PLI Bulletin

Voter Registration, Political Labels, Charter Schools and More

Posted on October 15, 2015

Automatic Voter Registration: Oregon and California recently enacted legislation automatically registering to vote any resident who has a driver’s license or state ID card unless the individual opts out. The Brennen Center describes the momentum for this important policy here. Oregon’s HB 2177 is a simple model that any state can follow.

What Can We Do About Guns? Americans strongly support gun control: 93% favor background checks on all guns, 76% favor gun registration, 77% favor gun licensing. What we have is a political challenge. There are three practical things we can do to address the problem. Read about them on IdeaLog, our blog intended to raise eyebrows and engage minds.

When to use political labels like Liberal, Conservative, Progressive and Socialist: Wednesday, October 21 @3pm Eastern, 2pm Central, 1pm Mountain, Noon Pacific. Bernie Sanders embraces the label “Socialist.” Hillary Clinton said she is a “Progressive.” We’ll discuss which political labels are popular and which aren’t (e.g. “Feminist” and “Pro-Choice”), what to call yourself and what to call your opponents. Register for the webinar here.

Recommendations for Charter School Accountability: In most jurisdictions, the laws governing charter schools promote educational chaos. The Annenberg Institute for School Reform wrote an excellent report describing seven types of restrictions that should be placed on charter schools.

Should the Smoking Age Be 21? Pew’s Stateline published a recent article reporting that Hawaii enacted a law raising the smoking age from 18 to 21, a similar bill passed the California Senate, and such bills were introduced in seven other states. What about your jurisdiction?

Latest Compendium of State and Local Legislation in 2015: What’s happened so far in 2015? Read about it in our Compendium. If you have additions to suggest, please contact mweiss@progressivemajority.org.