Politics Election category, Page 248
Wolf asks for tax increase on Pa.’s top earners amid pandemic; GOP pans proposal as ‘irresponsible’
Spotlight PA is an independent, non-partisan 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 — In one of his boldest budget proposals since taking office, Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf is asking the legislature to...
Education nominee vows to tackle problems worsened by virus
President Joe Biden’s nominee for education secretary is promising to help reopen schools but says much of the hardest work will come after that as schools try to address long-standing disparities worsened by the pandemic. “These inequities will endure, and prevent the potential of this great country, unless tackled head-on,”...
Biden, Treasury Secretary Yellen say GOP virus aid too small
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden panned a Republican alternative to his $1.9 trillion covid rescue plan as insufficient as Senate Democrats pushed ahead, voting to launch a process that could approve his sweeping rescue package on their own, if Republicans refuse to support it. Biden and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen...
Minority Leader McCarthy meets with Marjorie Taylor Greene; House GOP faces decision point
WASHINGTON — House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy met with hard-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene as Republicans wrestled over how to handle a bipartisan outcry over her endorsement of outlandish conspiracy theories and of violent, racist views. Aides to McCarthy and Greene offered no immediate comment after the two spent around...
Newsmax anchor bails from interview when MyPillow CEO won’t drop election fraud claimsVideo
A Newsmax anchor walked off the set Tuesday when an interview with MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell went off the rails. Lindell, a vocal and financial Donald Trump supporter, refused to answer questions yet continued to spout claims of conspiracy theories and voting fraud from the 2020 election. The far-right channel’s...
Biden signs immigration orders as Congress awaits moreVideo
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Tuesday signed a second spate of orders to undo his predecessor’s immigration policies, demonstrating the powers of the White House and its limitations without support from Congress. His orders on family separation, border security and legal immigration bring to nine the number of executive...
Another path to justice for survivors of clergy sex abuse faces uphill battle in Pa. legislature
Spotlight PA is an independent, non-partisan 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 — When Republican state Rep. Jim Gregory learned Monday from Gov. Tom Wolf that an administrative error will delay a...
Biden, Yellen say GOP covid relief too small, Democrats push onVideo
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden panned a Republican alternative to his $1.9 trillion covid rescue plan as insufficient Tuesday as Senate Democrats pushed ahead, voting to launch a process that could approve his sweeping rescue package on their own, if Republicans refuse to support it. Biden and Treasury Secretary Janet...
Alejandro Mayorkas becomes first Latino, immigrant to lead Department of Homeland Security
WASHINGTON — The Senate confirmed Alejandro Mayorkas on Tuesday as President Joe Biden’s homeland security secretary, the first Latino to fill a post that will have a central role in the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, a sweeping Russia-linked cyber hack and domestic extremism. Mayorkas was confirmed by a...
House Dems make case for conviction; Trump denies charges
WASHINGTON — Donald Trump endangered the lives of all members of Congress when he aimed a mob of supporters “like a loaded cannon” at the U.S. Capitol, House Democrats said Tuesday in making their most detailed case yet for why the former president should be convicted and permanently barred from...
GOP’s McConnell blasts ‘loony lies’ by Ga. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene
WASHINGTON — Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell denounced newly elected Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Monday, calling the far-right Georgia Republican’s embrace of conspiracy theories and “loony lies” a “cancer for the Republican Party.” “Somebody who’s suggested that perhaps no airplane hit the Pentagon on 9/11, that horrifying school shootings...
As Biden and Republicans meet, Democrats prepare to move covid-19 relief aloneVideo
WASHINGTON — As President Joe Biden met with 10 Republican senators Monday to test the waters of bipartisanship on coronavirus relief, Democrats on Capitol Hill took the first step toward fast-tracking the administration’s $1.9 trillion proposal through a legislative procedure that wouldn’t require GOP support. Although the Oval Office meeting,...
