Of the more than 100 bills aimed at LGBTQ+ people in the state, less than 10 were approved by lawmakers this session.

In a bipartisan move, Nevada's Democratic-controlled Legislature has passed a last-minute bill supported by the Republican governor that will require photo ID to vote in person.

The Legislature wrapped up without the same drama that defined the end of the last two sessions, with state GOP leaders checking off nearly everything on their to-do lists.

A boost in public school spending, school vouchers, and money for water systems are other highlights of the state budget, which was bolstered by a $24 billion surplus.

The governor has not addressed whether he supports the ban, as hemp industry leaders have urged him to veto Senate Bill 3.

The House approved the ban after previously considering proposals to preserve the industry by tightening regulations.

Missouri’s governor says he will call the Legislature into a special session to consider incentives aimed at keeping the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals from moving to Kansas.

Twelve House Republicans joined Democrats to approve repealing the ban, which has been unenforced since 2003. It is the first time the bill has made it to the House floor since it was first proposed decades ago.

The Democratic controlled cities of Salt Lake City and Boise, Idaho, adopted new city flags this week that show support for LGBTQ+ people in defiance of new laws passed by their states’ Republican-controlled Legislatures.

The Texas House is considering a bill to abolish May elections, which have the lowest turnout of any election.

Texas lawmakers consider removing short-barrel firearms from the prohibited list.

After years of claiming that companies selling lottery tickets online could not be regulated, the Texas Lottery Commission voted to ban the practice.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court has ruled that the Democratic governor legally used the state’s uniquely powerful veto to lock in a school funding increase for 400 years.

The lower chamber’s plan largely aligns with the Senate’s proposal and puts billions toward teacher pay, border security and property tax cuts.

Texas lawmakers consider removing short-barrel firearms from the prohibited list.

As the Texas House prepares to vote on the budget, officials and other experts monitor national policy and state tax revenue.

Consequences or support? That question dominates state lawmakers’ debate on how to address truancy in Texas.

Only Gov. Greg Abbott can call for a special session. But in his role presiding over the Texas Senate, Patrick can block any bill from passing, giving him leverage to compel overtime sessions by killing must-pass legislation.

A federal judge has found the extreme heat in Texas prisons that don’t have air conditioning is “plainly unconstitutional.”.

Once floated as the heir to Donald Trump’s GOP, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is used to getting his way in Tallahassee.

A bill that would relax restrictions on working hours for Florida teenagers is moving through the state Legislature amid an ongoing crackdown on illegal immigration.

The family of Audrii Cunningham, the slain 11-year-old Livingston girl, will testify in front of Texas state lawmakers as they push to change sex offender registry laws.

When Fargo voters approved a unique local election system in 2018, their goal was to choose candidates with broader support to lead North Dakota’s largest city.

Among the proposals is a bill that would force more inspections of power lines, which a committee concluded ignited a blaze that burned more than 1 million acres last year.

Utah’s Republican governor has signed a collective bargaining ban that experts are calling one of the most restrictive labor laws in the country, despite overwhelming opposition from union members.

Texas’ border spending exploded after Joe Biden’s election, then state leaders signaled a new willingness to reduce it when Trump won. That didn’t last long.

Restrict THC, help with deportations, infuse religion in schools and provide property tax relief – these are among the Patrick priorities.

Paxton’s latest tour is the continuation of his efforts in the past year to get political revenge on House Republicans who supported his impeachment.

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers’ plan to let voters repeal and create state laws without legislative involvement met opposition from the Republican leaders of the Legislature, who signaled that the idea is likely to be rejected for a second time.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul says she will introduce legislation to expand the state’s involuntary commitment laws to allow hospitals to compel more mentally ill people into treatment.

Lawmakers have clashed in Taiwan’s legislature after members of a leading political party broke into the building overnight to occupy the speaker’s chair.

The Public Utility Commission found that the performance credit mechanism, a financial tool the Legislature capped at $1 billion, would only marginally improve reliability of the state power grid.

“We’ve got to get back to where there’s a way to handle truant kids, and part of that is the school districts have to be able to go knock on doors again," Sen. Bettencourt said in a statement.

New Jersey is seeking to drastically reduce the amount of plastics and other packaging material that's tossed out once a package is opened.

