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Tag: United States general election

  • Republican Katie Britt wins US Senate race in Alabama

    Republican Katie Britt wins US Senate race in Alabama

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    MONTGOMERY, Ala — Republican Katie Britt on Tuesday won the U.S. Senate race in Alabama, becoming the first woman elected to the body from the state.

    Britt will fill the seat held by Richard Shelby, her one-time boss who is retiring after 35 years in the Senate. Britt was Shelby’s chief of staff before leaving to take the helm of a state business lobby. Britt defeated Democrat Will Boyd and Libertarian John Sophocleus.

    Britt, 40, cast herself as part of a new generation of conservative leaders and will become one of the Senate’s youngest members. She will be the first Republican woman to hold one of the state’s Senate seats and the state’s first elected female senator. The state’s previous female senators, both Democrats, had been appointed.

    “Tonight, parents, families and hard-working Alabamians across the state let their voices be heard. We said loud and clear this is our time,” Britt told supporters at her victory party in downtown Montgomery.

    Britt, who noted her early dismal poll numbers and how some initially dismissed her notion of running for Senate, said her campaign is “proof that the American dream is still alive.”

    Fueled by deep pockets and deep ties to business and political leaders, Britt ran under the banner of “Alabama First” and secured the GOP nomination after a heated and expensive primary. She was first in the initial round of voting and then defeated six-term Rep. Mo Brooks in a primary runoff.

    Brooks, who ran under the banner “MAGA Mo” — Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again campaign slogan — and was initially endorsed by the former president, had been an early favorite in the race. But Brooks faltered under a barrage of attack ads and lackluster fundraising. As Britt surged in the polls, Trump rescinded his endorsement of Brooks and swung his support to Britt.

    Britt began her political career working for Shelby. She thanked the outgoing senior senator for taking a chance on her 20 years ago and called him “Alabama’s greatest statesman” who left a lasting legacy on the state.

    The senator-elect was introduced by her husband Wesley Britt, a former football player for the New England Patriots and the University of Alabama, who said his best title is, “Katie’s husband.”

    Flanked by her husband and two-school-age children, and with her speech occasionally punctuated by the sound of children popping the red, white and blue balloons that fell to celebrate her victory, Britt called herself a “Mama on a mission” to get things done in Washington.

    Britt, who spent much of her race in partisan appeals, criticizing the policies of President Joe Biden and lamenting a country she said she no longer recognized, promised to work for all Alabamians, “even those that have different beliefs than I do.”

    “No one will worker harder than me in the United States Senate. I am going to listen to you, not lecture you. I know that every one of you is not going to agree with me on every single issue and that’s OK,” Britt said.

    “I am going to be a voice for parents and families and hard-working Alabamians across this state,” she said, “and I’m going to work tirelessly every single day to make Alabama proud.”

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    Follow AP’s coverage of the elections at: https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections

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    Check out https://apnews.com/hub/explaining-the-elections to learn more about the issues and factors at play in the 2022 midterm elections.

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  • Voters in 5 states decide whether to legalize marijuana

    Voters in 5 states decide whether to legalize marijuana

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    LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Voters in five states are deciding on Election Day whether to approve recreational marijuana, a move that could signal a major shift toward legalization in even the most conservative parts of the country.

    The proposals are on the ballot in Arkansas, Maryland, Missouri, North Dakota and South Dakota and follow moves by President Joe Biden toward decriminalizing marijuana. Biden last month announced he was pardoning thousands of Americans convicted of simple possession of marijuana under federal law.

    Advocates of the marijuana initiatives have said Biden’s announcement may give a boost to their efforts.

    Recreational marijuana is legal in 19 states, and polls have shown opposition to legalization softening. All of the states with recreational marijuana on the ballot, except for Maryland, voted for Trump in the 2020 presidential election.

    The five states also currently have legal medical marijuana programs. That includes Arkansas, which in 2016 became the first Bible Belt state to approve medical marijuana. The state’s dispensaries opened in 2019, and more than 91,000 patients have cards to legally buy marijuana for medical conditions.

    The legalization campaigns have raised about $23 million in the five states, with the vast majority in Arkansas and Missouri. More than 85% of contributions in those two states have come from donors associated with companies holding medical marijuana licenses, according to an Associated Press analysis of the most recent campaign finance reports.

    In Arkansas, supporters have been running upbeat ads touting the thousands of jobs they say will be created by the measure. Opponents have run more ominous spots, warning voters to “protect Arkansas from big marijuana.”

    The initiative has drawn the criticism of traditional legalization opponents as well as some medical marijuana advocates, who say the Arkansas proposal places too many limits and would only benefit a handful of dispensaries. Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a former head of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, has also opposed the measure.

    Missouri’s proposal would legalize recreational marijuana for adults 21 and older and expunge records of past arrests and convictions for nonviolent marijuana offenses, except for selling to minors or driving under the influence. Maryland’s proposal would also make changes in criminal law and create automatic expungements of past marijuana possession convictions.

    North Dakota’s measure would allow people 21 and older to legally use marijuana at home as well as possess and cultivate restricted amounts of cannabis. It also would establish policies to regulate retail stores, cultivators, and other types of marijuana businesses.

    South Dakotans, including a sizable number of Republicans, voted to legalize marijuana possession in 2020, but that law was struck down by the state Supreme Court in part because the proposal was coupled with medical marijuana and hemp. This year, recreational pot is standing by itself as it goes before voters.

    In Colorado, where recreational marijuana has been legal for nearly a decade, voters on Tuesday are taking up a proposal that would allow the use of certain psychedelic substances. If approved, it would make Colorado the second state to take such a step.

