The Ohio Republican Party and Governor Mike DeWine both announced opposition on Wednesday to a proposed constitutional amendment that would amend Ohio’s constitution by rewriting redistricting rules.
Every 10 years after the U.S. Census, the Ohio Redistricting Commission – comprised of seven members – is tasked with redrawing Ohio’s 99 House districts and 33 Senate districts to reflect the most recent census results.
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Nearly $15 million in taxpayer funds are being used to help develop nearly 1,000 acres in northwest Ohio in hopes of luring major corporations to the state.
Gov. Mike DeWine announced the money would go to the Defiance County Commission, which is expected to use it to install infrastructure at the Baltimore Avenue Industrial Corridor in Defiance.
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An Arizona Auditor General report found wasteful spending at a school district on the Tohono O’Odham Nation Reservation south of Tucson.
Most notably, the report said the district spent $500,000 on travel expenses intended for “training and conferences” even though the upsides of the spending might have been dubious. In addition, the district did not maintain proper transportation documents, “lacked important internal controls” to prevent financial abuse, wasteful spending and fraud, help board meetings outside of town and had Information Technology security vulnerabilities.
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Pennsylvania-based radio show host John Fredericks said the Keystone State’s politics are “hanging in the balance” leading up to the upcoming November 5 general election
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Campaign spokesmen for Vice President Kamala Harris reportedly confirmed to media outlets Wednesday that the candidate intends to share a Philadelphia stage with her vice presidential nominee on Tuesday.
The Harris campaign’s reported plan for Harris to announce her vice presidential nominee on Tuesday comes as Governor Josh Shapiro, who is serving his first term as Pennsylvania’s governor, is reportedly among the top names considered by Harris to complete her ticket ahead of the Democratic Party’s convention in August.
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Arizona State Representative Justin Heap (R-Mesa) defeated incumbent Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer in the Republican primary election on Tuesday.
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This year, primary voter turnout for Democrats was notably low, with critics attributing this to a lack of competitive races. Key races to watch include who Republican Jerry Sheridan will face for Maricopa County Sheriff and whether Democrat Phoenix City Councilwoman Yassamin Ansari or State Senator Raquel Terán will face-off against Republican Jeff Zink to succeed Representative Reuben Gallego in the U.S. House.
Many are closely watching to see which challenger will emerge to compete against Representative David Schweikert (R-AZ-01) in the general election.
Democrat Kirsten Engel, who did not have a primary, will face incumbent Representative Juan Ciscomani (R-AZ-06) in the general election. This is a repeat matchup from 2022. Ciscomani defeated newcomer Kim George in his Republican primary.
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The results of Arizona’s 2024 Republican primary election began trickling in at 8 p.m. election night, with Kari Lake well in the lead for U.S. Senate against Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb, and Abe Hamadeh easily leading in the race for Congress in CD8. Out of about 309,000 ballots, Lake received 53.3 percent and Lamb 40.6 percent. Hamadeh garnered 29.7 percent, with the next closest candidate, Blake Masters, at 23 percent.
The first round of results favored more moderate candidates in the Republican primary, since county recorders’ offices count early ballots first. The grassroots conservative base votes heavily on Election Day due to concerns about election fraud.
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Republican U.S. Senate nominee Dave McCormick released a new advertisement on Tuesday that declares his opponent, Senator Bob Casey (D-PA), and Vice President Kamala Harris “dangerously liberal on the border.” The video comes after polling data suggested immigration remains a top issue for Pennsylvania voters earlier this year.
The McCormick campaign, in a statement, said the new video highlights public support by Casey and Harris “for decriminalizing illegal border crossings, sanctuary cities, abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, blocking funding for a border wall, and more.”
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Candidates in Michigan’s U.S. Senate race disagree on issues ranging from electric vehicles to crime, but most recently, they’ve clashed over foreign policy.
U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich, is facing former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers. Republicans hope to flip the seat as incumbent Democrat Debbie Stabenow is not running for reelection.
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Gov. Ron DeSantis and first lady Casey DeSantis held a news conference Monday to recognize 13 top-performing Hope Florida CarePortal Churches.
Hope Florida’s mission is to create pathways to prosperity for communities and individuals, to help them become more economically self-sufficient and to instill hope. Casey DeSantis spearheaded the project, which is implemented through the Florida Department of Children and Families.
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An influx of undocumented migrants into the U.S. strains services in many cities and presents challenges to public school systems, affecting the quality of education and imposing new costs on taxpayers.
In Pennsylvania, specifically, the worsening struggle was just one of several issues of inequity that lawmakers say leaves many students, native and non-native speakers alike, behind.
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A man who threatened to take a rifle to the Wisconsin Capitol and shoot lawmakers has been sentenced to jail, but he won’t go behind bars.
