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Wayne Smith (Texas Politician)
Richard Wayne Smith, commonly known as Wayne Smith, (born August 17, 1943) is a former seven-term Republican member of the Texas House of Representatives for District 128. He was first elected in November 2002 and served until January 2017. On May 24, 2016, Smith was unseated by 23 votes in the Republican runoff election by Briscoe Cain, 3,050 (50.2%) to 3,027 (49.8%). Political life Elections In the 2016 Republican Primary, held on March 1, Smith had two challengers—Briscoe Cain and Melody McDaniel. Smith received 43.75% of the vote and Cain received 47.83%, resulting in a runoff. In the runoff election, held on May 24, Smith lost to Briscoe Cain by 23 votes − 3,050 (50.2%) to 3,027 (49.8%). Smith sought a recount. The vote count was unchanged after the recount. House Committee assignments In 2015, Texas Speaker of the House Joe Straus appointed Smith as chairman of the House Licensing and Administrative Procedures Committee. Smith also currently sits as well on the Cult ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Texas House Of Representatives
The Texas House of Representatives is the lower house of the bicameral Texas Legislature. It consists of 150 members who are elected from single-member districts for two-year terms. There are no Term limits in the United States, term limits. The House meets at the Texas State Capitol, State Capitol in Austin, Texas, Austin. Leadership The leadership for the 89th Legislature is as follows: The Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, Speaker of the House is the presiding officer and highest-ranking member of the House. The Speaker's duties include maintaining order within the House, recognizing members during debate, ruling on procedural matters, appointing members to the various #Committees, committees and sending bills for committee review. The Speaker pro tempore is primarily a ceremonial position, but does, by long-standing tradition, preside over the House during its consideration of local and consent bills. Unlike other State legislature (United States), state leg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Non-partisan
Nonpartisanship, also known as nonpartisanism, is a lack of affiliation with a political party and a lack of political bias. While an ''Oxford English Dictionary'' definition of ''partisan'' includes adherents of a party, cause, person, etc., in most cases, nonpartisan refers specifically to political party connections rather than being the strict antonym of "partisan". Canada In Canada, the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories and the Legislative Assembly of Nunavut are the only bodies at the provincial/territorial level that are currently nonpartisan; they operate on a consensus government system. The autonomous Nunatsiavut Assembly operates similarly on a sub-provincial level. India In India, the Jaago Re! One Billion Votes campaign was a non-partisan campaign initiated by Tata Tea, and Janaagraha to encourage citizens to vote in the 2009 Indian general election. The campaign was a non-partisan campaign initiated by Anal Saha. United States Histo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Volunteer Fire Department
A volunteer fire department (VFD) is a fire department of volunteers who perform fire suppression and other related emergency services for a local jurisdiction. Volunteer and retained (on-call) firefighters are expected to be on call to respond to emergency calls for long periods of time, and are summoned to the fire station when their services are needed. They are also expected to attend other non-emergency duties as well (training, fundraising, equipment maintenance, etc.). Volunteer firefighters contrast with paid firefighters who work full or part-time and receive a salary. Some volunteer firefighters may be part of a combination fire department that employs both full-time and volunteer firefighters. On-call firefighters who receive some pay for their work are known as call firefighters in the United States, and retained firefighters in the United Kingdom and Ireland. International The earliest firefighting organizations were made up of volunteers. The first large ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Equal Pay For Women
Equal pay for equal work is the concept of labour rights that individuals in the same workplace be given equal pay. It is most commonly used in the context of sexual discrimination, in relation to the gender pay gap. Equal pay relates to the full range of payments and benefits, including basic pay, non-salary payments, bonuses and allowances. Some countries have moved faster than others in addressing equal pay. Early history As wage labor became increasingly formalized during the Industrial Revolution, women were often paid less than their male counterparts for the same labor, whether for the explicit reason that they were women or under another pretext. The principle of equal pay for equal work arose at the same part of first-wave feminism, with early efforts for equal pay being associated with nineteenth-century Trade Union activism in industrialized countries: for example, a series of strikes by unionized women in the UK in the 1830s. Pressure from Trade Unions has had varied ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abortion