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  • NY Rep. Lee Zeldin says 2 people shot in front of his home

    NY Rep. Lee Zeldin says 2 people shot in front of his home

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    NEW YORK — New York congressman and Republican candidate for governor Lee Zeldin says his family is safe after two strangers were shot outside his Long Island home on Sunday.

    Zeldin said in a statement that he does not know the identities of the two people who were shot but that they were found under his porch and in the bushes in front of his home in Shirley, New York. The congressman and his wife were not at home at the time of the shooting but their teenage daughters were in the home and heard gunshots and screaming, he said in the statement released by his office.

    Zeldin said his 16-year-old daughters locked themselves in a bathroom and called 911. The family is shaken but OK, he said. Zeldin and his wife were returning from a parade in the Bronx when the shooting occurred.

    He said police officers were at his home investigating Sunday evening and were looking over the home’s security cameras. The two people who were shot were taken to local hospitals, he said.

    Zeldin planned to hold a news conference outside his home Sunday night to address the shooting.

    The Suffolk County Police Department issued a brief statement saying it was investigating the shooting, which appeared to have no connection to Zeldin’s family. Police had no information to release about who fired the shots or who first found the two people shot, a spokeswoman said.

    Zeldin, who is running against Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, has made rising crime rates and violent crime a focus of his campaign. He has called for the state’s bail laws to be toughened, among other measures.

    “Like so many New Yorkers, crime has literally made its way to our front door,” Zeldin said Sunday.

    He said later in a post on Twitter that his daughters were at the kitchen table when the shooting occurred and that one of the bullets was found 30 feet away from them.

    It’s the second scare he’s had in several months. In July, he was assaulted while campaigning in upstate New York when a man approached him onstage and thrust a sharp object near his head and neck. He was uninjured and the man was arrested.

    Hochul said in a statement posted on Twitter that she had been briefed on the shooting.

    “As we await more details, I’m relieved to hear the Zeldin family is safe and grateful for law enforcement’s quick response,” the governor said.

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  • House approves scaled-down bill targeting Big Tech dominance

    House approves scaled-down bill targeting Big Tech dominance

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    WASHINGTON — The House on Thursday approved sharply scaled-down legislation targeting the dominance of Big Tech companies by giving states greater power in antitrust cases and increasing money for federal regulators.

    The bipartisan measure, passed by a 242-184 vote, pales in comparison with a more ambitious package aimed at reining in Meta, Google, Amazon and Apple and cleared by key House and Senate committees. That proposal has languished for months, giving the companies time for vigorous lobbying campaigns against it.

    The more limited bill would give states an upper hand over companies in choosing the location of courts that decide federal antitrust cases. Proponents say this change would avert the “home-court advantage” that Big Tech companies enjoy in federal court in Northern California, where many of the cases are tried and many of the companies are based.

    Many state attorneys general have pursued antitrust cases against the industry, and many states joined with the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission in their landmark lawsuits against Google and Meta (then called Facebook), respectively, in late 2020.

    The bill also would increase filing fees paid by companies to federal agencies for all proposed mergers worth $500 million or more, while reducing the fees for small and medium-sized transactions. The aim is to increase revenue for federal enforcement efforts.

    Under the bill, companies seeking approval for mergers would have to disclose subsidies they received from countries deemed to pose strategic or economic risks to the United States — especially China.

    “We find ourselves in a monopoly moment as a country,” Rep. Lori Trahan, D-Mass., said before the vote. “Multibillion-dollar corporations have grown into behemoths, eliminating any real competition in their industries and using their dominance to hurt small businesses and consumers. Meta’s monopoly power has enabled it to harm women, children and people of all ages without recourse. Amazon has used its dominance to copy competitors’ products and run small businesses into the ground.”

    The Biden administration, which has pushed for antitrust legislation targeting Big Tech, endorsed the bill this week.

    Even in reduced form, the legislation drew fierce opposition from conservative Republicans who split from their GOP colleagues supporting the bill. The conservatives objected to the proposed revenue increase for the antitrust regulators, arguing there has been brazen overreach by the FTC under President Joe Biden.

    Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., described the FTC’s leader, Lina Khan, as a “a radical leftist seeking to replace consumers’ decisions with her own.”

    Another California Republican, Rep. Darrell Issa, told his colleagues: “If you want to stifle innovation, vote for this.”

    If Republicans win control of the House or Senate in the November elections, they are certain to try to crimp the activism of the FTC and to challenge its broader interpretation of its legal authority.

    The broader antitrust package would restrict powerful tech companies from favoring their own products and services over rivals on their platforms and could even lead to mandated breakups separating companies’ dominant platforms from their other businesses. It could, for example, prevent Amazon from steering consumers to its own brands and away from competitors’ products on its giant e-commerce platform.

    The drafting of that legislation marked a new turn in Congress’ effort to curb the dominance of the tech giants and anti-competitive practices that critics say have hurt consumers, small businesses and innovation. But the proposal is complex and drew objections to some provisions from lawmakers of both parties, even though all condemn the tech giants’ conduct.

    Lawmakers have faced a delicate task as they try to tighten reins around a powerful industry whose services, mostly free or nearly so, are popular with consumers and embedded into daily life.

    So with time to act running out as the November elections approach in about six weeks, lawmakers extracted the less controversial provisions on antitrust court venues and merger filing fees, putting them into the new bill that passed.

    Lawmakers added the provision targeting foreign subsidies to U.S. companies. Republicans especially have vocally criticized the Chinese ownership of popular video platform TikTok.

    In the Senate, Minnesota Democrat Amy Klobuchar is sponsoring similar legislation with Republicans Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Mike Lee of Utah.

    “Effective antitrust enforcement is critical to ensuring consumers and small businesses have the opportunity to compete,” Klobuchar said in a statement Thursday. “Enforcers cannot take on the biggest companies the world has ever known with duct tape and Band-Aids.”

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