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The Iran War’s Price Tag: Billions Lost While Americans Go Without

The Iran War’s Price Tag: Billions Lost While Americans Go Without

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Congress Bill Spotlight: Easter Monday Act, Federal Holiday

Kristi Noem facing away with her hand up to be sworn in as she testifies.

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Just the Facts: Voter ID, States’ Powers, and Federal Limits

Oregon vows to wake up its campaign finance investigators

Deborah Boone

State regulators dropping an inquiry into the political giving of retiring state Rep. Deborah Boone sparked changes to Oregon's campaign finance governance.

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The Fulcrum
By The FulcrumSep 25, 2019
The Fulcrum
The Fulcrum staff.
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Oregon officials have announced efforts to strengthen enforcement of campaign finance laws after reporting from the state's largest newspaper found the supposed election watchdog sleeping on the job.

The Oregonian reported last week on the case of a state House member, Democrat Deborah Boone, allegedly laundering campaign contributions by accepting donations after she announced her retirement last year and then making gifts to several candidates for the Legislature at the direction of her donors. But the state's campaign finance agency, called the Elections Division, dropped its investigation this summer as soon as Boone denied she'd done anything improper.

On Tuesday, GOP Secretary of State Bev Clarno and other state officials promised to review the state's campaign finance investigation process, with plans to revamp the system.

They said the changes would include:

  • An audit of the Elections Division to review current functions and suggest areas for improvement.
  • Bringing perjury cases against people who lie to finance regulators.
  • Asking the Legislature to approve funds for two new elections investigation positions.

The Elections Division is also considering initiating its own investigations. In the past, the agency has only investigated complaints from outside parties.

The officials said the new enforcement efforts would be focused only on future infractions.


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Trump’s Anti-Latino Racism is a Major Liability for Democracy

Close-up of sign reading 'Immigrants Make America Great' at a Baltimore rally.

Trump’s Anti-Latino Racism is a Major Liability for Democracy

Donald Trump’s second administration has fully clarified Latinos’ racial position in America: our ethnic group’s labor, culture, and aspirations are too much for his supporters to stomach. The Latino presence in America triggers too many uneasy questions (are they White?), too many doubts (are they really American?), and too much resentment (why are they doing better than me?).

Trump’s targeted deportations of undocumented Latinos, unwarranted arrests of Latino citizens, and heightened ICE presence in Latino neighborhoods address these worries by lumping Latinos with Black people. Simply put, we have become yet another visible population that America socially stigmatizes, economically exploits, and politically terrorizes because aggrieved White adults want to preserve their rank as our nation’s premier racial group. The cumulative impacts are serious: just yesterday, an international panel of investigators on human rights and racism, backed by the U.N., found that such actions have resulted in “grave human rights violations.”

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Just the Facts: The SAVE Act and the Future of Voter ID Rules
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Photo by Zach Wear on Unsplash

Just the Facts: The SAVE Act and the Future of Voter ID Rules

Last week, I wrote a column in the Fulcrum entitled “Just the Facts: Voter ID, States’ Powers, and Federal Limits.” The facts presented in that writing made it clear that the U.S. Constitution does not require voter ID and left almost all election administration—including voter qualifications—to the states. However, over time, constitutional amendments and federal statutes have restricted states’ ability to impose discriminatory voting rules, but they have never mandated voter ID.

The SAVE America Act

The national debate over voter ID has entered a new phase with the introduction of the SAVE America Act, the most sweeping federal voter‑identification and citizenship‑documentation proposal in modern history. For more than two centuries, voter eligibility rules—ID included—have been primarily a matter of state authority, bounded by constitutional protections against discrimination. The SAVE America Act would shift that balance by imposing federal requirements for both photo identification and documentary proof of citizenship in federal elections.

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A lawsuit against xAI over AI-generated deepfakes targeting teenage girls exposes a growing crisis in schools. As laws struggle to keep up, this story explores AI accountability, teen safety, and what educators and parents must do now.

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Deepfakes: The New Face of Cyberbullying and Why Parents, Schools, and Lawmakers Must Act

As a former teacher who worked in a high school when Snapchat was born, I witnessed the birth of sexting and its impact on teens. I recall asking a parent whether he was checking his daughter’s phone for inappropriate messages. His response was, “sometimes you just don’t want to know.” But the federal lawsuit filed last week against Elon Musk's xAI has put a national spotlight on AI-generated deepfakes and the teenage girls they target. Parents and teachers can’t ignore the crisis inside our schools.

AI Companies Built the Tool. The Grok Lawsuit Says They Own the Damage.

Whether the theory of French prosecutors–that Elon Musk deliberately allowed the sexualized image controversy to grow so that it would drive up activity on the platform and boost the company’s valuation–is true or not, when a company makes the decision to build a tool and knows that it can be weaponized but chooses to release it anyway, they are making a risk-based decision believing that they can act without consequence. The Grok lawsuit could make these types of business decisions much more costly.

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