A Fond du Lac County judge sentenced 75-year-old James Stearns to a week in jail and a $500 fine after Stearns sent emails where he threatened to kill lawmakers and a local radio host.
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Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign announced Monday that it officially submitted 13,000 signatures to Ohio election officials in an effort to formally gain ballot access in the Buckeye State for the November 5 presidential election.
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A county supervisor in Virginia on Monday called for an end to sanctuary laws for illegal migrants after two murder suspects were confirmed to be living in the U.S. illegally, 7News reported.
Fairfax County Supervisor Pat Herrity, the one-and-only Republican supervisor in the deep blue jurisdiction, is demanding county officials put an end to laws that protect illegal migrant criminals in the county, according to 7News. Herrity’s public comments follow a brutal murder earlier this month along a popular hiking trail in Oakton, Virginia, with accusations that at least one of the illegal migrant suspects benefited from sanctuary laws before the murder.
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Vice presidential nominee and Ohio U.S. Senator JD Vance (R-OH) will travel to Arizona on Thursday to tour the U.S.-Mexico border, the Trump campaign announced.
Vance will visit the border in Cochise County, which is part of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Tucson Sector.
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The Arizona Free Enterprise Club (AFEC) filed a lawsuit against the Make Elections Fair Act (MEFA) on Friday. The complaint alleged that the initiative violates the Arizona Constitution by illegally combining multiple constitutional amendments in one ballot initiative. It said the “Make Elections (Unfair) Act” will “radically alter Arizona’s constitutional structure in multiple ways.”
“In their rush to undermine the will of Arizona voters for future elections, the special interests that drafted this measure ignored our laws and our Constitution,” said Scot Mussi, president of AFEC in a statement. “This egregious disregard for law and order exudes arrogance from these parties and should disqualify their measure from the November ballot.”
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Prominent Minnesota Republicans are demanding Democratic Gov. Tim Walz terminate the employment of a Department of Natural Resources (DNR) official who cheered the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, arguing that failure to do so would constitute an endorsement of political violence.
State Sens. Andrew Matthews, Steve Drazkowski, Cal Bahr, and State Reps. Pam Altendorf, Shane Mekeland, and Ben Davis issued a joint statement in which they pushed for Walz to act. The statement referred to the assassination attempt as “a disturbing example of political violence and Americans rightly were disturbed by the attack, regardless of political affiliation.”
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The federal government is sending more than $6.1 million in taxpayer money to four South Carolina airports as part of grants for rehabilitation and construction projects.
The latest in federal tax money is from the 2024 Airport Improvement Program’s third round of grants. The latest tranche of funding includes more than $374 million the Federal Aviation Administration announced for airfield and safety projects at 299 airports in 46 states and American Samoa.
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Georgia officials are awarding $1 million in grants to increase mental health access for military members, veterans and their families.
Last year, state lawmakers passed House Bill 414 to create the Veterans Mental Health Services Program under the Georgia Department of Veterans Service. Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed the measure into law on April 25, 2023.
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The 2024 Arizona primary features fierce competition and high stakes. Garrett Lewis recently hosted an all-star panel on “The Afternoon Addiction,” featuring Abe Hamadeh, State Senator Jake Hoffman (R-Queen Creek), and Senate hopeful Kari Lake. They explored the current dynamics of the primary, dissecting key issues, candidate strategies, and the overall political climate.
Stephen Richer, the current Maricopa County Recorder, declared on social media, “As of July 28, we were up to 555,254 early ballot packet returns.” He noted that these numbers lag behind the 2022 primary total of 866,924 and the 2020 primary total of 860,704, predicting, “I suspect we will be in the 700s for this election.”
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The Justice Department (DOJ) on Monday announced that it would be monitoring Arizona’s July 30 primary to ensure that the state was in “compliance with federal voting rights laws” in Maricopa County.
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Ohio’s 10-day sales tax holiday is set to begin at midnight on Tuesday and run until 11:59 p.m. on Thursday, August 8.
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Former Arizona legislator Nancy Barto, who was defeated for reelection in 2022 due to progressives targeting her over championing pro-life legislation, spoke to a church in Casa Grande Thursday evening about Proposition 139. Barto told the group of 158 at Cowboy Church of Pinal County about the negative ramifications of Prop. 139, the Right to Abortion Initiative, which is almost certain to be on the ballot this fall.
The proposition legalizes abortion up to nine months, including partial-birth abortions, removes requirements that doctors be involved, eliminates parental consent, and removes penalties for those who assist with obtaining abortions. Arizona’s current abortion law prohibits abortions after 15 weeks.
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Virginia school boards are issuing cellphone free mandates in their local communities, after Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin ordered schools to draft plans for cell phone-free education in K-12 public schools.
