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Rights groups sue to stop Tennessee crackdown on voter registration

Organizers of voter registration drives and civil rights advocates are furious over a new Tennessee law that could lead to fines for groups submitting too many erroneous registration forms.

They say the measure signed last week by GOP Gov. Bill Lee, likely the first of its kind in the country, discourages minorities and college students from taking part in democracy. A federal lawsuit filed immediately after the signing said the statute, which makes it a misdemeanor to submit more than 100 incomplete forms, could force registration groups to scale back or shut down those services in the state.


But some also say they won't let it turn them around. "I just can't see us saying, 'Well, we're not going to any longer register people to vote,'" Terri Freeman, president of the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, told The Associated Press.

Republican Secretary of State Tre Hargett argued that tacking on penalties would be crucial for election security. His office said many of the 10,000 registrations submitted in and around Memphis last year by the Tennessee Black Voter Project on the last day for registering were filled out incorrectly.

In this decade 25 states have passed voting restrictions, according to The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU's School of Law. Experts say the pace accelerated in some states after the 2013 Supreme Court decision set aside a key provision of the Voting Rights Act that compelled states and counties with a history of discrimination to get advance Justice Department approval for any changes to election law

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Does Donald Trump Deserve the Nobel Peace Prize?

Oleksandra Matviichuk, head of the Center for Civil Liberties, holds the Nobel medal at the Kyiv railway station on December 18, 2022 in Kyiv, Ukraine.

(Photo by Yevhenii Zavhorodnii/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images)

Does Donald Trump Deserve the Nobel Peace Prize?

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt sparked widespread debate Thursday by calling for President Donald Trump to receive a Nobel Peace Prize.

Leavitt asserted that Trump merits the prestigious recognition, citing his role in negotiating peace deals and ceasefire agreements across six major international conflicts. However, the wars in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip are still ongoing.

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Avoiding Policy Malpractice in the Age of AI

"The stakes of AI policymaking are too high and the risks of getting it wrong are too enduring for lawmakers to legislate on instinct alone," explains Kevin Frazier.

Getty Images, Aitor Diago

Avoiding Policy Malpractice in the Age of AI

Nature abhors a vacuum, rushing to fill it often chaotically. Policymakers, similarly, dislike a regulatory void. The urge to fill it with new laws is strong, frequently leading to shortsighted legislation. There's a common, if flawed, belief that "any law is better than no law." This action bias—our predisposition to do something rather than nothing—might be forgivable in some contexts, but not when it comes to artificial intelligence.

Regardless of one's stance on AI regulation, we should all agree that only effective policy deserves to stay on the books. The consequences of missteps in AI policy at this early stage are too severe to entrench poorly designed proposals into law. Once enacted, laws tend to persist. We even have a term for them: zombie laws. These are "statutes, regulations, and judicial precedents that continue to apply after their underlying economic and legal bases dissipate," as defined by Professor Joshua Macey.

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Build America With Energy Abundance: A Bipartisan Path to Prosperity

Build America With Energy Abundance: A Bipartisan Path to Prosperity

We, here at Washington Power and Light, (washingtonpowerandlight.org, not a public utility, rather a D.C.-based virtual think tank founded by an iconic software developer and an economic policy geek) contend that pragmatism is the new radicalism. Romantics and fanatics now dominate the agenda-setting of the two major political parties.

That’s ending.

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Migrant Children: Political Pawns in U.S. Border Policy Debate
Crime, immigration and the peaceful transfer of power
Eskay Lim / EyeEm

Migrant Children: Political Pawns in U.S. Border Policy Debate

WASHINGTON — Republicans have warned against the sex trafficking risks migrant children face when illegally crossing the southwest border. Democrats have countered that their concerns lie in hypocrisy.

“Democrats are standing with survivors, while Republicans are shielding abusers,” said U.S. House Rep. Summer Lee, D-Pa, referencing President Donald Trump’s efforts to block the full release of the Jeffrey Epstein files.

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