State Politics & News
Coverage of state politics, elections, and conservative policy battles across all 50 states shaping America’s future.
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news
How the $12 Million Illinois Medicaid Gave to Dead People Hurt This Family
Jake Chalkey has defied doctors’ expectations. Born with a brain malformation, Jake wasn’t supposed to live past 2 years old. He suffered from life-threatening seizures, which would be his downfall, doctors said, and it took years for medical professionals to formally diagnose the young boy with a condition they didn’t even have a name for…. -
opinion
California Legislature Adopts Bill That Would Make It Tougher for Government to Take Your Stuff
The California Senate unanimously approved a landmark civil asset forfeiture reform package last week. If signed by Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, the bill would clamp down on one of the most pernicious practices in civil forfeiture: the bypassing of state law via the controversial federal equitable sharing program. It would also expand the range… -
news
Facing High Labor Costs From Minimum Wage Hikes, Chicago Restaurant Closes
A Chicago restaurant abruptly closed this week, with ownership blaming the “rapidly changing labor market” and a 27 percent increase in base minimum wage costs over the last two years as culprits for the collapse. Cantina 1910, a farm-to-table Mexican restaurant located in Chicago’s Andersonville neighborhood, opened in September 2015. Former Cantina 1910 employees said… -
opinion
Judges Put Election Reforms in Wisconsin on Hold, Except for Voter ID
On Monday, a three-judge panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused without comment to stay a Wisconsin district court opinion in One Wisconsin Institute v. Thomsen that threw out changes the state legislature had made in early voting rules as well as other changes such as the residency requirement for new voters…. -
opinion
North Carolina School District’s Anti-Bullying Policy Promotes Transgender Agenda
North Carolina has become ground zero for pushing the transgender envelope. In March, North Carolina’s General Assembly and Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican, passed the Bathroom Privacy Act (HB2) to establish uniform policies for intimate facilities in public schools and public spaces and to overrule a radical Charlotte ordinance requiring local businesses to allow men… -
news
Texas Judge’s Ruling Undermines Obama Administration’s Transgender Bathroom Policy
Restrooms, locker rooms, and showers in public schools nationwide are allowed to remain separated by biological sex for the foreseeable future, a federal judge in Texas has ruled. U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor blocked President Barack Obama’s administration’s bathroom mandate on Sunday evening, hours before students in the state woke up for their first day… -
opinion
I’m From Louisiana. Here’s the Flooding Story the Media Should Cover.
As a south Louisiana native who lived through Hurricane Katrina, I have every right to be aggravated with the national news coverage of the state’s latest natural disaster. Due to massive flooding over the last week, one-third of the state’s parishes (called counties everywhere else) are official federal disaster areas. The population for those parishes… -
news
Texas Judge Victorious Over Atheist Group in Prayer Dispute
Judge Wayne Mack, a justice of the peace in Montgomery County, Texas, recalls several people telling him they were initially worried about coming before his court, but after the chaplain’s prayer opened the proceedings, they felt better. “It was clear it would be a solemn event and they knew I would be fair,” Mack told… -
opinion
Alaska Court’s Ruling on Abortion and Parental Notification Hurts Teens
Hillary Kieft grew worried when her daughter didn’t arrive from school on the bus as usual. After she called the school to find out what was wrong, a school nurse pulled into her driveway with the daughter (let’s call her “Kelly”) in tow. The nurse explained that she had taken Kelly for counseling after school,… -
news
51 Illinois Families Ask Court to Suspend School’s Bathroom, Locker Room Policy
Adding to the handful of lawsuits involving transgender students across the country, lawyers representing a group of 51 families in a Chicago suburb asked a federal judge to temporarily suspend a school policy that grants a transgender student access to the girls’ restrooms and locker rooms. “Every parent sends their kids to school expecting that… -
news
What Conservatives Did to Pull Off Religious Liberty Win in California
California conservatives won a surprise victory this week, changing a state assembly bill that would have curtailed the freedom of private religious colleges. “We literally were able to see tens of thousands of people mobilize to make calls and to write their legislators, and to participate in the political process,” William Jessup University President John… -
news
Voter Fraud Battles Heat Up in Sudden Swing State of Georgia
Two complaints of vote buying, four complaints of felons voting or registering to vote, and a voter registration under the name of a dead person are among the matters Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp’s office is reviewing. Many of the 18 complaints filed in 2016 came through the office’s “Stop Voter Fraud” website and… -
news
University of Texas Professors Sue Over Concealed Guns Allowed in Their Classrooms
Three professors are fighting a Texas law that allows students to carry concealed handguns in their college classrooms. Senate Bill 11, allowing concealed handgun license holders 21 and older (or 18 if active military) to carry in campus buildings, was signed by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, in June 2015. The law went into… -
opinion
Texas Gets the Best Deal It Could With DOJ on Voter ID for the Election
It looks as if Texas, the Justice Department, and all of the other parties, including the NAACP, involved in the challenge to the state’s voter ID law have worked out an interim settlement—and the district court judge approved the deal today after a telephonic hearing Wednesday morning. That deal is probably about the best deal… -
opinion
Here Are 7 Ways Free Trade Has Helped Michigan
In 2010, the Michigan economy was on the rocks—715,000 people were out of work, and the Great Lakes State’s gross domestic product had contracted by 7.6 percent by the time the recession ended. Today, Michigan is the comeback state, and international trade plays a vital role in its growth. Here are seven facts about the… -
opinion
New Massachusetts Law Banning Employers From Asking Salary History Could Hurt Employees
Transparency in pay is a rallying point of “fair pay” advocates. Why then would a recent law passed in Massachusetts prohibit questions about pay? Ironically, what has been deemed the most robust equal pay law in the country simultaneously mandates the free flow of salary discussions amongst employees while prohibiting employers from asking potential hires… -
news
It Takes 4 Times Longer to Become a Hair Braider Than an EMT in Oklahoma
For aspiring hair braiders in more than half of the United States, obtaining the license needed to work this job can take as few as six hours and as many as 2,100 hours, or about 262 eight-hour days. But in 10 places that require hair braiders to get approval from local and state governments, a new report… -
opinion
Don’t Bring Empty Bottles Into Michigan, You Might Go to Jail
Founding Father James Madison wrote in the Federalist Papers that “It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.” The phenomenon of overcriminalization puts all… -
opinion
Anti-Catholic Blaine Amendment Could Damage Nevada School Choice Reform
A lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union is threatening education choice in Nevada. The lawsuit revolves around a century-old law with a “shameful pedigree” that the U.S. Supreme Court has said arose during “a time of pervasive hostility to the Catholic Church and to Catholics in general.” That law, known as a Blaine… -
news
Parents Beat Back Obama’s Transgender Bathroom Mandate in Texas Schools
Administrators of a Texas school district changed guidelines for transgender students to involve parents and work with families on a case-by-case basis, after an uproar among parents. The Fort Worth Independent School District announced the two new pages of guidelines dated July 19 after parents and others had a chance to speak at school board…