Friday, August 7, 2026

Tag: state politics

You elected them to write new laws. They’re letting corporations do...

Disguised as the work of lawmakers, these so-called “model” bills get copied in one state Capitol after another, quietly advancing the agenda of the people who write them.

Flipping the House is nice, but the real power is local

The more relevant political battle lines will continue to shift to our states and cities, where the real struggle for power lies.

Midwest midterms hold keys to victory in 2020

“Democrats in these states ran on health care, education, and other bread-and-butter issues."

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The west front of the U.S. Capitol. The Protected Time Off Act, pending in Congress, would guarantee full-time workers two weeks of paid annual leave. Photo: Architect of the Capitol (public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

US workers average 10 paid vacation days a year, and 33 million get none

Twenty-five OECD countries require employers to provide at least 20 days. The US legal minimum is zero, and 57 percent of the lowest-paid tenth of workers get no vacation at all.
The E. Barrett Prettyman United States Courthouse in Washington, home of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, where Judge Amit Mehta issued the order. Photo: AgnosticPreachersKid (public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

Judge dismisses the last January 6 case, writing that absolving the Oath Keepers is...

The Justice Department told the court a retrial would harass eight men whose sentences Trump had already commuted. Two Oath Keepers who pleaded guilty and cooperated keep their convictions.
A young Jeffrey pine on a slope in the eastern Sierra Nevada. Photo: Dcrjsr / CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

A Gnarly Situation: High-Elevation Discovery Raises New Questions About Which California Trees Will Survive...

Birds may have been burying Jeffrey pine seeds up high for thousands of years. But now that they’re sprouting, this new species of subalpine tree may change the playing field.
The entrance to the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, where Elvis Brooks was imprisoned for 42 years. Photo: kccornell from Lafayette, LA / CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

He’s Eligible for Up to $480,000 After Being Wrongly Imprisoned for 42 Years. The...

Elvis Brooks’ case was an egregious example of a wrongful conviction, civil rights attorneys said. But Louisiana’s attorney general maintains that Brooks and other exonerees are guilty — and therefore don’t qualify for any money from the state.
The Michigan State Capitol in Lansing. Photo: w_lemay / CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

El-Sayed wins Michigan Senate primary after AIPAC’s super PAC spends a record $30.6 million

Outside groups supplied 88 percent of the money spent on the Democratic side of a contest AdImpact ranks as the third most expensive Senate primary in US history.