOAA employees who supported progressive Democrats.

November 8, 2019 - Mildred Russell, an 89-year-old African-American woman, wasn't allowed to vote in a special election held earlier this year in Webster County, Georgia. It ended in a tie that her vote would have broken — so officials had to do the election over again this week.

November 7, 2019 - As the 2020 election approaches, Southern states are pursuing purges of voting rolls that can disrupt the electoral process — but voting rights advocates are pushing back.

November 6, 2019 - In Texas, which has long debated changes to its system of partisan judicial elections, Republican leaders began pushing an appointment system just a few months after last year's Democratic sweep in Houston's judicial elections. One proposed bill would put an end to elected judges in urban counties.

October 25, 2019 - A lawsuit challenging Mississippi's unusual system for electing statewide offices, imposed to disenfranchise African Americans after Reconstruction, could still be working its way through the courts when voters cast ballots next month in the state's first competitive gubernatorial race in years.

October 24, 2019 - When they took office, President Donald Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis both appointed high court justices that shifted a supreme court to the right. Both executives have relied on the conservative Federalist Society to suggest nominees, and both have faced criticism for appointing mostly white judges.

October 23, 2019 - Officials in Tennessee and Virginia allowed a hospital monopoly to form on the borders of their states, promising that any negative effects would be counteracted by state regulation. But is that realistic?

October 22, 2019 - After numerous colleges and universities were unable to meet the state's onerous requirements for allowing their student IDs to be used for voting, lawmakers tweaked the rules — and schools now face looming deadlines to reapply.

October 17, 2019 - At a recent affordable housing summit in North Carolina, local officials discussed how to prevent displacement and gentrification despite being hamstrung by conservative state governments.