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Automatic voter registration tops New York Legislature's agenda

New York Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins

Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said the New York Senate will pass legislation that will "build on the voting reforms we passed first thing last session, and will empower more New Yorkers to register to vote and utilize early voting opportunities."

New York Senate

Another easing of access to the polls across New York will be at the top of the agenda this winter for the Democrats totally in charge of the Legislature for a second year.

Lawmakers are reconvening Wednesday and the election overhaul energy is mainly in the Senate, which changed partisan hands last year to give Democrats unified control of Albany after eight years of divided government.

Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins promised passage by the end of the week of measures that will "build on the voting reforms we passed first thing last session, and will empower more New Yorkers to register to vote and utilize early voting opportunities." Leaders of the Assembly say they're on course to send the measures to Gov. Andrew Cuomo by the end of the month.


A year ago the Legislature produced the biggest political process overhaul in decades for the nation's third most populous state — introducing some limited early voting and more voting by mail, permitting people to register before they turn 18 and modernizing voting systems.

The most ambitious bill this year would add New York to the roster of 15 states where eligible people are automatically added to the voter rolls when they interact with state government agency, unless they choose to opt out. (An effort to do so a year ago failed because a drafting error, discovered after the bill had cleared, would have allowed non-citizens to register.)

"At the beginning of last session, some questioned our ability to effectively govern but with the passage of further election reforms on the very first day of the 2020 session, the answer is clear, the journey from worst to first continues," the chairman of the Senate elections committee, Zellnor Myrie, told the Daily News.

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Connecticut: Democracy, Innovation, and Economic Resilience

The 50: Connecticut

Credit: Hugo Balta

Connecticut: Democracy, Innovation, and Economic Resilience

The 50 is a four-year multimedia project in which the Fulcrum visits different communities across all 50 states to learn what motivated them to vote in the 2024 presidential election and see how the Donald Trump administration is meeting those concerns and hopes.

Hartford, Connecticut, stands as a living testament to American democracy, ingenuity, and resilience. As the state’s capital, it’s home to cultural landmarks like the Mark Twain House & Museum, where Twain penned The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, embodying the spirit of self-governance and creative daring that defines the region.

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Hand blocking someone speaking

The Third Way has recently released a memo stating that the “stampede away from the Democratic Party” is partly a result of the language and rhetoric it uses.

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To Protect Democracy, Democrats Should Pay Attention to the Third Way’s List of ‘Offensive’ Words

More than fifty years ago, comedian George Carlin delivered a monologue entitled Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television.” It was a tribute to the legendary Lenny Bruce, whose “nine dirty words” performance led to his arrest and his banning from many places.

His seven words were “p—, f—, c—, c———, m———–, and t—.”

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Fox News’ Selective Silence: How Trump’s Worst Moments Vanish From Coverage
Why Fox News’ settlement with Dominion Voting Systems is good news for all media outlets
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Fox News’ Selective Silence: How Trump’s Worst Moments Vanish From Coverage

Last week, the ultraconservative news outlet, NewsMax, reached a $73 million settlement with the voting machine company, Dominion, in essence, admitting that they lied in their reporting about the use of their voting machines to “rig” or distort the 2020 presidential election. Not exactly shocking news, since five years later, there is no credible evidence to suggest any malfeasance regarding the 2020 election. To viewers of conservative media, such as Fox News, this might have shaken a fully embraced conspiracy theory. Except it didn’t, because those viewers haven’t seen it.

Many people have a hard time understanding why Trump enjoys so much support, given his outrageous statements and damaging public policy pursuits. Part of the answer is due to Fox News’ apparent censoring of stories that might be deemed negative to Trump. During the past five years, I’ve tracked dozens of examples of news stories that cast Donald Trump in a negative light, including statements by Trump himself, which would make a rational person cringe. Yet, Fox News has methodically censored these stories, only conveying rosy news that draws its top ratings.

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U.S. Flag / artificial intelligence / technology / congress / ai

The age of AI warrants asking if the means still further the ends—specifically, individual liberty and collective prosperity.

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Liberty and the General Welfare in the Age of AI

If the means justify the ends, we’d still be operating under the Articles of Confederation. The Founders understood that the means—the governmental structure itself—must always serve the ends of liberty and prosperity. When the means no longer served those ends, they experimented with yet another design for their government—they did expect it to be the last.

The age of AI warrants asking if the means still further the ends—specifically, individual liberty and collective prosperity. Both of those goals were top of mind for early Americans. They demanded the Bill of Rights to protect the former, and they identified the latter—namely, the general welfare—as the animating purpose for the government. Both of those goals are being challenged by constitutional doctrines that do not align with AI development or even undermine it. A full review of those doctrines could fill a book (and perhaps one day it will). For now, however, I’m just going to raise two.

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