Politics Election category, Page 232
Ed Gainey defeats Bill Peduto as incumbent concedes in Pittsburgh mayoral primaryVideo
Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto conceded defeat to state Rep. Ed Gainey in a four-way Democratic primary race for mayor, positioning Gainey to become the first Black mayor in the city’s history. With 393 of the city’s 402 voting precincts reporting results around 1:15 a.m., Gainey had received about 46.2% of...
FBI probes campaign donations to Maine Sen. Susan Collins
WASHINGTON — The FBI has been reviewing a possible scheme to funnel illegal donations to the 2020 reelection campaign of U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, recently unsealed court records in Washington, D.C., show. The FBI is investigating whether Martin Kao, the former chief executive officer for Hawaii-based contractor...
Mark McCloskey, St. Louis man who waved rifle at protesters, is running for U.S. Senate
Mark McCloskey, a St. Louis personal injury lawyer who gained national attention after he and his wife waved guns at racial injustice protesters who marched near their home last summer, said Tuesday he will run for the U.S. Senate in 2022. McCloskey made the announcement on Tucker Carlson’s show on...
Congress OKs bill to fight hate crimes vs. Asian AmericansVideo
WASHINGTON — Congress approved legislation Tuesday intended to curtail a striking rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, sending President Joe Biden a bipartisan denunciation of the spate of brutal attacks that have proliferated during coronavirus pandemic. The bill, which the House passed on a 364-62 vote,...
House Republicans line up against bipartisan Jan. 6 commissionVideo
WASHINGTON — House Rules Committee Chairman Jim McGovern on Tuesday questioned House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s fitness to lead after he came out in opposition to establishing a Jan. 6 commission to investigate the insurrection of that day, a measure the Rules panel teed up for floor debate on Wednesday...
Val Demings plans to challenge Marco Rubio in Fla. Senate race
WASHINGTON — Rep. Val Demings is planning to challenge Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, giving Democrats a boost in a competitive 2022 race that could decide control of the Senate, according to two people with knowledge of the plans. The move ends mounting speculation over the congresswoman’s political future. She had...
GOP Leader McCarthy opposes Jan. 6 commission ahead of vote
WASHINGTON — House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy said Tuesday that he won’t support a proposal to form an independent, bipartisan commission to study the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, almost certainly eroding GOP support ahead of a vote and positioning his party as opposed to investigations of...
House consumed by tension over Capitol riot as vote on investigation nears
WASHINGTON — Amid increasing tension between Republicans and Democrats in Congress over the January insurrection, the House is expected to vote this week on whether to establish a commission to investigate what led to the violence and whether to pay nearly $2 billion for police back pay and the security...
Sens. Manchin, Murkowski unite in call to rewrite Voting Rights Act
WASHINGTON — Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska are urging congressional leaders to embark on a broad rewrite of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a bipartisan move that underscores the difficulties Democrats face in getting their own sweeping voting bill through...
Former Rep. Lou Barletta changes the calculus on Pa. GOP gubernatorial primaryVideo
Former congressman Lou Barletta, the failed 2018 U.S. Senate candidate and frequent Donald Trump surrogate at campaign events last year, changed the calculus for Pennsylvania’s 2022 GOP gubernatorial primary with his official campaign announcement Monday. Barletta, 65, a four-term congressmen who sprang to national prominence 15 years ago as the...
Georgia’s Lt. Governor won’t run again after taking on Trump
ATLANTA — Georgia’s lieutenant governor, one of the most prominent Republicans to openly contradict false claims about fraud in the November presidential election, confirmed Monday as expected that he won’t seek reelection in 2022. Republican Geoff Duncan was among the most high-profile Republicans to openly oppose Trump’s claims, angering many...
Grassroots groups that supported Biden remain active in Westmoreland, Western Pa.
Voice of Westmoreland was among the wave of “pop-up” progressive groups that spread like dandelions in the wake of the election of Donald Trump. Many doubted VOW, as the group has come to call itself, would ever be a force in politics. In a county that leans decidedly red, they’ve...
