state legislatures

July 29, 2016 - This week 69 state lawmakers from the Carolinas and Georgia, both Democrats and Republicans, sent a letter asking the Obama administration to block seismic testing permits for oil and gas deposits off the East Coast. They joined hundreds of other local communities, elected officials, business groups and scientists opposed to offshore exploration and drilling.

June 17, 2016 - After the June 12 massacre at an Orlando nightclub, some politicians refused to even acknowledge the targets were LGBT people. Could it be because of their own animus toward LGBT people, which has found expression in a record number of anti-LGBT bills introduced in recent years?

May 13, 2016 - Announcing the U.S. Justice Department would sue North Carolina over its anti-transgender "bathroom bill," Attorney General Loretta Lynch noted there's historically been backlash to equality gains. What's been happening in Southern legislatures since the Supreme Court struck down marriage discrimination last year bears that out.

May 4, 2016 - Democrats plan to use Donald Trump's divisive statements to help boost turnout in the 2016 elections and help candidates in down-ballot races. Will it work?

January 14, 2016 - A new report looks at the demographics of state legislatures across the country and finds that in the South they are disproportionately male and more religious. They are also more racially diverse — at least for now.

November 13, 2015 - Republicans may dominate state politics in the South, but Democrats have managed to hold on to the mayorships of the region's biggest cities. There are limits to local control, however — and in recent years GOP state lawmakers have imposed even more.

November 4, 2015 - From Kentucky to Virginia to Mississippi, the GOP's dominance in state-level races across the South continued in this week's elections. Meanwhile, Mississippi voters rejected a school-funding initiative, and an anti-discrimination measure lost big in Houston.