June 21, 2007 Foreign Policy in Focus
	Three Reasons I’m Going to the Social Forum -- Why should you plan to head to Atlanta in the middle of the summer? Not for the cool breezes, that's for sure. But if you go between June 27 and July 1, you'll find a few thousand reasons all gathered - along with you, I hope - at the first ever U.S. Social Forum.
August 30, 2006 The Orange County Register [Democracy]
	Pledging Muddles Campaign Finance Picture -- Legislators accept promises instead of cash, confounding watchdogs who want to know who is trying to influence bills as the session winds down.
August 28, 2006 The San Diego Union Tribune [Democracy]
	Donors to Governor Get Posts of Prestige -- When Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was swept into office by the recall election in 2003, he promised to end politics as usual, where "money goes in and favors go out." But Schwarzenegger has carried on the political tradition of providing favors -- in the form of coveted state appointments -- to generous campaign donors.
August 16, 2006 LA Times [Democracy]
	Sacramento's Orgy of Bagels, Cigars and Cash -- Cocktail parties, fine cigars, and lobbyists and legislators abound: the Perfect Storm.
August 13, 2006 San Jose Mercury News [Democracy]
	Candidates choose sides on propositions -- During the drowsy days of summer, Governor Schwarzenegger and Treasurer Angelides are both exploiting November's bonanza of ballot initiatives to advance their campaigns and put the other guy on the defensive. Come Election Day, the measures could drive turnout among certain issue-driven voters, who could affect the governor's race.
August 02, 2006 LA Weekly [Democracy]
	Strange Bedfellows -- Marc Cooper in LA Weekly Utterly, Completely, Forever Destroys Gail Kaufman
July 20, 2006 Global Exchange [Democracy]
	Treasurer Phil Angelides signs “Separation of Oil and State” Pledge -- Gubernatorial candidate vows to refuse all campaign contributions from Big Oil companies.
July 11, 2006 Alternet [Democracy]
	International Debut of Bush and Condi Video Spoof -- Separation of Oil & State is a campaign to get oil money out of politics and demand that our representatives stand up for the future of energy, not for the dinosaurs of the oil industry.
June 28, 2006 Alternet [Democracy]
	Ten Reasons to Watch Mexico's Presidential Election -- This Sunday, Mexico will choose a new president in an election with broad implications not only for the direction of the country, but also for its relations with the United States and its neighbors to the south.
June 28, 2006 TomPaine.com [Democracy]
	Blow to Fair Elections -- At a time when elected officials are being marched off to jail for corrupt activities, Monday’s Supreme Court decision on Vermont’s campaign finance law gives money an even larger role in elections.
June 28, 2006 San Francisco Chronicle [Democracy]
	Campaign 2006 -- Neither Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger nor Democratic Treasurer Phil Angelides has yet taken a position on the campaign finance measure, dubbed the "Clean Money Initiative," but that won't last. Like it or not, someone running for the state's top office has little choice but to take a public stand on high-profile ballot measures.
April 20, 2006 The Black Commentator [Democracy]
	New Orleans Is Our Gettysburg -- This Saturday’s elections in New Orleans represent yet another element of the vast crime committed against Black America. With as many as 300,000 residents, overwhelmingly African American, strewn about the country in government-engineered exile, the elections are an insult to the very idea of democracy, and to the dignity of all Black people.
April 19, 2006 San Francisco Chronicle [Democracy]
	Let's get clean -- The California Clean Money and Fair Elections Act, AB583, will have its first state Senate hearing Thursday. If it passes -- and every senator should vote for it -- expect a sea change in California politics.
April 17, 2006 Left Turn [Democracy]
	Elections Fever -- Everyone expects far less African Americans to vote in the New Orleans election than anytime in decades. Congressman John Conyers has called it “the largest disenfranchisement in the history of this nation.” According to a local voting rights coalition that includes the ACLU of Louisiana, NAACP, ACORN and others, the guidelines for absentee voting “are unclear, complicated, and conflicting.”
March 29, 2006 Los Angeles Times [Democracy]
	New ID System May Block Voters -- In Los Angeles County, the database rejected 14,629 people — 43% of those who registered from Jan. 1 to March 15. Officials are trying to resolve the problems in time for municipal elections April 11 in 14 cities in the county. They say the challenge will be far larger for the June 6 primary, which will involve many more voters.
