Politics Election category, Page 228
Senators produce bipartisan $1 trillion infrastructure billVideo
WASHINGTON — After much delay, senators unveiled a nearly $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package Sunday night, wrapping up days of painstaking work on the inches-thick bill and launching what is certain to be a lengthy debate over President Joe Biden’s big priority. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act clocked in...
Senators hope to wrap up draft of infrastructure bill Sunday
WASHINGTON — The Senate will reconvene in a rare weekend session on Sunday as negotiators work on the text of a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill. Despite the delays, two senators predicted that the text would be released within the day and the bill passed by the end of the...
Evictions looming, Biden fails to get Congress to extend ban
WASHINGTON — A nationwide eviction moratorium is set to expire Saturday after President Joe Biden and Democrats in Congress worked furiously but ultimately failed to align on a long-shot strategy to prevent millions of Americans from being forced from their homes during a covid-19 surge. More than 3.6 million Americans...
$1 trillion infrastructure plan clears another Senate hurdle
WASHINGTON — The Senate further advanced a roughly $1 trillion infrastructure plan Friday with a bipartisan group of senators helping it clear one more hurdle and bracing to see if support can hold during the next few days of debate and efforts to amend it. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer,...
Justice Dept. says IRS must give Trump tax returns to Congress
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department, in a reversal, says the Treasury Department must provide the House Ways and Means Committee former President Donald Trump’s tax returns, apparently ending a long legal showdown over the records. In a memo dated Friday, Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel said the committee chairman “has...
Trump urged Justice officials to declare election ‘corrupt’
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump urged senior Justice Department officials to declare the 2020 election results “corrupt” in a December phone call, according to handwritten notes from one of the participants in the conversation. The notes of the Dec. 27 call, released Friday by the House Oversight Committee, underscore the...
CDC mask guidance met with hostility by leading Republicans
SALT LAKE CITY — One of the Republican Party’s most prominent rising stars is mocking new government recommendations calling for more widespread use of masks to blunt a coronavirus surge. “Did you not get the CDC’s memo?” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis joked Wednesday before an almost entirely unmasked audience of...
Conservatives want to boot Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger from House GOPVideo
WASHINGTON — Conservative lawmakers made a push Thursday to boot Republican Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger out of the House GOP because the two defied party leaders and joined the chamber’s special committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack by supporters of then-President Donald Trump. The effort by the...
Congress passes bill to fund Capitol security, Afghan visas
WASHINGTON — Congress overwhelmingly passed emergency legislation Thursday that would bolster security at the Capitol, repay outstanding debts from the violent Jan. 6 insurrection and increase the number of visas for allies who worked alongside Americans in the Afghanistan war. The $2.1 billion bill now goes to President Joe Biden...
Rep. Conor Lamb preparing to launch Senate run in August
WASHINGTON — Rep. Conor Lamb is expected to launch a Senate campaign in August, according to three sources familiar with the Pennsylvania Democrat’s decision. Two sources said Lamb is planning a campaign event Aug. 6 at an International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union hall in Pittsburgh, with one source noting...
Infrastructure deal: Senate votes to start work on $1T billVideo
WASHINGTON — The Senate voted Wednesday night to begin work on a nearly $1 trillion national infrastructure plan after President Joe Biden and a bipartisan group of senators reached agreement on major provisions of the package that is a key part of his presidential agenda. Biden welcomed the accord as...
Biden mileage rule to exceed Obama climate goal
WASHINGTON — In a major step against climate change, President Joe Biden is proposing a return to aggressive Obama-era vehicle mileage standards over five years. He’s then aiming for even tougher anti-pollution rules after that to forcefully reduce greenhouse gas emissions and nudge 40% of U.S. drivers into electric vehicles...
White House shifts messaging on inflation as Republicans attack
WASHINGTON — The White House is shifting the way it talks about inflation, as polls show increasing voter concern and Republicans try to use rising prices to kill off President Joe Biden’s sweeping plans to spend trillions of dollars on social programs and infrastructure projects. Out: wonky words such as...
Pelosi appoints 2nd GOP critic of Trump to Jan. 6 committee
WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday named a second Republican critic of Donald Trump, Rep. Adam Kinzinger, to a special committee investigating the Capitol riot and pledged that the Democratic-majority panel will “get to the truth.” Kinzinger said he “humbly accepted” the appointment even as his party’s leadership...
Beware of budget gimmicks in push for massive spending deals
WASHINGTON — Senators fashioning a pair of colossal bills that would deliver more than $4 trillion for infrastructure, health care, environment and other initiatives insist they will fully pay for both plans. Will they? In a Washington ritual as reliable as panic-buying when light snow is forecast, both parties have...
Pa. GOP strategist running for governor being investigated for fatal crash on Turnpike
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 — Republican gubernatorial candidate Charlie Gerow was involved in a crash on the Pennsylvania Turnpike in Chester County this week...
Mississippi argues Supreme Court should overturn Roe v. Wade
JACKSON, Miss. — The U.S. Supreme Court should overturn its landmark 1973 ruling that legalized abortion nationwide and let states decide whether to regulate abortion before a fetus can survive outside the womb, the office of Mississippi’s Republican attorney general argued in papers filed Thursday with the high court. “Under...
House passes bill to authorize 8,000 more visas for Afghan allies
WASHINGTON — The House on Thursday overwhelmingly passed legislation to authorize an additional 8,000 special immigrant visas for Afghan interpreters, contractors and other vulnerable U.S. allies. The bill would also expand eligibility to family members of SIV applicants who have been killed, as well as Afghans who worked with certain...
Gov. Tom Wolf says his position on voter ID has not changed
LOGANVILLE — With talks on wider election-related legislation at a standstill, Gov. Tom Wolf said Thursday that his position on expanding Pennsylvania’s voter identification requirements has not changed, and that he is against anything that would “suppress the vote.” An expansion of Pennsylvania’s voter ID requirements became one of the...
Senate bill would require women to register for the draft
WASHINGTON — The Senate Armed Services Committee included language in its version of the fiscal 2022 National Defense Authorization Act to require women, for the first time, to register for the draft. Congress has debated for several years whether to require women to sign up with the Selective Service, as...
Infrastructure bill fails first vote; Senate to try again
WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans rejected an effort Wednesday to begin debate on the big infrastructure deal that a bipartisan group of senators brokered with President Joe Biden. But supporters in both parties remained hopeful of a better chance soon. Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York had scheduled the...
Pa. Republicans will reintroduce vetoed election bill now that Gov. Tom Wolf says he’s open to voter ID changes
PHILADELPHIA — Pennsylvania Republicans plan to reintroduce their election overhaul legislation — which Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf vetoed last month — now that Wolf has changed his public position to say he’s open to new voter ID requirements. Wolf had said that changes to the state’s voter ID rules were...
GOP may boycott Jan. 6 probe after Pelosi blocks members
WASHINGTON — House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy says the GOP won’t participate in a House investigation of the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol if Democrats won’t accept the members he appointed. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday rejected two of McCarthy’s five picks to the panel, Indiana Rep. Jim...
Pelosi moves to block Trump allies from Jan. 6 committee
WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is rejecting two Republicans tapped by House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy to sit on a committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, citing the “integrity” of the probe. Pelosi said in a statement Wednesday that she would not accept the appointments of Indiana Rep....
Seemingly safe GOP incumbents under attack from right-wing
OKLAHOMA CITY — Republican U.S. Sen. James Lankford would seem to have all the conservative credentials he’d need to coast to reelection in deep-red Oklahoma. A devout Baptist, Lankford was the director of the nation’s largest Christian youth camp for more than a decade. He speaks out regularly against abortion...
