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MO: Missouri report calls for changes to address racial inequalities
A report commissioned by Democratic Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon following the shooting death of Michael Brown, a black teenager, by a white police officer in Ferguson recommends changes in a variety of areas, in an attempt to address racial inequities highlighted by mass demonstrations over the past year.
KS: Kansas governor links merit pay to state funding of schools
Republican Gov. Sam Brownback says a new formula for funding Kansas’ 286 public school districts should focus on how the districts spend their money, create incentives to shift dollars into classroom instruction and encourage merit pay for teachers.
ME: Maine governor threatens to give environmental powers back to EPA
Republican Gov. Paul LePage, frustrated with “aggressive regulatory overreach” by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over Maine’s tribal waters, has threatened to relinquish key powers granted to the state under the federal Clean Water Act. Maine would be the first state to give such powers back to the federal government.
CA: California climate change bill heads to governor
California lawmakers have sent a scaled-back carbon-emissions reduction bill to Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk. The bill requires the state to increase the proportion of electricity derived from renewable sources and increase efficiency in natural gas and electricity use.
LA: Nearly half of Louisiana lawmakers automatically re-elected
Twenty of 39 Louisiana senators and 49 of 105 House members drew no opponents during the three-day candidate registration period that ended last week. Their names won’t appear on the Oct. 24 ballot because they were deemed “elected unopposed.”
DC: DC growers cultivate marijuana in first legal harvest
With an estimated half-million dollars’ worth of marijuana grown in the District of Columbia’s first legal pot harvest, government officials and police are left dealing with a disconnect between growers and users. The drug is legal in the city, but sales of it are not.
MN: Insurer’s fall could hurt training of Minnesota doctors
The ouster of UCare as an insurer in most of Minnesota’s public health care programs could have an unintended consequence: a squeeze on the training of much-needed family practice doctors in the state.
NY: Leaders of New York anticorruption panel felt governor intervened, prosecutors say
Senior officials of a New York state anticorruption commission shut down last year by Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo have told federal prosecutors they thought he and his staff intervened in its operations in a manner that led them to question the independence of the panel, the prosecutors said in a recent letter.
WY: Wyoming resolution would endorse GMO foods
A Wyoming legislative committee is set to consider a resolution that would endorse genetically modified foods as safe and effectively call on Congress to pass pending legislation specifying that only federal agencies—not individual states—may regulate them.
KY: Kentucky clerk who denied same-sex marriage licenses returns to work
The Kentucky clerk who went to jail rather than issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples returns to work, where her deputies have been issuing the licenses in her absence. Whether the Rowan County clerk, Kim Davis, allows them to continue will determine whether the national controversy over her religious objection to same-sex marriage will wind down.
OK: Four dead in Oklahoma prison fight
Four inmates died and three others remained hospitalized after a fight broke out at a privately owned prison in Oklahoma.
WV: Switch in state employee pay will cost West Virginia millions
The switch to paying West Virginia state employees biweekly rather than twice a month could end up costing the state more than $47 million in increased salary costs and $22.5 million in pension benefits over the next decade, lawmakers were told.
OH: Ohio colleges see advisers as key to meeting results needed for funding
Ohio’s state colleges and universities are turning to academic advisers as key to achieving the results state lawmakers require for state funding, such a graduating more students with degrees and on time.
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