In “Why the 2014 Election Matters for Voting Rights,” the online magazine Facing South delves into analysis by UMBC’s Tyson King-Meadows on last week’s CBC Annual Legislative Conference panel “Protecting the Right to Vote.” King-Meadows is associate professor of political science and chair of Africana studies.

The panel discussed voting rights issues in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent invalidation of Section Five of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA). In his remarks, King-Meadows described two ways the VRA’s influence could shrink further, including underfunding for the attorneys who address claims relating to voter rights and appointing people who are hostile to the VRA’s tenets to roles in the Department of Justice (DOJ) or federal courts.

“Let me give you a number: 684,” said Kings-Meadows. “That’s the number of non-competitive appointments in the DOJ alone.”

King-Meadows suggested that means an individual who is antagonistic toward the VRA could direct Justice staff to interpret the law in ways that could lead to further weakening of its powers, “or simply ignore meritorious complaints that come in,” Facing South notes. Read the full analysis on Facing South.

Throughout the week, with a possible government shutdown looming, UMBC political science professor Roy T. Meyers has provided analysis for media from the Washington Post to USA Today on the costs of previous shutdowns and what is at stake this time around.

On NPR’s Morning Edition today, Meyers noted that it’s hard to estimate the true cost of a shutdown:

For example, what does it cost the American people when you tell somebody who leads the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to plan for a shutdown rather than try to reduce or eliminate public health threats. To me, the cost there is the increased risk associated with not paying as much attention to public health.

The problem of diverted attention isn’t just felt in agencies — it has serious impacts for Congress itself, Meyers argues:

Think for example about immigration. After the last presidential election, a lot of people in Washington said, “Well, this is the year to have an immigration law.” Where is it? Well, there are still big issues there to resolve and one reason why they are not resolved is that Congress is spending far too much time fighting over this…

Listen to the full story on NPR.

Update: Additional coverage linking to Meyers’ research appeared on the Washington Post‘s The Fed Page blog on Sept. 26 and Wonkbook on Sept. 27.

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