Ian Millhiser for Think Progress

This Is The Most Important Reform Ferguson Can Enact To Give Its Black Residents A Voice

Ferguson can help ensure that its leaders more closely resemble its population, however. They just need to hold their elections at a time when voters are actually likely to show up.

Ian Millhiser for Think Progress
By Ian Millhiser for Think Progress
Police Shooting Missouri

If you compared the racial makeup of Ferguson, Missouri’s population as a whole to that of its government, it would be easy to mistake the city for an enclave of Jim Crow. Although nearly 70 percent of Ferguson is black, 50 of its 53 police officers are white. So are five of Ferguson’s six city council members. The mayor, James Knowles, is a white

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Missouri Senate Committee Votes To Jail Federal Agents Who Enforce Gun Laws

The Constitution provides that duly enacted federal laws “shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.”

Ian Millhiser for Think Progress
By Ian Millhiser for Think Progress
Former astronaut Mark Kelly fires a hunting rifle at a shooting range on Tuesday, July 2, 2013, in Anchorage, Alaska, as Anders Gustafson spots bullet placement on the target. (AP Photo/Dan Joling)

The Missouri Senate’s General Laws Committee voted 5-1 last week in favor of a bill that purports to make it a crime for federal law enforcement agents to enforce the nation’s gun laws. Under the bill’s terms, these agents could be imprisoned for up to a year and be fined up to $1,000. Much of this unconstitutional legislation mirrors a bill

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