Legislation related to daily fantasy sports (DFS) has been drafted or introduced this year in 16 states, according to LegalSportsReport.com, which covers the legal online sports wagering industry. The bills generally seek to legalize DFS in states that don’t allow fantasy sports or to regulate...

Twenty-two states and the District of Columbia have laws on the books prohibiting at least some state pension or retirement funds from investing in companies that do a certain amount of business in Iran. Ten of those states also have laws on the books prohibiting at least some government contracts with...

Texas and twenty-five other states have filed suit to block President Obama’s executive actions in November shielding undocumented immigrants from deportation for three years, according to the Pew Research Center. Twelve states have filed an amicus, or “friend of the court,” brief in...

Last week’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down a 2013 Texas law requiring doctors and clinics that perform abortions to meet hospital-like standards resulted in the almost immediate effective invalidation of similar laws facing legal challenge in three other states. The same could happen in...

Three of the eight states where the deadliest mass shootings since 1984 have occurred - California, Connecticut and New York - are among those with the strictest gun laws, according to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. None of those shootings took place in states ranked lowest on gun laws by the...

Twenty-five states joined Texas in challenging President Obama’s executive actions on immigration policy in November 2014, expanding temporary relief from deportation for undocumented immigrants. Fifteen states also filed amicus, or “friend of the court,” briefs supporting those executive...

CO Voters to Consider Minimum Wage Increase A proposal to raise COLORADO’s minimum wage appears to be headed for the state’s November ballot, with backers saying this month that they expected to deliver 200,000 petition signatures to the secretary of state’s office, well over the...

Local and federal courts struck down Republican-backed voter restrictions in three states in a single day last month. A three-judge panel of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals blocked a North Carolina law restricting the number of acceptable forms of voter identification, limiting early voting and...

Thirty-seven states have passed laws regulating transportation network companies (TNCs), according to the R Street Institute and LexisNexis State Net’s legislative tracking database. The most recent addition to that group is Delaware, where Gov. Jack Markell (D) signed SB 262 last week. TNC legislation...

Twenty-one predominantly Republican-governed states have filed a federal lawsuit challenging a new Obama administration rule extending mandatory overtime pay to millions of American workers. The rule, which was finalized in May and takes effect in December, mandates that employers pay salaried workers...

Kansas Vetoes HB 2044 The KANSAS House fails to override Gov. Sam Brownback’s (R) veto of HB 2044 , which would have expanded Medicaid in the Sunflower State to include people with incomes at 133 percent of the poverty line (KANSAS CITY STAR). West Virginia Approves SB 386 The WEST VIRGINIA...

Nevada Approves SB 106 The NEVADA Senate approves SB 106 , which would raise the Silver State minimum wage to $12 per hour by 2022. The measure, which would hike the wage standard by .75 cents every year for the next five years, moves to the Assembly (NEVADA APPEAL [CARSON CITY]). Alabama Approves...

Despite the unusual amount of uncertainty heading into this year’s state legislative sessions, a few of the issues we predicted last December might receive particular attention from lawmakers, such as cybersecurity and transportation funding, have done so. But others, like soda taxes, have stalled...

As SNCJ ’s Rich Ehisen reported last week, some of the issues likely to receive the most attention from state lawmakers next year are those that are already familiar, such as health care, the opioid epidemic and sexual harassment. Here are several more issues that generally fall in that same category...

As of Oct. 30 at least 43 states had introduced over 240 bills and resolutions related to cybersecurity this year, according to analysis of LexisNexis State Net data by the National Conference of State Legislatures. Twenty-seven of those states have enacted bills, and four have adopted resolutions. Among...

SCOTUS LARGELY UPHOLDS CONTESTED TX POLITICAL DISTRICTS In a 5-4 decision last month, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that all but one of the handful of TEXAS legislative districts and both of the congressional districts that a three-judge panel said last summer discriminated against black and Hispanic...

STATES AWARDED MILLIONS IN ACA LAWSUIT A federal court in TEXAS ruled that the federal government improperly charged several states millions of dollars in state Medicaid fees that provide funding for the Affordable Care Act. Under the terms of the ruling, Texas would get $304.7 million back, LOUISIANA...

As of mid-February, 21 states had passed laws streamlining regulations for the deployment of 5G or small-cell technology. In 12 of those states, Republicans controlled both chambers of the legislature and the governor’s office when the laws were enacted. In six others, control of the government...

TX Supreme Court Rules The TEXAS Supreme Court rules that the state does not have to reveal the identity of the manufacturer of the drugs used to carry out executions. Doing so, the court ruled, “would create a substantial threat of physical harm to the source’s employees and others”...

By some accounts, insurance fraud has reached epidemic proportions, costing insurance companies and their policyholders tens of billions of dollars each year. State lawmakers have taken several measures in recent years to combat the problem, but this year they’re stepping up their efforts even...

Although the decennial census is a federal responsibility, with states having so much to gain from an accurate tally, 30 have established committees - either through legislation or executive order - to ensure their populations are fully counted, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures...

As of the start of this year, at least 25 states had passed laws requiring businesses that handle personal data to implement security procedures to protect that information from unauthorized access, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. LexisNexis State Net’s legislative tracking...

At least 189 bills dealing with independent contractors have been introduced in state legislatures this session, according to LexisNexis State Net’s legislative tracking system . Fifty of those measures have been passed by one or both chambers of their originating legislatures, including California’s...

More than 15 million Americans in eight states will likely vote in 2020 on voting machines without any paper backup, despite calls from elections efforts for auditable paper trails in light of known efforts by foreign governments to tinker with U.S. elections. A just released report from New York...

Wyoming has the largest estimated fiscal year 2019 rainy-day fund balance as a percentage of total state expenditures, at 109 percent, according to the National Association of State Budget Officers’ Spring 2019 Fiscal Survey of States . California has the largest FY 2019 rainy-day fund balance...