Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Arizona legislators block bill to purge vote-by-mail list

Arizona Capitol building

The Arizona legislature is the first in a swing state to dispose of legislation that would make it harder to vote.

Jon Hicks/Getty Images

Legislators in Arizona narrowly rejected a proposal that would have removed 200,000 people from the list of voters who automatically receive a mail-in ballot for every election.

The Republican-backed bill would have purged voters from the list if they had skipped multiple elections, but would not have canceled their registration. Democrats, who stopped the bill in a Senate committee with the help of a single Republican vote, argued such a purge would make it harder for people to vote, particularly people of color and low-income voters.

When legislatures opened their 2021 sessions, lawmakers in three dozen states introduced more than 500 bills aimed at changing voting laws. Arizona is the first swing state to dispose of legislation aimed at tightening the rules.


About half of the impacted voters would have been independents, along with 64,000 Democrats and 47,000 Republicans, Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs told The Associated Press. President Biden captured Arizona by 10,500 votes, becoming the first Democrat to win the state in 24 years.

More than 3 million Arizonans are on the Permanent Early Voting List. They automatically receive a mail-in ballot ahead of every election. People are only removed from the list if they request removal, their registration is canceled or they become inactive. Progressive groups are celebrating the legislation's defeat.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

"This reckless bill was a blatant attempt to suppress votes — and it should never have made it to the floor of the Arizona Senate," said Brett Edkins, political director of Stand Up America, which ran a grassroots campaign against the measure. "The Republican lawmakers who championed it, and peddled lies to push it through the legislature, should be ashamed of themselves."

Read More

The Psychology of Politics

An illustration of people and their unique minds.

Getty Images, Carol Yepes

The Psychology of Politics

Have you ever wondered why so many otherwise reasonable people are completely bananas about politics? We all know plenty of normal and decent folks who spout wacky political views. But it’s not just our neighbors who’ve gone mad. All over the country, Americans pick and choose the facts they want to believe, champion policies they don’t understand, hold contradictory views at the same time, admire immoral politicians, loathe decent ones, and so on.

What’s going on here? And why does it seem to be getting worse?

Keep ReadingShow less
Addressing Economic Inequity Among Domestic Violence Survivors

A person holding a stack of dollar bills that are flying away.

Getty Images, PM Images

Addressing Economic Inequity Among Domestic Violence Survivors

The 2024 film, “Anora,” about a young woman victimized by sex trafficking, recently won five Oscars at the Academy Awards. Perhaps, it is a signal of more awareness and less stigma surrounding the pervasiveness of domestic violence at all levels of society.

The ongoing lawsuits between actors Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni claiming sexual harassment and violence threat allegations around their film, “It Ends With Us,” about a relationship scarred with domestic violence, demonstrates the thin line between real life and on-screen adaptations.

Keep ReadingShow less
Layoffs at the EPA May Impact Federal Funding for Communities

Environmental Protection Agency EPA | Where James works | mccready ...

Layoffs at the EPA May Impact Federal Funding for Communities

WASHINGTON—The federal government laid off more than 60,000 workers in the first two months of 2025, while another 75,000 employees accepted a buyout and voluntarily resigned.

Among those laid off was James Clark, an Environmental Protection Agency employee who lost his job while on his honeymoon. “It’s just very sad to see someone like Elon Musk take a chainsaw on live TV and say what we do doesn’t matter,” said Clark.

Keep ReadingShow less
Congress Avoids a Shutdown But at What Cost?

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) speaks to reporters at the U.S. Capitol on March 14, 2025 in Washington, DC.

Getty Images, Tasos Katopodis

Congress Avoids a Shutdown But at What Cost?

On March 14, the GOP-led Senate passed a stopgap spending bill to keep the federal government running until September 30. The bill’s passage was made possible by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s last-minute reversal—shifting from opposing the measure and advocating for a shorter extension to allowing the bill to advance. His decision was purely tactical: he feared Democrats would be blamed for a shutdown.

Schumer’s move provided the necessary votes to overcome procedural hurdles, effectively thwarting a Democratic filibuster. While Republican support for Trump’s budget was unsurprising, the Democratic leadership’s decision to go along was a stunning concession. It handed the Trump administration a significant victory while further eroding Congress’s budgetary authority, shifting more spending power to the executive branch.

Keep ReadingShow less