Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost does not believe a lawsuit challenging how he ruled on a potential ballot issue that would expand voting rights deserves an expedited trial.
Yost’s recent filing related to the suit dealt only with the time element and not about any legal challenges after he rejected a proposed constitutional amendment for an Ohio Voters Bill of Rights.
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The percentage of hourly and salaried workers in a union decreased in 2023, continuing a trend of ongoing decline in the past few decades.
The decline in 2023 was small, from 10.1% of the workforce to 10% even, but the trend is significant. In 1983, about 20% of hourly and salaried workers were in a union, meaning U.S. union membership has halved in about four decades.
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by Bethany Blankley One year in as Texas’ “border czar,” Mike Banks says the state has been so successful at blocking illegal entry that cartel activity has been pushed west into Democratic-led states that aren’t implementing similar tactics that Texas has. Banks spoke with The Center Square in an exclusive interview after reaching the one-year mark in his new role on Jan. 30. Gov. Greg Abbott tapped him for the role within 24 hours of his retirement from U.S. Border Patrol, creating his position to oversee and augment border security efforts already underway through Abbott’s border security mission, Operation Lone Star. Abbott created the state “border czar” role after President Joe Biden declared Vice President Kamala Harris “border czar,” saying she’d be overseeing border security operations. Harris has been absent from the border, even denying there is a crisis. Abbott has argued Banks has done more in one day than Harris did in the years she’s held the title. Banks was “the perfect choice” to be Texas’ first-ever border czar, Abbott argues, because of his 23 years of Border Patrol experience serving in three states and Washington, D.C., under four presidents. He’s “seen firsthand the struggles of ranchers and…
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Although public colleges and universities operate under First Amendment guidelines and many private schools pledge to uphold the principles of free speech, a new report says most still enforce policies that restrict it in some way.
After reviewing the policies of 489 of America’s top colleges and universities, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE, has released its Spotlight on Speech Codes 2024. The schools earned red, yellow, or green light ratings based on the extent to which their written regulations threaten free speech.
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Many Republicans already are criticizing a border bill expected to be voted on in the U.S. Senate.
Former President Donald Trump blasted the proposed legislation Monday, and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., called it “dead on arrival.”
More than 11 million illegal immigrants have come across the border into the U.S. since President Joe Biden first took office, more than the population of about 40 U.S. states.
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The former treasurer of the Mt. Gilead Volunteer Fire Department in Sparta is accused of knowingly misappropriating nearly $74,000 from the department and White County Firefighters Association, according to an investigation from the Tennessee Comptroller’s office.
Brittney Webb was indicted Jan. 8 for theft over $60,000 and forgery in White County.
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Federal prosecutors have charged a New Jersey political operative with a mail-in voter fraud scheme that involved paying “messengers” to cast ballots in the names of people whom they never met.
Former Atlantic City council president Craig Callaway was arrested Thursday and charged with “procuring, casting and tabulating fraudulent mail-in ballots” in the November 2022 general election, according to U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Philip R. Sellinger’s office.
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Polling from the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, the leading trade association of fuel, shows seven states oppose gas car bans.
Polling from the presidential and senate battleground states of Arizona, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, shows most registered and likely general election voters oppose government efforts to ban new gas cars and impose electric vehicle mandates.
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A bill to limit and expand law enforcement’s use of license plate readers passed out of a Virginia House subcommittee, sparking questions during a debate about the age-old dance between government overreach and public safety.
House Bill 775 from Del. Charniele Herring, D-Alexandria, would institute statewide regulations governing the use of the technology and enable law enforcement to use them on highways managed by the Virginia Department of Transportation.
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A group of states filed a friend of the court brief supporting a transgender veterans group that filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs seeking gender-confirmation surgery for 163,000 transgender veterans.
The Transgender American Veterans Association lawsuit, filed last month, seeks an order that the Department of Veterans Affairs act on the group’s 2016 rule-making petition for gender-confirmation surgery.
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Michigan Senate Republicans on Thursday announced their plan to improve childhood learning and support teachers in the K-12 schools.
They proposed a MI Brighter Future plan they said would help students gain access to additional resources and learning opportunities, require proven training methods for educators, give parents more control over their child’s progress, reinstate accountability in teacher evaluations and provide for performance-based bonuses.
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CT lawmakers ditch plans for special session on EV mandate.
