The Tenth

July 1st is the day a year of legislation stops being paper and starts governing. This week a wave of new state laws took effect across the country — and in Indiana, one of them meant a household behind on its electric bill could no longer have the power, and the air conditioning, shut off on a day the heat index is forecast to hit 95 degrees. That's House Bill 1002, and it passed with 24 bipartis...

This week the U.S. Senate passed a war powers resolution ordering American forces out of hostilities with Iran, fifty to forty-eight, with four Republicans crossing the aisle. It's the first time such a resolution has cleared the chamber after earlier attempts were voted down. But it's a concurrent resolution, House Concurrent Resolution 86, the kind that passes both chambers without going to the...

This week Hawaii became the first state in the country to bar corporations from spending money to influence elections — a law its own sponsors wrote as a direct challenge to the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision. Governor Josh Green signed it; it takes effect in July 2027, and the state expects a court fight. That set the texture for the whole week: state legislatures building backstops — t...

This week New York became the first state in the country to hit pause on new large data centers — the warehouses of servers powering the AI boom, each drawing electricity by the small city's worth. The legislature passed it by wide margins (Assembly 103-38, Senate 43-17), and wrote in a rule with a direct line to your kitchen table: when a data center needs a costly grid upgrade, the data cent...

By seven votes—215 to 208—the U.S. House voted to order American forces out of the fighting with Iran, the first time a war powers resolution has cleared a chamber in the three months since the conflict began. Four Republicans crossed the aisle to make it happen. It was a week the laboratories of democracy spent drawing the line — the mark that says this far, and no further. In the same seven days...

For a hundred and sixty-five years, Rhode Island's law books have quietly carried the state's 1861 ratification of the Corwin Amendment—a proposed amendment that would have made slavery permanent and beyond the reach of Congress. This week, a bill to repeal that ratification finally got its hearing. It set the tone for the whole week: state legislatures down in the fine print, the clauses and surc...

You know the Sunday shows. Half the hour is a politician dodging the question, the other half, pundits guessing who wins the next election, and none of it ever leaves Washington. The Tenth is the opposite. Same Sunday morning slot, 20 minutes, non-partisan: the bills actually moving through America’s 50 statehouses and Congress, what they do, and what changes for the people who live under them. No...

By four votes—216 to 212—the U.S. House voted to weaken the Clean Air Act for the first time in its 55-year history. The EPA scrapped the first federal limits on four PFAS “forever chemicals,” the Supreme Court narrowed the Voting Rights Act 6-3 in Louisiana v. Callais , and Congress again punted on the Section 702 surveillance program. In Washington this week, the work was demolition. In the stat...

Maryland just became the first state in the country to ban surveillance pricing in food retail. House Bill 895 stops grocery stores and delivery apps from using algorithms or personal data to charge different shoppers different prices for the same gallon of milk—House 100-31, Senate 41-1, signed by Governor Wes Moore on April 28. It happened in the same week the Department of Homeland Security qui...

Florida just redrew its congressional map four years ahead of the next census, flipping its delegation from 20-to-8 Republican to a projected 24-to-4—and three lawsuits were filed within hours of the bill's passage. Two days later, the Wall Street Journal reported the White House is pressuring Southern Republican leaders to redraw their maps mid-decade too. Within 48 hours, twenty-five South Carol...

Two floors moved this week. The federal floor came down. The state floors went up. Maryland became the first state in America to ban surveillance pricing—the practice of using your personal data to charge you a different price than the shopper next to you. Governor Wes Moore signed HB 895 with a 100-31 House vote and a 41-1 Senate vote. Washington banned noncompetes statewide after the FTC walked...

The Senate killed an Iran war powers resolution for the fifth time, voted 50-49 to revoke a 20-year mineral ban next to America's most-visited wilderness, and considered a $200 billion war supplemental. Meanwhile 18 statehouses kept moving: Maine banned medical debt liens (LD 2129), Virginia became the first Southern state with paid family leave (HB 1207), Tennessee passed frontier-AI safety 9...

Congress came one vote short of reining in the president's war powers on Iran. H. Con. Res. 40 failed 213-214 . In the same seven days, six state laws passed that were first in the nation: New Mexico universal child care ; Oregon l etting users sue AI chatbot makers ; Nebraska farm data privacy , Washington banning AI insurance denials and banning 3D-printed ghost-gun blueprints ; and Virginia...