In recent years it hasn’t been uncommon for over 40 percent of the state legislative seats up for election across the nation to go uncontested. But this year is shaping up to be very different. In states where candidate filing deadlines have...
JUDGE ORDERS TX TO ALLOW ONLINE VOTER REGISTRATION THROUGH DPS: A federal judge has ordered the state of TEXAS to allow residents to register to vote online when they renew their driver’s license through the Department of Public Safety’s...
In a landmark decision last week, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a quarter-century-old law barring states from legalizing wagering on professional and amateur sports. New Jersey argued that the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA...
In March, as an uprising over teacher pay and classroom funding was spreading across the country, the Oklahoma Legislature passed and Gov. Mary Fallin (R) signed a package of tax hikes on cigarettes, energy production and motor fuel ( HB 1010 b ) to help...
CA GOV PROPOSES LAST STATE BUDGET: CALIFORNIA Gov. Jerry Brown (D) unveiled the final budget of his tenure, a plan calling for $199.3 billion in total spending and projecting an $8.8 billion surplus, $7.6 billion of which would be deposited into two...
License, registration, sexual favors. Wait, what? Yep, believe it or not, until a few weeks ago there was nothing in Kansas law to prevent police from engaging in sexual activities with someone they pull over on the road or detain in a criminal investigation...
California Gov. Jerry Brown likes to say the key to governing is like steering a canoe: to move ahead you have to paddle a little to the right, then a little to the left. Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin must be listening. As the Associated Press reports , Fallin...
Former Alaska lawmaker Johnny Ellis saw his share of wacky things during his 29 years in the legislature. But nothing quite like what he experienced last week on a flight back to Anchorage from Seattle, when, as the Anchorage Daily News reports , a fellow...
It’s bad enough the two major parties seem out to kill each other, but now we have intra-party fisticuffs, too? Yes, Jimmy Joe Bob, we do. As the Advocate of Baton Rouge reports , two Republican lawmakers got into a late night disagreement at a...
Supreme Court Overturns Sports Betting Law The Supreme Court of the United States overturns a federal law that barred states from authorizing sports betting. The ruling came in the case of Murphy v. NCAA. (For more, see Budget & Taxes in this issue...
MD Governor Signs HB 251 MARYLAND Gov. Larry Hogan (R) signs HB 251 , which requires local school systems to offer age-appropriate instruction on the meaning of consent in sex education curriculum for middle-school and high-school students (LEXISNEXIS...
MD Governor Signs HB 1456 MARYLAND Gov. Larry Hogan (R) signs HB 1456 , which establishes offshore drilling as an abnormally dangerous activity and holds the party responsible for a spill liable for damages for any injury, death, or loss to person...
MA House Approves HB 4486 The MASSACHUSETTS House approves HB 4486 , legislation that would raise the Bay State smoking age to 21. It is now in the Senate (BOSTON GLOBE). IA Governor Signs HF 2377 IOWA Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) signs HF 2377 , a...
CA Governor Signs SB 785 Gov. Jerry Brown (D) signs SB 785 , which prevents lawyers from revealing the immigration status of crime victims and witnesses in open court unless a judge rules the information relevant to the case (LEXISNEXIS STATE NET)...
MI Senate Approves SB 741 The MICHIGAN Senate approves SB 741 , which would bar local governments from banning the ownership of certain dog breeds. The bill, which would nullify all current bans and bar municipalities from imposing new ones, moves...
CA Federal Judge Strikes Down A federal judge in CALIFORNIA strikes down a ban on shipping coal through the Port of OAKLAND . U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria said the City Council did not have enough evidence that the coal operations would pose...
Since 2016 at least 19 states have introduced and 9 have enacted legislation creating a state reinsurance program and/or authorizing the state to apply for a State Innovation Waiver under Section 1332 of the Affordable Care Act to obtain federal funding...
Soaring premiums and declining insurer participation in the health insurance marketplaces states set up in accordance with the Affordable Care Act have been among the most common complaints about the federal healthcare law. To address those issues states...
Between 2014 and 2017, tax revenues from the sale of marijuana shot up about 400 percent in Washington. In Colorado they surged about 900 percent. But the $314 million and $223 million in marijuana tax revenues, respectively, in the two states that were...
State and local tax collections increased by 9.4 percent and 8.9 percent, respectively, in the final quarter of 2017, roughly three times the average quarterly growth rate for the last year, according to a report by the Rockefeller Institute of Government...
CA ECONOMY NOW WORLD’S 5TH LARGEST CALIFORNIA’s economy has surpassed that of the United Kingdom to become the world’s fifth-largest, according to data released this month by the U.S. Department of Commerce. California’s 2017...
Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal (R) vetoed a controversial bill last week that would have given police the power to pursue hackers who probe computer systems but don’t steal any data. Opponents said the bill would also have prohibited so-called “white...
Vermont Gov. Phil Scott (R) said he needs to study a bill lawmakers sent him last week that would make the Green Mountain State the first to import prescription drugs from Canada. That measure, SB 175 , would create an importation program for buying widely...
BAKER OPEN TO NEW MA DEATH PENALTY In the wake of the murder of a Bay State police officer, MASSACHUSETTS Gov. Charlie Baker (R) says his office is talking with lawmakers and law enforcement officials about crafting a bill to reinstate the death penalty...
Primary elections were held in four states - Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio and West Virginia - on May 8 and, as FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver pointed out , both Democrats and Republicans managed to “mostly avoid self-inflicted damage.”...