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Americans For Prosperity-Michigan, meanwhile, will offer free hot air balloon rides on Thursday in Kalamazoo and Caledonia. The Medicaid expansion opponents say the balloon rides will highlight the preponderance of "hot air" in the ongoing debate.
At the end of the day, more than 40 gay couples had rushed to the County Clerk's office to get their marriage licenses after Clerk Lynn Ellins decided to issue same-sex marriage licenses in a surprise move that came as several legal challenges on the practice make their way through the courts.
The Minnesota Legislature returns to work next month for a one-day special session that will deal with disaster relief — and nothing else.
A 32-year-old education strategist who has worked in the public school systems in Newark, N.J., and New York City was introduced by Gov. Christie Wednesday as superintendent of Camden's school system, which is under state control.
San Diego Mayor Bob Filner and the city reached a proposed settlement on Wednesday in a sexual harassment lawsuit filed against him by his former press secretary, the city attorney told reporters.
The tangled criminal case that included allegations of widespread illegal taping and improper relationships in the office of former Florida Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll is coming to an end.
President Barack Obama on Thursday will unveil a sweeping new plan for rating colleges based in part on affordability, with the goal of eventually linking those ratings to federal financial aid awards.
Former senator Scott Brown said late Wednesday he would not run for governor next year, ending months of uncertainty within the Republican Party and effectively sweeping a path to the nomination for 2010 gubernatorial nominee Charles D. Baker.
Chief Robert DeCoteau, seven firefighters and two probationary firefighters submitted a group resignation letter to town officials on Tuesday in anticipation of the board moving to replace DeCoteau.
All the public-sector management news you need to know.
Camden, N.J., one of America's poorest cities, has received hundreds of millions of dollars in state aid to keep it going. Yet by most measures, it's still failing.
In an era of enormous, and often secretive, political spending, an ethics law championed by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo was billed as a major breakthrough: tax-exempt groups that lobby New York State government would finally be required to reveal where they got their money.
Since mid-April, at least 20 children known to the Department of Children & Families have died, mostly from abuse or neglect, some of them in particularly brutal ways.
Gov. Robert McDonnell, a day after his attorneys met with federal prosecutors to argue against filing legal charges related to gifts and money he and his family received from a political donor, said he intends to serve out the rest of his term.
The Democratic National Committee will vote on a resolution this week calling on San Diego Mayor Bob Filner to resign, ratcheting up pressure on the embattled Democrat who has been accused of sexually harassing multiple women.
For an eighth consecutive year, Minnesota can lay claim to being best in the nation in the ACT college admissions test.
Operating in the shadows of the emerging GOP presidential field, Walker has been laying the groundwork for a 2016 campaign.
Gov. Rick Perry wants to kill Obamacare dead, but Texas health officials are in talks with the Obama administration about accepting an estimated $100 million available through the health law to care for the elderly and disabled, POLITICO has learned.
The law, often called Obamacare, requires that employers, including schools and municipalities, offer health care coverage for these workers or face an annual penalty of anywhere from $2,000 to up to $3,000 per employee.
Mayor James "Sonny" McCullough has a great house to sell you: his.
California and Pennsylvania offer a clear picture of the state of redistricting in the U.S.
Cellular-free mobile phone service and Wi-Fi boosters are part of the next generation of technologies that could make communication during disasters easier.
Map shows Michigan municipalities under emergency managers and consent agreements.
Take the 203 seats in the House of Representatives and add the 50 in the Senate, and Pennsylvania has one of the largest legislatures in the country.
Drivers tooling through the Illinois countryside will be able to nudge the gas pedal a little harder next year after Gov. Pat Quinn overcame safety concerns and approved legislation Monday that will raise the speed limit on rural interstates to 70 mph.
Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell announced Monday that the state finished its fiscal year in June with a significant budget surplus, a ray of good news overshadowed by an intensifying federal investigation into gifts and money provided to the governor and his family by a wealthy political supporter.
