Bill designed to standardize federal-election mail-in ballots heads to the House floor

Best listening experience is on Chrome, Firefox or Safari. Subscribe to Federal Drive’s daily audio interviews on Apple Podcasts or PodcastOne. A bill meant to standardize mail-in ballots for federal elections is heading to the House floor. The Vote-by-Mail Tracking Act would help the Postal Service manage a rise in mail-in voting by requiring all mail-in ballots to include a scannable barcode. The bill made it out of the House Oversight and Reform Committee with a bipartisan majority vote. An earlier version of the bill has a provision to reimburse state and local…

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Bill Would Block Taxpayer Funding of Teachers Unions

U.S. taxpayers’ money would not help finance teachers unions if the House passes a bill introduced this week by Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas.  “Corrupt teachers unions sold out our kids when they lined Democrat politicians’ pockets with campaign contributions to keep students out of the classroom, and later to force masking, despite clear evidence that these decisions were harmful to kids’ educational and developmental growth,” Jackson said in a prepared statement.   Teachers unions have “pushed a radical and inappropriate curriculum which seeks to indoctrinate our students with a woke,…

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House-Passed ‘Right to Contraception’ Bill Creates Problems, Doesn’t Solve Them

The Left has pushed a radical pro-abortion agenda across the country ever since the Supreme Court’s June 24 decision to correct a grave error by overturning Roe v. Wade and abortion on demand. In the states, the Left has responded to the high court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization by promoting taxpayer-funded abortion “tourism,” flouting state abortion laws, and seeking  to enshrine so-called abortion rights in state constitutions. At the federal level, the Biden administration announced executive actions to promote abortion and abortion travel, particularly under the…

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Manchin ends pipeline push, easing path for spending bill

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin has abandoned, for now, his push to speed up the permitting process for energy projects, easing the Senate’s path toward passing a stopgap spending bill that would keep the federal government running when the fiscal year ends at midnight Friday. A procedural vote Tuesday advancing the funding bill succeeded easily, 72-23, after Democrats announced that the West Virginia senator’s proposal would be stripped from the final legislation. It was clear that, with Manchin’s plan included, Democrats were falling far short of the 60…

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Senate Dems ‘pushing to follow suit’ after House passes bill to block any future Schedule F

The Preventing a Patronage System Act cleared the full House in a vote of 225-204, showcasing an effort to prevent the possible return of the Trump-era Schedule F executive order. The bill would prohibit future White House administrations from creating any new federal job classification without congressional approval, but the timing on the Senate’s version of the legislation remains uncertain. Senate Democrats, led by Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), introduced a companion bill in August and applauded the passage of the bill in the House on Sept. 15. The lawmakers added…

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Senate Democrats clear procedural hurdle on marquee tax and spending bill

Senate Democrats on Saturday cleared a key procedural hurdle on the path toward passing their $ 740 billion health care, climate, tax and spending package, setting up a significant win for the party after months of tense back-and-forth over the cornerstone bill in President Biden’s long-stalled legislative agenda. The Washington Times stories: White House

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