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News Releases

  • Post-Election Decisions

    ERIC FONER Professor of history at Columbia University, current president of the American Historical Association and author of The Story of American Freedom and Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, Foner said today: “In 1876, there was a dispute over the Hayes-Tilden presidential election returns from Florida, South Carolina and Louisiana. An electoral commission was formed (which was extra-constitutional), but behind the scenes, the party bosses came up with the ‘Bargain of 1877’ which effectively awarded the White House to the Republican Rutherford B. Hayes but gave control of the South to the Democrats. At the time the Democratic Party was the…

  • The Election: Process and Results

    STEVEN HILL Co-author of “Reflecting All of Us” and Western regional director of the Center for Voting and Democracy, Hill said today: “This may be the push we need to get rid of the Electoral College — which was actually designed to limit the popular will. But if we have a direct popular vote, we certainly don’t want a president winning with a 35 percent threshold. It should be a majority threshold. There are two ways to make that happen. A two-round runoff, like they do in many Southern states, is a solution, but it would cost more to hold…

  • Election Perspectives

    GWENDOLYN MINK Professor of politics at the University of California at Santa Cruz, Mink said today: “What’s wrong with the two-party system is not that there are only two parties. What’s wrong is that ours is a middle-class party system that leaves out a host of programmatic alternatives and choices, and correspondingly demobilizes millions of citizens. Electoral laws protect the two parties, but that’s not the only reason electoral competition is generally so limited and limiting. Part of the reason is that the politics of solidarity in society is not as strong as it could be. Another part of the…

  • Keeping Millions From Voting

    MARC MAUER Co-author of the report “Losing the Vote: The Impact of Felony Disenfranchisement Laws in the United States,” Mauer is assistant director of The Sentencing Project. He said today: “America has just replaced Russia as the world leader in its rate of incarceration and incarcerates far more prisoners than any other nation — nearly 2 million. In next week’s election, 4 million Americans will be locked out of the voting booth as a result of laws that disenfranchise persons convicted of a felony. In swing states such as Florida, where more than 600,000 persons are disenfranchised, these laws could…

  • A Missing Campaign Issue: Economic Apartheid

    JOEL BLAU Author of Illusions of Prosperity: America’s Working Families in an Age of Economic Insecurity, Blau said today: “The economic fissure in American society is the great unmentionable of this year’s presidential campaign. Between 1977 and 1999, the after-tax income of the top fifth increased 43 percent, while the after-tax income of the top 1 percent increased 115 percent. At the same time, the bottom two-thirds of all households lost ground or struggled to hold their own. Absent much discussion of this issue, the gap between the presumption of universal prosperity and voters’ own experience of their lives is…

  • Military Spending and Policy

    WILLIAM HARTUNG President’s fellow at the World Policy Institute, Hartung said today: “When Gore and Bush have addressed the Pentagon budget, they have talked about how much to increase it, not whether to do so. That is remarkable if you consider that at $311 billion per year, the United States is already spending more on its armed forces than the next seven largest military powers combined. After dropping under the Bush administration and the beginning of the Clinton administration, the Pentagon budget has increased for the last several years. We are currently spending 22 times the combined military budgets of…

  • The Environment: Behind the Rhetoric

    PATTI GOLDMAN A managing attorney with Earthjustice Defense Fund, Goldman said today: “Differences between Bush and Gore include the Arctic Wildlife Refuge, which came up in the debates. There are also differences in the priority and strategies for recovering Pacific salmon…. Gore favors having labor and environmental protection in trade agreements while Bush has not come out for those, but Gore’s position will not solve some of the fundamental problems…” More Information TIM HERMACH Founder of the Native Forest Council, Hermach said today: “Gore is getting the endorsement of some national environmental groups only because they are so afraid of…

  • Bush and Gore Agree Death Penalty Deters; But What Are the Facts?

    Last night, presidential candidates George W. Bush and Al Gore agreed that the death penalty is an effective deterrent. “I think the reason to support the death penalty is because it saves other people’s lives,” Bush said during the debate. Gore agreed, saying: “I support the death penalty…. I think it is a deterrence. I know that’s a controversial view, but I do believe it’s a deterrence.” But what are the facts about data on the death penalty and deterrence? The following policy analysts are available for interviews: RICHARD DIETER Executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, Dieter said…

