GOP War on Voting Targets Swing States

On March 7, 1963, civil rights activists were brutally beaten by police in Selma, Alabama, during the infamous “Bloody Sunday” march, for advocating for the right to vote.

This week, forty-seven years later, today’s civil rights leaders retraced the march from Selma to Montgomery, protesting what NAACP President Ben Jealous calls “the greatest attack on voting rights since segregation.”

Since the 2010 election, Republicans have waged an unprecedented war on voting, with the unspoken but unmistakable goal of preventing millions of mostly Democratic voters, including students, minorities, immigrants, ex-convicts and the elderly, from casting ballots in 2012.

More than a dozen states, from Texas to Wisconsin and Florida, have passed laws designed to impede voters at every step of the electoral process, whether by requiring birth certificates to register to vote, restricting voter registration drives, curtailing early voting, requiring government-issued IDs to cast a ballot, or disenfranchising ex-felons.

Within days, the crucial battlegrounds of Pennsylvania and Virginia will become the latest GOP states to pass legislation erecting new barriers to voting. If, as expected, the new laws lead to fewer Democrats casting ballots in November, both states could favor Republicans, possibly shifting the balance of power in Congress and denying Barack Obama a second term.

Pennsylvania will be the ninth GOP state since 2010 to require a photo ID in order to vote; the state’s law mandates a government-issued ID or one from a college or nursing home. According to a study by the Brennan Center for Justice, 11 percent of U.S. citizens lack a government-issued ID, but the numbers are significantly higher among young voters (18 percent), voters 65 or older (18 percent) and African-Americans (25 percent).

Based on these figures, as many as 700,000 Pennsylvanians may not be able to vote in the next election. (Pennsylvania Secretary of State Carol Aichele claims 99 percent of Pennsylvanians possess the proper ID, which seems unlikely given the state’s large student, elderly and African-American population).

The Pennsylvania measures are strikingly similar to model legislation drafted by the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, an influential conservative advocacy group funded in part by the right-wing billionaire Koch brothers. In Pennsylvania, as in other states pushing voting restrictions, Republicans have hyped the bogeyman of “voter fraud” to promote the ID laws, even though, as the Associated Press noted, they were able to cite “no instances of voter fraud that the bill would somehow address.” The law, the very type of big-government expansion that Republicans so often decry, will cost the state anywhere from $4.3 million to $11 million to implement.

The law is an unnecessary expenditure by the state and an unreasonable burden on voters. In order to obtain a free ID card to vote, voters must first obtain a Social Security card, birth certificate or certificate of residency, along with two proofs of residency, which costs money and amounts to a poll tax by another name. A voter who shows up to the polls without a valid ID can cast a provisional ballot, but that ballot will count only if the voter provides the requisite ID to the county board of elections within six days. “This is de facto disenfranchisement,” says Andy Hoover, legislative director of the Pennsylvania ACLU. “The poll workers can avoid the discomfort of turning away a voter, but ultimately the chances that the vote will count are slim.”

Read the full article @ the Rolling Stone.

Rolling Stone: The GOP War on Voting - In a campaign supported by the Koch brothers, Republicans are working to prevent millions of Democrats from voting next year.

Wisconsin Voter Photo ID Law Ruled Unconstitutional

Dane County Wisconsin Circuit Judge Richard Niess today declared that state's new voter photo ID law unconstitutional and issued a permanent injunction blocking the state from implementing that law. Wisc. Gov. Scott Walker (R) signed the voter photo ID bill into law in May 2011, saying it is a "common sense reform" that would "go a long way to protecting the integrity of elections in Wisconsin."

"Without question, where it exists, voter fraud corrupts elections and undermines our form of government," wrote Judge Niess in his decision. "The legislature and governor may certainly take aggressive action to prevent its occurrence. But voter fraud is no more poisonous to our democracy than voter suppression. Indeed, they are two heads on the monster."

The League of Women Voters of Wisconsin Education Network filed suit in Dane County Circuit Court last October on the grounds the Wisc. voter photo ID law violates the provision in the Wisconsin state constitution that determines who can vote. Judge Niess agreed with that argument:

In his 12-page ruling on the League of Women Voters plaintiff motion for summary judgment, Judge Niess found that the voter photo ID law (Act 23) violates the Wisc. Constitution's Article III, which guarantees the right to vote to all state residents who are 18 and over (Section 1) other than in cases where the legislature may place restrictions on convicted felons and those adjudicated to be incompetent (Section 2).

Article III is unambiguous, and means exactly what it says. It creates both necessary and sufficient requirements for qualified voters. Every United States citizen 18 years of age or older who resides in an election district in Wisconsin is a qualified elector in that district, unless excluded by duly enacted laws barring certain convicted felons or adjudicated incompetents/partially incompetents.

The government may not disqualify an elector who possesses those qualifications on the grounds that the voter does not satisfy additional statutorily-created qualifications not contained in Article III, such as a photo ID. He added that a "government that undermines the very foundation of its existence - the people's inherent, pre-constitutional right to vote - imperils its legitimacy as a government by the people, for the people, and especially of the people."

Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen (R) he plans to appeal the decision. The Dane County Circuit Court decision comes less than a week after another judge temporarily halted the implementation of the voter ID law.

Last December, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Wisconsin and the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty filed a federal lawsuit charging that Wisconsin’s voter ID law is unconstitutional and will deprive citizens of their basic right to vote:

“This lawsuit is the opening act in what will be a long struggle to undo the damage done to the right to vote by strict photo ID laws and other voter suppression measures,” said Jon Sherman, an attorney with the ACLU Voting Rights Project. “Across the nation, legislators are robbing countless American citizens of their fundamental right to vote, and in the process, undermining the very legitimacy of our democracy. We intend to redirect their attention to the Constitution.”

The ACLU complaint says that allowing only certain types of photo ID imposes a severe burden on the right to vote in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. It also states that the law violates the 24th and 14th amendments because it effectively imposes an unconstitutional poll tax. The lawsuit was filed the same day that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder was scheduled to speak about the importance of ensuring equal access to the ballot box.

“The state of Wisconsin has created a voter ID system that is making it very hard or impossible for residents to exercise their cherished right to vote,” said Larry Dupuis, legal director of the ACLU of Wisconsin. “Countless Wisconsin residents, including veterans, minority voters and seniors who have been voting for decades, will be turned away from the polls under this law’s restrictive photo ID requirements. Our lawsuit aims to block this unconstitutional law so that Wisconsin can continue its proud tradition of high participation in elections.”

The law will also have a severe impact on homeless voters, many of whom do not have photo identification.

“Protecting homeless persons’ right to vote is crucial, since voting is one of the few ways that homeless individuals can impact the political process and make their voices heard,” said Heather Johnson, civil rights attorney at the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty. “By limiting participation to Wisconsin residents with photo identification, this law effectively silences homeless persons’ voices. With homelessness rising by 12 percent in Wisconsin since the recession began, we cannot allow the state to set this dangerous and unconscionable precedent.”

