U.S. Representative Mike Gallagher (R-WI-08) re-introduced a constitutional amendment that would prevent court packing by locking in the size of the U.S. Supreme Court at the long-standing nine justices.
U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) originally proposed the amendment in 2019, and it was re-introduced in 2021 after President Joe Biden announced the creation of a commission to explore expanding the nine-member court and other “reforms.”
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So much for Senate decorum.
Wisconsin state Senator LaTonya Johnson (D-Milwaukee) dropped the f-bomb — and another bad word to boot — during Wednesday’s budget debate.
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In a move that turned the tables on Democrats who had played political games with the appointment of controversial Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe, the Republican-controlled state Senate late Wednesday evening dropped a surprise resolution that sets up a confirmation vote sources say Wolfe can’t win.
Democrats stormed out of the Senate Chamber, refusing to vote on the resolution.
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State Representative Janel Brandtjen (R-Menomonee Falls) is urging the Wisconsin Elections Commission to fire Meagan Wolfe, WEC’s controversial administrator.
The commission meets at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday to take up Wolfe’s re-appointment to a four-year term. Her current term ends Friday.
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Meagan Wolfe, the controversial administrator of the controversial Wisconsin Elections Commission, sent out a defiant letter on Wednesday to local elections officials as she looks to save her job.
Wolfe’s current term is set to expire in a couple of weeks, and, as she notes, her future is uncertain.
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U.S. Representative Mike Gallagher (R-WI-08) will seek re-election to his House seat in 2024, ending speculation that he would make a Senate run against two-term Democrat Senator Tammy Baldwin.
The four-term congressman is a rising star in Republican politics, playing a high profile role as chairman of the new Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party.
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The writing appears to be on the wall for controversial Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe, who is running out of time and friends in the Wisconsin State Senate.
Several legislative sources told The Wisconsin Daily Star that Wolfe doesn’t have enough votes to survive confirmation in the Wisconsin Senate, a reality that would bring her tenure as the administrative head of state elections regulation to an unceremonious end.
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It wasn’t all bad news for conservatives in Tuesday’s election. While the right lost control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, Republicans gained two-thirds — or supermajority power— in the state Senate.
State Representative Dan Knodl (R-Germantown) narrowly defeated environmental lawyer Jodi Habush Sinykin in the race for Wisconsin’s 8th Senate District Seat.
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The Senate voted overwhelmingly, and on a bipartisan basis, last week to repeal the obsolete 1991 and 2002 Iraq Authorized Use of Military Force resolutions by a vote of 66-30.
That is sound policy, as I previously wrote here. It’s time for the House of Representatives to debate the Senate-passed repeal, and while doing so, keep in mind the many reasons why it should repeal these vestigial AUMFs, given the current threat environment.
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I first ran for office because I saw problems in our state and wanted to be part of the solution for positive change. One such issue is the growing epidemic of crime in our communities.
My biggest frustration lately is seeing issues in our community, but having a Governor with whom the Legislature fundamentally disagrees on the solutions. It often feels like the wheels are spinning but we are going nowhere.
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In a busy and divisive day, the Republican-led Legislature on Wednesday passed several crime bills, a measure blocking what some say is the Evers administration’s assault on the First Amendment, and a resolution demanding the governor call an election for Secretary of State.
Many of the measures passed mostly along party lines, including a bill that defines “serious harm” and “violent crime” in state law. The proposal is tied to a bail reform constitutional amendment on next month’s spring election ballot. Under the amendment, judges would be allowed to consider expanded factors when issuing bail to violent offenders, beyond whether the defendant would show up for his court date.
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In a surprise move Friday, Governor Tony Evers hastily appointed former Democrat State Treasurer Sarah Godlewski Secretary of State after Doug La Follette suddenly resigned the post he’s held for nearly half a century.
Consider it a gift to the far left Godlewski, who ceded last year’s Democratic Party nomination for U.S. Senate to former Lt. Governor Mandela Barnes in his losing campaign against Wisconsin’s Republican senior U.S. Senator Ron Johnson.
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State. Senator Brad Zaun’s bill that would reinstate the death penalty in Iowa for those who sexually assault and then murder children survived the Legislature’s famous Funnel Week.
Zaun, R-Urbandale, joined The Iowa Star Monday on NewsTalk 1040 WHO to talk about the legislation and other bills moving forward in the Legislature.
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The House “weaponization of government” hearings kicked off an excellent start for public awareness. But without a legislative agenda, the short-staffed subcommittee will show little enduring accomplishment.