Voters in some parts of the country are discovering that having their say at the ballot box is not necessarily the final word, even though this year's election was over a month ago.

Committee members said it was necessary to skip the two years after Texas passed its restrictive abortion laws to offer more timely recommendations.

Patrick contends retailers have exploited a law passed in 2019 to sell unregulated and potentially harmful consumable tetrahydrocannabinol products.

A judge’s overturning of Wisconsin’s 13-year-old law that effectively ended collective bargaining for teachers and most state government employees has rekindled a battle over labor rights in a state where the first public sector unions were formed 65 years ago.

School voucher supporters say they have the votes to get a bill across both the Texas Senate, led by Patrick, and the House, which has repeatedly blocked such proposals.

Arizona voters have approved letting local police arrest migrants suspected of illegally entering the state from Mexico.

The same Michigan voters Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris needs in the critical swing state will also determine whether her party maintains its foothold on state government two years after pulling off a historic sweep.

Voters in nine states are deciding next month whether to add the right to abortion to their constitutions.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed a law aimed at preventing gas prices from spiking at the pump.

The examination of Deloitte’s existing contracts comes after it failed to catch red flags in a company’s application for a loan to build or upgrade power plants in the state.

The new list includes many right-wing priorities, and would escalate Republicans’ wars against diversity, equity and inclusion programs and review laws to keep noncitizens off voter rolls.

With ballot deadlines approaching, Nebraska and Missouri courts are weighing whether amendments on abortion will go before voters.

Texas Republicans have been trying to reduce the state’s high property taxes for years, but some acknowledge eliminating them would be too expensive.

The Minnesota Supreme Court has upheld a 2023 state law that restores voting rights for felons once they have completed their prison sentences.

Wisconsin Republicans are asking voters to take away the governor’s power to unilaterally spend federal money, a reaction to the billions of dollars that flowed into the state during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Democrats in the state legislative majority have rebuffed calls by New Mexico’s governor to address the “dangerous intersection” of crime and homelessness.

Utah’s Supreme Court has ruled in favor of opponents of redistricting that carved up Democratic-leaning Salt Lake County among four congressional districts that have since elected Republicans by wide margins.

All over Florida, arts groups are scrambling to plug large budget gaps after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis unexpectedly vetoed $32 million in arts funding.

Parents and medical providers of transgender adolescents sued Texas, challenging the constitutionality of a restriction on puberty blockers and hormone therapy.

The California Supreme Court has removed a measure from the state’s November ballot that would have made it harder to raise taxes.

The committee’s chair also raised concerns about the state’s possible departure from a federal system to share data about maternal deaths.

An anti-abortion group in South Dakota has filed a lawsuit to block an abortion rights measure from the November ballot.

Other cities have passed similar measures, but Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued to block them from going into effect.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy has signed legislation overhauling access to the state’s public records, likely making it harder for the public and media to access some documents, according to critics.

Vermont has become the first state to enact a law requiring fossil fuel companies to pay a share of the damage caused by climate change after the state suffered catastrophic summer flooding and damage from other extreme weather.

Youth services and civil rights groups are suing to block a new Washington state parental rights law that is set to take effect next month.

Some Kansas lawmakers see a chance to lure Kansas City’s two biggest professional sports teams across the Missouri border.

Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator Deanne Criswell says “our heart aches for the loss of life” in tornadoes that left four dead and about 100 injured in Oklahoma.

A proposed ban on gender-affirming care for transgender minors in Kansas has died.

Some public school teachers could gain new powers to bring concealed guns into Tennessee schools.

Abbott made the remarks as he recounted the story of a male teacher in North Texas who wore a pink dress for his school’s spirit day earlier this year.

Supporters of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in North Dakota are welcoming federal legislation that would help cover the construction costs of the library and to showcase artifacts of the 26th president.

Unlike recent years when there was an LGBTQ+ ally in the Louisiana governor's office, nothing stands in the way this year of legislation hostile to transgender people.

A new voting rights law in New York is already having a dramatic effect, with lawsuits in several local communities seeking to reverse decades of minority voter disenfranchisement.

Examining charitable bail organizations and banning Delta 9 were also among Patrick’s priorities in the next legislative session.