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Virginia State Police cleared the anti-Israel encampment constructed near the home of Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Saturday after it subsisted for over six months.
The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) worked with the Virginia State Police to clear the encampment previously constructed on the shoulder of Chain Bridge Road near Blinken’s home on Saturday, with VDOT stating to WTOP the encampment was “unsafe for motorists, bikers and pedestrians and blocks access to emergency vehicles and personnel.”
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Experts claimed in an article published Saturday by The Washington Post that the results of the 2024 elections in Pennsylvania could be delayed because state lawmakers did not pass bills that would allow election workers to begin processing mail-in ballots prior to Election Day.
Because Pennsylvania does not allow its election workers to pre-canvass mail-in votes, which is the process of counting and validating the authenticity of the ballots, experts claim workers could need significant time after Election Day to determine which presidential candidate will carry the Keystone state’s Electoral College votes.
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Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares filed an amicus brief Thursday on behalf of the Hanover County School Board, which barred a middle school male student identifying as a transgender girl from playing on the girls’ tennis team.
“Neither the federal Constitution nor any federal statute require Virginia school boards to allow biological males to play on a girls sports team,” Miyares said in a statement. “Rather, civil rights law is meant to protect female equity in athletics. I urge the court to ensure that women’s rights and opportunities remain protected in Virginia.”
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With 99 days until the November general election, key dates are approaching for Ohio voters.
The November election will decide the next president, the state’s next U.S. senator and three congressional races that some call competitive.
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Thirteen of 14 incumbents representing Georgia in the U.S. House of Representatives have leads in fundraising with 101 days to go.
None of the seats occupied by nine Republicans and five Democrats are forecast to impact the party majority in the chamber.
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A progressive organization called Uplift Campaigns is posting daily updated information on how many Republicans versus Democrats have turned in early ballots all around Arizona. However, A.R.S. 16-551(C) makes it a felony to release any results from early voting before Election Day.
That statute provides in part, “Partial or complete tallies of the early election board shall not be released or divulged before all precincts have reported or one hour after the closing of the polls on election day, whichever occurs first. Any person who unlawfully releases information regarding vote tallies or who possesses a tally sheet or summary without authorization from the recorder or officer in charge of elections is guilty of a class 6 felony.”
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The Ohio Supreme Court ruled 4-3 to reject a lawsuit brought by a restaurant customer who swallowed a bone that was in his order of boneless chicken wings.
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Ohio school districts must adopt a policy to accommodate students’ sincerely held religious beliefs.
The new law, signed Friday by Gov. Mike DeWine, was introduced more than a year ago. It requires the district to adopt a policy prohibiting the encouraging of students, employees, and applicants to specific beliefs or ideas about political movements or ideology.
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Four members of the far-left militant group Jane’s Revenge pleaded guilty to felony charges in federal court for threatening and vandalizing crisis pregnancy centers in Florida last year after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization in 2022.
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Arizona for Abortion Access, a coalition looking to put legal access to abortion in the Arizona constitution, won their lawsuit against the Arizona Legislative Council over the language in a voter guide that will accompany their ballot measure.
On July 3, Arizona for Abortion Access successfully submitted enough signatures, over 823,000, to put the abortion measure on the November ballot for voters to decide whether abortion access should be enshrined in the Arizona constitution.
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A federal immigration enforcement office based in St. Paul has removed an illegal immigrant who was wanted in Mexico for rape of a minor.
On July 18, Andres Palacios Pizano, a 25-year-old illegal immigrant, was transferred to Mexican authorities after being picked up by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) St. Paul Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) office. A “recidivist offender of U.S. immigration law,” Pizano has been removed from the United States by ICE six times since 2017.
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The executive director, chief of staff and chief of surgery at the Hampton VA Medical Center are all leaving after investigations revealed substandard care and potentially willful negligence.
Their exodus stems from congressional investigations and a Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General report. The OIG began its latest probe into the hospital (there have been others) after learning of six instances of substandard care by the hospital’s assistant chief of surgery and spotting implications of a lack of internal reporting, oversight and accountability.
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Michigan has a new way to address its EMT shortage.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed a law that would extend temporary EMT and paramedic licenses from 120 days to a year. House Bills 4613 and 4614 were sponsored by state Rep. Dave Prestin, R-Cedar River.
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Green Bay’s mayor has agreed to never spy on people at city hall again.
Mayor Eric Genrich made the promise as part of the settlement in the lawsuit over hidden microphones at city hall.
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Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose wants Democrats to stop blaming Ohio for the party’s plan to use a virtual roll call to nominate Vice President Kamala Harris as its presidential nominee.
In a letter to Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harris released Thursday, LaRose demanded the party stop using the state’s ballot access deadline to justify what he called a nominating scheme.
