Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

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

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

Read More

Hand erasing the word "democracy"
Westend61/Getty Images

Could the end of “the democratic century” be the wake-up call we needed?

What the century scholars call “the democratic century” appears to have ended on January 20, 2025, when Donald Trump was sworn in as America’s forty-seventh president. It came almost one hundred years after German President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Adolph Hitler as Chancellor of Germany.

Let me be clear. Trump is not America’s Hitler.

Keep ReadingShow less
It’s time to defend the guardrails of democracy

A gavel.

Getty Images, Alexander Sikov

It’s time to defend the guardrails of democracy

Lawyers know that President Trump’s executive orders targeting individual law firms, and now, theentire legal profession, are illegal and unconstitutional. The situation puts a choice to every lawyer and every law firm. Do you fight – speak out and act out against this lawless behavior? Or do you accommodate it, keep your head down, and wait for the storm to pass?

The answer is to fight. Here’s why – and here’s what lawyers should do.

Keep ReadingShow less
Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Could Help Save the Democratic Process

A dollar sign balloon.

Getty Images, Andriy Onufriyenko

Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Could Help Save the Democratic Process

After contributing more than a quarter of a billion dollars to elect Donald Trump, Elon Musk has now turned his attention to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, giving millions of dollars to support Judge Brad Schimel, the Republican candidate.

According to The Brennan Center, this race is the most expensive judicial race in U.S. history. If Musk is successful, it will tip the High Court’s balance to his political favor.

Keep ReadingShow less