The federal government removed restrictions on the purchase of emergency contraceptives in June. The Oklahoma Legislature subsequently passed a law that required purchasers to show identification and, if age 17 or under, to have a prescription.
Governor Christie signed a law banning the use of a practice known as gay conversion therapy on minors Monday, using the opportunity to once again detail his position on homosexuality and draw a distinction between himself and conservative Republicans.
Dozens of creditors, unions and retiree groups objected to Detroit’s eligibility to file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy, setting up a fierce legal battle today that will determine whether the city’s bankruptcy case can proceed.
A veteran state environmental regulator told staffers in an email Monday that Republican Gov. John Kasich was forcing his resignation after pressure from the coal industry.
Gov. Rick Snyder announced Monday that the financial emergency in Pontiac was over and that the city no longer needed to be run by an emergency manager.
California prison officials have obtained a federal court order to allow force-feeding and other steps to keep prison hunger strikers alive even if they declared they do not want such medical intervention.
In part to head off an avalanche of expected appeals, at least 10 states have changed laws to comply with the ruling.
Officials in Washington and across the country are pushing rapid rehousing as the most promising way to help homeless families move out of shelters and motels and become self-sufficient.
The high-tech tablet — which hangs on a hook, measures 18 by 20 inches and comes in pink, blue and green — can be used as a personal shield for professors under attack, according to the company that makes it, and as a portable writing pad in quieter times.
If voters approve the measure, it would allow lawmakers, or the voters directly, to decide on a case-by-case basis if the state should withhold staffing or other resources needed to carry out a federal policy.
Pennsylvania voters will not be required to produce identification to cast ballots in November.
After months of pressure from both sides of the gun control debate, Gov. Chris Christie today refused to sign three controversial gun control measures sitting on his desk — including a version of a weapon ban that he had called for.
Gov. Chris Christie agreed today to make it easier for severely ill children to participate in the medical marijuana program, but said he would not go along with one provision of the measure and sent it back to the state Legislature.
A Sacramento Superior Court judge delivered a major rebuke to the California bullet train project Friday, ruling that the state failed to comply with requirements on funding and environmental reviews imposed by voters.
In 2011, state governments collected more than $50 billion in taxes and proceeds from vice: gambling, smoking and alcohol consumption.
These customer-service systems are evolving into far more than a way to get a pothole filled or graffiti cleaned up.
he Common Core, a set of standards for kindergarten through high school that has been ardently supported by the Obama administration and many business leaders and state legislatures, is facing growing opposition from both the right and the left even before it has been properly introduced into classrooms. Indiana has already put a brake on them. The Michigan House of Representatives is holding hearings on whether to suspend them. And citing the cost of new tests requiring more writing and a significant online component, Georgia and Oklahoma have withdrawn from a consortium developing exams based on the standards. New York state, an early adopter of the new standards, released results from reading and math exams showing that less than a third of students passed.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti says the union-backed contract proposal would limit Department of Water and Power reforms. With the City Council and others favoring the agreement, he may be on his own.
U.S. education officials announced Thursday that three states have not fulfilled their promises to bring their teacher and principal evaluation systems up to federal standards, but Washington, Oregon and Kansas have been given one extra year to finish the work.
A state-sanctioned oversight panel announced that officials would press ahead with plans to open the troubled eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge to traffic around Labor Day weekend.
The California Supreme Court unanimously rejected an attempt Wednesday to revive Proposition 8, ending the pending legal challenges over the 2008 ballot initiative that banned same-sex marriage. The decision does not bar future attempts in other courts to stop same-sex marriages. But their chances of success appear dim.
A bill that would ban abortions in Ohio once a fetal heartbeat is detected is back, but it faces an uncertain fate in a legislature that already has handed the anti-abortion movement major victories this year.
The Obama administration awarded $67 million to 105 groups around the country that will serve as "navigators" to help the uninsured understand their options under the new health-care law and sign up for coverage. The administration had initially planned to spend less — $54 million — but Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, said that she had no choice but to tap a $13 million prevention fund because Congress refused to provide money for outreach and education activities.
