Political developments with market and economic implications.
Coverage of political events, elections, legislation, and regulatory changes that influence markets and economic policy. Focuses on political risk, fiscal decisions, and policy uncertainty relevant to investors.
801 total articles
California holds a primary election that will select two finalists for governor and Los Angeles mayor and provide the initial test of a new congressional map that advocates say could shift up to five seats. The crowded gubernatorial field is being winnowed under the state’s top-two primary system, while closely watched local and congressional conte…
The U.S. Supreme Court is positioned to issue rulings by late June in two high-profile election cases that could materially affect the November midterms. One involves a Mississippi law allowing late-arriving, postmarked mail ballots to be counted; the other challenges limits on coordinated spending between party organizations and candidates. Those …
Senate Republicans are divided over President Donald Trump’s proposed $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund, which emerged from a Justice Department settlement and is intended to compensate alleged victims of political 'weaponization.' Nearly half of the 53-member Republican Senate majority pushed back at a closed-door briefing by Acting Attorney …
The White House issued a memo on May 29 stating that U.S. President Donald Trump is in excellent health after a medical examination this week at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. The memo highlighted strong cardiac, pulmonary, neurological and overall physical function. Trump, who noted "everything checked out perfectly," visited Walter…
Louisiana Republicans approved a congressional redistricting plan that dismantles a Democratic-held, majority-Black seat, a move party leaders say is partisan rather than racial. The map passed the state House and was approved 28-10 by the state Senate along party lines, and is expected to be signed by Governor Jeff Landry. The vote follows a U.S. …
Pam Bondi, the former U.S. Attorney General, testified Friday in a closed session before a Republican-controlled House committee about the Justice Department’s handling and partial release of documents from the Jeffrey Epstein investigation. Committee leaders pressed for answers on why some materials remain unavailable to Congress and the public, w…
Republican-controlled legislatures in several Southern states have enacted new congressional maps or attempted to do so, part of a nationwide battle over redistricting that began last summer. Two key court decisions - one from the U.S. Supreme Court narrowing protections for majority-Black districts and a Virginia Supreme Court ruling striking down…
A U.S. federal judge issued a temporary injunction preventing the Trump administration from creating or operating an approximately $1.8 billion fund intended to compensate alleged victims of government weaponization. The so-called Anti-Weaponization Fund was announced by the Justice Department as part of a settlement in President Donald Trump’s law…
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will deliver remarks arguing that recent administration policies aim to correct long-standing policy errors that weakened American industrial capacity and left critical supply chains overly reliant on geopolitical competitors, particularly China. Speaking at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Bessent descr…
Huntington Beach, known for its conservative city council and decision to ban the Pride flag from municipal property, is poised to be shifted into a newly drawn congressional district that pairs it with Long Beach. The redistricting positions Robert Garcia, a two-term, openly gay Democratic congressman and Trump critic, as the heavy favorite to rep…
The U.S. Department of Justice has filed lawsuits against Maine, Massachusetts, Oregon and Washington after state officials refused requests to supply confidential license plates to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for undercover arrest operations tied to the Trump administration's immigration enforcement. The suits follow warnings from th…
The U.S. Department of Justice has filed lawsuits against Maine, Massachusetts, Oregon and Washington after those states declined to provide confidential vehicle registrations and license plates to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The DOJ says the states are improperly discriminating against federal law enforcement by barring ICE access to…
Recent state-level data through April indicate a notable increase in people losing or leaving Affordable Care Act plans because they did not pay premiums. The trend is concentrated in some states, with Kentucky and Idaho seeing particularly large rises in disenrollments. Analysts link the decline in overall enrollment to the end of pandemic-era sub…
A federal judge on Thursday declined to enjoin President Donald Trump's executive order that imposes stricter procedures for mail-in voting, leaving intact instructions for federal agencies to compile state 'citizenship lists' and for the U.S. Postal Service to limit ballot delivery to approved mail-in lists. Democrats contended the order could dis…
Ken Paxton’s decisive win over Senator John Cornyn in the Texas Republican runoff gives President Trump a prominent victory but creates several strategic and financial challenges for the GOP. Paxton’s limited cash reserves, the shift of the Texas race to a more competitive rating, potential defections from departing Republican leaders and the low-t…
Alabama officials filed an emergency request with the U.S. Supreme Court on May 27 seeking permission to use a Republican-drawn congressional map that would eliminate one of the two districts where Black voters form a majority or near-majority. The petition follows a federal three-judge panel's decision to block the map as intentionally discriminat…
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton won the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate, defeating four-term incumbent John Cornyn in a runoff. Paxton’s victory, aided by former President Donald Trump’s endorsement, hands Republicans a controversial nominee and creates a competitive general election matchup with Democratic state Representative James Talari…
Former President Joe Biden has sued the U.S. Department of Justice in federal court in Washington D.C., seeking to stop the planned public release of audio recordings and transcripts of private conversations with his biographer from 2016 and 2017. The materials, recorded in his home during work on his 2017 memoir, are scheduled to be provided to th…
Efforts to redraw congressional boundaries encouraged by President Donald Trump encountered obstacles in two Southern states on Tuesday. In South Carolina, a coalition of Republican state senators joined Democrats to reject a proposed map that would have dismantled the long-held district of Representative James Clyburn. In Alabama, three federal ju…
Republican initiatives to redraw U.S. House districts in advance of the November midterms encountered two significant reversals when state-level maneuvering in South Carolina and a federal court decision in Alabama prevented maps designed to benefit the GOP from being implemented. In South Carolina, a group of Republican state senators joined Democ…
On May 26, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from the National Football League and three teams seeking to send Brian Flores' racial-discrimination claims into arbitration controlled by the league. The decision leaves intact lower-court rulings that parts of Flores' 2022 lawsuit must proceed in federal court rather than before an arb…
A three-judge federal panel has barred Alabama from implementing a congressional map that would have eliminated one of the state's two majority-Black U.S. House districts. The judges concluded the Republican-backed plan intentionally discriminated against Black voters and ruled it unusable for the 2026 elections. State officials are expected to app…
On May 26 the U.S. Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration by reversing a lower-court decision that had ordered fact-finding into whether removals of independent agency heads deprived immigration judges of meaningful relief before agencies. The court’s unsigned opinion remanded the case to the appeals court for further proceedings and did…
Two-term dynamics converge in Texas as incumbent Republican John Cornyn faces a competitive runoff against Attorney General Ken Paxton, who recently received former President Donald Trump’s endorsement. Paxton leads in several polls despite legal controversies, setting up a potentially costly general election matchup with Democrat James Talarico an…
President Donald Trump has restated his false assertion that the 2020 election was stolen from him at least 107 times over the past six months, keeping the allegation prominent across speeches, meetings and social media. The repetition appears aimed at building support for new voting restrictions, solidifying Republican loyalty and mobilizing his b…
