Shyamala Ramakrishna

Shyamala Ramakrishna is on the money in politics team at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law. She has a B.A. from Yale, and has worked at the ACLU, the Asian American Arts Alliance, and the Legal Resources Centre in Cape Town. She lives, writes, and sings in Brooklyn. You can find her on Twitter at @ShyamalaLR. Views expressed are her own, and do not necessarily reflect those of the Brennan Center.

[Photo: U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin testifying before the House Financial Services Committee on July 12, 2018.]

IRS Lets Dark Money Groups Hide Their Donors From the Public

Despite what some supporters of the rule change have argued, the IRS’s decision will not have neutral effects, but rather will bolster wealthy donors in their quest to covertly buy their preferred policies and, in the case of Brett Kavanaugh, judicial appointees.

On Funding, Candidates of Color Face an Uphill Battle Before They Even Start

Shyamala Ramakrishna

As Tuesday’s primaries showed, a few candidates might ascend in a system stacked against them, but many more are left behind. Underserved populations lose when financial barriers limit their choices at the ballot, because the people who represent their priorities are effectively shut out of the political process.