Category: Bipartisan Success Stories

The Climate Solutions Caucus was started by Republican Carlos Curbelo and Democrat Ted Deutch, both of whom represent coastal Florida districts that have become ground zero — literally — for rising sea levels. It’s predicated on a simple idea: We know our nation is facing big problems with climate change, so let’s have members of Congress from both sides of the aisle come together, listen to one another, and find the common ground to introduce and enact effective solutions.

The Maine Senate voted 30-5 Wednesday in favor of a bill that could force the administration of Gov. Paul LePage to fully staff the state’s public health nursing program.

I’m not a member of an organized party – I’m a Republican.

Nevada lawmakers want to set up a special bank within state government to position the state to receive federal funds and leverage those dollars for infrastructure projects.

It’s not often that a story about government has a happy ending these days, but this one does.

An amendment that would embed the rights of crime victims in the Oklahoma Constitution has easily cleared its first legislative hurdles. Senate Joint Resolution 46, which creates Marsy’s Law for Oklahoma, passed on a 43-2 vote.

Pennsylvanians — Republicans, Democrats, Philadelphians, suburbanites, people from upstate and mid-state Pennsylvania — overwhelmingly believe that the state’s legislature and criminal justice system need to do more to help ex-offenders keep from committing another crime, according to a poll released Wednesday.

It began with a 5 a.m. planning session over coffee Tuesday morning in San Antonio’s Mi Tierra Cafe. It ended almost 36 hours later with a brisk walk up the steps of the U.S. Capitol with just 30 minutes to spare until votes Wednesday evening in the House of Representatives.

A package of bills that would ease the financial toll of low-level crimes on the poor has been working its way through the Arizona Legislature but remains in limbo as a key deadline approaches for lawmakers.

Rep. Bob Fincher, R – District 37, knows taking on the payday lending industry in Alabama will be tough. According to the Alabama Banking Department, it’s more popular here than in any other state.

By Mark Pazniokas They were surrounded by Democratic allies, but gay activists tried to avoid partisan politics Monday as they called for passage of a…

A bipartisan group of House lawmakers is fighting to keep attention focused on last session’s top health issue — abuse of prescription opioids, heroin and other drugs — although the 2010 health care law now dominates the health policy discourse.

Colorado lawmakers from both political parties are seeking to undo a controversial State Board of Education decision that called for schools to test thousands of Colorado’s youngest students in English — a language they are still learning.

Advocates for terminally ill patients in Wisconsin urged state lawmakers Wednesday to approve a bill that would allow the use of potentially life-saving experimental drugs that are still under federal review.

Offenders on parole who commit technical violations like missing mandatory meetings wouldn’t automatically be returned to prison under a bipartisan effort announced Wednesday as a way of reducing Ohio’s prison population.

A push for the state to help fund a “living wage” for direct care workers has major bipartisan support within the Legislature.

A bill that would strengthen outdated eminent domain laws in the face of a proposed freight train line with a route through Lake, Porter and LaPorte counties has made its way out of the Indiana House of Representatives and into the Senate.

A bipartisan duo in the state Legislature wants to clamp down on payday lenders in Nebraska and help families avoid becoming “trapped in a cycle of debt.”

Last week, the Illinois legislature passed a sweeping, comprehensive new energy bill. With the possible exception of California’s recent bill, it might be the most significant state energy legislation passed in the US in decades.

Washington State and South Dakota voters gave a split decision on Tuesday on sweeping ballot initiatives that would reform campaign finance, lobbying and ethics in their respective states. The initiative in South Dakota won while the initiative in Washington lost.

Conventional wisdom holds that the politics of climate change has become so polarized that bipartisan action is all but impossible.

Compared with the partisan gridlock that gripped Sacramento just a few years ago, the dynamics in the statehouse can seem almost cuddly these days.