Latest news with #Republican-run
Axios
a day ago
- Politics
- Axios
Exclusive: Republican governors want state AI pause out of budget bill
A group of 17 Republican governors wrote to Senate Majority Leader John Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson on Friday calling for the state AI bill moratorium to be stripped from the reconciliation bill. The big picture: Many Republican-run states have passed AI-related laws and don't want to see them knocked down. The letter is led by Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and signed by the governors of Alabama, Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming. The governors wrote in the letter that the provision "threatens to undo all the work states have done to protect our citizens from the misuse of artificial intelligence." Catch up quick: Earlier on Friday, the Senate parliamentarian ruled that the provision does not violate the Byrd Rule as long as its conditions only apply to a $500 million pot of AI deployment grants. Sanders wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post against the AI moratorium earlier this week. What they're saying:"In just the past year, states have led on smart regulations of the AI industry that simultaneously protect consumers while also encouraging this ever-developing and critical sector," the governors write.
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Arizona politicians must OK painful water cuts. What could possibly go wrong?
Arizona is almost certain to lose a sizable amount of Colorado River water after 2026. But it could still be months until we know exactly how much pain that could cause for our state. The goal is to finish a draft analysis of alternatives by the end of the year, with a final plan of action completed by next summer. If so, that may not leave much time for Arizona to work through an extra step that only our state faces: Legislative approval. Presuming it's December before this required federal analysis is completed, that basically leaves next year's legislative session to figure out how Arizona responds to it. The good news — if you want to call it that — is that we've been through this before in 2019 with the Drought Contingency Plan, which also thrust painful Colorado River cuts on Arizona. Lawmakers had only weeks to approve the plan and a separate in-state deal to temporarily mitigate its impacts. But this time around, the stakes are much higher. The cuts will be deeper and more painful than they were in 2019. The politics are different, too. Back then, Republican Gov. Doug Ducey had wide latitude to press for a deal without having to worry whether the Republican-run Legislature would support him on it. It was not an election year. And water policy had not yet become a partisan bludgeon, as it is now between Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs and the Republican-run Legislature. Our state must overcome these divisions if we have any hope of minimizing the pain for water users. That means our elected leaders must press everyone not to hold out for the deal they want, but to take the deal that they can live with. That may be easier said than done, particularly if cuts leave little water in the Central Arizona Project, the 330-mile canal that delivers Colorado River water to cities and tribes in metro Phoenix and Tucson. There will be tremendous pressure on Yuma, which has more senior water rights, to help ensure that water continues flowing to the state's largest cities. Yet decades of urban vs. rural political baggage could easily blow up that discussion, making it even more difficult to arrive at a deal. Navigating this minefield will require deft leadership to carefully balance interests while maintaining a unified front to the rest of the Colorado River basin. Because trust me: As volatile as this process already is among the states, Arizona will either remain united and live to fight another day, or it will split into warring factions and risk losing it all. Thankfully, Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego, a Democrat, and Mesa Mayor Mark Freeman, a Republican, have formed a coalition to explain how Arizona conserves water and why drastic cuts to either metro Phoenix or Yuma could hurt our national interests. (Hint: Because Phoenix now produces some of the world's most advanced semiconductors, and Yuma is the only place in the nation that grows our salad greens in the winter.) The mayors wisely recognize that working relationships are what brought us a deal in 2019 and hope to strengthen them all over the state. Opinion: How will Arizona replace the water it's losing? Hobbs and key lawmakers, to their credit, also understand that they must work together to protect the Colorado River, even if they have yet to broker passable compromises on groundwater. But it's one thing to say as much. It's another to deliver on that promise, particularly when such strong political headwinds are blowing against us. Arizona has a long history of doing big things when our future depends on it. Are our leaders still up to the task? Reach Allhands at or on X @joannaallhands. Like this column? Get more opinions in your email inbox by signing up for our free opinions newsletter, which publishes Monday through Friday. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Colorado River plan faces another hurdle: Arizona lawmakers | Opinion
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Factbox-Los Angeles, progressive beacon at center of anti-Trump backlash