March 26, 2006 New York Times [Democracy]
	Go Away: You Can't Vote -- The right to vote should never be curtailed in a way that disenfranchises a whole class of people. This view is gaining traction even in the Deep South, which pioneered the shameful state laws that barred nearly four million ex-felons, parolees and probationers from voting in the last national election.
March 02, 2006 California Chronicle [Democracy]
	WHERE’S THE HEARING ON THE DIEBOLD SECURITY FLAWS DISCOVERED BY THE SECRETARY OF STATE? -- NEW REPORT FROM DIEBOLD-HIRED TESTING COMPANY REVEALS SECURITY FLAWS IN MACHINES CERTIFIED BY SECRETARY OF STATE; BOWEN CRITICIZES SECRETARY’S REFUSAL TO PUBLICLY VETT TWO SOS-REQUESTED REPORTS IDENTIFYING SECURITY FLAWS IN DIEBOLD MACHINES.
March 02, 2006 TomPaine.com [Democracy]
	Making Every Vote Count -- New Mexico boosts the cause of election reform by moving to a voting system of all paper ballots.
February 27, 2006 New York Times [Democracy]
	Supreme Court Set to Weigh Central Election-Law Issues -- The most pressing and unsettled questions in election law are those that concern the role of money, the role of race and the role of partisanship. The Supreme Court will take up all three this week
February 27, 2006 Alternet [Democracy]
	Saving our Democracy -- The Abramoff and DeLay corruption scandals make it clear that now more than ever we need publically financed elections.
February 27, 2006 New York Times [Democracy]
	Dickensian Democracy -- Challenging the policy in Washington state of requiring that all fines be paid before voting rights can be restored, The New York Times writes that the policy is “morally outrageous” and risks “devastating poor families that can barely feed themselves.”
February 23, 2006 Fox News [Democracy]
	Election Reforms May Be Missing in 2006 Midterm -- "Every single vote should count. Unfortunately, as we have seen in the last two presidential elections, this still is not the case," Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., said at a recent election reform panel at the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C., think tank. "We still can't guarantee our own citizens that their voice will be heard on Election Day."
January 04, 2006 San Francisco Bay View [Democracy]
	The Unfinished Business of the Voting Rights Movement -- Today’s campaign finance system, like earlier voting rights barriers, effectively shuts out the voices of all but the wealthiest and most well connected in our city. However, the influence of private money on the political system is something San Francisco can change. In the next few months, the San Francisco Ethics Commission and our Board of Supervisors will have the opportunity to level the playing field, so that candidates compete only on the strength of their ideas and content of their character, not the size of their wallets.
December 02, 2005 The Nation [Democracy]
	Nation's Strongest Campaign Finance Bill Passes in CT. -- On Wednesday night, after seven hours of debate, the Connecticut Senate voted 27 to 8 in favor of passing the most comprehensive  campaign finance reform bill in the country
October 26, 2005 San Francisco Chronicle [Democracy]
	Plan for San Francisco to Pay for Mayoral Races -- San Francisco to join the national movement to take the corrupting influence of money out of politics with public financing of the Mayor's race.
October 18, 2005 civilrights.org [Democracy]
	House Begins Hearings on Voting Discrimination and Reauthorization of the VRA -- House begins hearins on the reauthorization of the 1965 Voting Rights Act
October 03, 2005 TomPaine.Com [Democracy]
	Democracy DeLayed -- The law that DeLay actually stands accused of violating—a Texas statute that bans corporate money from statewide political campaigns—and the larger problems of corporate money in politics that supported the entire DeLay empire.
August 23, 2005 USPoliticsToday.com [Democracy]
	Coming Soon to A State Near You: Public Financing of Elections -- You don't hear much about it, but an important grassroots revolt is brewing that could change politics in America....It's all about the way campaigns are financed.
July 29, 2005 Inside Bay Area [Democracy]
	California rejects e-voting machine -- CA's Republican Secretary of State REJECTS Diebold Voting Machines! 10% of Screens Freeze, Printers Jam in 'Massive Mock Election Test' Ohio Unconcerned, Sticking with Diebold
July 16, 2005 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel [California Human Rights Program]
	Remembering the grape boycott -- August will mark the 40th anniversary of the Delano Grape Strike, but the effort to ensure the rights of farm workers is still not over. The strike lasted five years, involved more than 5,000 farm workers and successfully led to the first collective bargaining agreements for farm workers in U.S. history.