Politics Election category, Page 197
Court orders release of memo about Russia probe from Justice Department to Barr
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Justice Department must release a 2019 memo advising then-Attorney General Bill Barr on how to handle the conclusion of the Mueller investigation and the department’s decision not to charge Donald Trump, a federal appeals court ruled. The 3-0 decision Friday, by a panel of judges of...
Freezing state officials’ pay this year ‘is the right thing to do,’ Pa. lawmaker says
Pennsylvania’s rank-and-file lawmakers could see their salaries rise above $100,000 in December, but some members are seeking legislation to freeze or eliminate the automatic pay raises they receive. House State Government Committee Chairman Seth Grove, R-York County, said he supports a pay freeze to ensure — at least this year...
Colorado GOP senator becomes Democrat, cites vote falsehoods
DENVER — Citing alarm toward the Republican Party’s widespread embrace of 2020 election conspiracies, a moderate GOP Colorado state senator has switched his affiliation to Democrat, enhancing that party’s prospects to retain its majority in the chamber in the November midterms. Kevin Priola, who represents Adams County in Denver’s suburbs,...
Donald Trump to rally for Doug Mastriano and Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania
Former President Donald Trump will appear at a rally on Sept. 3 in Wilkes-Barre to boost Republican candidates Mehmet Oz and state Sen. Doug Mastriano in their key midterm election campaigns. The rally at Mohegan Sun Arena comes a little more than two months before Election Day in a race...
Social media posts draw attention to Pa. election races, but will they affect the outcomes?
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate John Fetterman has repeatedly taken to social media to mock his Republican rival, Dr. Mehmet Oz, during this year’s campaign — using celebrity cameo videos to call out Oz for moving from New Jersey to run, memes to criticize his vast wealth and even Oz’s own...
Pence says he didn’t leave office with classified material
Former Vice President Mike Pence said Friday that he didn’t take any classified information with him when he left office. Pence made the comment during an interview with The Associated Press in Iowa a week and a half after the FBI seized classified and top secret information during a search...
3 Pennsylvania counties ordered to count mail-in votes
A Pennsylvania judge has ordered three Republican-controlled counties to add about 800 contested mail-in ballots to the results of the May election, ruling in a legal dispute that stalled statewide certification of the primary results for governor and U.S. Senate. The Republican judge sided Friday with the Democratic governor in...
Doug Mastriano, Florida’s Ron DeSantis focus on crime, pandemic closures at Pittsburgh rally
Over one thousand people attended a rally in Downtown Pittsburgh on Friday evening where Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis criticized Democrats over rising crime rates and boasted about Republicans’ record for keeping schools open during the pandemic. DeSantis, who has been floated as a potential...
California voters don’t want Biden or Trump to run in 2024, poll shows
Californians have little appetite for a rematch of the 2020 presidential race, according to a new UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll, with strong majorities of the state’s voters hoping neither President Joe Biden nor former President Donald Trump runs again in two years. The poll, co-sponsored by The...
GOP candidate says call for Merrick Garland’s death was ‘facetious’
BUFFALO, N.Y. — A Republican candidate for Congress in western New York said in a radio interview that U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland “should be executed” for authorizing a search former President Donald Trump’s home, before clarifying later in the show that he wasn’t being serious. Buffalo-area businessman Carl Paladino...
Madison Cawthorn’s campaign disclosure woes continue after misreporting his own donation
WASHINGTON — Rep. Madison Cawthorn’s troubles with the Federal Election Commission continued this week when he reported to the agency that he had failed to disclose an additional $235,566 he gave his campaign in the most recent quarter beyond what he told them three days earlier. Cawthorn already drew the...
Reports: GOP cuts ad spending in Pennsylvania, as Fetterman launches ad targeting D.C. insiders
A major funding arm for Republican U.S. Senate candidates has slashed ad spending in several battleground states, including Pennsylvania, according to multiple reports. At the same time, Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman has released several proposals and launched a related ad blaming inflation on wealthy insiders and lobbyists in Washington,...
