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House to Start Giving Low-Income Public Servants Paid Internships

The House has finalized plans for taxpayer-paid internships on Capitol Hill. It's a symbolic watershed for efforts to enhance the long-term functionality of Congress, because there's widespread belief the legislative branch will work better if more people who aren't rich take jobs there.

Congress appropriated $9 million for paying House interns this year, enough for each of the 435 members to allocate $20,000 in stipends so college or graduate school students of modest means can afford the enormous opportunity for Washington networking and public service experience. Until now, the Hill intern pool has been overwhelmingly the province of people who could afford to spend a semester or a summer working form free although some House and Senate offices have dipped into their regular budgets to pay interns.


"Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle finally have the insight they need to open up Capitol Hill internships to all students, regardless of their family's income, and remove the extreme financial barriers that stand in the way," said Audrey Henson, the founder of College to Congress, a non-profit that provides stipends so Pell Grant-eligible students can work for Hill offices of both parties.

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ballot envelope

Close-up of a 2020 mail-in ballot envelope for Maricopa County, Ariz.

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Election Overtime Project kicks off state briefings in Arizona

The worsening political polarization in America is creating deep anxiety among voters about the upcoming 2024 elections. Many Americans fear what disputed elections could mean for our democracy. However, close and contested elections are a part of American history, and all states have processes in place to handle just such situations. It is critical citizens understand how these systems work so that they trust the results.

Trusted elections are the foundation of our democracy.

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Georgia voting stickers
Megan Varner/Getty Images

Experts pan Georgia’s hand-count rule as we prep for Election Overtime

On Sept. 17, Georgia’s election board voted to hand-count all ballots cast at polling places across the state’s 159 counties on Election Day, contrary to the legal opinion of the Georgia attorney general and the advice of the secretary of state.

Attorney General Chris Carr, a Republican, challenged the validity of the decision in a letter to the elections board:

"There are thus no provisions in the statutes cited in support of these proposed rules that permit counting the number of ballots by hand at the precinct level prior to delivery to the election superintendent for tabulation. Accordingly, these proposed rules are not tethered to any statute — and are, therefore, likely the precise type of impermissible legislation that agencies cannot do."
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Women on state in front of a screen that reads "Our firght for reproductive freedom"

Women from states with abortion restrictions speak during the first day of the Democratic National Convention in August.

Melina Mara/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Abortion and the economy are not separate issues

Bayer is a political activist and specialist in the rhetoric of social movements. She was the founding director of the Oral Communication Lab at the University of Pittsburgh.

At a recent campaign rally in Raleigh, N.C., Vice President Kamala Harris detailed her plan to strengthen the economy through policies lifting the middle class. Despite criticism from Republicans like Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.) — who recently said, “The American people are smarter than Kamala Harris when it comes to the economy” — some economists and financial analysts have a very positive assessment of her proposals.

Respected Wall Street investment bank Goldman Sachs recently gave Harris high marks in a report compared to former President Donald Trump’s plan to increase tariffs. “We estimate that if Trump wins in a sweep or with divided government, the hit to growth from tariffs and tighter immigration policy would outweigh the positive fiscal impulse,” the bank’s economists wrote.

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People protesting with a large banner that reads "Voters Decide"

Protesters in Detroit rally to support the 2020 election results and other causes.

Why the cost of water for poor Black Detroit voters may be key to Kamala Harris winning – or losing – Michigan

Ronald Brown is a professor of political science at Wayne State University. R. Khari Brown is a professor of sociology at Wayne State University.

The threat of violence was in the air at the TCF Center in Detroit on Nov. 5, 2020, after former President Donald Trump claimed that poll workers in the city were duplicating ballots and that there was an unexplained delay in delivering them for counting.

Both claims were later debunked.

Emboldened by Trump’s rhetoric, dozens of mainly white Republican Trump supporters banged on doors and windows at the vote-tallying center, chanting, “Stop the count!”

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