Politics
May 3, 2019 -
This week Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee led an anti-union meeting at Chattanooga's Volkswagen plant, where last month workers petitioned for an election to join the United Auto Workers. The public and journalists were shut out of the event, which showed how government officials and corporations in the South work together to bust unions.
May 3, 2019 -
After voters approved a constitutional amendment restoring the franchise to people with felony convictions, Florida lawmakers are trying to make it harder for citizens to put amendments on the ballot. Legislators in Arkansas, the only other Southern state that allows citizen-initiated amendments, did likewise after voters passed a minimum-wage hike.
April 26, 2019 -
In a year of harsh anti-abortion bills, one introduced in Texas went furthest of all by allowing women who end a pregnancy to be put to death. The bill's sponsor — a quadruple divorcee whose first wife sought a restraining order against him — is a major recipient of contributions from a fracking services billionaire and religious sect leader who's become a leading funder of radical anti-abortion groups and candidates.
April 26, 2019 -
Voting rights advocates offered solutions for combating discriminatory election practices and increasing voting access in the state and around the country.
April 22, 2019 -
State regulators recently issued a new general permit for industrial hog farms, and it dashed the hopes of environmental advocates who say it represents a failure to address the unequal pollution burden borne by nonwhite communities. They're calling on the agency to take environmental justice into account in future permitting decisions.
April 12, 2019 -
Even as support for LGBTQ equality grows nationally, lawmakers in three Southern states are advancing legislation that would continue to discriminate.
April 12, 2019 -
North Carolina is now the third state in the South to order utilities to excavate all of their coal ash pits and move the toxic material to lined landfills. Duke Energy wants to charge its customers for the work, but some state lawmakers are trying to prevent that from happening. Meanwhile, the company is challenging the order.