Republican Lou Barletta to run for Pennsylvania governor
HARRISBURG — Lou Barletta, the Republican Party’s Donald Trump-endorsed nominee for U.S. Senate in 2018, is running for governor of Pennsylvania. Barletta, 65, becomes the most prominent figure to enter a 2022 governor’s race that Republicans have won every time in the past half-century when there is an outgoing Democratic...
As GOP restricts voting, Democrats move to expand access
Last year, for the first time in more than a quarter-century, Democrats in Virginia took control of the statehouse and the governor’s mansion. Since then, one priority has become clear: expanding voting rights. Once home to the capital of the Confederacy, Virginia has made Election Day a state holiday, repealed...
Republican Arizona election official says Trump ‘unhinged’
PHOENIX — The Republican who now leads the Arizona county elections department targeted by a GOP audit of the 2020 election results is slamming former President Donald Trump and others in his party for their continued falsehoods about how the election was run. Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer on Saturday...
Navajos say new Arizona restrictions will complicate voting
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — Arizona Republicans say the voter restrictions they’re pushing after President Joe Biden’s win in the state last year are designed to strengthen the integrity of future elections. To some, the changes will make voting more difficult than it already is. The bills, some signed into law this...
House to vote soon on bills to protect Capitol after Jan. 6
WASHINGTON — The House is expected to vote next week on two bills aimed at preventing more attacks on the U.S. Capitol, with one seeking to establish a 9/11-style commission to study what went wrong on Jan. 6 and the other allocating $1.9 billion to address the security problems revealed...
Biden cancels Trump’s planned ‘Garden of American Heroes’
President Joe Biden on Friday put the kibosh on his predecessor’s planned “National Garden of American Heroes” and revoked former President Donald Trump’s executive orders aimed at social media companies’ moderation policies and branding American foreign aid. In an executive order of his own, Biden abolished the Trump-formed task force...
Gaetz associate agrees to cooperate in federal investigation
A Florida politician who emerged as a central figure in the federal investigation into Rep. Matt Gaetz has agreed to cooperate with federal investigators and admits paying an underage girl to have sex with him and other men, according to court documents filed Friday. Joel Greenberg is expected to plead...
House panel has agreement on bipartisan Jan. 6 commission
WASHINGTON — The top Democratic and Republican members of the House Homeland Security Committee have reached an agreement on legislation to form a bipartisan commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The measure had stalled amid partisan differences. Under the terms of the agreement announced Friday,...
Pennsylvania voters to decide racial equity amendment
HARRISBURG — Protests over George Floyd’s killing at the hands of Minneapolis police were raging across the country last June when a Democratic lawmaker took to the floor of the Pennsylvania Senate to argue for greater protections against racial discrimination. Next week, nearly a year after Floyd’s death, voters will...
In devotion to Trump, House GOP taps Stefanik for a top post
House Republicans elevated Rep. Elise Stefanik to a leadership post Friday, highlighting how the party whose lodestar has long been conservative policies increasingly views allegiance to Donald Trump as its indispensable key to electoral success. Stefanik, a Trump stalwart from upstate New York, was elected to the No. 3 leadership...
What insurrection? Growing number of Republican lawmakers downplay Jan. 6 siege at Capitol
WASHINGTON — What insurrection? Flouting all evidence and their own first-hand experience, a small but growing number of Republican lawmakers are propagating a false portrayal of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, brazenly arguing that the rioters who used flagpoles as weapons, brutally beat police officers and chanted that...
Congress provided $28 billion to save restaurants. It’s running out
WASHINGTON — Restaurants and bars desperate for a lifeline during covid-19 swarmed to apply for a new government grant to help them pay for rent, utilities, supplies and payroll. In just 10 days, the Small Business Administration has received 266,000 applications asking for $65 billion in aid, more than twice...
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene berates Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on House floor for backing ‘terrorists’Video
Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene confronted New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on the House floor and reportedly berated her for supporting “terrorists” — prompting AOC’s staff to call for better security in Congress. The confrontation on Wednesday, first reported by the Washington Post, began when Greene tried to get the...