The ACLU and the Law Center filed the complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin on behalf of 17 eligible Wisconsin voters who may not be able to vote under the law.

USDOJ Rejects Texas' Voter Photo ID Law

The U.S. Department of Justice (USDOJ) today rejected Texas' application for preclearance of its voter photo ID law, saying the state did not prove that the bill would not have a discriminatory effect on minority voters.

The department’s letter written by Assistant U.S. Attorney General Thomas E. Perez states that Texas did not meet its burden under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of showing that the law will not have a discriminatory effect on minority voters, and therefore the department objects to the Texas voter identification law. According to the state’s own data, registered Hispanic voters are much more likely than registered non-Hispanic voters to not hold a one of the select few government issued photo identification cards.

Assistant U.S. Attorney General Thomas E. Perez wrote in a letter to Keith Ingram, the director of Texas’ elections division:

“As noted above, an applicant for an election identification certificate will have to travel to a driver’s license office. This raises three discrete issues. First, according to the most recent American Community Survey three-year estimates, 7.3 percent of Hispanic or Latino households do not have an available vehicle, as compared with only 3.8 percent of non-Hispanic white households that lack an available vehicle. Statistically significant correlations exist between the Hispanic voting-age population percentage of a county, and the percentage of occupied housing units without a vehicle.

Second, in 81 of the state’s 254 counties, there are no operational driver’s license offices. The disparity in the rates between Hispanics and non-Hispanics with regard to the possession of either a driver’s license or personal identification card issued by DPS is particularly stark in counties without driver’s license offices. According to the September 2011 data, 10.0 percent of Hispanics in counties without driver’s license offices do not have either form of identification, compared to 5.5 percent of non-Hispanics. According to the January 2012 data, that comparison is 14.6 percent of Hispanics in counties without driver’s license offices, as compared to 8.8 percent of non-Hispanics. During the legislative hearings, one senator stated that some voters in his district could have to travel up to 176 miles round trip in order to reach a driver’s license office. The legislature tabled amendments that would have, for example, provided reimbursement to voters who live below the poverty line for travel expenses incurred in applying for the requisite identification.

... Hispanic voters represent only 21.8 percent of the registered voters in the state, Hispanic voters represent fully 29.0 percent of the registered voters without such identification.

...Thus, we conclude that the total number of registered voters who lack a driver’s license or personal identification card issued by DPS could range from 603,892 to 795,955. The disparity between the percentages of Hispanics and non-Hispanics who lack these forms of identification ranges from 46.5 to 120.0 percent. That is, according to the state’s own data, a Hispanic registered voter is at least 46.5 percent, and potentially 120.0 percent, more likely than a non-Hispanic registered voter to lack this identification. Even using the data most favorable to the state, Hispanics disproportionately lack either a driver’s license or a personal identification card issued by DPS, and that disparity is statistically significant.”

There are 34 Texas counties without a DPS office and 47 additional counties where DPS offices have been temporarily closed, according to documents furnished to the Department of Justice. Minorities make up a majority of the population in most of those counties. The line to get a driver’s license at one Houston location is so long, according to State Sen. Tommy Williams, that a guy called in a pizza order, got it delivered to him, and finished eating before he got to the front of the line.

2.4 Million Of Texas' 12.8 Million Registered Voters Have No Photo ID

Houston Chronicle

The state’s contested voter ID law could provoke widespread complications in the upcoming presidential elections, with as many as 18 percent of all registered voters across Texas apparently lacking state government-issued photo IDs to match their voter registration cards, according to records obtained by the Houston Chronicle.

Texas secretary of state officials did not find matching 2012 driver’s licenses or state-issued photo IDs for 2.4 million of the state’s 12.8 million registered voters, though all but about 800,000 of those voters supplied a valid identification number when they first registered to vote. The findings come from documents submitted by the state to the U.S. Department of Justice as part of an ongoing review of the new voter ID law.

The “matching” exercises conducted by the state showed up to 22 percent of Bexar County voters apparently lacked the IDs, as well as 20 percent in Dallas County and 19 percent in Harris County, based on the Chronicle’s review of the state data.

If approved, the new law would require voters to present official Department of Public Safety IDs that basically mirror their registration cards. An unknown number of voters hold passports, concealed handgun licenses or military IDs that also would be accepted.

Read the full article @ Houston Chronicle

The Texas Democratic Party last fall sent a letter and spreadsheet to the USDOJ showing that in at least 46 Texas counties, over half the voters who do not have one of the required photo ID's are Hispanic. The Texas Democratic Party and various organizations staunchly opposed Texas new voter photo ID law (SB14) on the grounds it will disenfranchise elderly and minority voters.

More...

• Texas Voter Photo ID FAQ
• Michael Li's TR Blog: Sen. Ellis asks DOJ to reject Texas’ Voter ID law
• Michael Li's TR Blog: Texas Voter ID returns to the fore next week with hearing in D.C.

Women's Health Care Suffers As Republicans Slash Funding

In this exclusive, unedited Daily Show interview, Jon Stewart talks with Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards about the mission of Planned Parenthood and the opposition it faces from political figures.

The Daily Show interview with Cecile Richards - pt 1


The Daily Show interview with Cecile Richards - pt 2


President of Planned Parenthood of America Cecile Richards discusses health care funding cuts in her home state of Texas.

On March 14, Texas Governor Rick Perry will cut off access to affordable health care for low-income women in Texas.

Even as more than one-quarter of Texas women are uninsured, and women in Texas have the third highest rate of cervical cancer in the country, Governor Perry is determined to make a bad situation worse for women in the state of Texas by cutting funding for the Medicaid Women’s Health Program.

With Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) leading the war on women, Texas Republicans in the 2011 Texas legislature cut funding for family planning clinics by two-thirds.

When the Texas Tribune asked Texas state Rep. Wayne Christian (R-Nacogdoches), a supporter of the family planning cuts, if this was a war on birth control, he said: “Well of course this is a war on birth control and abortions and everything.”

Family planning clinics are routinely referred to by many Republican lawmakers across the U.S. as “abortion clinics.”

None of the 71 family planning clinics in the state of Texas that receive government funding provide abortions.

Those family planning clinics provide reproductive health care services to women as well as information about and access to contraceptives.

As NPR notes, the state estimates that 300,000 women will lose access to family planning services because of these cuts, resulting in roughly 20,000 additional unplanned births. “Texas already spends $1.3 billion on teen pregnancies — more than any other state.”

The GOP’s concerted campaign against women’s health and right to choose to use birth control prescriptions has resulted in about 1,000 anti-abortion bills in state legislatures across the country that include attempts to eradicate women’s access to contraceptives by redefining “personhood” rights as beginning at the moment of conception.