Nebraska’s Republican governor is calling on state lawmakers to move forward with a “winner-take-all” system of awarding Electoral College votes.

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers vetoed a bill passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature that would have banned high school transgender athletes from competing on teams that align with their gender identity.

As Kansas prepares to ban gender-affirming care for minors, students at the state's largest university taking action.

A high school teacher and two students are suing Arkansas over the state's ban on critical race theory in public schools.

California wants to pay doctors more money to convince them to see more Medicaid patients.

New Mexico’s State Land Office will withhold lease sales indefinitely on its most promising tracts for oil and gas development in the Permian Basin as it seeks approval by the state Legislature to increase top-tier royalty rates.

South Dakota’s Republican-controlled Legislature has approved the creation of a video to outline the state’s abortion laws and to clarify when health care providers are legally allowed to intervene.

South Dakota's Legislature has made it easier for the city of Sioux Falls to find new homes for more than 150 taxidermy animals of its arsenic-contaminated collection.

Wisconsin’s Democratic governor, Tony Evers, has signed new legislative district maps into law that he proposed and that the Republicans who control the Legislature passed to avoid having the liberal-leaning state Supreme Court draw the lines.

Wisconsin’s GOP-controlled Legislature has passed legislative maps that were proposed by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers.

Nebraska state Sen_ Loren Lippincott is touting a bill that would give the Nebraska State Patrol $200,000 to hire “an ethical hacker.”.

Senate Bill 4 bumps the minimum sentence from two years to 10 years for human smuggling or operating a stash house.

Wisconsin Democrats are inching closer to overturning Republican-drawn legislative maps that the GOP have used to grow their majorities and advance their agenda over the past 13 years.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ lawsuit against the Republican-controlled Legislature arguing that it is obstructing basic government functions.

New Jersey's Democratic-led state government is considering legislation that would eliminate out-of-pocket costs for abortion.

Wisconsin Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has promised to veto a redistricting proposal that the Republican-controlled Assembly passed and that largely mirror maps he proposed, but with changes that would reduce the number of GOP incumbents who would have to face one another in November.

Hawaii lawmakers are opening a new session of the state Legislature vowing to address glaring problems laid bare by the deadly wildfire that destroyed the historic town of Lahaina in August.

Hawaii lawmakers are due to convene this week for the first time since the burning of historic Lahaina awakened the state to the deadly and costly threat posed by wildfires in an age of climate change.

Louisiana’s newly inaugurated lawmakers are set to convene for a special session during which they will discuss items that could impact how the state conducts elections.

A federal judge has ordered a new legislative district for two Native American tribes who successfully challenged North Dakota’s 2021 redistricting map as violating the Voting Rights Act in diluting Native American voters’ strength.

Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly is more aggressive and openly political in pushing to expand Medicaid in Kansas as the Republican-controlled Legislature prepares to open its annual session.

Texas lawmakers passed and voters approved several property tax bills last year. Those bills will be due at the end of the month, and it will save some hundreds of dollars.

The liberal-controlled Wisconsin Supreme Court has overturned Republican-drawn legislative maps and ordered that new ones be created.

New York’s highest court just gave Democrats a chance to redraw the state’s congressional districts, a major victory as the party tries to flip seats in the state to win control of the U.S. House next year.

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied a request from North Dakota's secretary of state to delay a federal judge's ruling that found the state's 2021 redistricting map violated the Voting Rights Act in diluting the voting strength of two Native American tribes.

New York’s highest court has ordered the state to draw new congressional districts ahead of the 2024 elections.

Louisiana lawmakers now have until the end of January to draw and pass new congressional boundaries to replace the current map that a federal judge says dilutes the power of the state’s Black voters.

A federal judge has ruled that North Dakota’s 2021 legislative redistricting plan violates the rights of two Native American tribes because it dilutes their voting strength.

The legislation, which Republican lawmakers have been trying to pass since 2021, offers no exceptions for doctors’ offices, clinics or other health facilities.

Rep. Frederick Frazier was indicted over a year ago on two charges of impersonating a public servant. But the case has not gone to trial yet, partly because Frazier has been able to delay the case until the Legislature concludes its work.

Donald Trump has Pennsylvania’s voting rules in his sights, and it's a familiar target.