News
Federal waste watchdogs, undermined by Trump, get some GOP backing
In a matter of weeks, President Trump has thrown into question the future of a decades-old bedrock of open government: Independent watchdogs working inside federal agencies to find wrongdoers and root out waste.
But his recent spate of inspector general firings, combined with public threats and not-so-subtle efforts to undercut the authority of many others in those jobs, are only the most serious actions of a president who came to office as a skeptic but is now seeking re-election as a full-throated opponent of such independent oversight.
Trump's accelerating antagonism is more than another sign of how emphatically he's abandoned his "drain the swamp" 2016 campaign mantra. It's also drawn unusual campaign season antagonism from several influential Republicans in Congress, who last week launched legislation that would make it tougher for Trump to dismiss inspectors general and restrict who he could name as a government watchdog.
Texas won’t see a revival of straight-ticket voting this year
Straight-ticket voting won't be returning to Texas now that a federal judge has rejected an effort by Democrats to maintain the practice.
Allowing Texans to cast one quick vote, in favor of one party's entire slate of candidates, has been allowed for a century and was the way two-thirds of 2018 ballots were cast in the second most populous state. But the Republican-majority Legislature eliminated that option starting this fall, joining a wave of other states in recent years.
The state Democratic Party sued in March to keep the system as is, but Judge Marina Garcia Marmolejo dismissed the claim on Wednesday by rejecting its central argument: Switching will cause so much confusion and delay in November that throngs of would-be voters will give up and walk away, effectively being disenfranchised in violation of the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act.
Debate
Democracy would benefit if every college student learned how to lobby
James Liska, former senior coordinator for university and alumni relations at the Washington Center for Internships and Academic Seminar, offers some ideas on how to better civically educate young people.
Community
'Unrig: How to Fix Our Broken Democracy' - Book Launch with author Daniel Newman
Fix Democracy First and the League of Women Voters of Seattle-King County co-host the virtual launch of "UNRIG: How to Fix Our Broken Democracy" with author Daniel Newman, and special guest Estevan Muñoz-Howard.