Free Talk Live

The Republican-controlled Arkansas state Senate approved a bill on Wednesday that would exempt from public disclosure the names and zip codes of gun owners.

Michigan lawmakers approve key parts of hardline anti-abortion law package - Michigan lawmakers have voted in favour of key parts of anti-abortion laws that pro-choice campaigners claim could shut down most abortion clinics in the state. The state's House of Representatives voted by 70 to 39 in favour of the main new piece of proposed legislation on Wednesday, with two more bills still awaiting votes. The law is now set to move to the state's Senate in September and is likely to put Michigan are the forefront of America's battle over abortion rights.

The Senate voted Wednesday to extend for a year key provisions of the nation's counterterrorism surveillance law that are scheduled to expire at the end of the month. In agreeing to pass the bill, Senate Democrats retreated from adding new privacy protections to the USA Patriot Act.

In a radio interview on Thursday with Albany’s WGDJ-AM, New York governor Andrew Cuomo said that he plans to work with state legislators next month to submit a proposal for new gun-control laws; in particular, Cuomo said, “our focus is assault weapons,” because current state laws regulating the weapons “have more holes that Swiss cheese.” Cuomo continued, “Confiscation could be an option. Mandatory sale to the state could be an option. Permitting could be an option — keep your gun but permit it.”

Like many laws passed by the legislature in Sacramento, California's ban on texting while driving has been ... not so effective. The Automobile Club of Southern California on Wednesday announced that texting by Golden State drivers has nearly doubled since the rule went into effect 19 months ago. Young women (4.3 percent of them text while behind the wheel) were the worst offenders, according to the AAA.

One of the better news agencies in Austin has some choice footage showing state legislators casting votes in the place of colleagues who might not even be in the building. Hypocritically, this happened even as the state legislature itself passed laws criminalizing regular folks who vote on behalf another person in general and primary elections. The best part? While the speaker of the House acknowledges that this practice violates the rules of the legislature, but chooses not to enforce the rule.

The right to bear arms as defined in the Second Amendment does not apply to the states, so Massachusetts can regulate who can have firearms and how those weapons are to be stored, the state's high court ruled Wednesday.

California lawmakers have approved billions of dollars in construction financing for the first segment of what would be the nation's first dedicated high-speed rail line, eventually connecting Los Angeles and San Francisco. The state Senate voted 21-16 on a party-line vote Friday after intense lobbying by Gov. Jerry Brown, Democratic leaders and labor groups. The bill authorizes the state to begin selling $2.6 billion in voter-approved bonds to build an initial 130-miles stretch in the Central Valley.

On Thursday, Washington became the first state to officially legalize marijuana, soon to be followed by Colorado as their new laws legalizing the drug for recreational use go into effect. A survey out Friday shows what Americans want the federal government to do about the states whose drug laws clash with national laws: Leave them alone. Fifty-one percent of Americans in the new HuffPost/YouGov poll said that in the two states that have legalized marijuana use for adults, the federal government should exempt any adults following state laws from federal drug law enforcement.