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Denver, CO, USA. As Democrats converge here this week to formally nominate Barack Obama as their presidential candidate, both parties are working behind the scenes to prevent a repeat of states’ helter-skelter scramble for an early primary in 2012.
“There is no question that this year’s primary season began too early,” said Trey Grayson (R), Kentucky secretary of state, who co-chairs a nonpartisan presidential primary committee of the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS).... |
August 24th, 2008
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Washington, DC, USA. The historic battle for the White House may be grabbing most of the headlines, but plenty of state races and major ballot measures also could be nail-biters this November — and the results could have national implications.
Stateline.org today is launching a new 2008 interactive guide to help voters keep track of the 11 gubernatorial, 11 attorneys general and seven secretary of state races and more than 100 high-profile statewide ballot measures that range from ... |
August 19th, 2008
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Washngton, DC, USA. Besides electing a president on Nov. 4, voters in some key battleground states also will face divisive social policy choices, including whether to ban gay marriage in Florida and restrict affirmative action and abortion in Colorado. Michigan voters may be asked to end a 30-year-old ban on stem-cell research that destroys human embryos.
Ohioans may decide whether sick workers should be guaranteed paid leave. Missouri voters’ attitudes toward immigrants will ... |
July 24th, 2008
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Washngton, DC, USA. The drumbeat of bad fiscal news from statehouses is intensifying. States collectively faced deficits of $40.3 billion in writing their current budgets — triple the $13 billion shortfall states weathered the previous year, a new report released July 23 shows.
"The overall state fiscal condition changed significantly in the past year, and for the most part deteriorated," Corina Eckl, director of fiscal affairs for the National Conference of State Legisla... |
July 24th, 2008
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Washington, DC, USA. While 70 current and former governors hobnob and reminisce in Philadelphia July 11-14 during the National Governors Association's 100th anniversary celebration, the sitting governors also plan to strategize on how to influence the next president on policies ranging from energy to health care.
Former governor-turned-president, Bill Clinton, who will give the keynote address July 12, is a reminder of how the governor’s mansion has been the training ground for fou... |
July 11th, 2008
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Washington, DC, USA. Some governors on the shortlist of potential picks for vice president could turn their states upside down politically if they actually got the nod.
If picked to serve in an Obama administration, at least three Democratic governors would have to leave their states to Republicans, who are now second in command. A McCain presidency could mean at least one “red’ governership going Democratic “blue.”
While many people assume that lieutenant governors are o... |
June 18th, 2008
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 | Washington, DC, USA. First it was the presidential primary calendar that state legislatures across the country upended to give their voters a greater say this year in choosing candidates. Now a few states are orchestrating an overhaul of the way voters select the U.S. president.
Voters this fall will still use the Electoral College to determine the next occupant of the White House, but a movement is bubbling at the state level to bypass the process and instead ensure future presidents are... |
June 9th, 2008
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 | Washington, DC, USA. In the homestretch of an unprecedented presidential primary season, spinning with competing sound-bites and endless rhetoric, voters still heading to the polls in four states can’t look to their governors for any pre-election advice. These governors plan to wait until after their states vote to make their own endorsements.
Democratic governors in three of the five states yet to have their primaries are staying out of the fray and letting their voters decide on their o... |
May 9th, 2008
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 | Cambridge, MA, USA. What if the presidential primary worked more like a lottery with all the states having a chance at the ultimate prize of being first to vote in the nominating schedule, ending the coveted tradition of New Hampshire and Iowa leading the pack? That’s a simplified version of one of several ideas being considered by top party and state officials, who aim to prevent a repeat of states’ helter-skelter scramble for early presidential primary dates in 2008.
While voters i... |
May 6th, 2008
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 | Washington, DC, USA. As some states tumble into what they fear is a recession, state lawmakers from across the country are pushing Congress for relief from impending federal rules that would force states to pick up more Medicaid costs and spend billions to make drivers’ licenses more secure.
A top concern for legislators, including many of the hundreds who came to Washington, D.C., for the spring meeting of the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), April 24-25, is figurin... |
April 28th, 2008
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| Washington, DC, USA. As Pennsylvanians prepare to go to the polls tomorrow to cast ballots in the April 22 presidential primary, experts wonder how the surge in registered voters will affect little-noticed state legislative races, particularly those in the House, where Democrats cling to a one-seat majority. Scott Sistek of New Stanton has knocked on a lot of doors trying to convince western Pennsylvanians to vote for him in the state’s super-charged April 22 Democratic primary.
Notwithst... |
April 21th, 2008
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 | Washington, DC, USA. Like an American tourist in Europe, states are seeing their dollars just don’t go as far as they used to.
Not only was the amount of tax revenue states collected during the fourth quarter of 2007 the weakest in almost five years, but for the first time since the 1990s, inflation for state and local governments grew substantially faster than for the economy as a whole.
The new data was released Monday (31 March 2008) from the Nelson Rockefeller Institute... |
April 1th, 2008
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 | Washington, DC, USA. The dramatic downfall of former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D) that catapulted David Paterson to the governor’s mansion shined a spotlight on the succession of the state’s second-in-command — the lieutenant governor — a position that eight states don’t even have.
This year’s statewide elections provide a snapshot of the quirky arrangements that determine who is next in line after the governor.
Eleven states elect governors this year, but only nine also... |
March 29th, 2008
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 | Washington, DC, USA. Economists and politicians may debate whether the country has technically fallen into a recession, but new figures to be released next week suggest states are at the brink with state tax collections the lowest in nearly five years. “There’s an eerie similarity to what we saw right before the last recession,” said Robert B. Ward, deputy director of the Nelson Rockefeller Institute of Government, the public policy research arm of the State University of New York (SUNY).
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March 19th, 2008
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| Washington, DC, USA. Governors’ primary contests in North Carolina and Indiana in May could get an unexpected influx of voters if the still undecided Democratic presidential race lumbers on.
Hillary Clinton’s victories March 4 over rival Barack Obama in the Ohio and Texas primaries means the Democrats’ 2008 presidential nominating machine will focus next on Pennsylvania April 22, before moving on to North Carolina and Indiana May 6.
Unlike voters in the 45 states who have alread... |
March 15th, 2008
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