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Brentin Mock

Brentin Mock is lead reporter for Voting Rights Watch, a partnership between Colorlines.com and The Nation magazine. Over the past year, he covered the voter-ID law controversy, felony disenfranchisement, voter intimidation and challenges to the Voting Rights Act.

Recent Articles

Change is Bad. At Least for the VRA

Brentin MockMar 01, 2013
Flickr/Ben Haley

On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Shelby County v. Holder, the fifth time the Voting Rights Act’s Section 5 has been challenged in the high court since it was passed in 1965. Section 5 requires nine states and portions of six others with a history of racial discrimination to have changes to election law “pre-cleared” by the government before going into effect. Every lower court has upheld the provision as constitutional, and Congress reauthorized it four times—always with overwhelming bipartisan support. 

Something in the Water

D.C.'s Anacostia neighborhood struggles with the double burden of high unemployment rates and environmental degradation. Can green stimulus efforts offer lasting change?

Brentin MockDec 17, 2009
Trash piles up on the Anacostia River in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Jackie Ward of the Ward 8 Environmental Council in D.C. once did "something crazy" for the Anacostia neighborhood. With the help of colleagues, co-workers, and friends, Ward convinced the District of Columbia Public Schools to release the most troublesome 7- to 9-year-old students from Southeast D.C.'s poor, black community, for a weekend of camping and learning about their outdoor environment. The outing was near Marvin Gaye Park, an area that was once a haven for junkies until community volunteers cleared it of thousands of hypodermic needles.

The Gulf Coast is America's Lower 9th Ward.

Brentin MockAug 28, 2009

Four years after Katrina, government bodies are still shuffling about trying to figure out what is the best future policy for a sustainable, prosperous New Orleans. The challenges facing the Gulf Coast are the same facing the nation: developing housing, improving health care, closing educational achievement gaps, de-concentrating centers of poverty, and achieving security from climate change and its related disasters. Except in the Gulf Coast these problems are much more pronounced. If the federal government were ever to focus on this region, the solutions produced for these social and environmental ills could be applied broadly across the nation.

The Environmental Mess Palin Left Behind

The policies Gov. Sarah Palin sold as solutions to America's energy crisis are now failing investors, stakeholders, and the environment.

Brentin MockJul 23, 2009

Editors' Note: This piece has been corrected.

There has been much speculation about what outgoing Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska is running toward on the national scene but not so much about what she's running from. Back in March of 2007, shortly after she took office as governor, Palin proclaimed that under her watch Alaska would be “maintaining focus on becoming a viable and significant player in the nation’s energy plan.” The policy decisions that she sold as solutions to America's energy crisis are now failing investors, stakeholders, and the environment.

Why is the Treasury Excluding the Gulf Coast from Stimulus Benefits?

Low-income housing construction is stalled due to the economic collapse -- and a recent ruling by Tim Geithner is preventing federal funds from reaching the victims of Katrina.

Brentin MockJun 09, 2009
Two residents walk down the street of a new neighborhood in New Orleans, Thursday, April 1, 2004.(AP Photo/Burt Steel)

A recent Treasury Department ruling has disqualified the Gulf Coast region from a significant portion of stimulus funding specifically set aside to help low-income housing developments languishing due to the recession.

In question is whether low-income-housing tax credits granted by Congress in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita qualify for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act's tax-credit exchange program, which allows state agencies to cash in the credits for grants to finish affordable housing projects that have stalled due to the finance industry's collapse.

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