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2018 United States Elections
The 2018 United States elections were held on Tuesday, November 6, 2018. These midterm elections occurred during Republican Donald Trump's term. Democrats made a net gain of 41 seats in the United States House of Representatives, gaining a majority in the chamber and thereby ending the federal trifecta that the Republican Party had established in the 2016 elections. The Republican Party retained control of the United States Senate, making a net gain of two seats and defeating four Democratic incumbents in states that had voted for Trump in 2016. As a result of the 2018 elections, the 116th United States Congress became the first Congress since the 99th United States Congress ( elected in 1984) in which the Democrats controlled the U.S. House of Representatives and the Republicans controlled the U.S. Senate. This was the first time since 1970 that one party gained Senate seats while losing House seats, which also occurred in 1914, 1962, and 2022. In the state elections, Demo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Midterm Election
Midterm elections in the United States are the general elections that are held near the midpoint of a president's four-year term of office, on Election Day on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November. Federal offices that are up for election during the midterms include all 435 seats in the United States House of Representatives, and 33 or 34 of the 100 seats in the United States Senate. In addition, 34 of the 50 U.S. states elect their governors for four-year terms during midterm elections, while Vermont and New Hampshire elect governors to two-year terms in both midterm and presidential elections. Thus, 36 governors are elected during midterm elections. Many states also elect officers to their state legislatures in midterm years. There are also elections held at the municipal level. On the ballot are many mayors, other local public offices, and a wide variety of citizen initiatives. Special elections are often held in conjunction with regular elections, so ad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Voter Turnout
In political science, voter turnout is the participation rate (often defined as those who cast a ballot) of a given election. This can be the percentage of registered voters, eligible voters, or all voting-age people. According to Stanford University political scientists Adam Bonica and Michael McFaul, there is a consensus among political scientists that "democracies perform better when more people vote." Institutional factors drive the vast majority of differences in turnout rates.Michael McDonald and Samuel Popkin"The Myth of the Vanishing Voter"in American Political Science Review. December 2001. p. 970. For example, simpler parliamentary democracies where voters get shorter ballots, fewer elections, and a multi-party system that makes accountability easier see much higher turnout than the systems of the United States, Japan, and Switzerland. Significance Some parts of society are more likely to vote than others. As turnout approaches 90%, significant differences between v ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Voter Suppression In The United States
Voter suppression in the United States is various legal and illegal efforts to prevent eligible voters from exercising their right to vote. Where found, such voter suppression efforts vary by state, local government, precinct, and election. Voter suppression has historically been used for racial, economic, gender, age and disability discrimination. Before and during the American Civil War, most African-Americans had not been able to vote. After the Civil War, all African-Americans were granted voting rights, causing some Southern Democrats and former Confederate states to institute actions such as poll taxes or language tests that were ostensibly not in contradiction to the U.S. Constitution at the time, but were used to limit and suppress voting access, most notably African American communities that made up large proportions of the population in those areas, but in many regions the majority of the electorate as a whole was functionally or officially unable to register to vot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Russian Interference In The 2018 United States Elections
The United States Intelligence Community concluded in early 2018 that the Russian government was continuing the interfence it started during the 2016 elections and was attempting to influence the 2018 United States mid-term elections by generating discord through social media. Primaries for candidates of parties began in some states in March and would continue through September. The leaders of intelligence agencies have noted that Russia is spreading disinformation through fake social media accounts in order to divide American society and foster anti-Americanism. In 2022, it was reported that a Federal Election Commission investigation had found that American Ethane Company, which had received investments from Russian oligarchs, had contributed Russian money to US political candidates in the 2018 midterm elections, largely in Louisiana. FEC commissioners Ellen Weintraub and Shana M. Broussard criticized the Republicans in the FEC for a "slap on the wrist" civil penalty. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tax Cuts And Jobs Act Of 2017
The Act to provide for reconciliation pursuant to titles II and V of the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2018, , is a congressional revenue act of the United States originally introduced in Congress as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), that amended the Internal Revenue Code of 1986. Major elements of the changes include reducing tax rates for businesses and individuals, increasing the standard deduction and family tax credits, eliminating personal exemptions and making it less beneficial to itemize deductions, limiting deductions for state and local income taxes and property taxes, further limiting the mortgage interest deduction, reducing the alternative minimum tax for individuals and eliminating it for corporations, doubling the estate tax exemption, and cancelling the penalty enforcing individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The Act is based on tax reform advocated by congressional Republicans and the Trump administration. The nonpartisan Co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Affordable Care Act