A San Antonio judge is expected to name a special prosecutor to review a complaint accusing Gov. Rick Perry of coercing Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg by threatening to veto an appropriation for her office if she did not resign after her April guilty plea on drunken driving charges.
Nearly a decade after California voters approved a multibillion-dollar tax increase to improve mental health services, the state has failed to provide proper oversight of county programs funded by the measure, a state audit concluded. Critics say many severely ill people aren't getting help. State Auditor Elaine Howle looked at the last six years, during which almost $7.4 billion from the Mental Health Services Act was directed to counties for mental health programs.
The state appeals court ruled 2 to 1 that the state's right-to-work law applies to 35,000 unionized state employees, rejecting a lawsuit filed by labor unions. The measure went to court after questions were raised because the Michigan Civil Service Commission, which sets compensation for state employees, has separate powers under the state constitution. The law prohibits forcing public and private workers to pay union dues or fees.
Hotel, restaurant and travel industry employees often can't afford housing costs in travel destinations, a report finds. View rental and home prices for more than 200 metro areas.
National Republicans aren't faring well among Hispanic voters. Are state GOP candidates doing any better?
Funding cutbacks have reduced both the number of ferries that cross the Mississippi River and the schedules of those that remain, leaving commuters with few options.
Police department spokesman Sgt. Sean Whitcomb confirmed the unusual duty, saying he and other officers will distribute one-ounce bags of nacho-cheese chips with educational information affixed to them about the state’s new legal pot law.
Want to figure out who is going to win a congressional race? Find out which candidate received the lion’s share of tweets in the lead-up to Election Day. That’s the takeaway at the core of a newly-released study conducted by four researchers at Indiana University.
Responding to a recent attorney general’s opinion, a state regulatory board voted Wednesday to block teachers and staff at Arkansas schools from carrying guns on campus.
In a one-line order, the California Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to halt same-sex marriages throughout the state, rejecting the latest legal bid to revive Proposition 8's ban on gay nuptials.
Florida's Republican-controlled Legislature is coming out solidly against a special session to repeal the state's "stand your ground law."
The Republican Governors Association significantly outpaced its Democratic counterpart on the fundraising front in the first six months of 2013 — outraising the Democratic Governors Association haul by about $10 million.
The new law expands the list of measures cities and villages can implement — and pay for with special assessments, tax dollars or both — to prevent flooding. It now includes green alternatives such as green roofs, rain gardens, native planting and constructed wetlands.
Gov. Nathan Deal on Wednesday warned Florida that Georgia is ready for a new fight over regional water rights and vowed the state “will not roll over.”
Gov. Chris Christie today signed a bill that significantly strengthens New Jersey's child pornography laws, bringing them closer to much tougher federal laws.
Massachusetts is about to tie much of its community-college funding to measures of how well the schools educate their students. The state's bold plan is part of a welcome trend.
Richmond, Calif.’s plan -- which dozens of localities are considering -- is facing legal and legislative challenges. What are the pros and cons of seizing underwater mortgages using eminent domain?
As part of a pilot program, bus riders get credits that they can put toward tolls.
We examine proposals still brewing in legislatures, how already-enacted reforms are playing out, and the model based on one of the world's strongest pension systems that a Canadian province is using to keep costs under control.
Gov. Mark Dayton delivered an ultimatum to GOP legislators Tuesday: He won’t call a special session unless they agree to limit its scope to approving disaster relief and repealing a much-criticized tax on farm machinery repairs.
The New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club is accusing the Christie administration of ignoring and hiding its own report on climate change.
The competition for students has heated up in the past decade with Detroit parents enrolling in suburban districts that offer school choice programs while more charter schools offer more options.
New Jersey voters are about to witness a two-month sprint for an open U.S. Senate seat that will feature a heavily favored national media darling fending off a conservative provocateur with sharp barbs and little to lose.
Oklahoma won court approval to proceed with a federal lawsuit challenging tax aspects of President Barack Obama’s 2010 health-care legislation.