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While property taxes continue to rise in many jurisdictions across Georgia, voters will have a chance to cap how much home values can rise for property tax purposes.
“Monthly costs for Georgians, from the north Georgia mountains to the coast, continue to rise,” Lt. Governor Burt Jones said in a statement last month. “During record high inflation, skyrocketing debt and expenses rising every day, local governments should be focused on bringing costs down – not letting them increase.”
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The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors voted to allocate $130,000 in taxpayer dollars through the county’s “community solutions” fund for a variety of purposes in the East Valley on Wednesday.
One hundred thousand dollars will head toward the International Dark Sky Discovery Center for childhood education uses and admission costs, $10,000 will be used for “sign improvements” along the Hawes Trail System near Mesa within the Tonto National Forest, and $8,000 to assist the East Valley Institute of Technology’s program for small children, the board touted in a news release on Wednesday. Other funds went toward “heat relief” uses.
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The Broward County School Board on Tuesday unanimously voted to restrict students’ use of cellphones in an effort to keep them focused and off social media during school hours.
Although the school district said restrictions on cell phone use were already part of the Student Code of Conduct, there will now be some changes that will go into effect when classes start on August 12.
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The campaign for Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dave McCormick announced on Friday its new ad, which features Senator Bob Casey praise Vice President Kamala Harris, will run on television in Pennsylvania during the Olympic Games in Paris.
The campaign confirmed in a statement, “the 60 second viral ad tying Bob Casey to Kamala Harris’s dangerously liberal policies this Monday during the Olympics in the Scranton-Wilkes Barre and Pittsburgh markets.”
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Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s ambitious $3.1 billion “Choose How You Move” transportation improvement program, was unanimously approved by the Metro Council this week, is facing scrutiny from anti-tax activist Ben Cunningham. The opposition raises serious legal questions that could significantly impact the plan’s implementation. With the passage this week from the Council, the initiative will be on the November ballot.
Cunningham, known for his staunch opposition to tax increases, is challenging the legality of the plan, which aims to enhance Nashville’s transportation infrastructure. His argument centers on whether the proposed spending aligns with the provisions of the 2017 state law known as the Improve Act. This law permits local governments to establish dedicated funding sources for mass transit but has specific stipulations on allowable expenditures.
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The Make Elections Fair PAC has filed a lawsuit against Arizona lawmakers, claiming that the description of the ballot measure provided to voters is misleading and confusing. The group argues that the language, crafted by the Arizona Legislative Council, inaccurately suggests that the initiative would mandate ranked choice voting. Sarah Smallhouse, chairman of the campaign, stated that lawmakers refused to amend the description as requested, protecting their own interests in closed primaries. The PAC is asking the court to rewrite the description in a neutral tone. They claim placing ranked choice voting in the description is deceptive.
According to the group’s website, the Make Elections Fair Act aims to eliminate partisan primaries, placing all candidates on the same ballot regardless of political affiliation and allowing voters to choose their favorites without separate ballots. The website states the initiative seeks to “dismantle the current system”, which often excludes independent and unaffiliated voters from primary elections. The PAC believes it will promote competition, reduce polarization, and ensure that elected officials are more representative of the entire electorate.
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Political analysts suggest that Harris’ clear stance on abortion could be a decisive factor in Arizona, a swing state that could play a critical role in the upcoming election. Recent polling data indicates that a majority of Arizona voters support some form of abortion rights, a trend that Harris’ campaign is likely to capitalize on. By highlighting her commitment to reproductive freedoms, pundits say that Harris aims to galvanize key voter demographics, including women and younger voters, who are increasingly prioritizing this issue.
The presumptive Democratic Party presidential nominee has consistently positioned herself as a staunch defender of reproductive rights, arguing that access to abortion is a fundamental human right and a cornerstone of gender equality. In April, Harris went to Tucson after the Arizona Supreme Court upheld the 1800s abortion law.
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Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ) is emerging as a strong contender for the vice presidential nomination in the upcoming election.
Arizona Democrats rallied behind Vice President Kamala Harris following Biden’s endorsement after his withdrawal from seeking reelection.
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Three complaints filed on Wednesday by the Freedom Foundation allege almost $1.5 million in Pennsylvania State Education Association (PSEA) money, raised from teachers’ union dues, was given to the 2022 political campaign of Governor Josh Shapiro.
The Freedom Foundation revealed on Thursday it filed complaints which allege PSEA made two contributions, totaling about $1.475 million, that were then transferred through an outside organization before reaching the Shapiro for Pennsylvania campaign committee.
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Ohio Governor Mike DeWine has commented on his thought process behind appointing a new U.S. senator to represent the Buckeye State in Washington D.C. in the case that Republican nominee former President Donald Trump and Vice Presidential nominee JD Vance win the 2024 election in November.
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