Politics Election category, Page 233
Biden nominee’s link to 1989 logging sabotage blasted by GOP
BILLINGS, Mont. — President Joe Biden’s nominee to oversee federal lands in the U.S. West is facing Republican pressure to withdraw over her ties to environmental activists convicted of spiking trees to sabotage a national forest timber sale more than 30 years ago. U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, the ranking Republican...
Lucky number: Biden is 13th U.S. president set to meet queen
LONDON — Imagine trying to make an impression on someone who’s met, well, almost everyone. Such is the challenge for President Joe Biden, who is set to sip tea with Queen Elizabeth II on Sunday at Windsor Castle after a Group of Seven leaders’ summit in southwestern England. Biden will...
Senators eye $579B in new infrastructure spending, $1T plan
WASHINGTON — A bipartisan group of senators is eyeing an infrastructure deal with $579 billion in new spending as negotiators try to strike a nearly $1 trillion deal on President Joe Biden’s top priority, according to those briefed on the plan. The 10 senators have been huddling behind closed doors,...
Pa. legislature ends coronavirus disaster declaration, keeps waivers
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 — The Pennsylvania legislature has voted to immediately end Gov. Tom Wolf’s coronavirus disaster declaration using a new power granted...
Rep. Omar says she wasn’t equating U.S., Israel and terrorists
WASHINGTON — Rep. Ilhan Omar tried edging away Thursday from a bitter fight with Jewish Democratic lawmakers who’d accused her of likening the U.S. and Israel to Hamas and Afghanistan’s Taliban, saying her remarks were “in no way equating terrorist organizations with democratic countries.” A three-paragraph statement by the Minnesota...
Pa. GOP proposes major election overhaul, including stricter voter ID and in-person early voting
This article is made possible through Votebeat, a nonpartisan reporting project covering local election integrity and voting access. This article is available for reprint under the terms of Votebeat’s republishing policy. Pennsylvania Republicans unveiled their first proposal for overhauling the state’s election system Thursday, with lawmakers in the state House...
Independent Marlin Woods to announce bid for Pittsburgh mayor
A 48-year-old East Liberty man who works as a benefits consultant will be announcing an independent run for Pittsburgh mayor Thursday evening. “Leadership is my product and I believe in it,” Marlin Woods said in an interview before his campaign kickoff, which is set for 6 p.m. at Highland Park...
Home health aides protest at Reschenthaler’s Greensburg officeVideo
A group of about two dozen home care workers and community activists converged on U.S. Rep. Guy Reschenthaler’s office in Greensburg on Wednesday to rally support for the American Jobs Act and speak to the role low-paid caregivers play in the nation’s health system. The group — led by United...
Federal probe: Protest not broken up due to Trump photo op
An internal government investigation has determined that the decision to forcibly clear racial justice protesters from an area in front of the White House last summer was not influenced by then-President Donald Trump’s plan to stage a Bible-toting photo opportunity at that spot. The report released Wednesday by the Interior...
White House drops Trump orders trying to ban TikTok, WeChat
WASHINGTON — The White House has dropped Trump-era executive orders that attempted to ban the popular apps TikTok and WeChat and will conduct its own review aimed at identifying national security risks with software applications tied to China, officials said Wednesday. A new executive order directs the Commerce Department to...
Biden to get warm welcome from relieved but wary allies
LONDON — When U.S. President Joe Biden flies to Europe this week, he will find his hosts welcoming but wary. His predecessor Donald Trump may be gone, but he leaves a long shadow. Biden’s first foreign trip as president starts Wednesday and includes a gathering of the Group of Seven...
‘A lot of anxiety’ for Democrats as Biden agenda stalls
WASHINGTON — Hopes for a big infrastructure investment are teetering. An ambitious elections and voting bill is all but dead. Legislation on police brutality, gun control and immigration has stalled out. After six months of Democratic control in Washington, the party’s progressive wing is growing increasingly restless as campaign promises...
