Even as the National Rifle Association (NRA) announced a new push today to put armed guards in schools across the country, state lawmakers across the country are considering similar proposals. So far, legislation related to guns on school grounds has come up in at least three dozen states. The vast majority of these bills would make it easier for school personnel, guards, and volunteers to carry guns on campus, while a handful would toughen laws prohibiting firearms at schools.
Baseball’s (political) heavy hitters
While MLB players will be taking the field for Sunday's opening day games in hopes of winning a World Series title in October, team owners may have their sights set on winning a different sort of Fall Classic.
Continue readingAs Congress weighs gun control, many states try Congress control
Updated on April 5 at 1:42 p.m. ET (see below)
While attention is focused on the U.S. Senate, which could begin voting as early as next month on gun control legislation, some state lawmakers are trying to move in the opposite direction.
Bills to nullify any gun control measures that Congress enacts have been introduced in at least 37 states since the beginning of the year, according to an analysis using Scout, Sunlight's legislative alert system. To browse the list and click through to the text of the bills, click here.
Continue readingPolitical heavy hitters lining up behind gay marriage
Updated: 1:20 p.m.
As the Supreme Court weighs the issue of equal marriage rights, the political momentum -- and money -- appears to be lining up behind gay rights, an analysis of campaign finance reports for some key organizations involved in the debate indicate.
Gay rights activist rallies outside high court Wednesday
That balance was on display in front of the Supreme Court Wednesday as the justices considered a challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act. At least several hundred sign-wielding gay rights activists filled the sidewalk before the steps of the Supreme Court and only a handful of gay ...
Continue readingWhat’s in a name? Republican- versus Democrat-speak on gay marriage
How something is described often affects how people react to it. So it's interesting, as the Supreme Court begins two days of arguments on how to and who can define marriage, to see how the lawmakers across the street have talked about the same issue.
A look through Sunlight's Capitol Words shows a clear partisan divide: Democrats tend to use the term "gay marriage" while Republicans prefer "same-sex marriage." As you can see in the chart above, the latter term occurs more frequently in congressional debate. The full Capitol Words analysis gives us the party breakdown: Democrats account ...
Continue readingNHL champs LA Kings visit White House, but owners wish someone else were in it
If Los Angeles Kings owners Ed Roski and Phil Anschutz had their way during last year's election, someone other than President Obama would be greeting the Stanley Cup champions Tuesday when they arrive in D.C. for the traditional White House fete.
Continue readingNewt Gingrich forms joint fundraising PAC
Seems that 2012 is the (fundraising) campaign that just won't die. We already know that President Barack Obama, despite winning what he loudly advertised would be his last campaign, is still hot on the fundraising trail. And Politico is reporting that Obama's unsuccessful GOP rival, Mitt Romney, is going to be feting donors later this spring.
Now Newt Gingrich appears to be getting into the act. Sunlight's Follow the Unlimited Money tracker turned up a registration for the not-so-modestly named "Committee for America," which has been established as a joint fundraising committee for Newt 2012, the ex-speaker ...
Continue readingBacked by Hatch, Klobuchar, medical device makers score victory
In the two weeks before the Senate passed a resolution to repeal a tax on medical devices that was part of President Obama's health care overhaul, medical device interests threw a pair of fundraisers benefiting the leadership PAC of Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, a longtime friend of the industry.
Continue readingContraceptives remain most controversial health care provision
Three years after Congress approved President Obama's Affordable Care Act (ACA), contraceptive care remains its most controversial provision, drawing not only more comments than any other regulatory proposal on any subject government-wide, according to an analysis of federal regulations on Sunlight's Docket Wrench.
More than 147,000 people and organizations have made their voices heard over the debate, most of them opposing the provision that requires that federal agencies have interpreted to mean that women have access to preventive services--including contraception--at no cost. The Catholic Church has led the charge, urging parishioners to write with messages such as ...
Continue readingImmigration: Give me your poor, your tired . . . your lobbyists?
Long before the last election put new political momentum behind the stalled efforts to enact a comprehensive update of the nation's immigration laws, Washington's influence industry was teed up to make it a titanic battle, an analysis of lobbying disclosures by the Sunlight Foundation shows.
Amidst widespread reports that bipartisan groups of lawmakers in the House and Senate are hoping to unveil immigration proposals after Congress's upcoming spring recess, research shows there is an army of lobbyists ready for action. More than 3,000 people were listed as lobbyists in forms which cited immigration as an issue ...
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