Building on our success in increasing student aid in 2007, we advocated reforms to the college textbook industry last fall. On Nov. 15, the House Education and Labor Committee passed a comprehensive higher education reform bill including policies advocated by U.S. PIRG. The College Opportunity and Affordability Act would help parents and students save money on textbooks, which cost $900 on average every year.  

The bill mandates that publishers provide the price of textbooks when they market them to faculty, that they sell textbooks separately from accompanying workbooks and CD-ROMs, and that colleges and universities provide students with book lists during the prior semester, in order to facilitate shopping for the best deal. The full House of Representatives will take up this bill in the coming months.

After our New Voters Project registered more than 500,000 voters in 2004—most of them young and first-time voters—several states have adopted onerous regulations and restrictions for civic organizations that run voter registration drives. U.S. PIRG has joined a lawsuit against the state of New Mexico to stop that state’s law from going into effect.

The restrictions are meant to discourage organizations from engaging in registration efforts and include limits on the number of forms given to a single civic group, unreasonable deadlines for returning the forms, steep fines for honest mistakes, and other obstacles. Legal analysts say the new rules violate the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act. 

New Mexico is the third state to take similar action, following Florida and Ohio. A decision on the case will likely be made in June 2008.

The “digital transition” is coming. Will your TV make the switch? In February 2009, television broadcasting signals will switch from analog to all digital signals.

Our expert on the issue, Amina Fazlullah, found that Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Target, among other electronics retailers, are using the transition to their advantage, convincing customers to buy unnecessary equipment, or neglecting to inform would-be analog buyers about the transition.

While a rebate program has been established to help consumers purchase analog to digital converters, the information on the program is hard to find and not widespread. Most of the consumers who will be affected are rural, elderly or low-income. Estimates put the number of households in danger of being cut off from television with the digital transition between 13 million and 21 million. We’ve testified before House and Senate committees on the issue.

“With so many Americans getting so much of their news and information from television, this problem is much bigger than missing your Thursday night show,” said Fazlullah.