Civil rights leaders  hope to increase African American youth voter turnout by citing the police shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., a city where only 12 percent of registered voters turned out to vote in the last city council elections. Community organizers in New Orleans and Houston -- two cities with a long history of confrontations between African Americans and the police -- have mixed views on whether outrage over Ferguson will translate into voter participation. 

There are real uncertainties about how rapidly the real-world changing demographic profile of U.S. communities will affect national politics and the extent to which right-wing anti-immigrant politicians in Congress can continue to perpetuate de facto segregation on the basis of immigration status. But in California and in other states (including those in the South and the Midwest), as increasing numbers of U.S.-born children of Latino immigrant parents reach voting age, their votes will very soon tip the balance toward social policies that more fairly and inclusively represent community perspectives. 

The populations most vulnerable to those outrages are hardly aware of the Koch brothers. I believe only a minuscule number of Democrats and Independents know of the very real threat to our country’s decency – and our base responsibility to those less advantaged – posed by Sheldon Adelson and Koch brother types out there wielding hundreds of millions of dollars in what I call “The Dark Campaign”.So the intent of the Democratic campaign organizations to shine a light on those threats and that Dark Campaign is commendable.

This country has come too far since the Voting Rights Act's initial passage in 1965 to move backward. House Democrats will continue to fight to ensure that participation in our democracy remains unfettered and that all votes will be properly counted. During President Obama's first term, Republicans made their top priority loud and clear: to make President Obama a one-term president. We’re all glad they failed. But if Republicans maintain or build on their majority after November, President Obama’s legacy—and the nation’s economic recovery—will be in jeopardy.