House reformers don’t believe they can force some of the necessary changes because the Senate and Joe Biden oppose them. So they haven’t prepared a strategic legislative agenda.
Yet, there is reason for hope and change.
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Fiscal hawks in the Senate reiterated their demands for fiscal reforms and spending cuts Tuesday as they voiced their support for House Republicans to lead the heavy-lifting on addressing the nation’s debt ceiling crisis.
“We have an opportunity to stop the madness, and it’s incumbent on the Republican majority in the House and Republicans in the Senate to use every lever point we have,” said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) at a press conference on the debt ceiling and runaway spending.
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Indiana Republican Rep. Jim Banks on Tuesday announced his 2024 bid for the Senate seat of outgoing Sen. Mike Braun.
Banks in his announcement touted his conservative views.
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The Senate on Thursday passed a massive $1.7 billion omnibus spending bill, sending the bill to the House for a hasty vote before midnight Friday to avert a partial government shutdown.
The bill includes at least $44 billion in additional money to help Ukraine thwart Russia’s invasion and was thrown into peril overnight by a GOP effort to force a vote on an amendment to the measure to extend a Trump-era effort to limit illegal immigration amid the pandemic by using a decades-old legal authority known as Title 42.
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Tennessee lawmakers across the state are applauding the passage of the James M. Inhofe National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2023 in the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate.
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The Senate on Tuesday evening passed the Respect for Marriage Act to require that states recognize lawful marriages from other states while providing protections for religious liberty.
The bill passed with crossover support from Republicans, allowing it to clear the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster threshold. It will now move to the House of Representatives, which previously passed a similar package. The final count was 61-36.
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After taking a break over the summer and part of the fall for the general election, lawmakers are returning to the Ohio Statehouse to consider many different bills before the two-year session of this general assembly ends in December.
The committees and floor votes which occur after an election, known as a lame duck session, work to conclude urgent or unfinished bills that lawmakers have introduced. Once the session ends, lawmakers will either overlook or reject the bills and legislators, returning incumbents, and newly-elected officials will have to reintroduce the pieces of legislation and restart the committee process.
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Regardless of all that wispy smoke Democrats and their allies in the news media are blowing, key polls suggest Republicans are still likely to win back control of the House of Representatives in Tuesday’s midterm elections and have a better than even chance to take over the Senate.
Historically, one of the strongest indicators – perhaps the strongest indicator – of how a party will do in midterm elections is the job approval rating of the incumbent president. Parties of presidents who are down in the polls usually lose congressional seats. Parties of presidents up in the polls generally gain seats in the midterms.
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Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH-13) now says he is planning to vote “yes” for State Issues 1 and 2 making him the fourth and last leading statewide Ohio candidate to do so.
When asked previously about the state issues Ryan stated he had not “read them” and intends to “dig into them before I make a decision.” Vance has endorsed both state issues, calling them “common sense.” Republican Governor Mike DeWine and his Democratic contender Nan Whaley have also said they will vote for both ballot initiatives.
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Ohio’s journey to develop maps for the legislative and congressional voting districts has put many voters in new Ohio House, Senate, and Congressional districts for the upcoming election.
When voters go to the polls next week they may notice that they have different lawmakers representing them at the Statehouse and in Washington.
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Democratic control of the U.S. Senate and Republican control of at least one Ohio U.S. Senate seat remains a tossup as the Nov. 8 general election creeps closer.
The most recent Suffolk University and USA Today poll shows Democrat Tim Ryan and Republican J.D. Vance in a dead heat, keeping with poll numbers from a variety of organizations over the past month.
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House Bill 497 sponsored by Representatives Gayle Manning (R- North Ridgeville) and Phil Robinson (D- Solon) would eliminate student retention under Ohio’s Third-Grade Reading Guarantee.
Ohio’s Third-Grade Reading Guarantee is a program utilized to identify students who are behind in reading from kindergarten through third grade. Since the 2013-14 school year, third graders must obtain a 685 score or higher on a standardized reading test or they will be held back a grade.
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A new bill in the Ohio Senate, Senate Bill 360, aims to increase paid parental leave for state employees.
State Senator Theresa Gavarone (R-Bowling Green) introduced the bill which would extend paid parental leave for state employees from six weeks to twelve weeks for parents of newborn or adopted children. This bill would also eliminate the waiting period of two- weeks which is required prior to accessing paid parental leave.
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Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker trails incumbent Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia by double digits amidst a scandal over him allegedly paying for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion, per a new poll released on Wednesday.