House Democrats mount effort to punish Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene
WASHINGTON — House Democrats are mounting an effort to formally rebuke Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a newly elected Georgia Republican with a history of making racist remarks, embracing conspiracy theories and endorsing violence directed at Democrats. Democrats have teed up action Wednesday to send a resolution to the House floor...
New Trump impeachment lawyers unlikely to push vote fraud claims
WASHINGTON — The two lawyers Donald Trump hired at the last minute to defend him at his Senate impeachment trial on Feb. 9 are no strangers to controversial cases but are generally regarded as straight-shooters who won’t push the former president’s wild claims of election fraud claims. David Schoen and...
A Pa. Dept. of State error means some sex-abuse victims will again have to wait for justice
Spotlight PA is an independent, non-partisan 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— Pennsylvania’s top election official will resign after her agency made a mistake that will delay a statewide vote on whether...
Biden to meet with GOP lawmakers to discuss virus relief
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is set to meet Monday with a group of 10 Republican senators who have proposed spending about one-third of the $1.9 trillion he is seeking in coronavirus aid, though congressional Democrats are poised to move ahead without Republican support. An invitation to the White House...
Trump names 2 lawyers to impeachment defense team
WASHINGTON — Donald Trump on Sunday named two lawyers to his impeachment defense team, one day after it was revealed that the former president had parted ways with an earlier set of attorneys. The two lawyers representing him will be David Schoen, a criminal defense lawyer with offices in Alabama...
‘We traffic in lies’: House Republican Kinzinger launches campaign to ‘take back our party’Video
WASHINGTON — As the Republican Party wrestles with its identity in the wake of former President Trump, an Illinois Republican is out to prove there is a GOP voter base that wants to give up the division and conspiracy theories that he says have come to define the party. “The...
Young men accuse Lincoln Project co-founder of harassment
WASHINGTON — The influential anti-Donald Trump group Lincoln Project is denouncing one of its co-founders after multiple reports that over several years he sexually harassed young men looking to break into politics. The Lincoln Project in a statement on Sunday called co-founder John Weaver, 61, “a predator, a liar, and...
GOP lawmakers seek tougher voting rules after record turnout
AUSTIN, Texas — Republican lawmakers in statehouses across the country are moving swiftly to attack some of the voting methods that fueled the highest turnout for a presidential election in 50 years. Although most legislative sessions are just getting underway, the Brennan Center for Justice, a public policy institute, has...
Pa. could become national outlier in how it elects appellate judges, worrying some experts
This article is part of a yearlong reporting project focused on redistricting and gerrymandering in Pennsylvania. It’s made possible by the support of Spotlight PA members including the Tribune-Review/TribLIVE, and Votebeat, a project focused on election integrity and voting access. HARRISBURG — A proposal moving through the GOP-led Pennsylvania legislature...
Trump parts with impeachment lawyers a week before trial
WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump has parted ways with his lead impeachment lawyers just over a week before his Senate trial is set to begin, two people familiar with the situation said Saturday. Butch Bowers and Deborah Barbier, both South Carolina lawyers, are no longer with Trump’s defense team....
Biden, Democrats hit gas on push for $15 minimum wage
WASHINGTON — The Democratic push to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour has emerged as an early flashpoint in the fight for a $1.9 trillion covid-19 relief package, testing President Joe Biden’s ability to bridge Washington’s partisan divides as he pursues his first major legislative victory. Biden...
Pistol-packing congresswoman Boebert mocks former Parkland student as not ‘tough’
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, the Colorado Republican who is so pro-gun she carries a Glock handgun everywhere and owns a firearms-themed restaurant, mocked gun control activist David Hogg on Twitter. In a Thursday evening post, Boebert responded with disdain to a tweet from Hogg, who survived...
Blame game begins over Pennsylvania’s slow vaccine rollout
HARRISBURG, Pa. — Republicans are faulting the administration of Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf for Pennsylvania’s slow covid-19 vaccine rollout even as Wolf himself says insufficient supply is the real culprit, setting up a fresh political fight over who’s to blame for the frustrations of eligible residents trying to get inoculated....
