Posts Tagged: house
News
On election night, California’s closely watched congressional races, viewed as crucial to Democrats’ attempts to capture the House, were largely irrelevant, after all. Democrats needed to pick up 23 seats nationally to reach a House majority and they got 26 before Golden State voters even weighed in — far short of the number predicted by numerous campaign strategists but still enough to give Democrats control.
News
A number of California’s Republican-held House seats face fierce challenges from Democrats, and the tally of votes in these tight races may not be completed for days, even weeks, following the election. That’s the message in Capitol Weekly’s survey of more than 20,000 mail-in voters across California who cast their ballots prior to election day.
News
Former Republican Congressman Bill Thomas, who capped a 28-year House career as chair of the Ways and Means Committee, has been out of Congress for more than a decade. His name is no longer familiar outside of his Bakersfield base. But two of his protégés are very well known – House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who served as Thomas’ district director, and Oversight Committee Chair Devin Nunes, who Thomas encouraged to run for Congress and who nurtured his career after he got there.
News
This past weekend brought news about a “rapturous agreement among Republicans and Democrats” to support development of new therapies by financing biomedical research with billions of dollars. The New York Times article indicated that the rapture could have something to do with the fact that many key political leaders on Capitol Hill are “aging in place.”
News
Encouraged by their Nov. 7 election victories in other states, Democrats now have even higher hopes of flipping the House in 2018, and a big factor governing whether they will succeed rests on outcomes in eight Republican-held California districts. The eight incumbent Republicans in Southern California and the Central Valley that Democrats hope to defeat a year from now make up one-third of the 24 seats needed to give Democrats control of the House.
News
Health insurance coverage for 1.3 million California children and pregnant women is at risk because of Congress’ delay in extending the Children’s Health Insurance Program. While the House recently approved a bill to extend the program for five years, the bill still needs approval by the Senate and a fight is expected about how to pay for the extension.
News
Throughout the 2016 election cycle, Capitol Weekly conducted several polls. Two of them, one during the primary and the other during the general, were targeted to voters right after they had mailed in their ballots. In total, more than 80,000 Californians participated in these surveys. Now, we’ve gone back asked these voters how they feel about the candidates they backed and about the issues, and we sought their perceptions about the political climate. We’ll start with the Trump voters.
News
For more than 165 years, political battles in California have played out almost entirely within the framework of a two-party system. There are signs that may be changing. Differing ideologies within each party are competing for money, supporters and attention. Out of it all, four major, distinct political tribes seem to be emerging.
News
In the end, it all comes down to following the money – about $568 million and counting. Nancy Pelosi, the minority leader of the House and former speaker, is no stranger to criticism and this year is no different. But this time, the attacks are coming from fellow Democrats who are calling for the longtime House leader, who turned 77 in March and is a California political icon, to step down. So far, she’s not budging.
Analysis
Friday, June 2 represented the Legislature’s house-of-origin deadline. To stay alive, Assembly bills were required to have passed out of the Assembly and Senate bills had to have been passed out of the Senate. During Assembly floor debate, the issue was repeatedly raised whether the Assembly had properly complied with the provisions of Proposition 54, which California voters approved in November as a transparency measure.
Political messaging in the city of Vista in the 49th Congressional District prior to election day. (Photo: Simone Hogan, via Shutterstock)
