States have been offering tax credits and other financial incentives for the purchase of electric and hybrid vehicles since the 1990s. But at least seven states have recently repealed or exhausted the funding of their programs, or allowed the programs...
The U.S. Department of Justice dropped a bombshell on the online gambling industry last week when it announced a legal opinion it issued in November saying the federal Wire Act of 1961 - prohibiting the use of wire communication facilities to conduct...
In 1955 the California Supreme Court ruled in Allen v. City of Long Beach (1955) that workers enter a contract with their employers from their first day on the job, and their pension benefits can’t be reduced unless they’re replaced with comparable...
As of June, at least 32 states had introduced or were considering security breach notification bills this session, many of which were aimed at toughening existing security breach laws, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Fourteen...
Premium increases for the most popular category of health insurance plans under Obamacare will vary widely in 2017, based on analysis of proposed rate filings for eight states where complete data is available by Avalere Health. The average proposed rate...
As a young man, California resident Scott Kirchner was admittedly not concerned with saving money for retirement. “Until I was probably 31, the idea of saving any money for anything was foreign to me,” he says. Now, at age 56 and...
After Republicans swept into control of 29 governor’s offices and 25 state legislatures in the 2010 elections, they moved aggressively to cut spending and taxes. The cuts continued the next few years in the wake of the Great Recession. But with...
New York pays a larger share of its total Medicaid spending than any other state, at 51.2 percent, with the federal government covering the other 48.8 percent, according to data compiled by the Kaiser Family Foundation . New York also pays the most in...
We’ve all witnessed elected officials in recent years who have compounded blunders by performing them on social media. But one California pol recently proved one doesn’t have to actually be on Facebook or Twitter for those sites to cause you...
The Affordable Care Act, often called Obamacare, has provided health insurance for millions of Americans who previously lacked coverage and flocked to hospital emergency rooms in times of medical crisis. But six years after its enactment on a party-line...
Last year, Millward Brown , a global brand strategy and advertising organization, predicted a “mind shift in focus from ‘big’ data to streamlined ‘intelligent’ data.” Of course, that’s easier said than done, especially...
As of May 12 drought was impacting every state in the nation but six, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, a weekly measure of drought conditions produced by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s National Drought Mitigation Center and the U.S....
Only 14 states have formal statewide plans in place for dealing with climate change, according to the Georgetown Climate Center. Of those states, California is the furthest along in implementing its plan, having completed 48 of that plan’s 345 stated...
This year’s statehouse elections offer opportunities for both Democrats and Republicans to shift majority control of legislative chambers, according to Tim Storey of the National Conference of State Legislatures. Democrats are eyeing Republican...
Lobbyist Spending Down in MA Lobbyist spending last year in MISSOURI - which totaled about $690,000 - was down by more than $200,000 from any other year on record, and spending has continued to fall this year, according to analysis of Missouri Ethics...
Wyoming has more government employees per capita than any other state, according to 2013 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. As The Wall Street Journal reported last year, more than 11.39 percent of the state’s total population -- or 114 people...
A federal judge issued a ruling last week blocking the U.S. Commerce Department from adding a question about citizenship to the 2020 census. Commerce Secretary Wilbur L. Ross Jr. had ordered the addition of the citizenship question nearly a year...
When Election Day ended two weeks ago the “blue wave” many had predicted for the first midterm of the Trump presidency seemed relatively modest in size. But since the election that wave has continued to roll in, bringing more Democratic gains...
FORMER FL SENATE PRESIDENT TAKES JOB WITH MAJOR DONOR Outgoing FLORIDA Senate president Joe Negron (R) has taken a job with private prison operator Geo Group. When Negron became Senate president in 2016, the company contributed $270,000 to a political...
In June the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Janus v. AFSCME that unions could no longer require public workers who choose not to join a union to pay union fees even if they benefit from union efforts. That ruling has adversely impacted union finances...
At least 11 states have considered measures this session mimicking Hawaii’s newly implemented law that raises the minimum age for purchasing tobacco products to 21, according to LexisNexis State Net ’s legislative database. California’s...
SUPREME COURT TO HEAR VA REDISTRICTING CASE The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal by Republican lawmakers in VIRGINIA of a lower court ruling ordering 11 House of Delegates districts to be redrawn to address racial gerrymandering. That...
When Congress approved the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in 2010, the law was hailed as “momentous social legislation” that constituted “the biggest attack on economic inequality” in three decades ( New York Times...
Board Denies Funds for OR Women’s Prison The OREGON Emergency Board rejected a plea by state correction officials for $3.8 million to help re-open the Oregon State Penitentiary Minimum in Salem to augment the state’s only current women’s...
Life expectancy for most of the developed world has risen for years. But ongoing research by Princeton University economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton reveals that over the last two decades mortality rates have spiked sharply for one specific group of...