The ruling was a victory of sorts for those who want the proposed dump to open but may have little practical impact in the long-running dispute over Yucca Mountain.
President Obama liked the idea laid out in a memo from his staff: an ambitious plan to expand high-speed Internet access in schools that would allow students to use digital notebooks and teachers to customize lessons like never before. Better yet, the president would not need Congress to approve it.
The nation’s most prominent labor organization plans to throw its political weight most heavily into a half-dozen governors’ races in the 2014 cycle, focusing on states where the outcome of gubernatorial elections will be most “consequential” for union members and working-class voters, the AFL-CIO’s top strategist said Tuesday.
American Airlines and US Airways vowed Tuesday to fight the Justice Department lawsuit that seeks to block their planned merger because of concerns that travelers would pay hundreds of millions more for fares and fees.
View and compare states' revenue projections for fiscal year 2014
Cities worry a lot about losing talented people, but few of them do much to attract new people. A sales mindset needs to be part of the culture of the community.
In many children and families agencies, placing foster care children with their relatives was previously taboo.
Gov. Pat Quinn has signed into law a bill that allows gambling winnings to be seized to pay past-due child support. The bill is effective immediately.
The two-year waiver means that Maine is exempt from the strict and virtually unattainable guidelines of the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act, which decreed that 100 percent of students nationwide reach proficiency in math and reading by 2014.
President Barack Obama has found a way to cater to his obsession with pre-K programs while the rest of his education agenda stalls: Skip Congress and spend the money anyway.
Beginning next year, transgender students in California schools will be able to compete on sports teams and use facilities, including restrooms, based on their gender identity rather than their sex.
Only existing medical-marijuana dispensaries will be able to open recreational pot shops in Denver until 2016, under a plan that received initial approval by the Denver City Council on Monday.
In a repudiation of a major element in the Bloomberg administration's crime-fighting legacy, a federal judge has found that the stop-and-frisk tactics of the New York Police Department violated the constitutional rights of minorities in New York and called for a federal monitor to oversee broad reforms.
Elsewhere across the country, a number of police departments have found themselves under federal court oversight, often in response to a broader range of alleged police misconduct than in the New York case.
Hillary Clinton criticized the Supreme Court’s recent decision to strike down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, urging Congress to reconsider the 1965 landmark law and calling on citizen activists to mobilize in their communities.
The new law brings sweeping changes to the state’s election process by reducing the early-voting period by a week, abolishing same-day voter registration and ending straight-party voting.
As more states pass laws authorizing testing of autonomous vehicles, key legal questions need to be answered.
Layoffs make a lot of news, but over the long haul, governments have controlled their headcounts mostly through attrition. And salaries have more than kept up with the private sector's.
With long hours, a high cost of living and few housing choices, the North Dakota Highway Patrol struggles to get applicants to accept job offers around the Oil Patch.
A Virginia Beach radiologist lent $50,000 to a real estate corporation owned by Gov. Robert F. McDonnell and his sister in 2010 — the same year the doctor was offered an appointment to a state medical board.
Arizona’s top elected officials decried the federal government’s decision Friday not to declare the Yarnell Hill Fire a major disaster, saying it broke a promise and was a slap to a grieving community.
Massachusetts has launched a new way of funding community colleges, for the first time tying a large portion of each college’s budget to its ability to improve graduation rates, meet the state’s workforce needs, and help more minority students thrive.
After a brief but extraordinary weekend hearing, a San Francisco Superior Court judge Sunday morning ordered a 60-day cooling-off period to prevent a second damaging transit strike in the Bay Area.
Five dozen wealthy donors from Wall Street to Silicon Valley have placed their bets on both of New Jersey’s big political stars — Republican Gov. Chris Christie and Democratic Newark Mayor Cory Booker — this campaign season, a Star-Ledger review of state and federal records shows.
A little-known provision of the 2010 health care law has states and their governors scrambling to take advantage of potential savings in how states distribute medication to Medicaid patients.
