Evening Wrap

It’s Monday and Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Like many of the government officials we cover, most of our staff is taking the holiday off, but let's have a look at what our various state newsrooms are saying about King and his legacy.

It’s Friday the 13th, which seems like an appropriate time to check in on the state of abortion rights.

During the midterm elections, we focused mostly on high-profile congressional races, gubernatorial contests and the many election-deniers vying to oversee elections. We talked much less about the insidious battle unfolding across the country in oft-overlooked school board races, where conservative candidates campaigned on plans to overhaul education policy based largely on right-wing rhetoric.

Whenever I’m stuck on a starting point I just cruise on down to Florida, where the cup of news forever runneth over. Today’s dispatch: Millions of low-income families in the Sunshine State will likely lose their health insurance at the end of March following the expiration of a pandemic-era provision that required states to expand Medicaid coverage, per the Florida Phoenix.

We talked yesterday about the difficult (a relative term) situation facing Arizona Republicans, who wield razor-thin legislative majorities under a Democratic governor for the first time in their political careers. The party’s tenuous grip on power coupled with the threat of Gov. Katie Hobbs’ veto pen all but guarantees that GOP lawmakers will have to embrace compromise if they want to accomplish anything of consequence.

More than half of state legislatures had reconvened as of Monday, when lawmakers in nine states headed back to work. (An additional 13 legislative sessions will also kick off this week. It’s all happening!) For some, the new session is a chance to build on last year’s accomplishments, like sweeping changes to mental health services in Georgia. 

This, I thought on Jan. 6, 2021, will finally be the thing. The rally, the flags, the chants, the broken glass, the bullets, the violence, the hordes of people swarming the U.S.Capitol, all in service of one big lie from one huge liar — this had to be the moment that Republicans finally turned on Donald Trump. They would stand amid the wreckage, I thought, and they would finally get it: There was nothing left to defend, if there’d ever been anything worth defending in the first place.

Friends, we cannot avoid it any longer: It is time to talk about Kevin. On Thursday, U.S. Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) failed yet again to clinch the title of Speaker of the House. His failure now spans three consecutive days and at least 11 votes. He failed even after bowing to demands from the MAGA Republicans blocking his election, including a promise to allow any one lawmaker to force a vote to oust him from leadership. Those Republicans continued to vote against McCarthy for speaker even after knowing that they could easily remove him from the job. McCarthy — and I cannot overstate this — failed.

Just to really drive home the irrelevance of humidity, let’s start in North Carolina, where thousands of residents spent Christmas Eve in the dark after freezing temperatures wreaked havoc on power plants. That same inclement weather led to a spike in demand that defied Duke Energy’s projections, resulting in the first rolling blackouts in state history, per NC Policy Watch.

For some (probably happier) people, a new year is a chance to reset and refresh, but for others (me), it’s mostly a harbinger of new state legislative sessions. Lawmakers in 14 states are expected to gavel back in this week (seven on Tuesday, seven more on Wednesday); an additional 27 are scheduled to return later in January. It is a veritable cornucopia of state legislative happenings! I have so many choices here that I’m honestly not sure where to begin!

As our Nevada Editor Hugh Jackson often observes, with considerable frustration, the Silver State does not get the attention it deserves. It’s a big state, a growing and dynamic state, rich in history, scenery, and natural resources. It is a battleground state that can make or break a presidential campaign or decide control of Congress, with an electorate that looks a lot like America, politically, culturally and economically. Yet the national media rarely drops in for a visit and the national parties have declined to give this obvious bellwether state the leading role in their presidential primaries. 

One of the main things that government is supposed to do is make life better for its constituents. Don’t believe me? It says so right there in the Constitution. Congress has the power, among other things, to “provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States.” So why does it seem like that “general Welfare” is so hard to come by sometimes? Let’s check out some recent examples.