From Sean McElwee’s “One Big Reason for Voter Turnout Decline and Income Inequality: Smaller Unions” at The American Prospect: “…As unions have declined, so has working-class political mobilization. Jan Leighley and Jonathan Nagler find that “the decline in union membership since 1964 has affected the aggregate turnout of both low- and middle-income individuals more than the aggregate turnout of high-income individuals.” Using a cross-country comparison across 32 nations, political scientists Patrick Flavin and Benjamin Radcliff find that unions boost voter turnout, not only for union members, but for non-union members as well. Vincent Mahler ran a unique analysis for this piece and finds that union density is strongly correlated with voter turnout for the period of 1960-2012… McElewee also has a lot of good in formation about the political role of unions in preventing rising inequality.”
Stuart Rothernberg’s early take on the 2016 battle for Senate control sees Dems picking up between 3 and 6 seats, with a net of 5 wins needed to secure a majority.
But no one should be too surprised that “Republican Takeover Bumps Women in Senate From Leadership Posts,” as Sheryl Gay Stolberg explains at The New York Times.
It appears that the GOP’s impressive party discipline of recent years is fraying into an eruption of policy disagreements, now that they have majority control of both houses, as Scott Wong and Mike Lillis report at The Hill.
Here we have Brian Resnick’s National Journal post, “Are Men What’s Wrong With Politics?” probing psychological advantages women may have for better negotiation and bipartisanship as elected officials. What deserves more buzz, however, is the simple notion that our political institutions should look more like America, with similar gender representation.
A president who is politically savvy enough to get re-elected and pass the first national health care reform in nearly a half-century could be clueless enough to meddle in Israel’s internal politics? As if.
With NC emerging as a must-win for the Democratic presidential nominee in 2016, Allie Yee’s insightful post, “The growing power of North Carolina’s voters of color” at Facing South should be required reading for Democratic presidential candidates and their staffs.
New post, “Obamacare is costing way less than expected” by Ezra Klein suggests Obamacare may be morphing into a campaign asset for Dems.
It almost had to happen — Rand Paul pandering to the anti-vaxxers. Christie waffling too.