Skip to content
Project 2025
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories
Just the Facts: Canadian Tariffs

Just the Facts: Canadian Tariffs

​The U.S. Constitution.

Call for a Constitutional Convention Veils Anti-Constitutionalism and Portends Political Chaos

Redistricting

Redistricting

Coins on top of countries.

If Countries Stop Buying U.S. Debt, Everything Changes.

Silver sign of Department of Justice on a classical concrete wall with plants as foreground.

Project 2025: Reshaping American Justice Under Trump

Tracy Chapman and Luke Combs on stage

Luke Combs, politics and healing our nation's divide

Legislators revive drive for automatic voter registration in New York

The Fulcrum
By The FulcrumMay 21, 2019
The Fulcrum
The Fulcrum staff.
See More Writings by author

The majority Democrats in the state Senate are reviving their effort to bring automatic voter registration to New York.

It would be the second-biggest state to adopt the system, after California. Fourteen other states and Washington, D.C., have also done so, in each case boosting turnout. Under AVR, as it's dubbed, an adult citizen's name is automatically added to the voter rolls interacting with a state government agency – most typically the one that issues driver's licenses – unless the person chooses to opt out.

"Automatic voter registration is a straightforward and evidenced-backed policy that would remove barriers between voters and the ballot box and make it easier for people to make their voices heard," the chairman of the Senate Elections Committee, Brooklyn Democrat Zellnor Myrie, said in announcing a hearing will be held after Memorial Day.

This year Democrats are running both legislative chambers in Albany for the first time in a decade and have already passed several measures designed to increase the state's historically low turnout. The measures expanded early voting, permitted Election Day registration, consolidated state and local primary days and modernized voting equipment.

Latest news

View over Harvard Yard of Harvard University.
Democracy

Why Harvard’s Fight Is Everyone’s

Read More

Fighting the Current Immigration Nightmare

Mother and child at the airport.

Getty Images//Keiferpix

Fighting the Current Immigration Nightmare

I had a nightmare that my mom was being deported. I dreamed of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents coming to our home and taking her away. The current climate has unlocked a childhood fear. My mom did not become a citizen until 1997, and in my early years, I was afraid that I would go to school and never see her again. I was afraid that I would be left behind.

To see immigration through the eyes of the child is to see separation from your parents, your sense of safety and normalcy. My mother had fled from Nicaragua to the United States during the 1980s during civil unrest in Central America, leaving behind my siblings until they could be reunited many years later. Once reunited, there were years to make up for missed birthdays and missed milestones, and at that point, a blended family with new siblings.

Keep ReadingShow less
a group of people arranged in the shape of the United states of America map

A group of people arranged in the shape of the United states of America map.

Getty Images, attjeacock

Where Is the “Real America”?

Is there such a thing as a “real America”? A battle now rages over this simple question. Some Democratic party operatives claim the real America are so-called “Trump voters,” who they say they need to better “study” in order to win future elections. Many Republican voices argue the real America are just those who support the new administration 100% of the time. Still, others assert that different demographics or geography comprise the real America. It’s as if the real America is one particular slice or another of our nation.

These caricatures lead us sorely astray. But there is a real America. I work in it every day.

Keep ReadingShow less
The African American Mayors Association holds its 11th annual conference, this year in Washington, D.C.

The African American Mayors Association holds its 11th annual conference, this year in Washington, D.C.

Imagine Photography, Heaven Brown

Job Cuts, Climate Threats, and the Power of Now: Black Mayors Seek Strength in Solidarity

WASHINGTON – Black mayors from across the country gathered in the nation’s capital for the annual African American Mayors Association Conference last week and strategized ways to govern their cities despite ongoing federal job cuts and recent actions coming from the Trump administration.

At the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, President Donald Trump conducted his second round of mass firings. Those who were not fired were told to go back to in-person work the same week in late March.

Keep ReadingShow less
Innovative Local Solutions Can Ease America’s Housing Crisis
aerial photography of rural
Photo by Breno Assis on Unsplash

Innovative Local Solutions Can Ease America’s Housing Crisis

Across the country, families are prevented from accessing safe, stable, affordable housing—not by accident, but by design. Decades of exclusionary zoning, racial discrimination, and disinvestment have created a housing system that works well for the wealthy but leaves others behind. Even as federal cuts to public housing programs continue nationwide, powerful, community-rooted efforts are pushing back and offering real, equity-driven solutions led by local voices.

Historically, states like New Jersey show what’s possible when legal advocacy and grassroots organizing come together. In 1975, the New Jersey Supreme Court’s Mount Laurel ruling established that every municipality in the state has a constitutional obligation to provide its fair share of affordable housing. This landmark legal ruling reshaped housing policy and set a national precedent. Today, organizations like Fair Share Housing Center continue to defend and expand this right, ensuring that local governments are prohibited from using zoning laws to exclude working-class families or people of color.

Keep ReadingShow less
© Copyright 2025