WASHINGTON — The Democratic-controlled House is voting Tuesday on a $1.4 trillion government-wide spending package with an unusually large load of unrelated provisions on the must-do legislation. The package, some 2,313 pages long, was unveiled Monday as lawmakers prepared to wrap up reams of unfinished work against a backdrop of...
Walters: Court Must Fix Tax Vote Ambiguity
Sooner or later, the state Supreme Court must clear up a legal ambiguity it created over how many votes are needed to enact local tax increases. It should be sooner, because a new election year is nigh, dozens — and perhaps hundreds — of local tax measures are being drafted...
Biden Criminal Justice Plan Reverses Part of 1994 Crime Bill
Joe Biden is proposing to reverse several key provisions of the 1994 crime bill he helped write in an acknowledgment that his tough-on-crime positions of the past are at odds with the views of the modern Democratic Party. In a speech later Tuesday in New Orleans, the former vice president will...
Walters: Politicians Like to Keep Us in the Dark
Every year, governors and state legislators load up bills that supposedly implement the state budget with all sorts of extracurricular provisions benefiting those to whom they owe favors. They use these “trailer bills” because they can be, and often have been, passed very quickly after being drafted, thereby concealing their...