Politics Election category, Page 198
Supreme Court to hear case on state authority over elections
The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to hear a case that could dramatically change the way elections for Congress and the presidency are conducted by handing more power to state legislatures and blocking state courts from reviewing challenges to the procedures and results. The justices will consider whether state...
Pennsylvania to begin fiscal year without a budget
HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania’s new fiscal year will begin without a state budget in place, as Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration and top Republican lawmakers haltingly worked through Thursday’s deadline to hammer out a roughly $42 billion spending plan whose details were still largely being kept secret. Negotiators had yet to fully...
Trump painted in testimony as volatile, angry president
WASHINGTON — When President Donald Trump learned his attorney general had publicly rejected his election fraud claims, he heaved his lunch at the wall with such force that the porcelain plate shattered and ketchup streamed down. On the morning of Jan. 6, 2021, consumed by crowd size concerns, he directed...
Supreme Court justices nix 2nd mostly Black district in Louisiana for 2022
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday put on hold a lower court ruling that Louisiana must draw new congressional districts before the 2022 elections to increase Black voting power. With the three liberal justices dissenting, the high court short-circuited an order from a federal judge to create a second...
Pennsylvania House targets colleges’ fetal research in bill
HARRISBURG — A proposal to require Pennsylvania’s four state-related universities to promise they are not conducting research or experiments with fetal tissue from elective abortions was added to a state budget bill by House Republicans on Monday. The chamber voted 108-92, with three Republicans crossing party lines, for the amendment...
Jan. 6 panel calls surprise hearing to present new evidence
WASHINGTON — The House Jan. 6 panel is calling a surprise hearing this week to present evidence it says it recently obtained, raising expectations of new bombshells in the sweeping investigation into the Capitol insurrection. The hearing scheduled for 1 p.m. on Tuesday comes after Congress left Washington for a...
Rep. Mary Miller’s ‘white life’ comment is latest controversy in her short 2 years in CongressVideo
MENDON, Ill. — When freshman U.S. Rep. Mary Miller took to a county fair stage Saturday night to thank former President Donald Trump for appointing conservative justices who led the U.S. Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade, she called it a “historic victory for white life.” Miller, who has...
Poll: Majority of Americans disapprove of Supreme Court’s Roe decisionVideo
WASHINGTON — A CBS News poll found that a majority of Americans disapprove of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision overturning the constitutional right to an abortion, which is inflaming a partisan divide on display in comments by senior lawmakers. The poll, conducted Friday and Saturday, found 59% disapproved of the...
Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade; states can ban abortion
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Friday stripped away women’s constitutional protections for abortion, a fundamental and deeply personal change for Americans’ lives after nearly a half-century under Roe v. Wade. The court’s overturning of the landmark court ruling is likely to lead to abortion bans in roughly half the...
Senate OKs landmark gun violence bill, House passage is next
WASHINGTON — The Senate on Thursday easily approved a bipartisan gun violence bill that seemed unthinkable just a month ago, clearing the way for final congressional approval of what will be lawmakers’ most far-reaching response in decades to the nation’s run of brutal mass shootings. After years of GOP procedural...
Allegheny County GOP chair interviewed by FBI in probe of Trump and 2020 election
FBI agents interviewed Allegheny County Republican Chairman Sam DeMarco at his North Fayette home on Thursday as part of an investigation into whether President Trump tried to send alternate electors in several states to Washington in an attempt to reverse the 2020 election. DeMarco, who also is a county councilman,...
1/6 panel to hear of Trump’s pressure on Justice Department
WASHINGTON — The Jan. 6 committee will hear from former Justice Department officials who faced down a relentless pressure campaign from Donald Trump over the 2020 presidential election results while suppressing a bizarre challenge from within their own ranks. The hearing Thursday will bring attention to a memorably turbulent stretch...