Listen to NPR's report on Texas' Cuts to Women's access to birth control choices

Such laws will criminalize the most common birth control choice - the birth control pill.

Texas Tribune: Leticia Parra, a mother of five scraping by on income from her husband’s sporadic construction jobs, relied on the Planned Parenthood clinic in this impoverished South Texas town for breast cancer screenings, free birth control pills and pap smears for cervical cancer.

But the clinic closed in October, along with more than a dozen others, after financing for women’s health was slashed by two-thirds by the Republican-controlled Legislature.

The cuts, leaving many low-income women with inconvenient or costly options, stemmed from an effort to eliminate state support for Planned Parenthood. Although no clinic driven out of business performed abortions, and the cuts forced non-Planned Parenthood clinics to close too, supporters of the cutbacks say the abortion issue was behind them.

“I don’t think anybody is against providing health care for women. What we’re opposed to are abortions,” said state Rep. Wayne Christian, R-Center. “Planned Parenthood is the main organization that does abortions, so we kind of blend being anti-abortion with being anti-Planned Parenthood.”

Now anti-Planned Parenthood sentiment is likely to prompt the shutdown next week of another significant source of reproductive health care: the Medicaid Women’s Health Program, which serves 130,000 women with grants to many clinics, including Planned Parenthood ones. Gov. Rick Perry and Republican lawmakers have taken the position that they would forgo the $40 million program — which receives $9 for every $1 the state spends — rather than give Planned Parenthood any of it.

Read the full article @ Texas Tribune

Education After The 82nd Texas Legislature

Join the Democratic Network of Collin County for its inaugural forum on the topic of "Education after the 82nd Legislature," Saturday, March 17th at the John and Judy Gay Library in McKinney, 6861 Eldorado Parkway, just east of Alma. (map)

In 2011 the Republican super-majority Texas Legislature cut $4 billion from the $50.8 billion 2011-13 public education budget, even as Texas' booming population saw public school enrollment grow by 160,000 students for this K-12 school term. They also cut $1.4 billion in grant programs.

That caused the amount of money Texas spends per student to fall to $8,908 per pupil, down $538 from last year and well below the current national average of $11,463, according to the National Education Association. Parents and students need to use this election year to tell Texas legislators that they must restore public school funding!

Event organized by the Democratic Network of Collin County

Wisc Judge Blocks Voter Photo ID Law, Citing Disenfranchised Marine Vet

Voter ID laws are popular among conservative lawmakers because they disproportionately disenfranchise poor, student and minority voters, all of which are typically more left-of-center than the average voter.

They also violate the federal Voting Rights Act’s prohibition on state laws that discriminate against minority voters.

According to Wisconsin Judge David Flanagan, they violate the Wisconsin Constitution too. In an order issued yesterday, Flanagan temporarily suspended his state’s voter ID law and strongly hinted that he will eventually strike the law down permanently.

As Flanagan’s opinion explains, the Wisconsin Constitution provides particularly strong protections for the right to vote — “[e]very United States citizen age 18 or older who is a resident of an election district in this state is a qualified elector of that district,” regardless of whether or not they have an ID. Moreover, the state supreme court has interpreted this constitutional provision very robustly. “Voting is a constitutional right,” according to the Wisconsin supremes, “any statute that denies a qualified elector the right to vote is unconstitutional and void.”

Flanagan accordingly subjects the law to the highest level of constitutional scrutiny, and finds it deeply lacking. As he explains, the law disenfranchises voters, sometimes in absurd ways, and targets a problem that is only slightly more real than fairies and unicorns:

[F]orty uncontested affidavits offer a picture of carousel visits to government offices, delay, dysfunctional computer systems, misinformation and significant investment of time to avoid being turned away at the ballot box. This is burdensome, all the more for the elderly and the disabled. . . . Mr. Ricky Tyrone Lewis is 58 years old, a Marine Corps Veteran and a lifelong Milwaukee resident. He was able to offer proof of his honorable discharge but Milwaukee County has been unable to find the record of his birth so he cannot obtain a voter ID card. Ms. Ruthelle Frank, now 84, is a lifelong resident of Brokaw, Wisconsin and a member of her town board since 1996. She has voted in every election over the past 64 years but she does not have a voter ID card. She located her birth certificate but found that her name was misspelled. She was advised to obtain a certified copy of the incorrect birth certificate and try to use that to obtain a voter ID card. . . .

The plaintiffs do not dispute, and the court certainly accepts fully the value of maintaining the accuracy and security of the ballot process. At this point, however, the record is uncontested that recent investigations of vote irregularities, both in the City of Milwaukee and by the Attorney General have produced extremely little evidence of fraud and that which has been uncovered, improper use of absentee ballots and unqualified voters, would not have been prevented by the photo identification requirements of Act 23.

Unfortunately, however, Flanagan’s decision will ultimately appeal to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, whose current members have a long history of handing down ideologically conservative 4-3 decisions.

Originally published at Think Progress.

Voter photo ID laws passed by Texas, Wisconsin, South Carolina, and several other state legislatures all mandate nearly the same restrictions on voters, including the exclusion veteran ID cards as form of voter ID. Every state has enacted a voter photo ID model bill written by the American Legislative Exchange Council. ALEC is a corporate clearinghouse for the promotion of "model bills" written by corporations who promote conservative legislation.

Last August, Ann McGeehan, director of the Texas Secretary of State's elections division, said at a seminar in Austin that photo ID cards issued by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs are not acceptable forms of military ID to vote in Texas under Texas' new voter photo ID law.

Texas voter photo ID law has not yet been precleared under the Voting Rights Act to be enforced. See Texas Voter Photo ID FAQ.

Democratic Vs Republican Policy Priorities

U.S. Senators Ask GAO To Study Impact Of Restrictive Voter Photo ID Laws

A group of U.S. senators on Tuesday asked the Government Accountability Office to study what they called an "alarming number" of new state laws that will make it "significantly harder" for millions of eligible voters to cast ballots this November. Sens. Bernie Sanders, Patrick Leahy, Richard Durbin and Bill Nelson sent a letter asking the non-partisan research arm of Congress for the review of new laws in at least 14 states.

The study is needed "to ensure that all citizens have the opportunity to exercise their constitutional right to vote and are not unreasonably hindered or burdened in that process," the letter said.

Some of the new restrictions, the senators added, are tantamount to poll taxes.

New state identification laws, by one estimate, will have a direct impact on 21 million American citizens who do not have a government-issued photo ID. The majority of those people are young would-be voters, the elderly, African Americans, Hispanics, and those earning $35,000 per year or less.

Other new state measures require proof of citizenship in order to register, prevent students from using college ID cards to register, place extreme burdens on third-party registration efforts, and eliminate or cut back early voting opportunities.

"State actions that suppress the right to vote must not be tolerated," the senators said. "We must make it easier, not harder, for poor and working people to vote and to participate in the political process."

