November 5, 2014

Yesterday’s mid-term elections were a rout for Democrats in Washington as well as in state capitals across much of the United States. Republicans took control of the U.S. Senate with at least 52 seats and possibly 2 additional seats with elections in Louisiana and Alaska undecided. (The contest in Louisiana will not be settled until December, when Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu will face Republican Representative Bill Cassidy in a runoff election.) The shift in the Senate elevates Mitch McConnell (R., Kentucky) to majority leader and demotes Harry Reid (D., Nevada) to minority leader.

In the House of Representatives, Republicans enlarged their majority from 233 to 243 seats, the party’s greatest advantage in the House since the 1940′s. Democrats will control only 178 seats when the 114^th Congress convenes this January.

Mitch McConnell (R., Kentucky) is the new majority leader of the U.S. Senate. (U.S. Senate)

In state elections, Republicans gained control of 31 governorships, up from 29. In exit polls, nearly 6 out of 10 voters stated they were “dissatisfied” or “angry” at the Democratic administration of President Barack Obama as well as at leaders in Congress, both Republican and Democratic.

October 17, 2013

Some 800,000 federal employees went back to work this morning after a 16-day shutdown of the United States government. The political stand-off between the Republican majority in the House of Representatives and Senate Democrats and President Barack Obama ended just minutes before a midnight deadline after which the government’s ability to borrow money by selling bonds would have expired.

A bill brokered by Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D., Nevada) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Kentucky) finances the operations of government until Jan. 15, 2014, and raises the nation’s debt limit through the middle of February. The Senate passed the measure last night by an 81-to-18 vote. The House followed suit, passing the bill by a vote of 285-to-144. Eighty-seven House Republicans broke ranks to join a united Democratic caucus in approving the measure.

An attempt to defund the Affordable Care Act by hardline conservatives in the House of Representatives collapsed on October 16, when both houses of Congress passed legislation financing the federal government and raising the debt limit.  (© Brooks Kraft, Corbis)

Passage of the measure ended a stalemate led by hardline conservatives, generally members of the House Tea Party caucus. The caucus pushed their Republican leaders to use the double threat of a shutdown and a default on the national debt to defund the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as “Obamacare.”

Political experts generally agree that pushing the federal government to the edge of a fiscal meltdown for political gain was a major misstep by Congressional Republicans. A Washington Post-ABC public opinion poll taken earlier this week found that 74 percent of Americans disapproved of the way Republicans in Congress were handling the negotiations. A Pew poll taken yesterday found that public approval of the Tea Party was in free fall. Only 20 percent of polled Republicans now support the Tea Party movement. The Wall Street credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s announced yesterday that the shutdown had drained at least $24 billion out of the already fragile U.S. economy.  Conservative radio pundit Rush Limbaugh described the Republican shutdown and subsequent surrender as “One of the greatest political disasters I’ve ever seen.”

Additional World Book articles:

• National budget
• Tempest in a Tea Party (a special report)

November 8, 2012

Barack Obama was reelected president of the United States on November 6, winning at least 303 Electoral College votes, compared with former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney’s 206 votes. In defeating Romney, the president carried the swing states of Colorado, Iowa, New Hampshire, Ohio, Virginia, and Wisconsin. He also took Michigan and Minnesota, where Republican super PAC’s (political action committees) spent millions trying to influence voters. Romney won North Carolina and Indiana, which the president carried four years ago. The president holds a narrow advantage in Florida, where the counting of ballots continues.  Obama is the first president to win reelection with unemployment above 7.2 percent since Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936.

Barack Obama won reelection with at least 303 votes in the Electoral College. (The White House)

Republicans remain firmly in control of the House of Representatives. Democrats retained their majority in the U.S. Senate, taking over highly contested Republican seats in Indiana and Massachusetts while holding on to most of those they already had, including in Virginia and Missouri.

Six of the newly elected senators are women, raising the total in the chamber to 20, the most ever. One new member, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, will become the Senate’s first openly gay member. Voters in both Maryland and Maine approved referenda allowing same-sex couples to marry–the first time same-sex marriage has been approved by a popular vote in the United States.  Minnesotans rejected a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage in that state. In Washington state and Colorado, citizens voted to legalize recreational use of marijuana.

Additional World Book articles:

• Joe Biden
• Election campaign
• Electoral College
• Paul Ryan
• Election 1936 (a Back in Time article)
• 2008 Elections: A Pivotal Choice (a special report)
• Tempest in a Tea Party (a special report)

October 3, 2012

A Pennsylvania judge ruled yesterday that voters do not need valid photo ID’s to cast a ballot in the upcoming presidential election. The judge, Robert Simpson, did not overturn the law, but rather delayed its implementation on the grounds that the authorities had not done enough to ensure that potential voters had access to the new documents. The judge noted in his ruling that for the November 6 presidential election voters can be asked to produce the newly required photo ID, but those without one can still vote. Judge Simpson had upheld Pennsylvania’s photo ID law in August, but the state supreme court subsequently instructed him to hold further hearings on whether enough had been done to ensure “liberal access” to the picture ID cards.

In a historical photo, African Americans vote in Harlem in 1964. Opponents of voter ID laws in 2012, including civil rights organizations and the Democratic Party, feared that such laws may disenfranchise elderly and minority urban voters. (courtesy AP/Wide World)

Voter ID laws–generally backed by the Republican Party “to prevent electoral fraud”–have triggered a nation-wide debate over voting rights. Opponents of such laws, including civil rights organizations and the Democratic Party, maintain that voter fraud is rare and that such laws make it harder for people to vote. They argue that the elderly and urban minorities often depend on public transportation and, therefore, do not have driver’s licenses. Courts have upheld voter ID laws in Georgia, Indiana, and New Hampshire. They have been blocked in Texas and Wisconsin. South Carolina’s voter ID law is currently under court review. Historically, lower voter turnouts have benefited Republican candidates.

