Category: Uncategorized

On March 19, 2019, Cedar Falls School Board member Eric Giddens (D) and former state Rep. Walt Rogers (R) are running in a special election for the District 30 seat in the Iowa State Senate. The previous officeholder, Jeff Danielson (D), resigned on February 14, 2019. The two candidates were chosen by party conventions rather…

Ten candidates filed paperwork to run in the May 21 primary for four of the nine seats on the Pittsburgh School District Board of Directors in Pennsylvania. The general election is on November 5, and the filing deadline was March 12. Out of the four seats up for election, District 8 incumbent Kevin Carter was…

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 March 4 to March 8, the number of pages in the Federal Register increased by 1,328 pages, bringing…

The Chevron doctrine may be dying according to Justice Neil Gorsuch’s dissent in BNSF Railway Co. v. Loos. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s 7-2 majority upheld an IRS interpretation of law but ignored Chevron.   The Chevron doctrine requires judicial deference to reasonable agency interpretations of unclear laws. That means judges uphold agency decisions even when…

State attorneys general from 21 states joined together to sue the Trump administration over a new rule that increased restrictions on Title X family planning program funds. The final rule, issued by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), prohibits using Title X funds to perform, promote, or refer for abortion as a family…

Last year, Ballotpedia’s Wave Elections report used historical data to produce a methodology for determining the number of seats needed for an election to qualify as a wave. In the report, Ballotpedia defined a wave election as the 20 percent of elections in the last 100 years with the largest seat swings against the president’s…

In February 2019, the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) reviewed 23 significant regulatory actions issued by federal agencies. The agency approved the intent of 21 rules while recommending changes to their content. Agencies withdrew two rules from the review process.   OIRA reviewed 20 significant regulatory actions in February 2018—three fewer…

February’s partisan count of the 7,383 state legislators shows 52 percent of all state legislators are Republicans and 47 percent are Democrats.   Ballotpedia completes a count of the partisan balance of state legislatures at the end of every month. The partisan composition of state legislatures refers to which political party holds the majority of…

Employers will again have to disclose detailed worker injury data to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) if Congress approves a new resolution. The resolution was introduced in early February according to the Congressional Review Act (CRA). It would undo a new OSHA rule that exempts large employers from having to submit detailed reports…

Two months into 2019, and state legislatures nationwide have taken early action on public-sector union policy in the states, responding either directly or indirectly to the Supreme Court’s decision last summer in Janus v. AFSCME. In Janus, the high court ruled that public-sector unions cannot require non-member employees to pay agency fees to cover the…