Politics

U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters’ family members have made more than $1 million in the last eight years by doing business with companies, candidates and causes that the influential congresswoman has helped. In varied ways, they have capitalized on clout she accumulated in a 28-year career as an elected official who built her power base among … Read more

The Reagan Administration told Congress it opposes legislation to require businesses to include coverage in their employee health policies aimed at preventing illnesses in children. Testifying in a Senate Finance subcommittee hearing, J. Roger Mentz, a deputy assistant treasury secretary for tax policy, said the Administration does not believe the tax system should be used … Read more

After 15 years of being largely off the national policy agenda, Social Security came back with a vengeance in 2001. President Bush established the Commission to Strengthen Social Security, giving it a clear mandate to propose a way of incorporating optional individual accounts into the system. Critics denounced the commission as a stacked body and … Read more

‘I do not believe that a majority of Americans actually share our values,” concluded veteran Christian conservative Paul M. Weyrich, after the Senate acquitted President Bill Clinton. His lament, which the right may be debating into the next millennium, raised a significant, if seldom pondered, question about U.S. political history. Can moral crusaders ever succeed … Read more

Proposition 226, the widely watched union dues initiative, appeared headed toward defeat Tuesday night, while Proposition 227, the controversial anti-bilingual education measure was cruising toward victory. Both measures were the focus of national attention and the subject of bruising, multimillion-dollar television advertising blitzes, which appeared to sway voter opinion in the days before the election. … Read more

More than a week after the passage of Proposition 8, activists opposed to the ban on gay marriage have shifted their protests to new arenas — using boycotts to target businesses and individuals who contributed to the winning side. The effect of the boycotts remains unclear. Merchants said that the overall poor economy made it … Read more

There weren’t always strollers jamming the lobby of First Step Home, one of this city’s growing number of drug treatment centers. But as the opioid epidemic has swept through Ohio, mothers with babies and small children have flocked to an aging block of brick homes just outside downtown Cincinnati. “It’s been breathtaking,” said Margo Spence, … Read more

President Biden, accompanied by Vice President Kamala Harris, speaks about his administration’s COVID-19 response in the State Dining Room of the White House on Tuesday. (Associated Press) President Biden said Tuesday that the United States would have enough COVID-19 vaccines by the end of May to inoculate every American adult, two months earlier than previously … Read more

President Trump adjusts the microphone after he announced Judge Amy Coney Barrett as his nominee to the Supreme Court at the White House on Sept. 26. (Alex Brandon / Associated Press) The nomination of Amy Coney Barrett, a conservative Catholic, to the U.S. Supreme Court has ignited an uncomfortable debate about the intersection of religious … Read more

Mayor Jerry Brown, who has projected an unconventional, even enigmatic, persona during 3 1/2 decades of public life, took a traditional step in his private life Saturday, marrying his longtime companion and manager of his upcoming campaign for state attorney general. In a formal and quasireligious civil ceremony orchestrated by Brown himself and attended by … Read more