Politics Election category, Page 239
GOP 2024 contenders enter Iowa, wary of Trump’s long shadow
DES MOINES, Iowa — Ambitious Republicans are starting to make moves in Iowa, long a proving ground for future presidents. Their first step is finding out whether activists there have gotten over the last one. Former President Donald Trump remains a hulking presence in Iowa, where he won twice by...
Sweeping changes to Georgia elections signed into law by Gov. Kemp amid outcryVideo
ATLANTA — Gov. Brian Kemp quickly signed a vast rewrite of Georgia’s election rules into law Thursday, imposing voter ID requirements, limiting drop boxes and allowing state takeovers of local elections after last year’s close presidential race. Kemp finalized the bill just over an hour after it cleared the General...
Lawmakers press Big Tech CEOs on speech responsibilityVideo
WASHINGTON — The CEOs of tech giants Facebook, Twitter and Google faced a grilling in Congress Thursday as lawmakers tried to draw them into acknowledging their companies’ roles in fueling the January insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and rising covid-19 vaccine misinformation. In a hearing by the House Energy and...
Biden leaves door open for Senate changes to advance agendaVideo
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden at his first news conference Thursday left the door open to backing fundamental changes in Senate procedure to muscle key parts of his agenda like immigration and voting rights past Republican opposition “if there’s complete lockdown and chaos.” The 78-year-old president also for the first...
Biden: ‘My plan is to run for reelection’ in 2024
NEW YORK — President Joe Biden on Thursday said he would likely seek reelection in 2024, but the 78-year-old Democrat left open the possibility of stepping aside after one term. “My plan is to run for reelection. That’s my expectation,” Biden told reporters in a wide-ranging news conference, the first...
West Virginia House passes transgender athlete bill
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Transgender athletes in West Virginia middle and high schools would be banned from competing on teams relating to their preferred sexual identity under a bill passed Thursday by the House of Delegates. The bill passed on a 78-20 vote with two delegates absent. It now goes to...
Rep. Greene agrees not to block critics from Twitter account
LOS ANGELES — U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and a Los Angeles-based political action committee have reached a settlement that bars the Georgia Republican from blocking anyone from her public Twitter account or other social media while she’s in office. Greene also agreed to pay $10,000 to cover legal fees...
Biden leaves door open for U.S. to stay longer in AfghanistanVideo
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Thursday left the door open for U.S. troops to stay in Afghanistan through the end of the year, and one of his top generals told Congress that Afghanistan’s military forces need American assistance to successfully counter the Taliban. Biden, at his first news conference...
U.S. women’s soccer stars join Biden to promote closing pay gap
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is making the case Wednesday that the pay disparity between men and women has hurt the economy, bringing members of the U.S. women’s national soccer team to the White House to help set new goals for equality. Wednesday marked “Equal Pay Day” — which is...
White House officials, lawmakers to tour border facility
WASHINGTON — A delegation of White House officials and members of Congress was traveling to the southern border on Wednesday to tour a facility being used to house migrant children as increasing numbers of unaccompanied young people cross into the United States. The visit to a facility in Carrizo Springs,...
Atlanta spa killings prompt new proposals from Georgia Democrats
ATLANTA — Georgia Democrats have introduced a slate of legislation in response to the massage business shootings that killed eight people, including six women of Asian descent — though it’s unlikely the bills will see movement in the Republican-controlled legislature. The proposals would require a five-day waiting period for gun...
Biden readies for 1st news conference, White House tradition
WASHINGTON — He’d led allied armies in the defeat of Nazi Germany only to find himself, a decade later, a tad intimidated before the cameras in an echoey room of the Old Executive Office Building, ready to make history again. “Well, I see we’re trying a new experiment this morning,”...
Judge in Capitol riot case blasts DOJ over ‘60 Minutes’ interviewVideo
WASHINGTON — A federal judge in charge of one of the highest-profile cases stemming from the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot rebuked the Justice Department for discussing its probe in public. “These defendants are entitled to a fair trial, not one that is conducted in the media,” U.S. District Judge...
