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The handful of Republican lawmakers most likely to provide crucial votes for Gov. Jerry Brown's budget plan are threatening to withhold their support without a dramatic rewriting of state environmental law. The demand, pushed in private talks with the governor, would curtail lawsuits against projects threatening ecological damage, grant waivers to big telecommunications companies and exempt many urban developments from environmental review. The legislators have declined to share the details of their proposal publicly, but draft legislation to overhaul the law was obtained by The Times. Sweeping changes in the California Environmental Quality Act would stand little chance of approval...

Concord, N.H. - New Hampshire House lawmakers — not known for short speeches — plan to wax long into the night to free their chamber for a statewide poetry competition. The House had planned on meeting three days this week to vote on more than 250 bills. When they scheduled the three sessions, House Speaker William O’Brien had already promised the 2011 New Hampshire Poetry Out Loud program could hold its statewide championship in Representatives Hall at 7 p.m. Thursday. O’Brien hopes to finish the work on bills Wednesday night.

The right to carry a concealed weapon in California is mostly reserved for those at risk of violence — jewelers, bail bondsmen and criminal prosecutors among them. But some legislators say their job has become dangerous too. Despite objections from some law enforcement officials and even gun rights advocates, they want a law that would make it easier for them to tote firearms for protection. The lawmakers cite the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) in Tucson and threats from constituents in California as cause for permits to carry weapons. "I've had guys physically come up to me

MADISON, Wis. – A group of Wisconsin lawmakers blocked passage of a sweeping anti-union bill Thursday by ignoring orders to attend a vote and instead left the state to force Republicans to negotiate over the proposal. As ever-growing throngs of protesters filled the Capitol for a third day, the 14 Democrats disappeared from the Capitol. They were not in their offices, and aides said they did not know where any of them had gone. Hours later, one of them told The Associated Press that the group had left Wisconsin. Sen. Jon Erpenbach said Democrats fled to slow down consideration of...

Republican lawmakers of Cuban descent sharply criticized President Obama's plans to loosen Cuban travel policy to allow students and church groups to go to the communist country, saying the changes will benefit the Castro regime while doing little for the average citizen. "Loosening these regulations will not help foster a pro-democracy environment in Cuba," said U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "These changes will not aid in ushering in respect for human rights. And they certainly will not help the Cuban people free themselves from the tyranny that engulfs them."

SNIP Several leading House Democrats blamed the inflammatory rhetoric for contributing to the Tucson massacre, while Republicans denounced criticism of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) following the tragedy. One lawmaker, Rep. Robert Brady (D-Pa.), has said he would introduce a bill to make it a crime to threaten or incite violence against a federal official. Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) suggested the Federal Communications Commission was “not working anymore,” adding she would look at ways to better police language on the airwaves. A brick was thrown through a window of Slaughter’s district office last year. SNIP Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine)...

WASHINGTON – And let it be said, on this second day following the convening of the 112th Congress, newly sworn members of the House shall stand and read aloud the Constitution of the United States. .. Republicans in charge of the chamber rattled it off with missionary zeal, .. Democrats pitched in, but with seemingly less ardor.

Tax Cut Bill Loaded With Deals for Lobbyists, LawmakersAssociated Press Published December 11, 2010 WASHINGTON -- In the spirit of the holiday season, President Obama's tax-cut deal with Republicans is becoming a Christmas tree tinseled with gifts for lobbyists and lawmakers. But that hardly stopped the squabbling on Friday, with Bill Clinton even back at the White House pleading the president's case. While Republicans sat back quietly, mostly pleased, Democrats and other liberals were going at each other ever so publicly. As Clinton lectured on Obama's behalf, Vermont independent Bernie Sanders castigated the agreement for the TV cameras in the...

In separate letters issued Monday, two U.S. lawmakers are looking for answers on the training and methods employed by Transportation Security Administration agents, including one congressman who wants to know why officers trailed a videographer who taped a kid stripped at the security gate. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, who is expected to become chairman of the House oversight subcommittee responsible for the federal workforce, wrote President Obama demanding that he initiate a probe into why TSA officers followed around Luke Tait, a Utah Valley University student who on Friday recorded a young boy having his shirt removed by his father...

Washington (CNN) -- The head of the Transportation Security Administration will likely get a pat-down on air-travel security measures as he testifies before Congress on Wednesday morning. The appearance by John Pistole was scheduled before controversy broke out over the past week about the agency's full body scans and pat-downs. But protest movements about the searches make such questioning likely when Pistole testifies about his agency's security efforts before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. Hero pilot Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger on Tuesday joined the opposition to heightened airport security procedures, which critics have called invasive. Sullenberger, who...

