Category: Federal

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is seeking public comment on a proposal that would end the agency’s process of conducting live adjudication hearings before an administrative law judge (ALJ) in favor of a system that considers only written testimony and documentary evidence.   Adjudication proceedings include agency determinations outside of the rulemaking process that resolve…

No members of the U.S. Senate or U.S. House announced 2020 retirements in the past week. To date, four Senators (three Republicans and one Democrat) and 19 Representatives (15 Republicans and four Democrats) are not running for re-election.   As of September 16, 2019, 240 candidates are filed with the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) to…

Each week, we report the number of pageviews received by 2020 presidential campaigns on Ballotpedia. These numbers show which candidates are getting our readers’ attention.   Andrew Yang’s campaign page on Ballotpedia received 4,826 pageviews for the week of September 8-14, which included the third Democratic presidential debate. Yang’s pageview figure represents 11.3% of the…

The U.S. Supreme Court has released its December argument calendar for the 2019-2020 term. The court will hear 12 hours of oral argument in 15 cases between December 2 and December 11.   As of September 16, 2019, the court had agreed to hear 44 cases in the upcoming term.   December 2 New York…

The U.S. Senate confirmed six nominees to U.S. District Court judgeships. The Senate has confirmed 152 of President Trump’s Article III judicial nominees—two Supreme Court justices, 43 appellate court judges, 105 district court judges, and two U.S. Court of International Trade judges—since January 2017. At the end of the 115th Congress in January 2019, the…

  On September 11, the U.S. Supreme Court granted the Trump administration’s request to lift an injunction that was blocking the enforcement of a new rule dealing with asylum seekers. The court’s order allows the rule to go into effect while legal challenges against it come before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and, potentially,…

The Federal Register is a daily journal of federal government activity that includes presidential documents, proposed and final rules, and public notices. It is a common measure of an administration’s regulatory activity.   During the week of September 2 to September 6, the number of pages in the Federal Register increased by 1,242 pages, bringing the…

On September 9, Judge Jon S. Tigar of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California restored the nationwide scope of an injunction against a Trump administration asylum rule. He had originally issued a nationwide injunction against the rule in July, but the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals narrowed its scope to only…

Senate Democrats plan to use the Congressional Review Act (CRA) this fall to reverse a guidance document that gave states more flexibility when applying for waivers from Obamacare requirements. The plan was included in a letter written by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D.-N.Y.) outlining fall priorities for the Democratic Party, according to Politico on…

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) published a final rule on September 5 that withdraws rules made during the Obama administration that apply higher energy-efficiency requirements to some specialty lightbulbs. The department also published a separate proposed rule saying that current energy-efficiency standards do not need to change. This means that certain types of lightbulbs—rough…