Good morning, it’s Tuesday, April 30, 2024. In today’s edition, Mississippi lawmakers reach Medicaid expansion deal; Alaska House votes to restrict minors on social media; Utah Gov. Cox leads GOP rival by wide margin:
Top Stories
PUBLIC HEALTH: California is partnering with a New Jersey company to buy over-the-counter naloxone nasal spray at a 40% discount, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) office said Monday. The state is buying 3.2 million twin packs to distribute to first responders, universities and community organizations to combat opioid overdoses. (Pluribus News)
MEDICAID: Mississippi House and Senate negotiators unveiled a compromise Medicaid expansion plan minutes before a Monday night deadline. The plan would require new Medicaid recipients to be employed at least 100 hours per month in a job that does not provide private insurance. (Associated Press, Jackson Clarion Ledger)
Republican opponents of the expansion plan don’t believe the Biden administration will approve those work requirements.
SOCIAL MEDIA: The Alaska House approved legislation to ban children under 14 from using social media, and requiring parental consent before 14- and 15-year olds open social media accounts. The bill also requires pornographic websites to verify a user’s age. (Alaska Beacon)
GUN POLITICS: Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) vetoed legislation that would have implemented a ban on so-called bump stocks over concerns that the legislative language is overly broad. Mills allowed another bill to implement a three-day waiting period on gun purchases to become law without her signature. (Maine Public Radio)
MORE: The Minnesota House approved bills requiring gun owners to report a lost or stolen firearm to law enforcement within 48 hours, and requiring firearms to be stored safely. The House passed a bill prohibiting straw purchases of firearms and banning binary triggers, which allow regular firearms to become automatic. (Minneapolis Star Tribune)
The fate of those bills in the Senate is in question after Sen. Nicole Mitchell (D) was charged last week with burglary. Senate Democrats defeated Republican efforts to bar her from voting, which would have meant a tied Senate, 33-33.
LGBTQ RIGHTS: Republican attorneys general are challenging a new federal regulation seeking to protect the rights of transgender students by banning policies that bar students from bathrooms that align with their gender identity. Attorneys general from Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi and Montana sued in federal court in Louisiana to block changes to Title IX. (Associated Press)
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has ordered the state Education Agency to ignore the new rule. (Texas Tribune)
MORE: The Kansas House narrowly failed to override Gov. Laura Kelly’s (D) veto of a bill banning gender-affirming care for transgender minors. (Associated Press)
ABORTION: The Kansas legislature overrode two Kelly vetoes of measures restricting abortion access. One law would require health care providers to ask women why they are seeking an abortion. The other criminalizes coercing pregnant women into obtaining an abortion. (Kansas City Star)
In Politics & Business
UTAH: Yesterday, we told you Gov. Spencer Cox (R) lost the state Republican Party’s endorsement to state Rep. Phil Lyman (R). A new poll from Noble Predictive Insights, conducted before the convention, shows Cox is doing just fine: He leads the GOP field with 51%. Lyman takes just 4%.
MORE: Lyman’s choice for running mate, Layne Bangerter (R), is ineligible to run for office because he was an Idaho resident until 2021, according to a ruling by a top state official. The state constitution requires candidates for top offices to have been an Utah resident for five years. Lyman’s campaign filed two lawsuits seeking to get Bangerter on the ballot. (Salt Lake Tribune)
DELAWARE: Gov. John Carney (D) is term-limited, but he’s got one more campaign in him: Carney filed on Monday to run for mayor of Wilmington. He’ll face former state Treasurer Velda Jones-Potter (D) in the Democratic primary. (Delaware Public Media)
MISSOURI: The state House Ethics Committee voted to dismiss an ethics complaint against Speaker Dean Plocher (R) for allegedly misusing taxpayer dollars and influencing a no-bid contract. Committee chair Hannah Kelly (R) alleged Plocher obstructed the investigation, which he denies. (Associated Press)
OREGON: An Do, Gov. Tina Kotek’s (D) communications director, resigned her position last week, the latest in a string of senior staff departures. Kotek has lost her chief of staff, special advisor and deputy chief of staff in the space of about a month. (Willamette Week)
Emails uncovered by Willamette Week show the earlier departures came after staffers raised ethics and legal concerns over the growing role of Kotek’s wife, First Lady Aimee Kotek Wilson.
By The Numbers
4,785,137: The number of 33 year-olds in America, the most common single year of age. By contrast, there are only 3,611,883 two-year-olds in America, as the nation ages and fewer babies are born. (Pluribus News)
$150 million: The amount the U.S. Postal Service lost out on in a fake stamp scheme, according to federal prosecutors. A Walnut, Calif., woman faces ten years in prison after pleading guilty to fraud charges that she shipped more than 34 million parcels with fake postage. (Sacramento Bee)
Off The Wall
Hawaii House and Senate negotiators have reached a compromise on legislation naming the shaka the official state hand gesture. The gesture traces back to 1912, when a sugar mill worker who had lost his three middle fingers in an industrial accident would wave with his pinky and thumb. (Hawaii News Now)
Joke no. 1: Why did it take a conference committee to negotiate the bill?!? Joke no. 2: Imagine what the official state hand gesture of, say, New Jersey would be.
California Sens. Josh Newman (D) and Janet Nguyen (R) are no fans of CLEAR. The legislators have introduced a bill to require the expedited airport security firm to establish its own TSA security lane. TSA agents and flight attendant unions back the bill, while major airlines — who get revenue from CLEAR — oppose it. (Las Vegas Review-Journal)
Galena, a 6-year-old cat, has been reunited with her family after she was inadvertently packaged up in an Amazon return box. The cat made it 630 miles from her home in Levi, Utah, to an Amazon warehouse in Riverside, Calif., before being discovered. (Los Angeles Times)
Quote of the Day
“He has his shine back, and I have to say, he is looking sharp.”
— Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee (D), welcoming Independent Man, the 14-foot tall gold leaf statue that sits atop the state Capitol building after repairs and cleaning. (Boston Globe)