“Numerous” legal challenges to state election laws have been filed during the last few weeks and months, a new report from the Congressional Research Service found, generating new judicial interpretations of those laws.
“For example, there have been recent court rulings affecting the laws regulating early voting, voter photo identification (ID) requirements, registration procedures, straight-party voting, and voter rolls. Accordingly, many such laws have been recently invalidated, enjoined, or altered. Others continue to be subject to litigation.”
The current state of affairs was reviewed in Recent State Election Law Challenges: In Brief by legislative attorney L. Paige Whitaker, November 2, 2016.
Another new CRS report discussed pending efforts in Congress to reconfigure Department of Defense partnerships with foreign military services. See Security Cooperation: Comparison of Proposed Provisions for the FY2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), November 1, 2016.
A federal court for the first time upheld the use of the “social cost of carbon” (SCC) in a cost-benefit analysis by a federal agency, another CRS publication observed. The SCC is a monetary estimate of economic damages that are associated with an incremental increase in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. See Courts Evaluate How Federal Agencies Put a Price on Carbon, CRS Legal Sidebar, November 1, 2016.
Other new and updated reports from the Congressional Research Service include the following.
Foreign Aid and the Education Sector: Programs and Priorities, November 2, 2016
Funding and Financing Highways and Public Transportation, November 1, 2016
Extraterritorial Application of American Criminal Law, updated October 31, 2016
America’s affordability problem is bigger than home prices and rents. The best housing policies make it easier to build homes, and recognize how housing connects to other domains.
America’s affordability problem, for instance, is bigger than home prices and rents. How we build affects household costs like insurance and utilities.
As humans expand our geographic reach, encroach on untouched natural territories, and interact more with animal populations, we will encounter novel zoonotic diseases that threaten the human body. The sooner we act to address these risks, the better.
This report serves as a landscape assessment and toolbox from which local governments can negotiate an informed position when it comes to the levers available to them and includes a first-of-its kind analysis of eight executed community benefits agreements.