The senators also asked the GAO to examine data on any prosecutions or convictions for voter impersonation fraud during the past decade in states that enacted new restrictions on voting, since the threat of such fraud has been used as a justification for many of the new laws.

"It is critical that we have an accurate picture of these recent state laws, individual access to voting, and actual instances of voter impersonation fraud," the letter said.

Read the senators' letter »

Watch the video of Senator Bernie Sanders talking with Rachel Maddow about resisting the Republican effort to discourage and/or disallow voter participation in elections even as Republicans are the ones who seem to have the problem with conducting honest elections:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Protecting The Right To Vote And Empowering Voters Through Collaboration

Since the record turnout of minority and young voters in 2008, there has been a wave of new laws that block access to the ballot box. The Brennan Center for Justice estimates that more than five million voters may be disenfranchised by the voting law changes. The most onerous restriction requires voters to present government-issued photo ID in order to vote.

On Tuesday, the Center for American Progress Action Fund (CAPAF) hosted a panel discussion on how civil rights organizations, advocacy groups and ordinary citizens are using social media to protect the right to vote and fight strict photo ID requirements. Alan Rosenblatt, Associate Director of Online Advocacy for CAPAF, delivered welcoming remarks. Nicole Austin-Hillery, Director and Counsel in the Brennan Center’s DC Office, provided an overview of state photo ID laws.

The panel discussion was moderated by Vanessa Cárdenas, Director of Progress 2050, a project of the Center for American Progress. I was a panelist, along with Eric Rodriguez, Vice President, Office of Research, Advocacy, and Legislation for the National Council of La Raza, Erika Maye, Communications Specialist with the Advancement Project, and Rashad Robinson, Executive Director of ColorOfChange.

The panelists addressed a wide range of issues, including:

• How are Latinos being impacted by proof of citizenship and strict photo ID requirements?
• How is social media being used to mobilize young voters?
• How will restricting third party voter registration drives impact the youth vote?
• What voter ID legislation is currently pending in the states? Which states are being challenged?
• Who are the funders and supporters of voter suppression laws? Who’s behind ALEC?

Faye Anderson gave a demo of the Cost of Freedom App, a location-based web app that will provide voters with information on how to get a voter ID. The prototype for the app was developed by Kin Lane, API Evangelist for CityGrid.

Users of the web app will be able to quickly access information about their state’s voter ID requirements, how to obtain a certified copy of their birth certificate (the document that’s typically produced to establish one’s identity), and the location, hours and directions to the Office of Vital Records using public transit.

Anderson also gave a live demo of the Cost of Freedom text-based app developed by Jack Aboutboul, Twilio’s API Evangelist. Twilio is making an in-contribution of text message services to promote voter education.

Development of the web and text apps is crowd-sourced. As chief evangelist for the Cost of Freedom Project, Anderson is recruiting researchers and designers on Facebook, Twitter and Idealist. Indeed, the project is powered by We the People and social media.

For information on how you can get involved in this citizen-led initiative, please visit us at Facebook.com/CostofFreedom.

Cross post from article in Social Media Week by Faye Anderson.

Votes On The Line With Voter Photo ID

A year after the 2008 presidential election, calls for new voter identification laws were heard in many states. Led by a group called the American Legislative Exchange Council, proponents claim that such a law is needed because there is “rampant voter fraud.”

American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a heavily conservative nonprofit organization funded by billionaires such as the Scaife family (Allegheny Foundation and the Scaife Family Foundation), the Coors family (Castle Rock Foundation), Charles Koch (Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation and the Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation), the Bradley family (The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation) and the Olin family (John M. Olin Foundation) and corporations such as Altria, AT&T, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Koch Industries, Kraft, PhRMA, Wal-Mart, Peabody Energy, and State Farm. Such corporations represent just a fraction of ALEC’s approximately three hundred corporate partners. ALEC writes legislative bills that Republican governors and legislators introduce as their own in state legislatures.

ALEC’s public safety and elections task force drafted the Voter ID Act in the summer of 2009, which would require “proof of identity” to vote. Those without a valid photo ID must fill out a provisional ballot that is only counted if the voter produces an ID at the county elections office. It also suggests that ID cards be made available free of charge to eligible voters without a valid driver’s license.

PBS: Millions of voting age citizens don't have a U.S. Passport or photo ID issued by a department of motor vehicles office in any of the 50 states. The hurdles to vote by first obtaining a photo ID issued by state's department of motor vehicles can be daunting and costly for those who do not otherwise need or have a state DMV issued photo ID.

Watch Voter ID on PBS. See more from Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly.

The new voter photo ID laws being pushed by ALEC in all 50 states arguably represent the most serious efforts to exclude Americans from voting since the Jim Crow wave of anti-black voter suppression laws that Southern states enforced from the 1870s until the 1960s.

The Daily Planet - Minneapolis, MN

ALEC is a Republican-favored organization that is promoting “its right-wing agenda” in all 50 states, says Color of Change.org, a national activist group that has launched a national campaign calling for corporations and others to stop financially supporting the organization. The MSR tried contacting ALEC’s Washington offices for comment, but no one answered the phone and there was not an answering system available to leave messages.

Since 2009, 33 states have introduced some form of photo ID bill, and 14 states have passed laws that now require voters to present a federal- or state-issued photo ID with an expiration date at the polls. Opponents, who include most Democrats as well as local and nationally based organizations that advocate for Blacks and other people of color, say the legislation is “a thinly veiled attempt to depress [voter] turnout.”

“There have been no problems [of voter fraud in Minnesota],” says State Representative Bobby Joe Champion (DFL-Minneapolis), who told the MSR last week that there are more pressing issues that need addressing.

“Public policy and legislation should be about solving a problem or a challenge,” Champion says. The current same-day voter registration “encourages people to come out and vote. If a person doesn’t have something [to verify their address], their neighbor can vouch for them,” says the lawmaker.

State Representative Rena Moran (DFL-St. Paul) says, “We have a system that is working and very inclusive, and also represents that voting is a right. We have a group here trying to take that right [and] make it a privilege.”

The Republican-majority Minnesota Legislature did pass a photo ID bill last year, but it was vetoed by Gov. Mark Dayton. An attempt is now underway in this year’s session to introduce a bill that would amend the state constitution to require all Minnesotans to show either a driver’s license or a state-issued photo ID at the polls.

If successful, this legislation would end same-day voter registration and absentee voting.

This amendment is not publicly driven but politically driven, says State Senator Jeff Hayden (DFL-Minneapolis). “All you need is a simple majority in the Senate and the House to put it on the ballot,” he explains, adding that going this route “sets up a dangerous precedent like they have in other states. It really mucks up the ballot.”

U.S. Representative Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) joined several Minnesotans at the State Capitol on February 6 to speak out against the proposed amendment. He cited statistics from the Minnesota Secretary of State’s office showing that over 700,000 Minnesotans — including seniors, college students, people with disabilities, people of color, and new Americans — would be affected by a new photo ID amendment.

