It hasn’t been a good year for a few Missouri lawmakers. Two Show Me State legislators this year have been forced to step down after revelations of their wildly inappropriate behavior toward or with young interns working in their offices. But never...
Last year the Superior Court in Merrimack County, New Hampshire invalidated a 2011 state law increasing the amount public employees — even those who've been on the job over 10 years — have to contribute to their pensions, on the grounds...
WI Governor Signs AB 455 WISCONSIN Gov. Scott Walker (R) signs AB 455 , which eliminates a state law requiring someone to be at least 10 years old to legally hunt in the Badger State. Walker also signs AB 323 , which makes it legal to hunt or trap...
Less than two years after signing major opioid abuse deterrent legislation, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker (R) introduced a $110 million package of policy recommendations last week aimed at further addressing the Bay State’s ongoing opioid abuse...
Job vacancies at government agencies are up from coast to coast. About 11 percent of the positions in Maryland’s executive branch are currently unfilled, about twice the rate in 2010. Between 15 and 17 percent of the clerk positions at courts that...
BUSINESS: The NEW JERSEY Assembly approves SB 1226, which would require Garden State bars and other businesses hosting teen social nights to hire police officers for security, limit the age groups that may attend and forbid registered sex offenders from...
Colorado House Approves HB 1175 The COLORADO House approves HB 1175, which would bar mental health care providers from employing gay-conversion therapy on patients under age 18. It moves to the Senate (DENVER POST). U.S. Redefines Definition of...
To help cover the cost of a big pension payment for police and firefighters next year and help shrink his city’s annual budget hole, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel will reportedly call for the city’s largest property tax increase in at least decades...
The U.S. Supreme Court rules that TEXAS did not violate the First Amendment by refusing to allow the issuing of specialty license plates bearing the Confederate battle flag. The High Court ruled that such plates are the government’s speech and are...
Odds are good that until a few days ago most people not from there had never heard of Woodland, North Carolina. But little Woodland became international news last week when a story in the Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald reported that townsfolk had rejected...
It took Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D) and the state’s lawmakers until the end of December - six months into the current fiscal year - to approve a state budget. It was only a partial budget at that, with Wolf’s line-item vetoes leaving major...
Snyder Kills Straight Ticket Voting Saying “it’s time to choose people over politics,” MICHIGAN Gov. Rick Snyder (R) signed legislation last week (SB 13) that eliminates straight-ticket voting in the Wolverine State. In a signing...
The U.S. Justice Department has reached a $20.8 billion final settlement with BP over its role in the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil disaster. That sum is $2.1 billion bigger than the $18.7 billion initial settlement announced in July, which was already the...
ND Tribe Challenges voter ID Laws Seven members of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa have filed a lawsuit against North Dakota Secretary of State Al Jaeger (R) alleging that recent changes to the state's voter ID laws infringe on their right...
PENNSYLVANIA Gov. Tom Wolf (D) signs SB 166, which allows individuals who have served their punishment and remained free of arrest or prosecution for seven to ten years, for nonviolent misdemeanors, to petition the court for their record to be sealed...
Those of us of a certain age well remember Boston Red Sox pitcher Bill Lee, a stereotypical southpaw from the 1970s with enough of the goof in him to earn the nickname “Spaceman.” But while Lee, now 70, is still active on the mound as a pitcher...
Partisan gridlock has hardly been unique to Washington, D.C. lately. Political differences between Pennsylvania’s Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf and Republicans who control the state’s General Assembly delayed passage of that state’s budget...
Virginia Endorses HB 2125 and SB 1301 Lawmakers in VIRGINIA endorse a pair of drone regulation bills, HB 2125 and SB 1301, which each require law enforcement and regulatory agencies to get a warrant before using a drone. Both bills head to Gov. Terry...
California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) joined with legislative leaders on Wednesday to propose a suite of tax hikes and fees intended to produce $5.2 billion a year over the next decade to repair the state’s crumbling roads and bridges. The proposal...
EDUCATION FUNDING MEASURE OFF AZ BALLOT The ARIZONA Supreme Court has blocked a measure from the state’s November ballot that was aimed at increasing the tax rate on residents making more than $250,000 a year from 4.54 percent to 8 percent to...
New Mexico Approves HB 175 The NEW MEXICO House approves HB 175 , a bill that would prohibit solitary confinement for inmates who are pregnant or under 18 years old. It is now in the Senate (ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL). Mississippi Signs HB 812 MISSISSIPPI...
Republicans in California may be an emasculated bunch these days, but that doesn’t stop them from acting tough when the opportunity arises. Sadly, that often comes in the form of eating their own. Case in point comes in the form of Assembly Minority...
CHRISTIE PROPOSES NEW NJ OPIOID RULE NEW JERSEY Gov. Chris Christie (R) announced a new rule prohibiting prescribers of opioid medications from accepting meals and uncapped compensation for speaking engagements, consulting work, and other services...
Last Tuesday, Wisconsin voters overwhelming re-elected state Supreme Court Justice, Ann Walsh Bradley, a member of the court’s liberal minority, over her conservative challenger, Judge James Daley. But at the same time they passed a constitutional...
When electronic voting, or e-voting, started being widely adopted about a decade ago, there was a lot of discussion about the security of the technology. Heading into the 2016 presidential election, security is still an issue. The Huffington Post...