Consideration of a proposed ban on sales of new gas-powered vehicles in Connecticut could happen in regular legislative session, but will not happen in a special called one.
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A year after a toxic train derailment left East Palestine, Ohio, reeling, a lawsuit aimed at helping the city and state recover is still ongoing.
Attorney General Dave Yost continued to wait for answers.
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Despite the key positions states like Ohio and Pennsylvania hold to solve future energy problems, shifting the power grid from coal and natural gas to wind and solar isn’t as easy as flipping a switch.
A cadre of Pennsylvania legislators trekked to Columbus for a joint meeting of three House and Senate committees from the two states to be advised by energy officials on PJM, the regional power grid to which both belong.
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In two letters to government officials, Virginia Congressman and Chair of House Freedom Caucus Bob Good, R-Lynchburg, demanded “accountability and transparency” from the Naming Commission.
The commission was established in 2021 to recommend renaming military assets showing honor to the Confederacy for the Department of Defense.
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Experts hired by Wisconsin’s supreme court to redraw the state’s political maps say there won’t be anymore Republican gerrymandering.
The court’s outside experts rejected maps drawn by Republican lawmakers and the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty. The experts said both maps continued to gerrymander the state for Republicans.
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As the one-year anniversary approaches of the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, President Joe Biden says he will soon visit the area to meet with locals and assess the recovery efforts.
The White House has not confirmed when, but said that a trip to the site near the Ohio-Pennsylvania border would be made in February. The derailment of the Norfolk Southern train, just east of the town center, led to a conflagration when officials decided to burn off vinyl chloride, exposing residents and nature to chemical smoke and fumes.
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The U.S. Supreme Court is considering a federal ban on bump stocks later in February, the latest opportunity for the high court to rule on gun violence and 2nd Amendment rights.
The case in question, Garland v. Cargill, came after the Trump administration banned bump stocks, attachments added to semiautomatic weapons to make them fire more quickly, classifying them as “machine guns,” which are banned by federal law.
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In the wake of Alabama carrying out a death sentence with the use of nitrogen gas, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost and some lawmakers want to kick start the state’s death penalty that has been stalled since 2019.
At a news conference Tuesday, Rep. Brian Stewart, R-Ashville, said nitrogen has been made available following the Alabama execution and plans to introduce legislation to make it available in Ohio.
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Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Monday that he is calling for constitutional reforms to hold leadership in Washington D.C. accountable for the crisis Americans face due to weak border policies and unchecked spending.
The second-term GOP governor and former presidential candidate is calling for a balanced federal budget, congressional term limits, laws being made equally applicable for citizens and members of Congress and line-item veto authority for the president.
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A letter urges an investigation into suppliers of a Ford electric vehicle plant in Marshall, Michigan.
Republican U.S. Reps. Mike Gallagher, R-Wisconsin, chairman of the House Select Committee on the CCP, and Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Washington, chair of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, signed the letter.
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Act 10, the law that fundamentally weakened Wisconsin’s public school teachers’ unions, is headed back to court. And again there is an effort to save it.
The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty on Monday filed a motion to join the new case that seeks to end Act 10. That case claims there was “no conceivable rational basis” for Act 10 to begin with.
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A recent state Supreme Court ruling side-stepped the question of constitutional abortion access in Pennsylvania, reviving discussion over a would-be ballot referendum mired in legislative gridlock.
Five justices said Monday the Commonwealth Court erred when it dismissed a 2019 case brought by seven abortion providers challenging Medicaid coverage restrictions first established in 1982 and upheld in 1985.
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Calling her state and America behind “the entire industrialized world,” a Virginia senator is one of two lawmakers pushing legislation to implement an employer-provided benefit to workers.
“Virginia and our entire nation are woefully behind the entire industrialized world when it comes to helping workers when their families need them,” Sen. Jennifer Boysko, D-Fairfax, said Monday explaining a paid famil and medical leave program.
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Former Republican Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich again on Tuesday argued the constitutional authority given to states for self-defense.
Brnovich testified at a U.S. House Judiciary Committee hearing addressing the issue after being the first and only state attorney general to issue a formal legal opinion that defines an invasion and lays out the constitutional authority of states’ self-defense.
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Tennessee Rep. Antonio Parkinson, D-Memphis, filed a bill that would require all adult-oriented businesses to display human trafficking hotline information that would be overseen by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. The democrat what the only vote against the anti-trafficking bill passed during the special session last fall.