Ellison later told the MSR that because statewide elections in both 2008 and 2010 were decided by, respectively, a few hundred and a few thousand votes, “Photo ID could unfairly tip the scales in future elections.”

Read the full article @ The Daily Planet

More:

• ALEC: The Voice of Corporate Special Interests In State Legislatures
• Project Seeks to Help Students Overcome Barriers to Voting
• Why Millions of American Voters Have No Government Issued Photo ID
  
• Texas Voter Photo ID FAQ

Obama, Facebook And The Power Of Friendship: The 2012 Data Election

TheGuardian.co.uk

Facebook and a unified computer database that gathers and refines information on millions of potential voters is at the forefront of campaign technology – and could be the key to an Obama win.

Barack Obama's re-election team are building a vast digital data operation that for the first time combines a unified database on millions of Americans with the power of Facebook to target individual voters to a degree never achieved before.

Digital analysts predict this will be the first election cycle in which Facebook could become a dominant political force. The social media giant has grown exponentially since the last presidential election, rendering it for the first time a major campaigning tool that has the potential to transform friendship into a political weapon.

Facebook is also being seen as a source of invaluable data on voters. The re-election team, Obama for America, will be inviting its supporters to log on to the campaign website via Facebook, thus allowing the campaign to access their personal data and add it to the central data store – the largest, most detailed and potentially most powerful in the history of political campaigns. If 2008 was all about social media, 2012 is destined to become the "data election".

"Facebook is now ubiquitous," says Dan Siroker, a former Google digital analyst who joined Obama's campaign in 2008 and now runs his own San Francisco-based analytics consultancy, Optimizely. "Whichever candidate uses Facebook the most effectively could win the war."

For the past nine months a crack team of some of America's top data wonks has occupied an entire floor of the Prudential building in Chicago devising a digital campaign from the bottom up. The team draws much of its style and inspiration from the corporate sector, with its driving ambition to create a vote-garnering machine that is smooth, unobtrusive and ruthlessly efficient.

Already more than 100 geeks, some recruited at top-flight university job fairs including Stanford, are assembled in the Prudential drawn from an array of disciplines: statisticians, predictive modellers, data mining experts, mathematicians, software engineers, bloggers, internet advertising experts and online organizers.

At the core is a single beating heart – a unified computer database that gathers and refines information on millions of committed and potential Obama voters. The database will allow staff and volunteers at all levels of the campaign – from the top strategists answering directly to Obama's campaign manager Jim Messina to the lowliest canvasser on the doorsteps of Ohio – to unlock knowledge about individual voters and use it to target personalized messages that they hope will mobilize voters where it counts most.

Every time an individual volunteers to help out – for instance by offering to host a fundraising party for the president – he or she will be asked to log onto the re-election website with their Facebook credentials. That in turn will engage Facebook Connect, the digital interface that shares a user's personal information with a third party.

Consciously or otherwise, the individual volunteer will be injecting all the information they store publicly on their Facebook page – home location, date of birth, interests and, crucially, network of friends – directly into the central Obama database.

"If you log in with Facebook, now the campaign has connected you with all your relationships," a digital campaign organizer who has worked on behalf of Obama says.

The potential benefits of the strategy can already be felt. The Obama campaign this year has attracted about 1.3 million donors, 98% of whom have contributed $250 or less – that's more than double the number at the same stage in 2008. At this rate, Obama is also well on the way towards staging the world's first billion-dollar campaign.

Under its motto "Bigger, better, 2012", the Chicago team intends between now and election day in November to create a campaign powerhouse which will allow fundraisers, advertisers and state and local organizers to draw from the same data source.

Joe Rospars, the campaign's chief digital strategist, told a seminar at the Guardian-sponsored Social Media Week that the aim was to create technology that encourages voters to get involved, in tune with Obama's emphasis on community organizing.

Read the full article @ theguardian.co.uk

Read more about this subject at our companion blog: Political Campaigns in the Digital Age

How The GOP Went Back To The 1950s In Just One Day

TPM

Very neatly, and on three separate fronts, conservatives in America turned the clock back to the 1950s with their rhetoric about women’s rights Thursday, according to women in politics on both sides of the aisle.

In just one day modern women being told by Republicans that they’re not qualified to talk about their own sexual health, are dressed like “whores” and probably need birth control because they’re so slutty.

“Republican policies have been stuck in the 50s for a while now. I guess this week they decided they wanted the whole retro package,” said Jess McIntosh, communications director at EMILY’s List.

A joke about aspirin and contraception sparked a blaze that lasted all day across mainstream media and social network channels on the remarks by Santorum's billionaire campaign financier Foster Friess that women who don't want to get pregnant should just hold an aspirin "between their knees".

During an ABC interview with Jake Tapper presidential candidate Rick Santorum said that premarital sex should be outlawed, that women have no right to accessible reproductive health care, that contraceptives should be illegal and that states can outlaw the sale, purchase and use of contraceptives.

Former Sen. Rick Santorum (Penn.), Mitt Romney, congressman Ron Paul and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, the top four 2012 GOP presidential candidates, have committed to a "personhood" constitutional amendment that would outlaw most common contraceptive choices available to women. Mother Jones reports that Republicans in the U.S. Congress also want to pass a federal Personhood Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. That amendment would effectively reverse the 1965 Griswold v. Connecticut Supreme Court finding that Americans have a fundamental right to use birth control.

Will the GOP’s rhetoric Feb. 16 have ramifications felt on Nov. 6? The women on both sides of the aisle agreed that it could — and the polls back them up. After months of Republican fighting about abortion, and weeks of the GOP talking about contraception, Greg Sargent reported on a polling memo showing Obama was leading Mitt Romney 65-30 among unmarried women.

Read the full story @ TPM

Democrats Consolidate Progressive Base While Republicans’ Trouble Deepens

The Democratic Strategist

The latest national survey by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner for Democracy Corps and Women's Voices. Women Vote Action Fund shows a Republican Party in deepening trouble and emerging underlying trends that may have shifted the balance for 2012. Barring sudden economic shocks, there is accumulating evidence that we have entered a new phase in the political cycle, substantially more favorable to the Democrats.

This survey sees a collapse of the Republican brand at almost all levels. Negatives associated with the Republican Party have not been this high since right after they lost the country in 2008. Their presumptive nominee flirts with a 50 percent negative rating and may now represent a big drag on the national party.

President Obama nears the 50 percent mark and is now just four points away from what he achieved in 2008. Democrats have newly consolidated the progressive voters of the Rising American Electorate who were responsible for Democratic victories in 2006 and 2008. These voters--unmarried women, young voters, and minorities--dropped off in 2010 and lagged throughout 2011. They have returned in a big way for Democrats, led by a resurgence and re-engagement of unmarried women. Only young voters have not been re-consolidated, which is either a problem or an opportunity.