Walker polled 38% support compared to 50% for Warnock, according to SurveyUSA, which conducted the poll for 11Alive News in Atlanta. Should Warnock gain even one vote more than 50% in November’s election, it would be enough to beat Walker outright and avoid a runoff election against him later in the year.
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A new bill in the Ohio Senate, Senate Bill 361, aims to address the current teacher shortage by allowing veterans to become teachers without having a background in education provided they pass a particular set of criteria set forth in the bill.
State Senator Frank Hoagland (R-Mingo Junction) sponsored the bill, which allows a veteran to become an educator by completing four years of service, being honorably discharged, or receiving a medical separation.
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U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., says he believes the Republican Party will take back the Senate in November.
Scott told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, “My effort right now is on the hurricane relief for this hurricane, but absolutely I think we’re at 52 seats-plus. If you look at Biden’s numbers, they’re really bad. People have rejected the Biden agenda. We have great candidates. The Democrats have to defend what Biden has done.”]
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Georgia GOP Senate nominee Herschel Walker says he will file a defamation suit Tuesday morning against a news outlet for its report that he paid for a woman’s abortion over 10 years ago – an allegation he says he denies in “the strongest possible terms.”
The report was published Monday by the Daily Beast, based on an allegation from an ex-girlfriend and could have a major impact on Walker, who’s a strong anti-abortion candidate, and his bid to unseat incumbent Democrat candidate Raphael Warnock.
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Former President Bill Clinton warned the Democratic Party that it shouldn’t let “defund the police and socialism” damage their chances of winning the Nov. 8 election.
Clinton was asked how the U.S. should handle existing threats to its democracy.
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In response to 8 Ohio schools going into lock down on Friday, due to an internet hoax that sent false reports about active shooters on their campuses, additional support has been gathered for Senator Andrew Brenner’s (R-Delaware) bill (SB292) to stop ‘swatting’ and making fake emergency calls a felony in the state.
According to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, ‘swatting’ is: to make a false report of an ongoing serious crime in order to elicit a response from law enforcement (such as the dispatch of a SWAT unit)
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A highly contentious vote on a bill that would legalize same-sex marriage at the federal level has been put on hold until after the November midterms, as the legislation struggles to garner 60 votes in support.
Politico reports that the bipartisan group of senators working on the bill, known as the Respect for Marriage Act, made their announcement on Thursday. They had previously been considering a vote on the legislation as soon as Monday of next week, but determined that they could not garner enough Republican support to overcome a possible filibuster that would kill the legislation.
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The vast majority of Hill staff could fall under President Joe Biden’s qualification threshold for his loan forgiveness plan, making them eligible to receive a minimum of $10,000 in debt repayment. According to salary data, nearly 91% of Sen. Raphael Warnock’s staff could qualify.
This percentage is merely an estimation as there are several unknown factors, including whether or not the staffers went to college, if they took out loans, if they still have loans or if they had a full-ride scholarship, as well as the total household income of Hill staffers.
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U.S. Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Bill Hagerty (R-TN) criticized President Joe Biden and their Democrat colleagues on the passage of the $740 billion “Inflation Reduction Act” Sunday. As expected, no Republicans supported the measure, and so by a 51 to 50 vote, with Vice President Kamala Harris cast the deciding vote.
The Inflation Reduction Act, described by Forbes as “a slimmed-down version of the Build Back Better bill,” allows the government to control the price of prescription medications, contains funding for fighting climate change, would implement larger taxes for wealthy corporations, expand the IRS by some 87,000 agents, and more more.
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The Senate voted to reinstate rules helping expedite the construction of energy infrastructure that persisted under former President Donald Trump, eliminating a final rule that was previously imposed by the Biden administration.
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chair Joe Manchin of West Virginia joined a united Republican caucus to pass a Resolution of Disapproval in a 50-47 vote by using the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to nullify the Biden administration’s National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) regulations, according to Senate logs. The move will accelerate federal permitting for the development of crucial future energy, mining, and infrastructure projects.
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The United States Senate voted to approve a treaty to allow Sweden and Finland to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) on Wednesday.
The treaty received bipartisan support and was passed with 95-1 votes in favor of expanding NATO, The New York Times reported. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell voiced their support for the ratification of the treaty and the growth of the organization.
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The U.S. House passed a bill to codify same-sex marriage late Tuesday, but whether it will pass the Senate remains up in the air.
