Search query: utah

There is an ongoing lawsuit attempting to close Montana’s open primary system. This lawsuit is being joined by the Montana Republican Party. State Republicans support closing their primaries because they argue Democrats and other nonmembers have been influencing their elections for years. "One example given during the state GOP’s meeting to make the case for joining the lawsuit was a vote in the state House of Representatives ... in which some Republicans supported an amendment to House procedu

While proposed reforms to government surveillance continue to stall, there are bipartisan efforts currently being made in Congress to protect Americans' online privacy. Authorized in 1986, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) includes a provision that allows the government to access private users' e-mails stored on a third-party server after 180 days. At the time of its passage, when electronic communication was rare, e-mails kept beyond six months were considered "abandoned." Acco

As of February 6, there have been 121 reported cases of the measles in 17 states and Washington, D.C., in 2015 alone. If the measles outbreak continues at this pace, the number of reported cases in 2015 will surpass 2014's record-setting numbers. Measles cases: Jan. 1 to Feb. 6, 2015. There are 121 cases reported in Washington, DC and 17 states (California, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Texas, Washington, Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, New York, N

Last week, the Boston Globe reported that former Florida Governor Jeb Bush smoked marijuana as a teenager at prep school. The report resulted in Sen. Rand Paul, a potential presidential rival to Bush, replying, "This is a guy who now admits he smoked marijuana but he wants to put people in jail who do." The exchange may indicate more than a moment of intra-party politics, but a potential opening to alter the coalitions of both parties. Following the 2012 elections, stories circulated about wha

Vote Hemp, a major grassroots hemp advocacy group, on Thursday announced the introduction of complementary bills in the U.S. House and Senate, S. 134 and H.R. 525, titled the " Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2015," with support on both sides of the political aisle. The Act would remove federal restrictions on the cultivation of industrial hemp, the non-drug oilseed and fiber varieties of Cannabis. “With bi-partisan support in the Senate and House, we are eager to see 2015 be the year Congress

Republicans swept the 2014 midterm elections on Tuesday, capturing the Senate and delivering a stinging defeat to Democrats that will likely define the next two years.If the 2010 midterms were a “shellacking,” as President Barack Obama famously called it, the 2014 midterms were probably more comparable to an alleyway beating. Republicans not only won the out-of-reach Senate with 52 seats by Wednesday, but also entrenched their formidable 244-member House majority and picked up three more governo

No matter what political ideology a voter identifies with, every single election comes down to one thing: voter turnout. If voters don't go to the polls to cast ballots, their party affiliation, or lack thereof, doesn't matter. But which states have the worst turnouts and why?According to Nonprofit Vote, a group that works with nonprofit organizations to increase voting opportunities, in 2010, there were about 91 million votes cast across the country, which means that approximately 42 percent o

Problem solving and uncompromising virtues are mutually exclusive, but in politics they lead to a new level of dysfunction. That was a reason why moderate Republican Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine, and other lawmakers that came before and after her, resigned. When the House and Senate pass bills that don’t have a chance to pass the other chamber and become law (or repeal a law), the general public doesn't see anything but inaction. Try to imagine a less politicized Congress and White House whe

The Associated Press reports that the Supreme Court on Monday rejected to hear the appeals of 5 states in an effort to keep their bans on same-sex marriage. Marriage rights will immediately be extended to gay and lesbian couples in Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia, and Wisconsin. In addition to ending the delay on marriages in these states, according to the AP report, same-sex couples in 6 other states may be allowed to get married soon as well after federal courts struck down marriage bans in

1. Ralph Nader criticizes the use of "spoiler" to describe independent and third-party candidates and how the major parties treat these candidates to maintain their dominance in elections. "Remember that the words "political parties," "corporation" and "company" are not even mentioned in our Constitution, raising the central question of why they are ruling "we the people" today." While Nader does not raise the issue, the above quote should also be considered when we talk about all aspects of t