John Fettterman lands major endorsement from National Education Association
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate John Fetterman landed a key endorsement on Wednesday from the National Education Association with the “strong support” of the Pennsylvania State Education Association. “John Fetterman is a proven leader on education issues in Pennsylvania,” Rich Askey, president of the PSEA, the state’s largest teachers’ union, said...
GOP Senator Ron Johnson wanted to intervene for Trump on Jan. 6Video
WASHINGTON — Ron Johnson, a staunch ally of Donald Trump and the most vulnerable Senate Republican, attempted to intervene on the former president’s behalf just moments before Congress met to certify the election results on Jan. 6, 2021, the House panel investigating the attack on the Capitol that day revealed...
‘Blue slip’ problem hangs up veterans toxic exposure bill
WASHINGTON — A Senate-passed bill to expand health care and disability benefits to veterans exposed to burn pits or other toxic substances during their service has run into a constitutional objection from the House. The bill, which would make it easier for veterans to access benefits by presuming that certain...
Lawmaker wants Penn State to report location, condition of Joe Paterno statue
Rep. Aaron Bernstine (R-Butler/Beaver/Lawrence) is attempting to force Penn State University to provide information regarding the location and condition of the Joe Paterno statue by tying it as an amendment to Senate Bill 1283, which would provide the school’s funding for the fiscal year. Bernstine, who is a Penn State...
The Pennsylvania primary election set voter turnout records. Here’s what else the data show
The 2022 Pennsylvania primary election — finally filed away in the history books after a recount — wasn’t just a wild political saga. It also set voter turnout records. More Democrats and Republicans voted than in any midterm election primary in the last 25 years. Who those voters are, where...
Pa. House eyes expanding who can bring sexual misconduct complaints against lawmakers
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 — Pennsylvania House leaders are quietly negotiating a deal to close a loophole in the chamber’s rules that protects lawmakers...
1/6 panel: Local ‘heroes’ rebuffed Trump, then faced threats
WASHINGTON — The House 1/6 committee heard chilling, tearful testimony Tuesday that Donald Trump’s relentless pressure to overturn the 2020 presidential election provoked widespread threats to the “backbone of our democracy”— election workers and local officials who fended off the defeated president’s demands despite personal risks. The panel investigating the...
The bipartisan push to cut corporate taxes in Pennsylvania, explained
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 — Amid budget negotiations, Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf and legislative Republicans are weighing a major tax cut on Pennsylvania corporations....
Justices seem poised to hear elections case pressed by GOP
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court seems poised to take on a new elections case being pressed by Republicans that could increase the power of state lawmakers over races for Congress and the presidency, as well as redistricting, and cut state courts out of the equation. The issue has arisen repeatedly...
Biden’s optimism collides with mounting political challenges
WASHINGTON — Democrats are going to hold onto the House after November’s midterm elections. They will pick up as many as four seats in the Senate, expanding their majority and overcoming internal dissent that has helped stifle their agenda. As the challenges confronting President Joe Biden intensify, his predictions of...
Watergate 50th meets Jan. 6. Common thread: Thirst for power
WASHINGTON — The wreckage of Watergate and Jan. 6 are a half-century apart yet rooted in the same ancient thirst for power at any cost. Two presidents, wily and profane, tried an end run around democracy. Mysteries from both affairs endure as the House inquiry into the Jan. 6, 2021,...
Vice President Kamala Harris visits Pittsburgh, touts need for lead pipe removal
Vice President Kamala Harris, in a visit to Pittsburgh on Friday, discussed the administration’s efforts at the federal level to replace lead pipes — an issue familiar to many Pittsburgh residents. Harris, alongside EPA administrator Michael Regan and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge, spoke at the Community Empowerment...
Trump weighs another run as GOP rivals eye own campaigns
NASHVILLE — As religious conservatives gathered this week at a sprawling resort near the Grand Ole Opry House, Nikki Haley pressed the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s “Road to Majority” crowd to look to the future. “It’s up to us to deliver a new birth of patriotism,” said Haley, the former...