The “Respect for Marriage Act” passed the House 267-157 with 47 Republicans voting in favor. The legislation would overturn the Defense of Marriage Act, signed into law by former President Bill Clinton in 1996, which defined marriage as a union between one man and one woman. That law has been largely gutted by the Supreme Court but still remains on the books.
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A public hearing pertaining to rising health care costs is the focus of a new call from Connecticut’s Senate and House leadership.
Republican legislative leaders in both chambers renewed a call for a public hearing to be held at the Capitol that would focus on proposed health insurance rate filings next year for individual and small group markets.
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Ohio moved a step closer to recognizing business licenses from other states, which could help with an ongoing labor shortage, a Columbus-based policy group believes.
The House and Senate each passed versions of bills that would adopt universal occupational license recognition before the summer recess, a move The Buckeye Institute believes will make the state more attractive to newcomers and allow employers more options to fill open spots.
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The U.S. House of Representatives voted Wednesday evening to pass the “Protecting Our Kids Act,” a package of gun control bills developed in response to the recent mass shootings in Buffalo, New York and Uvalde, Texas.
The House voted on pieces of the legislation separately.
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The U.S. Senate race in Arizona this year is a tossup, an Arizona Public Opinion Pulse poll conducted by OH Predictive Insights shows.
Arizona voters have a split opinion of incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly; he has a 50% approval rating, including a 49% approval rating from self-described independents. Meanwhile, 39% disapprove of Kelly.
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Within days of the special legislative session starting this week, both chambers passed bills to reform property insurance and to increase condominium safety.
Lawmakers passed two bills, Senate Bill 2D, Property Insurance, and Senate Bill 4D, Building Safety. Gov. Ron DeSantis signed them both Thursday.
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Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed legislation to keep defendants facing human trafficking charges from immediately returning to the streets after their arrest.
Senate Bill 461 adds human trafficking to the list of violent and sexual offenses that require a Superior Court judge to grant bail. The list also includes treason, rape, murder and aircraft hijacking.
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The Senate voted Wednesday to confirm President Joe Biden’s nominee Alvaro Bedoya to the empty fifth seat on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
The 50-50 Senate vote was broken with a tie breaking vote by Vice President Kamala Harris, and gives Democrats a 3-2 advantage at the FTC. Bedoya, who is professor at Georgetown Law, was previously criticized by Senate Republicans for his past comments on social media and in other outlets opposing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after President Joe Biden announced his nomination.
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Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Thursday threw a wrench in the Senate’s plans to swiftly pass the $40 billion Ukraine package this week, delaying the vote until at least next week, and possibly beyond.
According to the Hill, Paul wanted to include language in the bill to expand the Afghanistan inspector general’s role to include oversight of the Ukraine funds. Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) offered him a deal that would have set up votes Thursday afternoon on the funding bill and on an amendment from Paul.
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State sales tax funding for a new baseball stadium in Chattanooga was passed in the last week of Tennessee’s legislative session.
House Bill 2609 was approved 79-11 by the House and 28-0 in the Senate. It would allow the Chattanooga Lookouts to move to a new stadium in the city and retain a sales tax deal where the Lookouts keep the first 5.5% of the state’s 7% sales tax for sales at the stadium and would extend the deal to apply to non-baseball events at the stadium.
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It will cost Minnesota taxpayers $25 million in fiscal year 2023 to expand high-speed broadband access across the state if the governor signs a bill both legislative houses passed this week.
HF 4366, an omnibus agriculture and housing bill, includes increasing availability of grant funding for broadband from 50% to 75% of the total cost of a project, or up to $10 million, rather than a $5 million limit. Under the bill, the Office of Broadband Development must report to broadband policy and finance committees’ leaders by the end of 2022 how the bill changes the number and amounts of grants awarded.
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A plan to phase the Connecticut’s electric grid to zero-carbon status by 2024 is the focus of a bill that now awaits Gov. Ned Lamont’s signature.
The governor announced Senate Bill 10 focuses on a reduction on carbon emissions, which was established through an executive order in 2019, that allows state policymakers and companies in the electric sector to fully transition the grid away from natural gas and oil.
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As GOP senators seek to roll back former President Donald Trump’s tariffs on China now that he’s out of office, polling indicates Americans want to keep the harsh policies in place.
“For decades, Congress cut tariffs without much thought. But we cannot continue to do that when it comes to products made in China,” Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio told the Daily Caller News Foundation in a statement. “We should do everything possible to move supply chains out of China, but this so-called ‘China bill’ is actually subsidizing manufacturing in Communist China. It’s ridiculous.”
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