The state of Oklahoma is planning to execute death row inmates with drugs intended for use on animals. Lawmakers want to switch away from the only brand of anaesthetic that has been used in the US for lethal injections because there is not enough to go around. The replacement is likely to attract controversy because it is currently used by vets to anesthetise animals for operations. Other states are watching closely and may well follow suit, but such a move is likely to face a challenge from human rights groups to ensure that it is safe to use.

PARIS (AP) — The French Senate, pushed into an early vote, approved on Friday a hotly contested bill raising the retirement age to 62, hours after riot police forced the reopening of a strategic refinery to help halt growing fuel shortages amid nationwide strikes and protests. In tense balloting after 140 hours of debate, the Senate voted 177-153 for the pension reform. The measure is expected to win final formal approval by both houses of parliament next week. President Nicolas Sarkozy's conservative government, keen to get the measure passed and quell increasingly radicalized protests, cut short the debate and voting...

Lawmakers in at least 14 states are collaborating on proposed legislation to deny U.S. citizenship to children of illegal immigrants, according to lawmakers, including the sponsor of Arizona's 2010 law targeting illegal immigration. "We're taking a leadership role on things that need to be fixed in America. We can't get Congress to do it," Republican state Sen. Russell Pearce, of Mesa, said Tuesday. "It's a national work group so that we have model legislation that we know will be successful, that meets the constitutional criteria." The efforts by the state legislators come amid calls to change the U.S. Constitution's 14th...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- There's no relief from the jobs crisis -- for everyday Americans or lawmakers facing the midterm elections. The most rampant layoffs of teachers and other local government workers in nearly three decades more than offset weak hiring in the private sector in September, resulting in a net loss of 95,000 jobs. Unemployment remained stuck at 9.6 percent. The jobless rate has been at or above 9.5 percent for a year and two months, the longest stretch since the Great Depression. The "underemployment" rate adds part-time workers who would rather work full time and jobless people who aren't...

SIERRA VISTA — While most Arizonans believe that major changes are needed in the state budgeting process, they also have the highest opinion of their lawmakers out of five states faced with similar severe budget issues, according to a study out today. The study, “Facing Facts: Public Attitudes and Fiscal Realities in Five Stressed States,” found that one-third of Arizonans trust their state government “all or most of the time.” That rating was higher than those of the respondents from all other states in the survey, which included California, Florida, Illinois and New York. Along with Florida, the Grand Canyon...

San Francisco lawmakers have approved a fee on alcohol distribution to help the city recover the cost of dealing with problem drinkers, but the measure faces a likely mayoral veto.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Lawmakers from U.S. steel-producing states on Thursday cheered a decision by Chinese steel company Anshan Iron & Steel Group to back off plans to invest in a U.S. steel plant. "Not only would this venture have set a dangerous precedent further undermining our domestic steel market, but it posed serious national security concerns," Representative Tim Murphy, a Pennsylvania Republican, said in a statement. Anshan's decision comes at a time when China has pushed past Japan to become the world's second largest economy and high U.S. unemployment and a huge budget deficit are causing political anxiety in the...

PARIS -- French lawmakers voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to ban the wearing of face-covering veils in public spaces, as Europe toughens its approach to integrating Muslim immigrant communities. On the eve of Bastille Day, when France celebrates the birth of what was to become a staunchly secular republic, the 577-seat National Assembly lower house voted by 335 votes to one for a total ban. The bill will now go to the Senate in September, but opponents of the ban in its proposed form worry that it will eventually be overturned by the judges of the Constitutional Council, France’s highest legal body.

Republican Reps. Darrell Issa of California, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida and Chris Smith of New Jersey are calling for a probe to investigate whether Obama administration officials are violating federal law by using taxpayer money to lobby for a new constitution in Kenya that supports and legalizes abortion. “The U.S. is spending taxpayer money on Kenya’s constitutional referendum,” Issa told The Daily Caller. “The underlying concern is that U.S. funds and efforts are being used to interfere in Kenya’s internal debate over abortion, which is part of the debate over the new constitution. There is evidence that U.S. funds are...

The debate agitating many in New Jersey right is whether or not the state’s Governor, Chris Christie, is actually doing much to reform the state as it needs to be. I have to say that I wasn’t impressed with him during his campaign for the Republican nomination against Steve Lonagan. Having no interest in the politics of politic, he sounded like a big government Republican to me. With that in mind, I was nicely surprised by the turn that Christie’s campaign against Corzine took and by some of his policies. He talked about small government, the need for reforming New...