Seniors, who abandoned Democrats in 2010, have come back two surveys in a row and suburban swing voters watch the Republican primary debate with growing alienation from the Republican Party. The tax issue, a presumptive Republican advantage, has moved dramatically in favor of the Democrats.

These results may not simply be the result of a spot of good economic news and rough news cycles for Republican nominees, but the beginning of long-term structural changes that will characterize the 2012 election cycle.

Recent controversies over Planned Parenthood and contraception will not revive the Republican's standing, indeed, the opposite may be true, as this survey shows voters disagree with them on principle and wonder why at a time of great economic distress, Republicans are consumed with denying birth control coverage for women.

Read the full article @ The Democratic Strategist

Bad Judge Draw for South Carolina in Voter Photo ID Preclearance Case

From Election Law Blog, by Rick Hasen

Via Texas Redistricting comes the news that the panel is district court judges Collen Kollar-Kotelly, and John Bates and D.C. Circuit judge Brett Kavanaugh.

This panel will decide whether the Department of Justice erred in not approving South Carolina’s voter identification law under section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. DOJ concluded the law would worsen the position of minority voters because minority voters are less likely than whites to have government-issued id.

Among South Carolina’s arguments is that the court should read the preclearance requirement narrowly (making it easier to get things precleared) to avoid serious constitutional problems with a broadly-read section 5. (The underlying claim is that section 5 violates states’ rights to choose their own election rules and is now an unconstitutional exercise of congressional power given no recent history of intentional discrimination by covered jurisdictions.)

... But even if South Carolina faces long odds before the three-judge court, we all know the main action will be before the Supreme Court. That’s why South Carolina already hired big gun Paul Clement to work on this case.

The next question will be whether South Carolina seeks to expedite consideration of this case so that it will have a chance to use its voter id law in the November elections. I’ve explained in Slate how this could put the thorny issue before SCOTUS before the election (though that seems less likely as time ticks by).

Read the full article @ Election Law Blog

House Republicans Deny Women A Voice In Contraception Hearing

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) echoed Democrats’ concerns about Republicans excluding female witnesses from a hearing focusing on President Obama’s new health insurance regulation requiring insurers to provide birth control in their health insurance plans.

“This is an issue about women’s health and I believe that women’s health should be covered in all fo the insurance plans,” Pelosi insisted at her press briefing this morning, refuting the GOP’s claim that the debate should focus on “religious liberties.”

“Where are the women? And that’s a good question for the whole debate. Where are the women?” she asked. “Imagine, having a panel on women’s health and then not having any women on the panel, duh!”:

PELOSI: What is it that men don’t understand about women’s health and how central the issue of family planning is to that? Not just if you’re having families but if you need those kinds of prescription drugs for your general health, which was the testimony they would include this morning if they had allowed a woman on the panel. I think the fact that they did not allow a woman on the panel is symbolic of the whole debate as to who is making these decisions about women’s health and who should be covered.

This video summarizes the testimony Chairman Issa rejected at today's hearing: Sandra Fluke, who would have been the Minority's witness and the only female voice on behalf of millions of women who seek safe and affordable coverage for preventive health care.

Visit Democrats Oversight House Gov to read more.

Today, top Rick Santorum donor said, Women could use aspirin ‘between their knees’ for birth control.

GOP culture warriors - Former Sen. Rick Santorum (Penn.), Mitt Romney and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, the top three 2012 GOP presidential candidates, have committed to a "personhood" constitutional amendment that would outlaw most common contraceptive choices available to women. Mother Jones reports that Republicans in the U.S. Congress also want to pass a federal Personhood Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. That amendment would effectively reverse the 1965 Griswold v. Connecticut Supreme Court finding that Americans have a fundamental right to use birth control.

The Difference Between Conservatives And Right Wingers

The Right-Wing Id Unzipped
by: Mike Lofgren, Truthout

Retired Republican House and Senate staffer Mike Lofgren spoke with Truthout in Washington, DC, this fall. Lofgren's first commentary for Truthout, "Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult," went viral, drawing over a million unique views.

Although Mitt Romney used the word "conservative" 19 times in a short speech at the February 10, 2012, Conservative Political Action Conference, the audience he used this word to appeal to was not conservative by any traditional definition. It was right wing. Despite the common American practice of using "conservative" and "right wing" interchangeably, right wing is not a synonym for conservative and not even a true variant of conservatism - although the right wing will opportunistically borrow conservative themes as required.

Right-wingers have occasioned much recent comment. Their behavior in the Republican debates has caused even jaded observers to react like an Oxford don stumbling upon a tribe of headhunting cannibals.

... Most estimates calculate the percentage of Republican voters who are religious fundamentalists at around 40 percent; in some key political contests, such as the Iowa caucuses, the percentage is closer to 60. Because of their social cohesion, ease of political mobilization and high election turnout, fundamentalists have political weight even beyond their raw numbers. An understanding of their leaders, infrastructure and political goals is warranted.

Read the full article @ Truthout

Unified Primary Election Date Moving To May 29, Maybe

According to tweets from the court house, the San Antonio District Court three judge redistricting panel informed the parties that they are zeroing in on a May 29 unified primary election date. Judge Jerry Smith told those assemble for the redistricting conference that an April date appears to be impossible, and asked the lawyers for the political parties and the Secretary of State to prepare recommendations for candidate filing and other election deadlines, assuming May 29 will be the election date. That date will presumably put the first day of primary early voting at Monday May 14.

Developing...

Texas Dems And Reps Decoupling Convention Delegate Selection From Primary Election?

The unified primary election date is (just about) definitely moving to May 29, if not June 26. (See Michael Li's Texas Redistricting blog)

On Tuesday representatives for both the Texas Democratic Party and Republican Party of Texas told the San Antonio District Court three judge redistricting panel that their state party conventions will definitely take place during the second weekend in June, as scheduled.

Both political parties also told the three judge panel, that if the primary election is set for either a May 29 or late June date, the parties would require changes to party rules [as may be codified in Texas law] for convention delegate selection in order to accommodate the already locked-in state convention dates.

Among the possible rule changes offered to the court on Tuesday by Democratic Party general counsel, Chad Dunn, was the possibility of forgoing precinct conventions and moving directly to senate district [and county] conventions in April (sans primary election) to select delegates to go to the state convention.

Another alternative, not detailed to the court on Tuesday, would be for the Texas Democratic Party to go back to a 100% caucus-style precinct convention method in early April to select all precinct delegates, who would attend county and senate district conventions later in April, who would in turn, select delegates to go on to the state convention in June. However, the preference seems to be to skip separate precinct conventions and hold just senate district [and county] conventions. Mini precinct conventions within the senate district conventions would probably be the first order of business. (only editorial speculation at this point)

Steve Muniseri, chair of the Republican Party of Texas, told party members late Tuesday evening that the party would be seeking authority to use an alternative delegate selection process in light of prospects that the Texas primary will be pushed back to May 29 or late June.