By Costas Pitas LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -Protests in Los Angeles against raids on suspected undocumented immigrants have turned into the strongest domestic backlash against President Donald Trump since he took office in January. Here is how the Democratic-leaning city and state of California vary from Trump's Republicans and his support in the U.S. heartland. PARTY POLITICS Nationwide, Trump won around 2.5 million more votes than his Democratic rival Kamala Harris in the November presidential election but in Los Angeles, Harris won by a margin of roughly two to one. Of the 50 U.S. states, California backed Harris by the fifth largest margin. California is also home to several top-level Democrats, including Harris herself, and long-time former Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi. Governor Gavin Newsom is a Democrat, as is the mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass. Both have complained about Trump's tactics this week. The party raises millions in the state from wealthy donors and grassroots supporters, sometimes in a single day. DEMOGRAPHICS At 27.3%, California has the highest foreign-born population of any U.S. state, compared to 13.9% of the total U.S. population, according to a 2024 Census report. Nearly half of Angelenos are Hispanic or Latino and some 35% of the city's total population is foreign-born, according to the American Community Survey, with many cultural and business ties to Mexico, which is only about a two-hour drive south. ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATIONS Faced with persistently bad air quality, especially in cities with strong driving cultures such as Los Angeles, California has developed some of the strictest environmental regulations in the country, opposed by many Republicans. A landmark plan to end the sale of gasoline-only vehicles by 2035 in California is in the crosshairs of a battle between its Democratic leadership and the Republican-run federal government, also because many other states replicate California's first-in-the-nation action. In May, the Republican-run Senate in Washington voted to ban the plan and it is now awaiting Trump's signature. He is expected to sign it this week, according to industry officials. HOLLYWOOD American movies and television are one of the most visible U.S. exports, emanating from an LA-based industry that had been hailed by liberals for boosting diversity but criticized by some conservatives for creating films that include LGBT stories. In May, Trump suggested a tariff on movies produced in foreign countries to protect a domestic industry that he said was "dying a very fast death." But when China retaliated by saying it would curb American film imports, he prompted laughter at a cabinet meeting by a response that signaled his derision for Hollywood: "I think I've heard of worse things."
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
US to put four prisoners to death this week as Trump pushes for executions
Four executions are scheduled across the US this week, marking a sharp increase in killings as Donald Trump has pushed to revive the death penalty despite growing concerns about states' methods. Executions are set to take place in Alabama, Florida and South Carolina. A fourth, scheduled in Oklahoma, has been temporarily blocked by a judge, but the state's attorney general is challenging the ruling. The killings are being carried out by Republican-run states where civil rights lawyers say past executions have been botched and tortuous and included the killing of people who have said they were wrongfully convicted and subject to racially biased proceedings. Nineteen people have been executed in the US in 2025 so far, and if this week's four executions proceed, along with two more scheduled for later in June, the country will see 25 executions by the end of the month – the same number of killings carried out in all of 2024. In the first five months of 2025, the US has carried out the highest number of executions in a decade year-to-date, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit that tracks capital punishment. In Alabama on Tuesday, Gregory Hunt is set to become the fifth person executed by nitrogen suffocation in the state. Last year, the state's use of gas to kill Kenneth Smith took roughly 22 minutes, with witnesses saying his body violently shook during the procedure. Also on Tuesday, Florida is set to kill Anthony Wainwright by lethal injection, which would make him the sixth person put to death in the state this year. Florida is leading the US this year in executions as Republican governor Ron DeSantis has aggressively pursued capital punishment and as state legislators have sought to expand parameters of the death penalty in ways that experts say are unconstitutional. Florida is also the only state to use a controversial anesthetic called etomidate in its lethal injections despite the pharmaceutical inventors saying it should not be used for executions. One man killed by lethal injection in the state in 2018 screamed and thrashed on a gurney as he was put to death. John Hanson is scheduled to be executed by the state of Oklahoma on Thursday. Hanson had been in federal prison in Louisiana serving a life sentence, and in 2022, when Oklahoma sought for him to be transferred to the state for execution, the Biden administration denied the move. This year, Oklahoma's