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NATIONAL -- Earlier this month, VA Secretary Bob McDonald got into a heated argument with a member of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee while defending his efforts to turn around the scandal-ridden agency. Specifically, he called out U.S. Representative Mike Coffman (R-Colo.), a veteran of both Iraq wars, over his comments regarding McDonald's tenure. "[The VA] is a department mired in bureaucratic incompetence and corruption. I fundamentally believe … when this president ends his term, you

Redistricting has been a contentious process since the early 1800s, when Governor Elbridge Gerry signed a bill that reshaped electoral districts in Massachusetts to benefit the Democratic-Republicans. This manipulation of the redistricting process was nicknamed a Gerry-Mander, partially after Governor Gerry, and partially after the shape of one of the Boston districts, which resembled a salamander. The practice, now commonly referred to as gerrymandering, presents a challenge to the U.S.'s repu

Last week, the Utah House reignited the capital punishment controversy by approving a measure to bring back the firing squad as a legal form of execution in response to growing court challenges over lethal injection. Wyoming approved a similar law in January, joining Oklahoma as the only states with the firing squad approved in the event of court rulings against lethal injection. Too often, the death penalty debate centers on what the Founding Fathers meant by the phrase "cruel and unusual pun

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

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

In 2010, voters approved Proposition 14. This measure fundamentally changed California’s partisan primaries conducted under rules determined by private political parties into a nonpartisan system in which the purpose of the primary became a public one in which the top two vote-getters, regardless of party, advance to the general election. This change has empowered millions of California voters with a meaningful opportunity to affect the outcome of elections in California. Nonpartisan voters ar

Privacy has been a major concern for the American public in the last several years, primarily because of leaked or released information about government projects involving collecting information about civilian activity. Concerns about the government keeping records of movements, Internet searches, and even conversations have prompted some states to pass legislation to enhance personal privacy protections. On January 26, new information regarding a program called the License Plate Recognition In

The call for body-worn video cameras on police officers is growing across the United States. Laws to require the use of these cameras were introduced in almost a dozen states in January, including California. While many associate the spark of the discussion around body-worn police cameras with Ferguson, Missouri, Los Angeles was the center of another August incident, where an unarmed black man was fatally shot in an altercation with police. The incident, which resulted in the death of Ezell For

The League of Women Voters (LWV) has filed an amicus brief (friend of the court) in the U.S. Supreme Court case Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission. The LWV sides with the independent redistricting commission (and lower court), arguing that the state legislature acts in an extremely hyper-partisan manner, which only hurts the political process. At issue in the case is the constitutionality of independent redistricting commissions. The outcome of the case,

Independent voters are the fastest growing voting bloc in the U.S. The number of people who self-identify as neither Republican nor Democrat has been on a steady incline since 2008. In the last two years alone, the number of voters registered without a party preference has increased by hundreds of thousands of voters, increasing the number of states where independent voters exceed party registration. There are several states that do not require voters to declare their political affiliation whe