"In the event that the primary is pushed back further, the RPT will still seek court relief to allow district conventions to go forward on the dates already scheduled, but with the different delegate selection process. Consequently, at this time - we urge you not to cancel your district conventions as they still may occur on the same day. We anticipate having a conference call with the SREC in the next week to discuss the situation and examine options together"

For Texas Democrats, there may yet be "old style" precinct conventions on April 3 (decoupled from the primary election) with senate district and county conventions on April 21. OR, there may be just senate district and county conventions on April 21, forgoing the precinct convention step.

Stay tuned....

Pew: 51 Million Citizens Unregistered To Vote

Approximately 24 million active voter registrations in the United States—one of every eight—are no longer valid or have significant inaccuracies, according to the Pew Center on the States' Election Initiatives.

New research in the report Inaccurate, Costly, and Inefficient - Evidence That America’s Voter Registration System Needs an Upgrade underscores the need for registration systems that use the latest technology to better maintain voter records, save money, and streamline processes—an effort that eight states are spearheading with Pew's support.

The ground-breaking examination of the nation's voter rolls, commissioned by Pew and undertaken by RTI International, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research institute, also finds that:

• At least 51 million eligible citizens remain unregistered—more than 24 percent of the eligible population.
• Nearly 2 million deceased individuals are listed as active voters.
• Approximately 2.75 million people have active registrations in more than one state.
• About 12 million records have incorrect addresses, meaning either the voters moved, or errors in the information make it unlikely any mailings can reach them.

Outdated systems are costly. Pew found that in 2008, Oregon's state and local taxpayers spent $4.11 per active voter to process registrations. By contrast, Canada, which uses modern technology common in the private sector, devotes less than 35 cents per voter to process registrations. In the U.S., localities that have implemented improvements are realizing returns: For example, Maricopa County, Ariz., which includes Phoenix, saved more than $1 million over five years by providing online registration, reducing the county's dependence on paper forms and manual data entry.

"Proven solutions and technology are already in place in many government offices and the private sector, and states can use them to improve the accuracy, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness of their systems," Becker said. "State leaders from across the country and from both parties are pioneering these solutions. Pew supports their efforts to better serve voters and ensure the integrity of the electoral process."

Over the past two years, election officials from several states have been working with Pew on plans to upgrade their voter registration systems using advanced technology to achieve greater accuracy of the rolls, increased savings, and improved processes. This new approach consists of three elements:

• Comparing registration lists with other data sources, such as motor vehicle and National Change of Address records, to broaden the base of information used to update and verify voter rolls.
• Implementing proven techniques and security protocols that use those data sources to better track and identify both inaccurate records that could be removed and eligible citizens who could be registered.
• Minimizing manual data entry by establishing ways voters can submit information online, which will result in lower costs and fewer errors.

Pew's Elections Initiatives supports innovative research and partnerships to achieve the highest standards of accuracy, cost-effectiveness, convenience, and security in America's system of election administration. For more information, visit www.pewcenteronthestates.org/elections.

The Real Voter Fraud Behind Photo ID

By Lee Rowland, Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law
February 13, 2012

Photo ID supporters routinely cry “fraud” as the reason for supporting new restrictions on access to the ballot. But the real fraud is in the repeated use of inaccurate, or just plain manufactured, claims about voter fraud that just aren’t happening. The reality? Voter fraud is as likely to happen as getting struck by lightning. But if you listen to photo ID supporters, you’d think every rain drop represents a stolen vote.

Take last week’s quiet unearthing of fraud in South Carolina, where ID supporters cited evidence that hundreds of dead voters had voted in the state’s elections as a critical argument for passing a photo ID law in 2011.

The South Carolina Election Commission announced it had painstakingly reviewed a quarter of the supposed “dead voters.” Sure enough, they found fraud — just not the type you’d expect. The commission discovered there is in fact no evidence that any fraudulent votes were cast.

Yet, sadly, these nonexistent dead voters were Exhibit A used to dupe voters into passing a law that risks disenfranchising eligible voters.

Then there’s James O’Keefe, a vocal photo ID supporter, who has been in the news twice recently for “uncovering” fraud in New Hampshire and Minnesota. O’Keefe released video footage of New Hampshire polling locations during the Republican primary, purporting to show him and others posing as deceased voters and receiving ballots. The problem for O’Keefe is that his video itself might be evidence of fraud: committed by O’Keefe and his cronies. In fact, the New Hampshire State Attorney General’s Office has launched an investigation into O’Keefe’s conduct for a handful of possible criminal violations, including voter impersonation fraud.

The investigation hasn’t deterred him — he resurfaced again in Minnesota last week. The day before the Minnesota Republican caucus, O’Keefe registered several fake individuals to vote in order to receive absentee ballots. His video was leaked to drum up outrage about possible voter fraud. But there’s simply no evidence that — before O’Keefe rolled into town, anyway — Minnesota has any voter fraud problem whatsoever.

What do Minnesota and New Hampshire have in common? Unsurprisingly, there are photo ID bills before both states’ legislatures in 2012. Activists like O’Keefe will point to these videos as proof that our election systems lack integrity. But folks should flat-out refuse to take marching orders on election “integrity” from a gentleman who clearly doesn’t have much.

Voters in those states should refuse to be taken in by these fraudulent claims of voter fraud. There were no dead voters in South Carolina, and there aren’t in Minnesota or Maine either. Instead, there’s just O’Keefe and others like him — who will do anything it takes to provide “proof” that photo ID laws are necessary. There’s zero percent truth to any of these highly-publicized claims. But they unfortunately can lead to passage of laws requiring a photo ID that 11 percent of eligible American voters do not have.

When you scratch beneath the surface, you see that O’Keefe and others who make a living crying “fraud!” resort to manufacturing evidence of voter fraud that doesn’t otherwise exist — and potentially commit fraud in the process. If those who support photo ID are willing to commit fraud in the name of preventing it, maybe it’s time to stop taking these claims at face value. Like fool's gold, the claims of widespread voter fraud are fast, cheap, and shiny — and collapse under close inspection.

The above was posted at Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law

The initial evidence of dead people voting in South Carolina was based on matching only names on voter rolls to other lists. In follow-up of other, similar, allegations, further investigation matching additional identifying data, like age, address, junior for senior suffixes, has shown that:

• The person who's dead isn't the same person listed on the voter rolls.
• The person who's listed as voting didn't actually vote.
• The person who's listed as dead isn't actually dead.
• The person who's dead voted before she died.
• There was actually a fraudulent ballot cast, absentee.

And when the salacious allegations turn out to be mundane glitches, or unconnected to proving identity at the polls, there's a lot less attention paid.

Severe Conservative Syndrome

NYT OpEd By Paul Krugman
Published: February 12, 2012

Mitt Romney has a gift for words — self-destructive words. On Friday he did it again, telling the Conservative Political Action Conference that he was a “severely conservative governor.”