The Affordable Care Act (ACA), formally known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and colloquially known as Obamacare, is a landmark U.S. federal statute enacted by the 111th United States Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010. Together with the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 amendment, it represents the U.S. healthcare system's most significant regulatory overhaul and expansion of coverage since the enactment of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965. The ACA's major provisions came into force in 2014. By 2016, the uninsured share of the population had roughly halved, with estimates ranging from 20 to 24 million additional people covered. The law also enacted a host of delivery system reforms intended to constrain healthcare costs and improve quality. After it went into effect, increases in overall healthcare spending slowed, including premiums for employer-based insurance plans. The increased coverage was du ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Felony Disenfranchisement
Disfranchisement, also called disenfranchisement, or voter disqualification is the restriction of suffrage (the right to vote) of a person or group of people, or a practice that has the effect of preventing a person exercising the right to vote. Disfranchisement can also refer to the revocation of power or control of a particular individual, community or being to the natural amenity they have; that is to deprive of a franchise, of a legal right, of some privilege or inherent immunity. Disfranchisement may be accomplished explicitly by law or implicitly through requirements applied in a discriminatory fashion, through intimidation, or by placing unreasonable requirements on voters for registration or voting. Based on age Most countries or regions set a minimum voting age, and disenfranchise all citizens younger than this age. The most common voting age is 18, though some countries have minimum voting ages set as young as 16 or as old as 21. Based on residence or ethnicity A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cannabis (drug)
Cannabis, also known as marijuana among other names, is a psychoactive drug from the cannabis plant. Native to Central or South Asia, the cannabis plant has been used as a drug for both recreational and entheogenic purposes and in various traditional medicines for centuries. Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is the main psychoactive component of cannabis, which is one of the 483 known compounds in the plant, including at least 65 other cannabinoids, such as cannabidiol (CBD). Cannabis can be used by smoking, vaporizing, within food, or as an extract. Cannabis has various mental and physical effects, which include euphoria, altered states of mind and sense of time, difficulty concentrating, impaired short-term memory, impaired body movement (balance and fine psychomotor control), relaxation, and an increase in appetite. Onset of effects is felt within minutes when smoked, but may take up to 90 minutes when eaten. The effects last for two to six hours, depending on the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Redistricting Commission
In the United States, a redistricting commission is a body, other than the usual state legislative bodies, established to draw electoral district boundaries. Generally the intent is to avoid gerrymandering, or at least the appearance of gerrymandering, by specifying a nonpartisan or bipartisan body to comprise the commission drawing district boundaries. Nonpartisan or bipartisan commissions as of 2010 Currently, 21 U.S. states have some form of non-partisan or bipartisan redistricting commission. Of these 21 states, 13 use redistricting commissions to exclusively draw electoral district boundaries (see below). A 14th state, Iowa, uses a special redistricting process that uses neither the state legislature nor an independent redistricting commission to draw electoral district boundaries (see below). In 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in '' Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission'' that redistricting commissions such as Arizona's, whose redi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Voter ID Laws In The United States
Voter ID laws in the United States are laws that require a person to provide some form of official identification before they are permitted to register to vote, receive a ballot for an election, or to actually vote in elections in the United States. At the federal level, the Help America Vote Act of 2002 requires a voter ID for all new voters in federal elections who registered by mail and who did not provide a driver's license number or the last four digits of a Social Security number that was matched against government records. Though state laws requiring some sort of identification at voting polls go back to 1950, no state required a voter to produce a government-issued photo ID as a condition for voting before the 2006 elections. Indiana became the first state to enact a strict photo ID law, which was upheld two years later by the U.S. Supreme Court. As of 2021, 36 states have enacted some form of voter ID requirement. Lawsuits have been filed against many of the vo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Medicaid
Medicaid in the United States is a federal and state program that helps with healthcare Health care or healthcare is the improvement of health via the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in people. Health care is delivered by health profe ... costs for some people with limited income and resources. Medicaid also offers benefits not normally covered by Medicare, including nursing home care and personal care services. The main difference between the two programs is that Medicaid covers healthcare costs for people with low incomes while Medicare provides health coverage for the elderly. There are also dual health plans for people who have both Medicaid and Medicare. The Health Insurance Association of America describes Medicaid as "a government insurance program for persons of all ages whose income and resources are insufficient to pay for health care." Medicaid is the largest source ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kyrsten Sinema
Kyrsten Lea Sinema (; born July 12, 1976) is an American politician and former social worker serving as the senior United States senator from Arizona since January 2019. A former member of the Democratic Party, Sinema became an independent in December 2022. She served three terms as a state representative for the 15th legislative district from 2005 to 2011, one term as the state senator for the 15th legislative district from 2011 to 2012, and three terms as the United States representative for the from 2013 to 2019. Sinema began her political career in the Arizona Green Party and rose to prominence for her progressive advocacy, supporting causes such as LGBT rights and opposing the war on terror. She left the Green Party to join the Arizona Democratic Party in 2004 and was elected to a seat in the United States House of Representatives in 2012. After her election, she joined the New Democrat Coalition, the Blue Dog Coalition and the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, ama ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
