Politics

August 15, 2019 - Though the National Rifle Association faces numerous investigations into alleged wrongdoing, one of its lobbyists bragged just weeks before the El Paso massacre that 2019 was a "highly successful" year for it in Texas — and that's not the only state where the gun rights group has continued to flex its political muscle.

August 14, 2019 - In 2009, the Department of Homeland Security produced a report that tried to focus the nation's attention on the growing threat of right-wing domestic terrorism. Members of Congress, including several representing Southern states that have suffered domestic terror attacks, worked to bury it.

August 13, 2019 - The recent massacre at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, is just one of many incidents of gun violence that have taken place at the company's stores, which sell guns and allow customers to carry them inside. Concerned for their own and their customers' safety, Walmart workers want the company to change its firearm policies.

August 12, 2019 - A group of activists is working to amend the Florida constitution to ban rifles and shotguns that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition. But it's gathered only a fraction of the signatures required to get the ban on the ballot, and it's facing burdensome new rules for citizen amendments.

August 2, 2019 - Though an amendment added to the U.S. constitution during the height of the civil rights movement prohibits poll taxes, many states continue to effectively impose them by requiring people who've completed felony prison sentences to pay fines and fees before they can register to vote.

August 2, 2019 - As the alarming number of murders of transgender people, particularly women of color, mounts, Southern lawmakers have continued to push measures that discriminate against the transgender community. But in North Carolina, a federal judge recently approved a settlement that reverses controversial restrictions on transgender rights.

August 2, 2019 - Responding to the Fight for $15 movement, the U.S. House recently voted to raise the federal minimum wage, and a number of states have also raised minimum wages. But progress at the local level has been blocked in some places by state laws preempting such wage hikes — and now labor advocates are taking aim at those laws.