Jamelle Bouie

In a new study published by the Brennan Center for Justice, Justice at Stake, and the National Institute on Money in State Politics, researchers found that campaign fundraising for judicial elections has skyrocketed over the past decade. In the 20 states that held partisan elections for the state Supreme Court in the previous decade, candidates […]

After noting that Senate Republicans have blocked the nomination of Frank Ricciardone, a veteran diplomat slated to become the United States’ next ambassador to Turkey, Nick Beaudrot expresses his frustration with the GOP’s senseless obstructionism: I’m rapidly approaching the point where I think Obama should start making recess en masse. Not a few dozen appointees, […]

A few days ago, Dr. Laura Schlessinger — who still seems to have a radio show — took a call from a distressed listener. The caller — a black woman — is in an interracial marriage with a white man, and is increasingly frustrated with the racist jokes and comments made by her husband’s friends […]

(IMDB) As Erik Eckholm reports in The New York Times, animal-welfare activists in Ohio have made real headway in a campaign to sharply restrict the close confinement of hens, hogs and other livestock: A recent agreement between farmers and animal rights activists here is a rare compromise in the bitter and growing debate over large-scale, […]

According to a new report from the Pew Hispanic Center, an estimated 340,000 of the 4.3 million babies born in the United States in 2008 were the children of undocumented immigrants: As of 2009, Pew reports, 4 million children of undocumented immigrants were American citizens and residing in the United States. Restrictionist outfits like the […]

Ezra Klein posts this graph with the headline “the benefits of a college degree in one graph,” and cites Matt Yglesias, who notes that there simply isn’t much of an economic crisis among college graduates: Virtually every single member of congress, every senator, every Capitol Hill staffer, every White House advisor, every Fed governor, and […]

Not to sound too curmudgeonly, but while yesterday’s primaries in Connecticut, Colorado, and Georgia were interesting as pieces of political theater, on the main they don’t actually tell us anything about the elections ahead of us. The political world will spend today obsessing over what those elections “meant,” but when it comes down to it, […]

Of the pro-Senate pieces I’ve read in the wake of George Packer‘s epic takedown of the institution, Jill Lawrence‘s Politics Daily piece is probably the best. Lawrence takes a different approach than most; instead of relying on old cliché’s — “the Senate was designed to ‘cool’ legislation” — she argues that the Senate’s critics are […]

For a political party that insists on the Constitution’s perfection, the GOP is unusually enthusiastic about amending the document. Last week, prominent Republicans came out in favor of “revisiting” the 14th Amendment — their signature accomplishment — with an eye toward ending the nation’s long-standing policy of birthright citizenship. Today, The Hill reports that Senate […]