Judge blocks Florida ‘woke’ law pushed by Gov. DeSantis
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — A Florida judge on Thursday declared a Florida law championed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis that restricts race-based conversation and analysis in business and education unconstitutional. Tallahassee U.S. District Judge Mark Walker said in a 44-page ruling that the “Stop WOKE” act violates the First Amendment...
Pa. lawmakers weigh bills that would allow independents to vote on primary candidates
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 — Former elected officials and government experts told a panel of state lawmakers that Pennsylvania’s primary system should be opened...
Pa. lawmakers are set to get huge raises next year
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 — Fiscal responsibility is an axiom in Harrisburg, but nearly none of Pennsylvania’s 253 state lawmakers seem to mind when...
Pence tells GOP to stop lashing out at FBI over Trump searchVideo
MANCHESTER, N.H. — Former Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday implored fellow Republicans to stop lashing out at the FBI over the search of Donald Trump’s Florida home and denounced calls by some of the former president’s allies to defund the FBI, saying that was “just as wrong” as a...
Doug Mastriano challenges Josh Shapiro to 2 debates, but only on his terms
State Sen. Doug Mastriano has proposed two debates in October with Attorney General Josh Shapiro, his Democratic rival for Pennsylvania’s governor’s office, but this particular offer appears to be dead on arrival. The Republican nominee’s proposed rules of engagement — cutting out all outside organizers and allowing debate questions only...
Biden signs massive climate and health care legislationVideo
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden signed Democrats’ landmark climate change and health care bill into law on Tuesday, delivering what he has called the “final piece” of his pared-down domestic agenda, as he aims to boost his party’s standing with voters less than three months before the midterm elections. The...
Florida Gov. DeSantis wants retired police, firefighters to be teachersVideo
Describing college education programs as “overtaken by ideology,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said Tuesday he wants to expand a new law that allows military veterans to become classroom teachers to include retired first responders such as police, firefighters and EMTs. “We believe that the folks that have served our communities have...
Shopping at Wegner’s? Fetterman picks on Oz’s choice of words, groceries in latest salvo
U.S. candidate John Fetterman’s campaign reached back a few months to find a video that it used to make fun of Republican rival Dr. Mehmet Oz. The video, published in April, shows Oz walking through a store’s vegetable section to help his wife build “a crudité,” according to Huffington Post,...
Abortion foes tap credit cards to get partial Kansas recount
TOPEKA, Kan. — Kansas plans to do a partial hand recount that won’t change the outcome of this month’s decisive vote in favor of abortion rights after abortion opponents charged almost $120,000 to credit cards Monday to cover the cost. The Kansas secretary of state’s office said the recount will...
West Virginia governor: Voters shouldn’t decide abortion access issue
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice scoffed Monday at a suggestion by Democratic lawmakers to let voters decide whether abortion should continue to be allowed in the state. The Republican governor said the state’s abortion law falls under the scrutiny of the Legislature and the attorney general. During...
Expanded IRS free-file system one step closer in Democrats’ bill
WASHINGTON — The flagship climate change and health care bill passed by Democrats and soon to be signed by President Joe Biden will bring U.S. taxpayers one step closer to a government-operated electronic free-file tax return system. It’s something lawmakers and advocates have been seeking for years. For many Americans,...
Fetterman keeps attacking Oz for being from New Jersey. That’s resonating in parochial Pa.
There’s something about Pennsylvania’s political DNA that’s playing out in this year’s crucial Senate race. It’s not that we have one unifying statewide identity, but we are a state with lots of intense regional identities — that can oftentimes breed distrust of out-of-towners. People don’t say they’re from Pennsylvania. They...
Sinema took Wall Street money while killing tax on investors
WASHINGTON — Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, the Arizona Democrat who single-handedly thwarted her party’s longtime goal of raising taxes on wealthy investors, received nearly $1 million over the past year from private equity professionals, hedge fund managers and venture capitalists whose taxes would have increased under the plan. For years, Democrats...
