Politics Election category, Page 146

An internal government investigation has determined that the decision to forcibly clear racial justice protesters from an area in front of the White House last summer was not influenced by then-President Donald Trump’s plan to stage a Bible-toting photo opportunity at that spot. The report released Wednesday by the Interior...

WASHINGTON — The White House has dropped Trump-era executive orders that attempted to ban the popular apps TikTok and WeChat and will conduct its own review aimed at identifying national security risks with software applications tied to China, officials said Wednesday. A new executive order directs the Commerce Department to...

LONDON — When U.S. President Joe Biden flies to Europe this week, he will find his hosts welcoming but wary. His predecessor Donald Trump may be gone, but he leaves a long shadow. Biden’s first foreign trip as president starts Wednesday and includes a gathering of the Group of Seven...

WASHINGTON — Hopes for a big infrastructure investment are teetering. An ambitious elections and voting bill is all but dead. Legislation on police brutality, gun control and immigration has stalled out. After six months of Democratic control in Washington, the party’s progressive wing is growing increasingly restless as campaign promises...

SALEM, Ore. — Oregon House Speaker Tina Kotek wants to expel a Republican lawmaker who allowed violent protesters into the state Capitol in December. Fellow Republicans said Monday they want him out too. Video that emerged late Friday in local news reports that apparently showed Rep. Mike Nearman choreographing how...

Pennsylvania’s newest lawmakers, state Reps. Leslie Rossi, R-Unity, and Abby Major, R-Ford City, are breaking molds with every step they take. The two, who won special elections last month to fill unexpected vacancies, were sworn into office Monday in Harrisburg. They are the first women to represent, respectively, the 59th...

WASHINGTON — Democrats are at high risk of losing control of Congress next year, and the perilous outlook is shaping party strategy on every level, a modern illustration of the old saw: Nothing focuses the mind like the sight of the gallows. Defending fragile House and Senate majorities in the...

RALEIGH, N.C. — Republicans are fighting to seize control of Congress. Just don’t ask what they’d do if they win. Look no further for evidence of the GOP’s muddled governing agenda than battleground North Carolina, where party leaders packed into a convention hall Saturday night to cheer former President Donald...

WASHINGTON — A key Democratic senator says he will not vote for the largest overhaul of U.S. election law in at least a generation, defying his party and the White House and virtually guaranteeing the failure of the legislation after a near party-line approval in the House. “Voting and election...

Jim Brewster, the McKeesport Democrat, has vivid memories of going to bed in December 2011 in his Allegheny County home and waking up to find his 45th Senate District had been moved across Pennsylvania to the Poconos. Strange things can happen when politics collides with the need to resketch district...

Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan newsroom powered by The Philadelphia Inquirer in partnership with PennLive/The Patriot-News, TribLIVE/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and WITF Public Media. Sign up for our free newsletters. HARRISBURG — Millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded expenses incurred by state lawmakers each year would be required to be posted online...

WASHINGTON — The House Judiciary Committee is questioning former White House counsel Don McGahn behind closed doors on Friday, two years after House Democrats originally sought his testimony as part of investigations into former President Donald Trump. The long-awaited interview is the result of an agreement reached last month in...

WASHINGTON — House Democrats released a plan Friday for spending $547 billion over the next five years on road, mass transit and rail projects, a blueprint for what they want parts of President Joe Biden’s broader infrastructure proposal to look like. The proposal from Rep. Peter DeFazio, the Democratic chairman...

HARRISBURG — A key member of Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives is flatly rejecting talk of any sort of audit of the 2020 presidential election, a day after three fellow Republican state lawmakers toured the Arizona Senate GOP’s audit. Rep. Seth Grove, R-York, who chairs the committee that handles election matters,...

PHOENIX — Three Pennsylvania lawmakers were in Arizona on Wednesday to check out the state Senate GOP’s partisan audit of the 2020 election. They’re the latest Republicans to make a pilgrimage to Phoenix, ground zero in the “stop the steal” movement’s push to find support for conspiracy theories suggesting the...

Former President Donald Trump is going to have to find a new way to reach his MAGA supporters. The exiled tweeter in chief scrapped his personal blog after less than a month amid poor readership numbers and his indefinite ban from social media. Once hosted on donaldjtrump.com, the “From the...

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden used the 100th anniversary of Tulsa’s race massacre to make a plea for sweeping legislation in Congress to protect the right to vote as Republican-led governments in Texas and other states pass new restrictions making it tougher to cast ballots. Biden, marking the centennial in...

ALBUQUERQUE — Democrat Melanie Stansbury has won election to Congress for New Mexico to fill a vacant seat previously held by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland. Stanbury prevailed Tuesday in a four-way race after campaigning in support of major initiatives of the Biden administration. Her victory shores up the Democratic majority...

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is suspending oil and gas leases in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as it reviews environmental impacts of drilling in the remote region that has been the focus of a political fight for decades, according to two people who have been briefed on the administration’s...

TALLAHASSEE — Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried announced Tuesday she’ll seek the Democratic nomination for governor, calling Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis an authoritarian who’s putting his party and political ambition ahead of Floridians. Fried criticized DeSantis for trying to quash the voice of Floridians by signing bills that make it more...

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is set to meet Wednesday with West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, the top Republican negotiator on infrastructure as the administration signals time is running out to strike a bipartisan deal on the White House’s big investment proposal and top legislative priority. The president is...

CARSON CITY — Nevada lawmakers passed a bill on Monday that aims to make the state the first to weigh in on the 2024 presidential primary contests. The move upends decades of political tradition and is likely to prompt pushback from other early states that want to retain their places...

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin slammed Sen. Ted Cruz on Monday for accusing the Army of projecting an image of “pansies” because of its inclusive recruiting policies, asserting that the Texas Republican’s rhetoric only emboldens adversaries. China and Russia “would like to capitalize on talking points like that,” the...

Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan newsroom powered by The Philadelphia Inquirer in partnership with PennLive/The Patriot-News, TribLIVE/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and WITF Public Media. Sign up for our free newsletters. HARRISBURG — As coronavirus cases rose and Pennsylvania counties were flooded with millions of mail ballot applications last fall, election directors...