Politics

Facing its most explosive political scandal in recent years, the House appeared ready Thursday night to authorize disclosure of banking records for 355 current and former members of Congress who wrote at least one bad check against the House bank during a recent 39-month period. The decision could prove politically fatal in November to an … Read more

In the end, the decision came down to two candidates and one issue. The candidates were David H. Souter of New Hampshire and Edith H. Jones of Texas. And the issue, according to officials involved in the process of picking the next justice of the Supreme Court, was not abortion, but politics–did President Bush want … Read more

As high-ranking Republicans sprang to President Bush’s defense Monday over questions about his stint in the Texas Air National Guard, dueling comparisons about military service appeared poised to become a staple of the general election. Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe began the latest verbal spat, by saying on ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos” … Read more

Hillary Clinton is joined by Lilly Ledbetter, right, and several Democratic lawmakers in Manchester, N.H. (Matt Rourke / Associated Press) Hillary Clinton is way behind in New Hampshire, and she is running there like a candidate prepared to cede the first-in-the-nation primary. As polls show Sen. Bernie Sanders continuing to hold a sizable lead here, … Read more

Maria Eugenia Torres Ramirez has lived in Los Angeles since she arrived in the United States in 2021 as an asylum seeker. Torres Ramirez fled Venezuela after being targeted as an activist who opposed the government of President Nicolas Maduro and obtained Temporary Protected Status in the U.S. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times) … Read more

In a setback for parents seeking child support, the Supreme Court ruled Monday that the nation’s welfare law does not give them a “federal right” to government help in obtaining the payments they are owed. Since 1975, Congress has paid states and counties to collect child support from so-called “deadbeat dads,” but the program has … Read more

An election worker in Santa Ana with a stack of absentee ballots. A new California state law will shift millions more voters to casting ballots by mail as soon as next year. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times) For all of the intriguing ideas about improving California elections, there was one undeniable truth at a … Read more

President Obama and Hillary Clinton at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) On Tuesday night, former President Bill Clinton spent more than 40 minutes, and covered four decades, attempting to humanize his wife, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. A day later, President Obama did it in three seconds, with … Read more

Senator-elect Kamala Harris, center, speaks with Long Beack Mayor Robert Garcia, left, and Angelica Salas of the Coalition for Humane Immigration Rights of Los Angeles during a meeting with immigrant families and activists on Nov. 10. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) Newly elected U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris said she’s already been in contact with … Read more

Most of us associate Thurgood Marshall with the long struggle for rights for African-Americans–with his two decades of leadership of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, his victories against restrictive covenants in housing and school segregation, especially his great victory of advocacy in Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954. But it is a mistake to … Read more