  • Big Oil Gets Bigger: Chevron and Texaco

    Chevron has just agreed to acquire Texaco for $36 billion. This follows the BP-Amoco and Exxon-Mobil mergers. The following analysts are available for comments: WENONAH HAUTER Director of Public Citizen’s Critical Mass Energy Project, Hauter said today: “This trend towards more consolidation in the oil industry is bad for consumers in the long run and has the added impact of increasing the political power of these larger companies to influence energy policy. So rather than transitioning away from the use of oil, these larger, more politically powerful companies can influence public policy and this results in more subsidies, more tax…

  • Perspectives on Mideast Crisis

    MARC ELLIS Director of the Center for American and Jewish Studies at Baylor University in Texas and author of Oh Jerusalem: The Contested Future of the Jewish Covenant, Ellis said today: “The escalation of the Israeli helicopter gunships firing into civilian areas is just appalling…. Justice would mean a shared real sovereignty of all of Jerusalem: political, economic, spiritual…. The Israelis are still occupying the Palestinians; the Oslo ‘peace process’ is not one of justice and reconciliation — it is a solidification of a victory by Israel over the Palestinians. Israel has taken just about all of Palestine. Those of…

  • Earth Summit: Another Global Snub by the U.S.?

    The Earth Summit — or World Summit on Sustainable Development [see www.johannesburgsummit.org ] — begins on Monday in Johannesburg, South Africa. The following analysts are available for comments: COLLEEN FREEMAN A policy analyst with Friends of the Earth, Freeman said today: “Clearly, the promises of the Rio Earth Summit of 10 years ago have not…

  • Women’s Equality Day: Interviews Available

    This Monday is Women’s Equality Day — the anniversary of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, allowing women the right to vote. The following analysts are available for interviews: YIFAT SUSSKIND Susskind, associate director of MADRE, an international women’s human rights organization, said: “Women’s Equality Day provides an opportunity for us all to reflect…

  • Interviews Available: Critical Voices on Iraq

    STEPHEN ZUNES Associate professor of politics at the University of San Francisco and senior policy analyst and Middle East editor for the Foreign Policy in Focus Project, Zunes said today: “Claims of Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda appear to be little more than a desperate effort by administration officials to convince the American public to…

  • Iraq’s Use of Chemical Weapons: A Reason for Invasion?

    Bush administration officials have cited the Iraqi government’s use of chemical weapons as a key reason for launching an overwhelming attack on Iraq. Condoleezza Rice said last week: “He [Saddam Hussein] has used chemical weapons against his own people and against his neighbors…” On Sunday, a front-page New York Times article reported: “A covert American…

  • Reparations: Interviews Available

    On Saturday (August 17) in Washington, D.C., there will be a march calling for reparations for African Americans. The following commentators are available for interviews: JOE FEAGIN Graduate research professor at the University of Florida and author of numerous books on racism in the United States, Feagin said today: “Reparations for the enslavement and later…

  • Interviews Available: * Colombia * Mideast

    ADAM ISACSON Director of the Colombia program at the Center for International Policy, Isacson said today: “At a time when a new hardline president is declaring a state of emergency in Colombia, the U.S. government is broadening its military mission from counter-narcotics to counter-terrorism. This could lead just about anyplace. Those two trends are worrying…

  • Bush Economic Forum: Beyond the Photo-Ops

    JOHN MILLER Professor of economics at Wheaton College in Massachusetts and contributing editor for Dollars & Sense magazine, Miller said today: “The Bush administration is rounding up the usual suspects — conservative politicians, economists, business types, and even large donors — for a forum on why that pesky economy refuses to respond to Bush tax…

  • Interviews Available on Weapons of Mass Destruction: * Iraq * Hiroshima

    SCOTT RITTER Ritter, who was a chief UN weapons inspector in Iraq, is available for limited interviews. When asked by the Institute for Public Accuracy if he would be willing to go to Iraq with members of Congress, Ritter said he would consider such an option. He said today: “The offer by Iraq for members…

  • Interviews Available on Major Economic Stories

    MARK WEISBROT Co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Weisbrot wrote the article “Economists in Denial” in today’s Washington Post. He said this afternoon: “[Treasury Secretary Paul] O’Neill is visiting countries in the grip of serious economic and financial crisis: Argentina’s economy has collapsed, and Brazil is headed toward default on its debt.…

  • War and the U.S. Congress: Responsibilities and Evasions

    MIKE GRAVEL Gravel, currently president of Direct Democracy and sponsor of the National Initiative for Democracy, was a noted critic of the Vietnam War while in the Senate. He entered the Pentagon Papers into the Congressional Record. He said today: “This is a déjà vu of Tonkin and the evidence seems to be as flimsy.…

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