Oregon lawmaker faces expulsion for assault on state Capitol
SALEM, Ore. — Oregon House Speaker Tina Kotek wants to expel a Republican lawmaker who allowed violent protesters into the state Capitol in December. Fellow Republicans said Monday they want him out too. Video that emerged late Friday in local news reports that apparently showed Rep. Mike Nearman choreographing how...
Leslie Rossi, Abby Major break records as they take office in Harrisburg
Pennsylvania’s newest lawmakers, state Reps. Leslie Rossi, R-Unity, and Abby Major, R-Ford City, are breaking molds with every step they take. The two, who won special elections last month to fill unexpected vacancies, were sworn into office Monday in Harrisburg. They are the first women to represent, respectively, the 59th...
Democrats brace for 2022 elections with ‘little margin for error’
WASHINGTON — Democrats are at high risk of losing control of Congress next year, and the perilous outlook is shaping party strategy on every level, a modern illustration of the old saw: Nothing focuses the mind like the sight of the gallows. Defending fragile House and Senate majorities in the...
Trump’s grievances cloud Republican agenda heading into 2022
RALEIGH, N.C. — Republicans are fighting to seize control of Congress. Just don’t ask what they’d do if they win. Look no further for evidence of the GOP’s muddled governing agenda than battleground North Carolina, where party leaders packed into a convention hall Saturday night to cheer former President Donald...
Manchin say he’ll vote against ‘partisan’ Dem elections bill
WASHINGTON — A key Democratic senator says he will not vote for the largest overhaul of U.S. election law in at least a generation, defying his party and the White House and virtually guaranteeing the failure of the legislation after a near party-line approval in the House. “Voting and election...
Advocates push for citizen input and transparency in new congressional and legislative maps
Jim Brewster, the McKeesport Democrat, has vivid memories of going to bed in December 2011 in his Allegheny County home and waking up to find his 45th Senate District had been moved across Pennsylvania to the Poconos. Strange things can happen when politics collides with the need to resketch district...
Bill would force Pa. to post online how lawmakers spend millions in tax dollars each 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 — Millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded expenses incurred by state lawmakers each year would be required to be posted online...
After 2-year battle, House panel interviewing Trump counsel
WASHINGTON — The House Judiciary Committee is questioning former White House counsel Don McGahn behind closed doors on Friday, two years after House Democrats originally sought his testimony as part of investigations into former President Donald Trump. The long-awaited interview is the result of an agreement reached last month in...
House Dems unveil $547B infrastructure bill amid Biden talks
WASHINGTON — House Democrats released a plan Friday for spending $547 billion over the next five years on road, mass transit and rail projects, a blueprint for what they want parts of President Joe Biden’s broader infrastructure proposal to look like. The proposal from Rep. Peter DeFazio, the Democratic chairman...
GOP fight over 2020 election audit brews in Pennsylvania
HARRISBURG — A key member of Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives is flatly rejecting talk of any sort of audit of the 2020 presidential election, a day after three fellow Republican state lawmakers toured the Arizona Senate GOP’s audit. Rep. Seth Grove, R-York, who chairs the committee that handles election matters,...
3 Pa. lawmakers visit Arizona GOP election audit
PHOENIX — Three Pennsylvania lawmakers were in Arizona on Wednesday to check out the state Senate GOP’s partisan audit of the 2020 election. They’re the latest Republicans to make a pilgrimage to Phoenix, ground zero in the “stop the steal” movement’s push to find support for conspiracy theories suggesting the...
Trump shuts down blog after less than a month
Former President Donald Trump is going to have to find a new way to reach his MAGA supporters. The exiled tweeter in chief scrapped his personal blog after less than a month amid poor readership numbers and his indefinite ban from social media. Once hosted on donaldjtrump.com, the “From the...
Biden pushes for U.S. voting rights law as restrictions mount
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden used the 100th anniversary of Tulsa’s race massacre to make a plea for sweeping legislation in Congress to protect the right to vote as Republican-led governments in Texas and other states pass new restrictions making it tougher to cast ballots. Biden, marking the centennial in...
