Home | IVN

Bridging Cultural Gaps Is The First Step to Dissolving Political Differences

In 2013, I did something I’d done only once before: I went to a range and shot some guns. Lots of guns. All shapes, ages, and sizes.

This is a very strange thing to do for a guy born British. Guns are featured almost nowhere in British culture.

Accordingly, I was unsurprised by the reaction of my mother when I called home and told her that I had a great time learning about firearms and discovering I wasn’t a bad shot, even with a WWII Enfield.

Academics Say Arming Ukrainian Forces Could Make Things Worse

fighting continues in Ukraine despite a recently negotiated ceasefire, some American leaders are calling for the U.S. to arm Ukrainian forces.

Asm. Cheryl Brown: Education Is Top Budget Issue In California

In 2010, California's budget negotiations stalled for over three months past the constitutional deadline. Partisan gridlock

muddied the debate over how to manage the state's $60 billion deficit and spending per student in California ranked 46th in the nation, according to the California Budget Project.

Why The U.S. Needs a President Who Knows Foreign Policy

As the world handles the aftermath of the Great Recession and subsequent Eurozone Crisis, the Democratic and Republican parties continue to fight over most foreign policy issues in a stalemate that compromises U.S. influence in world affairs. The general lack of public will and support after prolonged engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan has left even the most noble of our leadership hamstrung, as the necessary political appetite for addressing the full portfolio of the United States' global commitments is diminished.

Major Parties Conduct State-by-State Effort to Limit Voter Participation

There is an ongoing lawsuit attempting to close Montana’s open primary system. This lawsuit is being joined by the Montana Republican Party. State Republicans support closing their primaries because they argue Democrats and other nonmembers have been influencing their elections for years.

Partisan Elections: Not All Voters are Created Equal

A Texas voter went to his local polling location to vote in the most recent primary election. As he waited in line, he had a decision to make. He knew who he wanted to support in the first stage of the voting process; he read the voter guides from various local newspapers and educated himself on the candidates. However, the biggest decision he needed to make was, what races would he have the most meaningful participation in?

Texas has an open partisan primary system.

Data Wars: Major Parties Fight for Total Dominance ahead of 2016

Most voters may not notice it, but the 2016 presidential election is already underway. Aside from the early announcements from Republicans like Jeb Bush, the national Republican and Democratic parties have been charting the course for 2016 since at least 2012. All the while, both major parties have been building up massive storehouses of voter data.

Information about hundreds of thousands of voters, compiled over the years from volunteer canvassers and paid staff, will be put to use to persuade and target various segments of the national voting population come election time.