Metropolitan suburbs have seen the largest and fastest-growing poverty rates in America over the past decade, according to a study released this week by the Brookings Institution.
As states, including Arkansas, Kansas, Kentucky and Texas, have reduced their prison populations by referring more offenders to treatment or probation, the federal system has continued to grow and now is at least 40% over capacity with nearly 220,000 inmates
The stimulus played a large role in propping up schools and other public-sector payrolls as agencies sought to stave off job cuts during the Great Recession. Where these jobs stand today, though, varies greatly.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo promised to change a system in which employees who mistreated disabled and mentally ill patients rarely lost their jobs, but two years later, little has changed.
Michigan's Saginaw County on Thursday postponed a $60.55 million pension obligation bond sale, the latest sign of how Detroit's bankruptcy filing is affecting access to the municipal bond market by other localities in the state.
“We are eager to have discussions with Texas about a program that could look uniquely Texan,” HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said. “But as far as I know, those conversations, at least with the state officials, are not taking place right now.”
As Eliot Spitzer, a candidate for comptroller, and Anthony D. Weiner, a candidate for mayor, crisscross the city asking residents to look beyond sexual scandal and choose them for high office, they are finding unexpectedly strong support in black communities.
Gov. Mark Dayton said he supports repealing a new farm equipment tax during a brief special session next month that he previously insisted would be limited to storm relief.
In many states, a gasoline-only car that gets 34 to 37 mpg would be cleaner than an all-electric car, because the power supply comes mainly from burning coal.
A federal appeals court dealt Los Angeles County a blow on Thursday in a long-running lawsuit over storm-water pollution when it issued an opinion that the county is liable for excessively high levels.
The Obama administration and congressional Republicans have found something to agree on: Town councils should be allowed to open their meetings with a Christian prayer.
Most of the bills Gov. Chris Christie signed Thursday sailed through the Legislature with bipartisan support and without inflaming supporters or opponents of gun control. But he left five weapons-related bills on his desk, including some that could prove thorny as he campaigns for re-election in November and a possible presidential run in 2016.
As the cost of public safety continues to rise, some cities are thinking the once unthinkable: merging police and fire agencies into one.
The new system has been used at least 20 times in 14 states, including Pennsylvania, Texas and Ohio. And it has worked; last month, a missing 8-year-old boy in Cleveland was found after a man received an alert on his cellphone, saw the car described by authorities and followed it until police arrived.
Conventional wisdom states that in an off-cycle election, the voting population will be whiter and more conservative than it was during last year’s presidential race. But neither party’s nominee is acting like it, and with good reason.
Under the new law, failing to provide an animal with food, water or other necessities would be a fourth degree crime, up from a disorderly person’s offense. If the dog dies as a result of the treatment, it would be upped to a third degree crime.
Corrections officers sued the state this week alleging they are owed millions of dollars in back pay because of a 2012 policy that prevents them from being compensated for perhaps five minutes of work a day.
Comments Gov. John Hickenlooper made last week to Time magazine about the difficulties of legislating in the modern era of constant media attention are being used against him by Republicans.
The legal battle over the rights of medical-marijuana cardholders to drive while medicating is being fought in the state’s court system.
Gov. Chris Christie remains far ahead of his Democratic challenger, Barbara Buono, and 90 percent of voters don't know enough about her choice for lieutenant governor to form an opinion, according to a poll released today.
Californians shopping for health insurance through the state's new marketplace will have a dozen options to choose from, officials announced Wednesday.
There is currently no plan to sell any artwork from the Detroit Institute of Arts as part of the city's Chapter 9 bankruptcy, according to Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder.
Nevada's health insurance exchange plans to sell ads on its website to boost revenue and keep consumers' costs down, but their peers are reluctant to follow.
Entrepreneurs are busy in our increasingly multicultural urban landscape, but they're not creating many jobs. That could change if we invested in them.
All the public-sector management news you need to know.
A Maryland lawmaker plans to introduce legislation next year that would ban discriminatory business practices by book publishers when they sell e-books to public libraries.