“This isn’t a bad bill but we are very confused as to why Rep. Parkinson has decided to file a bill that addresses human trafficking, albeit in a miniscule manner, given that he was literally the only member of the State House to vote against our special session anti-trafficking bill that became law,” a statement from the Tennessee Faith and Freedom Coalition board said.
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Nearly five years after House Bill 6 became law and six months after former House Speaker Larry Householder was sent to prison, Ohio Democrats plan to introduce legislation again to stop corruption at the Statehouse.
State Reps. Daniel Troy (pictured above), D-Willowick, and Rachel Baker, D-Cincinnati, plan a news conference Tuesday to announce the Ohio Anti-Corruption Act requiring dark money groups to identify contributors and disclose spending.
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A veterans home under construction in Flagstaff is laying off existing staff.
The Arizona Department of Veterans’ Services told The Center Square on Friday about the personnel decision.
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by Bethany Blankley As the battle between Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and President Joe Biden continues over state sovereignty and Texas’ constitutional right to defend its border, the leaders and residents of 25 states have come to Texas’ aid, as others did from 22 states nearly 190 years ago. Answering Abbott’s call to join forces to secure the Texas-Mexico border last May, 24 Republican governors pledged support, sending National Guard troops and law enforcement officers from their states to Texas. After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Texas allowing Border Patrol agents to destroy concertina wire barriers in Eagle Pass, Texas, erected through Abbott’s border security mission, Operation Lone Star, a coalition of now 25 governors expressed even greater resolve to “stand with Texas.” Within the past few days, at least 10 governors have sent more troops to Texas, and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem visited to rally support for Texas troops. As calls have grown for Biden to federalize the Texas National Guard to pull them out of the chain of command of Abbott, a constitutional law expert and former active-duty Navy JAG told The Center Square that Congress should determine if such a move would constitute an impeachable offense. If the president…
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Texas sheriffs and some residents have a message for a trucker convoy scheduled to come to the Texas border on Feb. 3: “Don’t come.” Organizer of the “Take Our Border Back Southern Border Convoy & 3-state Rally” are calling on “all active and retired law enforcement and military, veterans, mama bears, elected officials, business owners, ranchers, truckers, bikers, media and law abiding, freedom-loving Americans” to travel to rural, hard-to -reach areas near Eagle Pass, Texas, Yuma, Arizona, and San Ysirdo, California.
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As part of making their case to impeach U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, House Committee on Homeland Security Republicans identified more than a dozen parole programs they argue Mayorkas illegally created to circumvent laws established by Congress.
Texas, Florida and other states have sued over many of the programs that have allowed illegal border crossers to remain in the U.S., agreeing with the committee’s chairman, U.S. Rep. Mark Green, R-Tenn., who is leading the charge for impeachment.
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Tennessee Representatives who were part of a joint committee examining the state rejecting K-12 federal education funding submitted a report on their findings without the signature of one member.
The report said Tennessee schools will accept $1.3 billion in federal funding this fiscal year, 9.9% of the funding for those schools. The state contributes $6.9 billion and local governments spend $4.8 billion.
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Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes and Senate President Warren Petersen are asking the Internal Revenue Service not to tax a rebate that went out last year to roughly 700,000 Arizona families.
Some Arizona families received a state tax rebate in the fall, which maxed out at $750 per family. Families got $250 for each dependent under 17 and $100 each for dependent adults. The Center Square reported on Monday that the IRS has decided to tax it as miscellaneous income.
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A second attempt to significantly overhaul Ohio’s voter laws by putting a constitutional amendment on the ballot failed.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost again called the proposed amendment to expand early voting and voter registration and stop required voter roll purges misleading.
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More and more Ohio teenagers wait until their 18th birthday to get their driver’s license, and the state plans to spend $4.5 million in taxpayer funds to try and change that.
Gov. Mike DeWine announced 34 grants through the Creating Opportunities for Driver Education program to increase driver training capacity at nearly 100 locations around the state.
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Arizona State Rep. Jennifer Longdon, D-Phoenix, resigned from the House effective on Friday.
“I take pride in the collaborative efforts that transcended party lines, resulting in meaningful bipartisan accomplishments,” Longdon wrote in her resignation letter. “I remain humbled by the trust placed in me by the Office of the Speaker in naming me as Chair of the Ad Hoc Committee on Abuse and Neglect of Vulnerable Adults. I am proud of the accomplishments we have been able to achieve thus far.”
