U.S. Senate Committee on Rules and Administration

Proposals to lower the voter-approval threshold for various local tax increases from two-thirds to 55% got sidetracked Tuesday, with even some Democrats saying more consideration is needed. Rather than send the four constitutional amendments to the...

Yo! The other day when the 3H’s descended on Pennsylvania, my wife asked me if the Capitol was air conditioned. I said I guess so, it seems cooler inside. Then I stepped into the Senate Rules Committee chamber for the......

A critic of the region's air-quality agency is questioning the academic credentials of a board member empowered to vote on the fate of the fire rings in Newport Beach and Huntington Beach. Clark E. Parker, who sits on the South Coast Air Quality...

TALLAHASSEE – An attempt to give the Miami Dolphins the ability to make stadium improvements morphed Tuesday into a catch-all sports incentive package that could provide tax dollars for everything from Major League Soccer in Orlando to spring...

Just before the Legislature broke for its spring break this week, Senate leaders took steps to rein in the number of select committees, which in the past have been used to pad the payroll, sometimes with political cronies, but with few or no meetings....

Gov. Sean Parnell's proposal to move up the date of Alaska's primary elections has moved one step closer to a vote. The House Judiciary Committee advanced HB104, which would shift the date of the primary from the fourth Tuesday in August to the second...

On Feb. 8, state Sen. James DeGrange introduced a bill to repeal the ban on using state funds to implement standards for state correctional facilities set by the American Correctional Association. Maryland has its own Commission on Correctional...

TALLAHASSEE — A sweeping ethics reform that cracks down on political slush funds, revolving-door lobbying, and Florida's weak ethics enforcement unanimously cleared its last Senate committee stop Tuesday. Senate President Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, has...

The fallout from last week's Senate hearing on Gov. Martin O'Malley's gun legislation continued this week with a proposal from the Senate minority leader intended to make sure everyone who wants to testify on a high-profile bill can. Sen. E. J. Pipkin...

WASHINGTON -- There are some who call it a betrayal most fowl. And yet there is poultry evidence of wrongdoing. However you bill it, this is a quacking good controversy. Our tale begins at Monday's inauguration lunch in Statuary Hall in the Capitol....

Lawmakers to serve areas left not represented for two years by redistricting....

Mark Nechodom, Gov. Jerry Brown's nominee for state conservation chief, won the support of a key Senate committee on Wednesday after a grilling from lawmakers over hydraulic fracturing -- and demands for more safeguards on the controversial drilling...