In the hopes of helping immigrants and the unbanked, the city was the nation's first to offer cards that act as an ID and a prepaid debit card. For a product targeted at low-income people, though, critics charge the cards are too expensive.
The Texas Legislature adjourned its third special session since May on Monday night after passing a measure estimated to increase transportation funding by $1.2 billion annually if Texas voters approve it next year.
Under the plan, New Jersey public colleges could waive tuition and fees for students who pledge to give the state a portion of their salaries after graduation.
Jeffrey Beard described the plan to The Sacramento Bee's editorial board three days after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Gov. Jerry Brown's request to delay a court order to reduce inmates by December. The reduction is necessary to improve substandard health care in the prisons, the courts have ruled.
The eight school systems are the first in the country to win such rights based on a direct appeal to the U.S. Department of Education. Previously, the department would consider exemptions to the No Child Left Behind law only if state governments applied.
Collegedale has become the first Tennessee city to offer benefits to same-sex domestic partners of city workers.
The top 22 cities with pedestrian deaths far greater than the national average have until Aug. 30 to apply for a total of $2 million in pedestrian safety grants from the Department’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Though Texas will join 26 other states in defaulting to a federal marketplace for purchasing health insurance — a major component of the Affordable Care Act — it is one of only six that will not enforce new health insurance reforms prescribed by the law.
Small but significant declines in obesity among low-income preschoolers were found in 18 states and the U.S. Virgin Islands from 2008 to 2011, CDC director Thomas Frieden said at a press telebriefing. "This is the first report to show many states with declining rates of obesity in our youngest children after literally decades of rising rates."
In an uphill battle fought partly in court and partly in the neighborhoods of Detroit, former Detroit Medical Center CEO Mike Duggan appears to be headed for a showdown in November with Wayne County Sheriff Benny Napoleon as both seasoned political figures vie to become the next mayor of Detroit.
Forty states allow for "categorical eligibility" in administering SNAP.
Data and map show how many people are on food stamps for each state
If the work made passionate people act like Flo on the TV series "Alice," then the work can bring them back.
Government and technology news you should know.
Proponents of a $950 million initiative to revamp the state's school finance system, and raise the state income tax in the process, delivered more than 160,000 signatures Monday morning to the Secretary of State's office in an effort to put the measure on the November ballot.
The mayor’s telling of history is poised to receive one of its most vigorous challenges yet on Wednesday, when New York State is expected to report drastic drops in student performance across the state because of a new set of tougher exams.
Mayor Tony Mack, who laid off 100 police officers in 2011 amid sweeping city budget cuts, sent the letter before a violent weekend in Trenton that included four homicides and brought the city's total for the year to 27. The record for homicides in Trenton is 31 set in 2005.
The chairman of the Iowa GOP said Monday the state party won’t co-sponsor presidential debates with NBC or CNN unless the networks cancel planned broadcasts of programming about Hillary Clinton, who is seen as Democrats’ most popular choice for the party’s presidential nomination.
After decades of affirmative-action and diversity programs, the study released by Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce suggests that racial equality has not arrived on American campuses, analysts say.
In remarks at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on Monday, Davis said she’d either run for governor or try to hold on to her hard-fought state Senate seat.
The path toward the city’s new leadership begins Tuesday as city voters begun voting early to winnow a field of candidates for the next mayor and City Council.
A man feuding with township officials in Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains over living conditions at his ramshackle, trash-filled property killed three people at a municipal meeting - including at least one town official - in a rampage that blew holes through the walls and sent people crawling for cover, authorities said.
Oregon's foreclosure mediation program launched last July to a lot of fanfare, then promptly fizzled when it got almost no participation. The do-over starts today.
From registration fees and required multiple doctor visits that insurance won’t cover, to sales tax and the price of pot, New Jersey’s costs are generally higher than the 10 other states and Washington, D.C., that permit medical marijuana retail sales, according to a Star-Ledger analysis.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is the “hottest” political figure in the country, according to a new temperature poll.
