PUBLIC MARKS with search legislators

Congress declared Darfur a genocide in 2004, yet this scorecard shows that a large majority of legislators failed to follow through. Have your members of Congress worked to end genocide?

With this year's New York Senate and Assembly session now ended, local voting activists are chalking up a victory for the public at the expense of Microsoft Corp. and the e-voting industry.

To put it simply, create an account, join a league, draft a team of real U.S. Members of Congress and have fun as you compete to score as many points as possible. As the Members of Congress you drafted put real legislation through the lawmaking process they will score points for your team. Like other sports, Fantasy Congress requires three things: a team, a system of scoring points, and a framework within which players can score. In this game, your team is a group of U.S. National Congress legislators, the legislators score points by pushing bills through the steps to create a law, and the framework within which they play is Congress itself.

State revenues will grow by more than $387 million during the next two years, and Gov. Mark Sanford thinks some of that money should go back to taxpayers. Sanford fought with legislators to have extra revenue returned to taxpayers last session, but mostly lost the battle. Instead, lawmakers chose to restore money slashed from state programs during recent lean budget years as well as spending for projects back in their districts.

Video games aren't just about having fun any more. Some would say that games entertain us, enlighten us, and relax us. They teach problem-solving and allocation of scarce resources. They sharpen minds as well as reflexes. To others, games provoke violent and antisocial behavior. They are a causal factor behind incidents like the Columbine shootings and the Beltway Sniper case. Some claim that video games contribute to obesity in children and expose them to adult-oriented content. Either way, games are also big business, approaching $30 billion in annual sales. In sheer dollar volume, video games have surpassed going to the movies as a leisure activity. With so much money at stake, economic issues find their way onto the business page with increasing regularity. Labor trouble, monopolies, globalization, software piracy and even the virtual economies in online games like World of Warcraft and Second Life appear in the mainstream press with increasing regularity. Politicians are starting to take notice too. Legislation regarding video games has been proposed in an ever-increasing number of cities and states across the nation. Lobbyists on both sides of the issue push agendas with legislators on both sides of the aisle. With so much news happening on a daily basis, it's hard to keep up - until now. GamePolitics.com offers a clearinghouse for politically-oriented news and opinions about video games and the video game business.

Today the Senate Judiciary Committee passed a measure that directly targets certain unions and their members. Many legislators are supporting this blatant attempt to silence the political voice of working families and their unions. If HCR 2003 passes, c

LITTLE ROCK - A bill to increase Arkansas' minimum wage to $6.25 an hour was closer to becoming law Wednesday as legislators largely rejected arguments that a mandated hike could cost the state jobs. The increase from the current $5.15 rate, a 21.4 percen

Little Rock - A compromise has been reached regarding Arkansas' minimum wage. Instead of sending the issue to the voters, legislators will consider a minimum wage increase during a special session. A group known as "Give Arkansas A Raise Now" has been try

Published by Chris Woods March 8th, 2006 in Democrats, Iowa politics, 2006 Governor's Race, Blouin, Mike, Iowa Legislature John Deeth does some tedious work to discover just which state legislators aren’t supporting Mike Blouin (or at least haven’t en

New York is among some 30 states nationwide where labor union-backed legislation has surfaced to require large employers like Wal-Mart to pay for at least minimal health care coverage for employees...

Thursday, March 02, 2006 By HANK HAYES Times-News A group of Tennessee Democratic lawmakers announced Wednesday they would push legislation to raise the minimum wage from $5.15 per hour into the $6 to $7 per hour range...

State Treasurer Richard Moore called on Kinston residents Thursday to push local legislators to increase the state’s minimum wage by $1.

Pennsylvania AFL-CIO President William George joined Lieutenant Governor Catherine Baker Knoll, State Legislators and the members of the “Raise the Minimum Wage Coalition” in calling for an immediate increase in the state’s minimum wage to $6

March 1, 2006 The Legislature has soundly defeated past attempts to tinker with the state's minimum wage, the highest in the nation at $7.63 an hour. Now legislators have decided they don't want to study the issue either. A bill calling for a study

February 28, 2006 By Judith R. Tackett, jtackett@nashvillecitypaper.com Tennessee is one of only six states without a minimum wage law, a fact that state legislators are now addressing. The minimum wage in the state currently follows the national f

Democrats have decided that unless there is an unexpected development in the weeks ahead, they will not launch a major fight to block the Supreme Court nomination of John G. Roberts Jr., according to legislators, Senate aides and party strategists.