attorney general, citing Trump's order, pushed to have him transferred again, and attorney general Pam Bondi complied. On Monday, an Oklahoma district judge sided with Hanson's attorney and issued a stay halting the execution, which the state's attorney general immediately challenged to the Oklahoma court of criminal appeals. A department of corrections spokesperson told local outlets it was moving forward with plans for the Thursday execution, saying in an email to the Guardian: 'We are continuing our normal process for now.' The final execution is scheduled for Friday in South Carolina, where Stephen Stanko is set to be killed by lethal injection. The state has been rapidly killing people after reviving capital punishment last year and directs defendants to choose between firing squad, lethal injection and electrocution. Lawyers have argued that the lethal injections have led to a condition akin to suffocation and drowning and that the last death by firing squad was botched, causing prolonged suffering. States like South Carolina have been able to push forward with executions by passing secrecy laws that shield the identities of suppliers facilitating the killings. 'The death penalty remains unpopular and practiced by a very small number of states,' said Matt Wells, deputy director of Reprieve US, a human rights nonprofit. 'In those states, you see an increased willingness to do whatever it takes to carry out executions. The result is we're more likely to see executions go wrong.' In one of his final acts, Joe Biden commuted the death sentences of 37 people on federal death row, changing their punishments to life without parole. Following Trump's order, some local prosecutors have expressed interest in bringing state charges against commuted defendants in an effort to again sentence them to death, though they would face an uphill legal battle. Public support for the death penalty is at a five-decade low in the US, which has seen a decrease in new death sentences, said Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. 'Elected officials are setting these executions, but it does not in any way equate to increased enthusiasm for the death penalty at large,' she said.
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Editorial: Bible lesson in Austin: Texas Ten Commandments bill is lawsuit-bait
The Republican-run Texas House of Representatives has passed a bill mandating the placing of a minimum 16-by-20-inch framed display of the Ten Commandments in each public school classroom in the state. The measure will now go to the GOP Senate, which is expected to pass it after signing off on an earlier version of the legislation and then to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott. But the real audience of the law are the nine justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. The bill could not have been better designed to violate the First Amendment's Establishment Clause; as a law school practice problem, it would have been considered a little ham-fisted. State legislators and Abbott's administration are practically salivating over the prospect of the matter getting into court, where they can defend their godliness against the heathens trying to prevent the good people from exercising their faith. This is a twisted view of the language of the First Amendment that takes it to be not a firewall between church and state but a shackling of the state's ability to regulate religious expression, even when it is being mandated. Even if they lose in court — and they really should, quickly — Texas GOP policymakers still win. A court loss gives them the ability to campaign and fundraise off the fact that they were foiled by 'liberal judges' who will be framed as taking the commandments out of the classroom as opposed to reasonably blocking their inclusion in the first place. They're also counting on, frankly, editorials much like this one, as they take scolding from civil society as the marker of a job well done. It's a good racket. There is some irony that the lawmakers working on the bill with preliminary votes on both Saturday and Sunday, the Jewish Sabbath and the Christian Sabbath, violated the commandment to keep the Sabbath day holy. That's just one more indication that this isn't about the genuine exercise of religious belief, but about the amassing of power, using the government to signal that one ideology isn't not only protected but dominant and waging the never-ending culture war that the modern Republican Party has taken upon itself to wage incessantly. We have to wonder what this legislature is neglecting in spending its limited time and energy on these inane and performative fights. They certainly seem to be less concerned with the very real threat that the Trump administration wants to subjugate significant aspects of state control and cut the government programs that the health and safety of Texans depend on. How focused are students going to be in the classroom if and when the federal government cuts SNAP to the bone and lets some of those kids go hungry? If Texas lawmakers are so worried about K-12 education, perhaps they should instead focus on the fact that more than half of students are below grade level in math and nearly half in reading, remaining below pre-pandemic levels. Having the Ten Commandments prominently displayed in classrooms is not going to do all that much when students are having a hard time figuring out what the words mean. ___