Newly confirmed surgeon general to focus on covid, opioidsVideo
WASHINGTON — The Senate confirmed a soft-spoken physician as President Joe Biden’s surgeon general Tuesday. While Dr. Vivek Murthy says ending the coronavirus pandemic is his top priority, he’s also raised concerns over a relapsing opioid overdose crisis. The vote on Murthy was 57-43, giving him bipartisan support. Biden’s coronavirus...
Explainer: How states are seeking to loosen controls on guns
Mass shootings in Georgia and Colorado that left at least 18 people dead since last week are reigniting calls from gun control advocates for tighter restrictions on buying firearms and ammunition. But with Democrats in control of the federal government, gun rights advocates have been persuading Republican-run state legislatures to...
Asian Americans seek greater political power after Atlanta shootings
WASHINGTON — Speaking on the floor of the Georgia state Senate last week, Michelle Au implored her colleagues to “stand up” to the hatred aimed at Asian Americans that’s increased during the pandemic. A day later, a gunman shook the Atlanta area by killing eight people, including six women of...
Biden urges gun control laws as another mass shooting alters his pandemic-relief tour
WASHINGTON — For the second time in a week, President Joe Biden’s campaign to broaden public awareness and support for his pandemic relief benefits has been overshadowed by a mass shooting, thrusting the fraught issue of gun control to the fore. On Tuesday, he was set to travel to Ohio,...
Impeachment probe into N.Y. Gov. Andrew Cuomo could take ‘months’
ALBANY, N.Y. — It could take “months” to determine whether Gov. Andrew Cuomo should be impeached after multiple women accused him of sexual misconduct and questions remain about his administration’s undercounting covid-19 deaths in nursing homes, the chair of the state Assembly’s judiciary committee said Tuesday. Chair Charles Lavine said...
Ballot questions should be clear, but 2 written by Wolf administration don’t pass test, critics say
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. A version of this story originally appeared in our free weekly newsletter. HARRISBURG — Amending the Pennsylvania Constitution is a lengthy process that ends at the ballot...
D.C.’s long-simmering statehood push begins in CongressVideo
WASHINGTON — Washington, D.C.’s bid for statehood finally got a congressional hearing Monday, but Mayor Muriel Bowser’s clashes with Republicans on the panel made clear that the issue is far from settled. Republicans accused Democrats of a cynical power play, claimed statehood was never the intention of the country’s Founding...
Brooks, Trump advisor to make campaign announcement
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — Alabama U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks has scheduled a Monday night campaign rally where he will be joined by former President Donald Trump adviser Stephen Miller where it is anticipated he will enter the race to replace Sen. Richard Shelby. Brooks said Miller — who was Trump’s top...
Trump ally to take on embattled Georgia secretary of state
ATLANTA — A conservative Georgia congressman and acolyte of former President Donald Trump has announced his bid to unseat the Republican secretary of state who angered Trump and his allies for refusing to help overturn the November election results. Rep. Jody Hice, a Tea Party favorite, is the first major...
New York Republican Rep. Tom Reed, accused of misconduct, will retire
U.S. Rep. Tom Reed, a Republican from western New York who was accused last week of rubbing a female lobbyist’s back and unhooking her bra without her consent in 2017, apologized to the woman on Sunday and announced that he will not run for reelection next year. Reed, 49, said...
Julia Letlow wins northeast Louisiana-based U.S. House seat
BATON ROUGE — Republican Julia Letlow easily won a Saturday special election for the northeast Louisiana-based U.S. House seat that her husband, Luke, couldn’t fill because of his death from complications related to covid-19. With the victory, Julia Letlow becomes the third woman ever elected to the U.S. House from...
Election Code proposals trigger debate in Harrisburg as hearings progress
State lawmakers are weighing sweeping changes to Pennsylvania’s election laws as candidates cautiously test the waters for a 2022 mid-term election that could once again put the state in the bull’s-eye of the national debate over election reform. In Pennsylvania, where unsuccessful court challenges to the 2020 presidential election continued...
