Advocacy Center for Equality and Democracy

A point we have made before is that the President has power independent of Congress.  This should be undeniable, but people will nevertheless argue that a third-party President would be powerless because Congress would not cooperate with him/her. A couple of pieces came out recently that highlight the absurdity of that argument.  First, the New [...]

When people see their political choices as black and white, they inevitably exaggerate the differences between them.  Take, for example, Robert Scheer’s screed against Mitt Romney and anyone who would consider voting for him.  He calls Republican voters “insanely gullible,” and President Obama “a paradigm of considered and compassionate thought” in comparison to his opponent.  [...]

Last October I attended an event at the Center for American Progress about laws that require employers to offer paid sick leave days to their employees.  It was a crowded event, with more attendees than the large room could seat.  The audience was very well dressed and finely groomed.  Likewise, three of the four speakers [...]

There has been very little press coverage of the killing of Kenneth Chamberlain, Sr. by White Plains, New York police officers last year compared to Trayvon Martin.  If you did a search right now of the New York Times website for articles over the last year that mention “Kenneth Chamberlain,” you would get only three [...]

On November 19 last year, White Plains police officers forced their way into the home of 68-year-old Kenneth Chamberlain, Sr.  Inside, the officers shot and killed Mr. Chamberlain.  The events that led to the killing of Mr. Chamberlain are described in this interview that was aired on Democracy Now! last week.  If you have not [...]

Conventional wisdom says that a third party candidate will hurt the most similar major party candidate by splitting their votes, leading to the possibility that the least favored candidate will win the election (the so-called “spoiler effect”).  Even election experts like Professor Rick Hasen and the staff at Fair Vote assert that third parties may [...]