Skip to content
Project 2025
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories
Cash in a gas tak

Gas prices up again? What’s going on?

Former felon Erica Racz registering to voting

Florida top court ruling on felon voting is hardly the final word

McConnell Gets ‘Election Day’ Trending, but Not as He Intended

McConnell Gets ‘Election Day’ Trending, but Not as He Intended
www.picpedia.org
David Hawkings
By David HawkingsJan 31, 2019
David Hawkings
See More Writings by author

The Twitterverse is having a particularly intense reaction to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's latest line of attack against the House Democrats' political process overhaul.

Almost three months after the polls closed, "Election Day" has surfaced as a trending topic after the top Republican senator described the bill's provision making Election Day a federal holiday as a Democratic "power grab."

The legislation would grant federal workers the day off, the governmental signal of a national holiday that's widely followed by the private sector, and also would create a paid-leave benefit for government employees who work at polling places.

"So this is the Democrats' plan to 'restore democracy,'" McConnell said in a floor speech Wednesday, labeling the measure "a political power grab that's smelling more and more like what it is."

The reaction online has appeared to be almost universally negative, with many echoing the sentiment of Robert Reich, a secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration, who said that only McConnell "and Senate Republicans could manipulate something as benign and well intentioned as making Election Day a holiday into a vast left-wing conspiracy. It really shows how scared to death they are of the American people actually having a say in our democracy."

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

A few policymakers took to Twitter, however, to offer a compromise in the name of holding steady the number of federal holidays. Former Office of Government Ethics Director Walter Shaub, noting that a significant number of federal workers were in the military, proposed combining Veterans Day and Election Day.

A "power grab" to let people vote?He also says it's just a holiday for bureaucrats, almost 1/3 of whom are veterans. How about McConnell compromises by moving Veterans Day to the 1st Tuesday in November? What better way to honor veterans than by making it easier for them to vote? https://t.co/amgEOB2muY
— Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) January 30, 2019

Rep. Dean Phillips, a first-term Minnesota Democrat, proposed eliminating Columbus Day from the roster of 10 federal holidays and adding Election Day.

Sen. McConnell opposes making Election Day a holiday because he believes federal employees already have enough days off. So let's make a deal, and trade Columbus Day for Election Day. The day we vote is worthy of such reverence. Retweet if you agree. pic.twitter.com/ypOejyOsLe
— Rep. Dean Phillips (@RepDeanPhillips) January 31, 2019

Latest news

U.S. Constitution
Governance & Legislation

Imagining constitutions

Read More

Person dropping off a ballot

An Arizona voter drops off a ballot at the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center on Election Day 2022.

Eric Thayer for The Washington Post via Getty Images

Are there hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants on Arizona’s voter rolls?

This fact brief was originally published by the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting. Read the original here. Fact briefs are published by newsrooms in the Gigafact network, and republished by The Fulcrum. Visit Gigafact to learn more.

Are there hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants on Arizona’s voter rolls?

No.

There is no evidence to suggest that thousands of undocumented immigrants are registered on Arizona’s voter rolls. Non-citizen voting has been found to be exceedingly rare.

Keep ReadingShow less
Why toddlers are motivating an early school educator to vote

Maira Gonzalez works with students in the preschool and after-school program associated with First United Methodist Church in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Mark Macias

Why toddlers are motivating an early school educator to vote

Macias, a former journalist with NBC and CBS, owns the public relations agency Macias PR. He lives in South Florida with his wife and two children, ages 4 and 1.

The Fulcrum presents We the People, a series elevating the voices and visibility of the persons most affected by the decisions of elected officials. In this first installment, we explore the motivations of over 36 million eligible Latino voters as they prepare to make their voices heard in November.

Florida is home to the third largest population of Hispanics, Latinos. In a recent survey of Florida Latino voters by UnidosUS 2024, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris(47%) leads Republican Donald Trump (42%).

__________

Maira Gonzalez vividly remembers the 2000 presidential election in Florida, and today, she sees many similarities.

“I see a pattern between Bush and Trump,” Gonzalez said. “It’s not fair what they were doing years ago and now. I understand there is a lot of crime with immigrants, but they’re blaming it all on Latins. They’re all being lumped together. Just like we have good Americans and bad Americans, it’s the same with Latins. I’m bilingual, so I see both sides, but you can’t blame Latin immigrants for everything.”

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

Keep ReadingShow less
Federal Reserve building
Hisham Ibrahim/Getty Images

Project 2025: The Federal Reserve

Hill was policy director for the Center for Humane Technology, co-founder of FairVote and political reform director at New America. You can reach him on X @StevenHill1776.

This is part of a series offering a nonpartisan counter to Project 2025, a conservative guideline to reforming government and policymaking during the first 180 days of a second Trump administration. The Fulcrum's cross partisan analysis of Project 2025 relies on unbiased critical thinking, reexamines outdated assumptions, and uses reason, scientific evidence, and data in analyzing and critiquing Project 2025.

Few federal agencies are as misunderstood by the general public as the little known Federal Reserve Board. The Fed, as it is known, oversees the central banking system of the United States. That means it superintends many of the most crucial levers for making the economy run, including maintaining the stability of the financial system, supervising and regulating banks, moderating interest rates and prices, maximizing employment and more. Often when Congress is too politically polarized and paralyzed to fiscally stimulate the economy, many look to the Fed for faster executive action.

Keep ReadingShow less
Hulk Hogan tearing off his shirt

Hulk Hogan was part of a testosterone-fueled script for the Republican National Committee.

Jason Almond/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

Manhood is on the ballot, as if politics isn't crazy enough

Page is an American journalist, syndicated columnist and senior member of the Chicago Tribune editorial board.

In case you somehow haven’t noticed, manhood is on the ballot.

Even before President Joe Biden stepped aside to let Vice President Kamala Harris step up to be the Democrats’ presidential nominee, insiders from both parties were calling this the “boys vs. girls election.”

And even before the Republican National Convention opened in Milwaukee in July, spokesmen for Team Trump were telling reporters they hoped to contrast “weak vs. strong” as their social media message — and present a stage show as testosterone-fueled as a Super Bowl.

Keep ReadingShow less
Blue donkey and red elephant facing off
kbeis/Getty Images

Why Democrats hate Texas and Republicans detest California

Klug served in the House of Representatives from 1991 to 1999. He hosts the political podcast “Lost in the Middle: America’s Political Orphans.”

A few years ago, a class of senior honors students at the University of Louisville learned firsthand the harsh reality of political stereotypes. They developed an ad for a hypothetical candidate running for Congress to get the reaction of 1,500 randomly selected people across the country. Two versions were created from the same script, using two different actors. One with a Southern accent, the other with the flat Midwestern delivery.

The students asked a couple of questions: Do you think this person is trustworthy, intelligent? Would you vote for this person? What political viewpoint would you ascribe to this person?

The students were taken aback when the Southern speaker got trashed.

Keep ReadingShow less
© Copyright 2024