As Molly Ball of The Atlantic pointed out, Mr. Romney “described conservatism as if it were a disease.” Indeed. Mark Liberman, a linguistics professor at the University of Pennsylvania, provided a list of words that most commonly follow the adverb “severely”; the top five, in frequency of use, are disabled, depressed, ill, limited and injured.

That’s clearly not what Mr. Romney meant to convey. Yet if you look at the race for the G.O.P. presidential nomination, you have to wonder whether it was a Freudian slip. For something has clearly gone very wrong with modern American conservatism.

Read Krugman's full OpEd @ NYTimes

Obama's Birth-Control Rule Will Help Prevent Accidental Pregnancies

Live Science

In the United States, nearly 50 percent of pregnancies are unintended. A new health care rule — which stirred controversy due to its implications for church-affiliated organizations' coverage of contraception — has the potential to significantly reduce accidental pregnancies by increasing access to birth control, according to public health experts.

And the accommodation made by President Barack Obama on Friday (Feb. 10) — making insurers rather than the church-affiliated organizations responsible for contraceptive benefits — won't change this, they say.

"It will have a huge effect," said Diana Greene Foster of the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health at the University of California, San Francisco. "It is not the entire solution, but it is such an obvious first step."

The cost

Reducing unintended pregnancies is a well-established public health goal. They are associated with a variety of health issues for both mother and child from maternal depression to birth defects. There are also economic consequences, particularly for teen mothers who are less likely to graduate from high school, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

By fully covering the spectrum of contraceptives and eliminating co-payments, the rule would give women the option of picking the method of birth control best suited for them, regardless of cost, according to Adam Sonfield, a senior public policy associate at the Guttmacher Institute.

The most effective forms of contraception are long-acting, like intrauterine devices and implants that are put under the skin. Both can last for years, eliminating the possibility that a woman will miss a dose or use the inconsistently, according to Sonfield.

"They are extremely effective in the long run, but in the short run, they often have high upfront costs," Sonfield said. "Rates of unintended pregnancies are many times higher among poor women, [so] this has the potential to really help with that."

The rule originates with the health care overhaul, which Obama signed into law in 2010, and it packages contraception along with other preventive care. It exempts churches and houses of worship from offering insurance that covers contraception. Earlier this year, Obama rejected an exemption to this coverage for organizations with religious affiliations, such as, a Catholic hospital or school. This sparked accusations that the rule violated religious liberty by forcing institutions to buy something they opposed. (The Catholic Church considers deliberate contraception a sin.) [8 Ways Religion Impacts Your Life]

GOP Will Fight To Let ANY Employer Deny Birth Control For Employees

The U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops, Republicans in Congress, and Republican presidential candidates almost immediately rejected a compromise on employer provided health insurance programs offering contraception coverage for women.

On ABC’s This Week, Rep. Paul Ryan echoed the Republican objection of contraception coverage. Ryan told host George Stephanopolous the compromise is nothing more than a “fig leaf” and an “accounting trick”:

RYAN: To paraphrase the bishops’ letter, this thing, it’s a distinction without a difference. It’s an accounting gimmick or a fig leaf. It’s not a compromise. The president’s doubled down. [...] If this is what the president’s willing to do in a tough election year, imagine what he’s going to do to implement the rest of his health care law after an election.

TPM

Not satisfied with President Obama’s new religious accommodation, Republicans will move forward with legislation by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) that permits any employer to deny birth control coverage in their health insurance plans, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said Sunday.

“If we end up having to try to overcome the President’s opposition by legislation, of course I’d be happy to support it, and intend to support it,” McConnell said. “We’ll be voting on that in the Senate and you can anticipate that that would happen as soon as possible.”

Republican Party Returns To Its Base "Culture War" Focus

The 2012 election was supposed to be about jobs and the economy and, though that will still be central, the Republican Party has returned to its base "culture war" issues.

Proposition 8! Birth control! Susan G. Komen and Planned Parenthood!

Increasingly the man of the moment seems to be GOP culture warrior Rick Santorum, not Mitt Romney, although Romney is also trying to capitalize on hard right "culture war" issues, too.

Former Sen. Rick Santorum (Penn.), Mitt Romney and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, the top three 2012 GOP presidential candidates, have committed to a "personhood" constitutional amendment that would outlaw most common contraceptive choices available to women. Mother Jones reports that Republicans in the U.S. Congress also want to pass a federal Personhood Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. That amendment would effectively reverse the 1965 Griswold v. Connecticut Supreme Court finding that Americans have a fundamental right to use birth control.

Public Policy Polling has a pretty convincing rundown of the political ramifications of the contraception installment of the various "culture war" controversies:

Drug Quickly Reverses Alzheimer's Symptoms in Mice

ScienceDaily: Neuroscientists at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine have made a dramatic breakthrough in their efforts to find a cure for Alzheimer's disease. The researchers' findings, published in the journal Science, show that use of a drug in mice appears to quickly reverse the pathological, cognitive and memory deficits caused by the onset of Alzheimer's. The results point to the significant potential that the medication, bexarotene, has to help the roughly 5.4 million Americans suffering from the progressive brain disease. More...

Six Reasons Young Christians Leave Church

Nearly three out of every five young Christians disconnect from their churches after the age of 15, but why? A new research study released by the Barna Group points to six different reasons as to why young people aren't staying in their pews.

The results of this study come from the interviews of teenagers, young adults, youth pastors, senior pastors and parents that were taken over the course of five years.

First, the study says, churches appear to be overprotective. Nearly one-fourth of the 18- to 29-year-olds interviewed said “Christians demonize everything outside of the church” most of the time. Twenty-two percent also said the church ignores real-world problems and 18 percent said that their church was too concerned about the negative impact of movies, music and video games.

Many young adults also feel that their experience of Christianity was shallow. One-third of survey participants felt that “church is boring.” Twenty percent of those who attended as a teenager said that God appeared to be missing from their experience of church.

The study also found many young adults do not like the way churches appear to be against science. Over one-third of young adults said that “Christians are too confident they know all the answers” and one-fourth of them said that “Christianity is anti-science.”

Some also feel that churches are too simple or too judgmental when it comes to issues of sexuality. Seventeen percent of young Christians say they've “made mistakes and feel judged in church because of them.” Two out of five young adult Catholics said that the church's teachings on birth control and sex are “out of date.”

The fifth reason the study gives for such an exodus from churches is many young adults struggle with the exclusivity of Christianity. Twenty-nine percent of young Christians said “churches are afraid of the beliefs of other faiths” and feel they have to choose between their friends and their faith.

The last reason the study gives for young people leaving the church is they feel it is “unfriendly to those who doubt.” Over one-third of young adults said they feel like they can't ask life's most pressing questions in church and 23 percent said they had “significant intellectual doubts” about their faith.