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Newly released federal inflation data shows prices rose in December.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis released its Producer Consumption Expenditure, a key marker of inflation, which showed a 0.2% increase last month. That is an increase of 2.9% in the last year.
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Cities across the country are counting their homeless in an effort to get a handle on how big the problem is.
In the city of Detroit, 25 teams of volunteers will count the number of homeless throughout the city on Jan. 31.
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A program partially-funded by the city of Denver that pays homeless people a regular stipend is eligible to migrants as long as they meet the criteria, according to the city.
The Denver Basic Income Program, which was started in 2021 with the aid of $2 million from the city of Denver, announced it will go at least six months more beginning in February 2024.
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The Georgia Senate passed a measure Friday to bar ranked-choice voting in the state.
The chamber passed Senate Bill 355 by a 31-19 margin.
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Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes said Thursday that 525,000 illegal fentanyl pills were seized by the government.
“This operation is a significant step forward in our ongoing fight against criminal drug distribution in our state,” Mayes said in a statement. “The collaboration between my office and our local and federal law enforcement partners has been vital to our efforts at keeping this deadly drug off our streets. We will continue to aggressively investigate and prosecute these crimes to the fullest extent of the law.”
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The natural gas industry plans to push for more support of a federal program to cover energy costs for low-income families in 2024 while talking up safety and reliability.
“We need to break the poverty cycle by working together,” Jerry Norcia, chairman of the board of the American Gas Association, said in a press call on Monday. “Government, nonprofits and corporations can remove the barriers that prevent access to a prosperous future.”
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More chain stores closed in 2023 as a result of high inflationary costs, with the trend continuing in 2024 led by the iconic department store, Macy’s.
In 2023, retail stores, pharmaceutical and fast-food chains continued a trend of previous years: declaring bankruptcy and closing their doors or shutting down some locations to cut costs, citing inflation, higher costs, and profit losses.
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A new poll shows that Democrats and Republicans are concerned more about inflation than other potential crises, but voters from the two parties don’t see eye to eye on other concerns, including the potential of a terrorist attack on U.S. soil or potential chaos after the 2024 election.
The Center Square Voters’ Voice Poll conducted in conjunction with Noble Predictive Insights found that Republicans (45%) were more concerned about inflation than Democrats (32%). Concerns that inflation could continue and further drive up prices were highest for voters with children under 18 (47%) and those 45 to 54 years old (47%).
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Two bills to expand collective bargaining in the commonwealth came before the House Labor and Commerce Subcommittee #2 Thursday, one by Del. Katrina Callsen, D-Albemarle, for public transportation providers and the other by Del. Kathy Tran, D-Fairfax, for all public employees in Virginia.
The subcommittee quickly voted to incorporate Callsen’s bill into Tran’s HB 1001, expanding collective bargaining for public sector employees from something authorized at the local level to a universal right for all, including state employees.
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A Northern Minnesota farmer claims his race and sex placed him at the back of the line to receive a $15,000 grant for aspiring farmers to buy farmland.
The case is Lance Nistler v. Walz, et al., filed in the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota with pro-bono help from the nonprofit Pacific Legal Foundation.
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Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer proposed expanding the Michigan government by at least new five programs costing an unknown amount.
In a video talking to a potato, Whitmer proposed that taxpayers fund two years of community college for all high school graduates.
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Pennsylvania’s economic future, state officials think, means growing the outdoor recreation economy.
Such was the discussion during the Department of Conservation and Natural Resource’s advisory council meeting on Wednesday. The newly launched Office of Outdoor Recreation touted the industry’s impact, calling it responsible for $17 billion annually and 164,000 jobs.
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Maine’s highest court has declined to take up an appeal of a ruling over a move to take former President Donald Trump’s name off the state’s GOP primary ballot.
In a decision issued Wednesday, the Supreme Judicial Court dismissed an appeal by Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, asking justices to overturn a lower court ruling delaying a decision on the ballot challenge. The court said it would be improper to rule on a case that has yet to be decided.
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Tennessee has committed to hand out $17.9 million in grants for the development of 12 sites in order to prepare those sites for potential businesses.
The grants are part of the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development’s Site Development Grant program, which began in 2016.
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