People For the American Way Foundation has put out an alert asking for signatures on a petition to Ohio's Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review to reject voter registration regulations that "effectively prevent many nonpartisan civic engagement groups from conducting voter registration activities there. The clear victims of these rules are the members of marginalized groups who are often the focus of registration campaigns. This is voter suppression, plain and simple." The committee meets to vote on Monday, June 26. The online petition is at http://www.pfaw.org/go/OHsuppression

Not surprising, but what is interesting is that the vote tally reveals that the House equates the Thomas compromise to full repeal. The House voted to pass legislation that significantly reduces the Estate Tax. The bill, introduced by Rep. Bill Thomas (R-CA) at the behest of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN), would amount to a 75% repeal of the Estate Tax. But, mirroring last year’s vote on full repeal, Thomas’ bill has proven to be no more popular than full repeal.

The Senate voted yesterday (twice) to keep low-wage workers in poverty.* The first vote was on a Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) plan to increase the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 per hour over two years. The measure was an amendment to the FY2007 Defense appropriations bill. The second vote to keep the minimum wage at the 1949 level** was on a Republican bill, introduced by Sen. Mike Enzi’s (R-WY), and would have increased the minimum wage to $6.25 per hour.

Earlier this year we blogged (here and here) about a new program authorized by Congress to allow the IRS to outsource its tax collection to private collection agencies. This program has caught the wary eye of a few folks in Congress, most of all Representative Steve Rothman (D-NJ). Rothman recently successfully lead the charge against this policy, blocking the IRS from spending money on the program in the FY 2007 Treasury-Transportation bill recently approved by the House. Now all that is necessary to stop the program is successful passage in the final appropriations bill later this year.