Skip to content
Project 2025
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories
Two containers, one with a U.S. flag and another with Canada's flag.

Just the Facts: U.S.–Canada Tariff War Escalates As Trump Raises Stakes

What Texans need to know about Prop 16, the ballot question on citizenship and voting

What Texans need to know about Prop 16, the ballot question on citizenship and voting

A woman typing on her laptop.

When Federal Websites Get Political: The Hatch Act in the Digital Age

Who’s Pulling Trump’s Strings? Inside Project 2025 and the 7 Think Tanks Reshaping America

Who’s Pulling Trump’s Strings? Inside Project 2025 and the 7 Think Tanks Reshaping America

Close up of U.S. Army and American flag patches on a uniform

Veterans Day Betrayal: ICE Detains U.S. Military Veterans Under Trump’s Immigration Crackdown

Governor gets bill dropping in-state driver's license rule for New Hampshire college voters

Governor gets bill dropping in-state driver's license rule for New Hampshire college voters

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu

U.S. Department of Agriculture
The Fulcrum
By The FulcrumJun 10, 2019
The Fulcrum
The Fulcrum staff.
See More Writings by author

It's now up to New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu to decide whether to do away with some registration requirements that students say amount to a poll tax.

The state Senate last week joined the state House – both controlled by Democrats – in voting to drop a requirement that collegiate voters have in-state driver's licenses and car registrations. Sununu is a Republican.

Opponents of those requirements, instituted last year when Republicans ran the state legislature, said they amount to a poll tax that discriminates against the state's students.

The rollback legislation has generated intense interest on the state's college campuses, where turnout could prove decisive in the nation's first Democratic presidential primary. Fresh off the Iowa caucuses the week before, a field that for now stands at two-dozen candidates is sure to shrink significantly after New Hampshire votes Feb. 11, and the turnout among collegiate voters could make the difference for some White House aspirants on the cusp of political survival.

College students, who are mostly from out of state, account for roughly 90,000 of the state's 1.2 million residents. (Even at the University of New Hampshire only half the students come from the Granite State.)

A sit-in protest by students at the Capitol last month resulted in 10 arrests.

State Sen. Tom Sherman, a Democrat who favors the rollback bill, told the New Hampshire Union Leader that registering a car and obtaining a driver's license can be expensive for a student. "That will turn some away from the polls," he said. "New Hampshire needs to encourage its students in civic participation and make them feel welcome."

But Republican state Sen. Regina Birdsell said repealing the requirement would actually create a two-tier system in which the laws would be applied differently to those who live in the state permanently and those there to attend college.

Sununu initially was concerned about last year's law, but he signed it after receiving an advisory opinion from the state Supreme Court saying it is constitutional.

Latest news

Rethinking Drug Policy: From Punishment to Empowerment
Governance & Legislation

Rethinking Drug Policy: From Punishment to Empowerment

Lady of Justice in front of a U.S. flag.
Rule of Law

Retired Federal Judge Warns of Threats to Judicial Independence and the Rule of Law

Don’t Be a Working Class Hero — Just Imagine!
Pop Culture

Don’t Be a Working Class Hero — Just Imagine!

From Gerrymandering to Threats Faith in Democracy and Constitutional Erosion
Governance & Legislation

From Gerrymandering to Threats Faith in Democracy and Constitutional Erosion

Read More

A person putting on an "I Voted" sticker.

Major redistricting cases in Louisiana and Texas threaten the Voting Rights Act and the representation of Black and Latino voters across the South.

Getty Images, kali9

The Voting Rights Act Is Under Attack in the South

Under court order, Louisiana redrew to create a second majority-Black district—one that finally gave true representation to the community where my family lives. But now, that district—and the entire Voting Rights Act (VRA)—are under attack. Meanwhile, here in Texas, Republican lawmakers rammed through a mid-decade redistricting plan that dramatically reduces Black and Latino voting power in Congress. As a Louisiana-born Texan, it’s disheartening to see that my rights to representation as a Black voter in Texas, and those of my family back home in Louisiana, are at serious risk.

Two major redistricting cases in these neighboring states—Louisiana v. Callais and Texas’s statewide redistricting challenge, LULAC v. Abbott—are testing the strength and future of the VRA. In Louisiana, the Supreme Court is being asked to decide not just whether Louisiana must draw a majority-Black district to comply with Section 2 of the VRA, but whether considering race as one factor to address proven racial discrimination in electoral maps can itself be treated as discriminatory. It’s an argument that contradicts the purpose of the VRA: to ensure all people, regardless of race, have an equal opportunity to elect candidates amid ongoing discrimination and suppression of Black and Latino voters—to protect Black and Brown voters from dilution.

Keep ReadingShow less
Princeton Gerrymandering Project Gives California Prop 50 an ‘F’
Independent Voter News

Princeton Gerrymandering Project Gives California Prop 50 an ‘F’

The special election for California Prop 50 wraps up November 4 and recent polling shows the odds strongly favor its passage. The measure suspends the state’s independent congressional map for a legislative gerrymander that Princeton grades as one of the worst in the nation.

The Princeton Gerrymandering Project developed a “Redistricting Report Card” that takes metrics of partisan and racial performance data in all 50 states and converts it into a grade for partisan fairness, competitiveness, and geographic features.

Keep ReadingShow less
"Vote Here" sign

America’s political system is broken — but ranked choice voting and proportional representation could fix it.

Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

Election Reform Turns Down the Temperature of Our Politics

Politics isn’t working for most Americans. Our government can’t keep the lights on. The cost of living continues to rise. Our nation is reeling from recent acts of political violence.

79% of voters say the U.S. is in a political crisis, and 64% say our political system is too divided to solve the nation’s problems.

Keep ReadingShow less
U.S. President Barack Obama speaking on the phone in the Oval Office.

U.S. President Barack Obama talks President Barack Obama talks with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan during a phone call from the Oval Office on November 2, 2009 in Washington, DC.

Getty Images, The White House

‘Obama, You're 15 Years Too Late!’

The mid-decade redistricting fight continues, while the word “hypocrisy” has become increasingly common in the media.

The origin of mid-decade redistricting dates back to the early history of the United States. However, its resurgence and legal acceptance primarily stem from the Texas redistricting effort in 2003, a controversial move by the Republican Party to redraw the state's congressional districts, and the 2006 U.S. Supreme Court decision in League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry. This decision, which confirmed that mid-decade redistricting is not prohibited by federal law, was a significant turning point in the acceptance of this practice.

Keep ReadingShow less
© Copyright 2025