Aug. 13, 2012

Paul Ryan, a Republican member of the House of Representatives from Wisconsin, has been named the Republican candidate for vice president of the United States. Presidential candidate Mitt Romney announced his choice of a running mate in Norfolk, Virginia, aboard the battleship U.S.S. Wisconsin, on August 11. The two immediately took off on a campaign tour of Virginia and Wisconsin, both important swing states. “Hope and change has now become attack and blame,” Ryan said of Democratic President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign. “President Obama is our president and he has put all his policies in place, and they’re just not working,” Ryan noted in his initial speech as the nominee.

Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, first gained national attention in 2011 for his controversial 2012 federal budget plan entitled “The Path to Prosperity.” The plan called for about $6 trillion in federal spending cuts over 10 years, reflecting the belief of many Republicans that taxes and government spending must shrink to revive the U.S. economy and avoid a national debt crisis. Ryan’s plan also included the repeal of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, popularly known as “Obamacare,” a major health care reform bill signed into law in March 2010.

Paul Ryan (U.S. House of Representatives)

Democrats criticized Ryan’s plan, saying it favored the rich over the poor and the middle class. They argued that it would result in dismantling or drastically cutting key government programs, including Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security. The Republican-controlled House passed Ryan’s plan on April 15, 2011. However, it died in the Democrat-controlled Senate.

Paul Davis Ryan was born in Janesville, Wisconsin, on Jan. 29, 1970. He graduated from Miami University of Ohio in 1992 with a bachelors degree in economics and political science. As a young man, Ryan became an advocate of the philosophy of novelist Ayn Rand and of various conservative economists, including Milton Friedman. Ryan first won election to the House in 1998, at the age of 28. He has become a favorite of supporters of the Tea party movement.

Additional World Book articles:

• Congressional Budget Office
• Congress of the United States 2011 (a Back in Time article)
• Entitlements: Benefits of Doubt (a special report)
• Health Care Reform – What’s in It for You? (a special report)
• Medicaid in Distress (a special report)
• Tempest in a Tea Party (a special report)

April 11, 2012

Rick Santorum suspended his presidential campaign yesterday, ending his quest to become the Republican Party’s nominee in 2012.  “We made a decision over the weekend, that while this presidential race for us is over, for me, and we will suspend our campaign today, we are not done fighting,” stated the former Pennsylvania senator at a press conference. An aid confirmed that he had called Mitt Romney earlier in the day to tell him of his decision.

Santorum’s move leaves Romney, the former of governor of Massachusetts, as the party’s nominee in all but name only. His remaining challengers, Newt Gingrich and Representative Ron Paul of Texas, have failed to pick enough convention delegates to be considered serious contenders.

Rick Santorum (U.S. Senate)

Additional World Book articles:

• Tempest in a Tea Party (a special report)
• 2008 Election: A Pivotal Choice (a special report)

March 13, 2012

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum won both the Alabama and Mississippi Republican primaries on March 12. The former senator from Pennsylvania took 35 percent of the vote in Alabama, compared with the 29 percent scored by both Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. In Mississippi, Santorum received 33 percent of the vote, compared with 31 percent for Gingrich and 30 percent for Romney.

Rick Santorum (U.S. Senate)

Political experts suggested that with these victories, Rick Santorum can now claim to be Romney’s only credible rival for the nomination. However, Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, still has a commanding lead in the delegate count in the race to the Republican convention in August–494 out of the 1,144 needed. By comparison, Santorum has 251, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich has 131, and Congressman Ron Paul has 48.

Additional World Book article

• Tempest in a Tea Party (a special report)
• 2008 Election: A Pivotal Choice (a special report)

March 12, 2012

Rick Santorum decisively won the Kansas caucuses on Saturday, March 10, picking up at least 33 delegates in the race for the 2012 Republican nonimation for president of the United States. With 51 percent of the vote, the former senator from Pennsylvania handily outdistanced rivals Mitt Romney, at 21 percent; Newt Gingrich, at 14 percent; and Ron Paul, at 12 percent.

Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum. U.S. Senate

Despite his win, however, Santorum continued to trail far behind Romney in the delegate count. On Saturday, Romney won 6 delegates in the Wyoming caucuses as well as 25 delegates from Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands, bringing his delegate total to 377, according to NBC News. With 146 delegates, Santorum leads Gingrich, who has 112, and Paul, who has 31. Romney himself was still far short of the 1,144 delegates needed to win the nomination and go on to challenge President Barack Obama in the November election.

March 7, 2012

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney won 5 of the 10 “Super Tuesday” state primary contests in his bid for the Republican nomination for president of the United States. As expected, he handily took his home state of Massachusetts, as well as Alaska, Idaho, Vermont, and Virginia. He also took the swing state of Ohio, but just barely–with 38 percent of the vote, compared with former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum’s 37 percent. Santorum won in North Dakota, Oklahoma, and Tennessee, and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich took his home state of Georgia, essentially putting himself back in the race.

Mitt Romney Abby Brack, Romney for President, Inc.

Of the delegates up for grabs in the 10 races, Romney captured 211, compared with Santorum’s 84. Romney now leads with 415 delegates committed to backing him at the Republican national convention in Tampa, Florida, in August. He needs 1,144 delegates to win the nomination and go on to challenge President Barack Obama in November. A Washington Post/ABC News poll shows only 35 percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of Romney, compared with 32 percent for Rick Santorum and Representative Ron Paul and 23 percent for Newt Gingrich.

Rick Santorum U.S. Senate