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Daylight Savings first originated in Germany during World War I to save electricity, and the UK quickly followed their lead. When Daylight Savings was first adopted in the U.S., it was part of a war policy, also implemented during the First World War to save fuel.The U.S. ceased to recognize Daylight Savings after the war and didn't adopt it again until the Second World War. 1966 was the first year that Daylight Saving Time (DST) became a nationwide, peacetime policy that all states had to use

On March 4, 2015, the General Social Study published its latest report examining the public's opinion on marijuana legalization. The study documents both the shift in popular consensus on marijuana over the past 40 years as well as the monumental growth that has occurred in the last decade. This is the first time that a comprehensive study has found over 50 percent of respondents in favor of marijuana legalization. According to the study, 52 percent of respondents favor legalizing marijuana. Th

In Athens of antiquity, the inventors of democracy set up a law that required every person to vote. Anyone found not voting would be publicly marked and labeled an idiot; someone who thought their own personal needs trumped those of the society around them, wrote Isaac DeVille. I begin here by asserting that the one certain measure of any democratic society is the measurement of those who vote and those who don't. That said, looking at the general elections in San Diego and California last yea

On Monday, March 2, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in the case, Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission. The high court will consider the constitutionality of independent redistricting commissions, something that could also affect the ballot initiative process in several states. The main issue before the Supreme Court is whether the justices will agree with a lower court’s interpretation of the phrase “by the Legislature thereof” in the Election Cla

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