Abortion is the early termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus. Abortions that occur without intervention are known as miscarriages or "spontaneous abortions", and occur in roughly 30–40% of all pregnancies. Deliberate actions to end a pregnancy are called induced abortion, or less frequently "induced miscarriage". The unmodified word ''abortion'' generally refers to induced abortion. Common reasons for having an abortion are birth-timing and limiting family size. Other reasons include maternal health, an inability to afford a child, domestic violence, lack of support, feelings of being too young, wishing to complete an education or advance a career, or not being able or willing to raise a child conceived as a result of rape or incest. When done legally in industrialized societies, induced abortion is one of the safest procedures in medicine. Modern methods use medication or surgery for abortions. The drug mifepristone (aka RU-4 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Texas Senate Bill 5
Texas House Bill 2 (HB2) is a bill within the Eighty-third Texas Legislature, first introduced into the Texas Senate as Texas Senate Bill 5 (SB5) on June 11, 2013, related to abortion rights within the state. Among provisions include banning abortions 20 weeks post-fertilization, and mandating that doctors practicing abortions must have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. SB5 was heavily criticized by state Democrats, and passage during a special session in the Texas Senate was blocked by a filibuster by Senator Wendy Davis by the end of the legislative term at the end of June. Governor Rick Perry created a second special session, in which the failed SB5 was reintroduced within the Texas House of Representatives as HB2, and eventually passed both Houses and signed into law by Gov. Perry on July 18, 2013. The law faced immediate legal scrutiny, and in July 2016, the United States Supreme Court held some parts of the law to be unconstitutional in its decision on '' Whole Woma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Term Limits
A term limit is a legal restriction on the number of Term of office, terms a Incumbent, person may serve in a particular elected office. When term limits are found in Presidential system, presidential and Semi-presidential republic, semi-presidential systems they act as a method of curbing the potential for monopoly, where a leader effectively becomes "president for life". Term limits may be a lifetime limit on the number of terms an officeholder may serve, or a limit on the number of consecutive terms. According to a 2020 analysis, nearly one in four incumbents who face term limits seek to circumvent the term limits through various strategies, including constitutional amendments, working with the judiciary to reinterpret the term limits, let a placeholder govern for the incumbent, and cancelling or delaying elections. History Europe Term limits date back to Ancient Greece and the Roman Republic, as well as the Republic of Venice. In ancient Athenian democracy, many officeholders ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Obamacare
The Affordable Care Act (ACA), formally known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) and informally as Obamacare, is a landmark U.S. federal statute enacted by the 111th United States Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010. Together with amendments made to it by the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010, it represents the U.S. healthcare system's most significant regulatory overhaul and expansion of coverage since the enactment of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965. Most of the act remains in effect. The ACA's major provisions came into force in 2014. By 2016, the uninsured share of the population had roughly halved, with estimates ranging from 20 to 24 million additional people covered. The law also enacted a host of delivery system reforms intended to constrain healthcare costs and improve quality. After it came into effect, increases in overall healthcare spending slowed, including premiums for employer-bas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Empower Texans
Empower Texans was a conservative advocacy group in Texas that was active from 2006 to 2020. It was affiliated with Texans for Fiscal Responsibility, which was later spun off into its own organization. Empower Texans was based in Austin with operations in Dallas, Houston, and Midland. Empower Texans focused on fiscal conservatism by supporting lower taxes and spending restraint. It operated in Republican state-level politics in Texas, targeting candidates whom the group views as insufficiently conservative in Republican primaries. History Empower Texans was formed in 2006 by businessman Tim Dunn. Dunn was the group's primary financial contributor. Dan and Farris Wilks were also major donors to Empower Texans. The group was described as Tea Party-aligned. In 2014, Empower Texans CEO Michael Quinn Sullivan was fined by the Texas Ethics Commission after the agency alleged that he had failed to register as a lobbyist starting in 2010. Sullivan said his activities were best descr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Americans For Prosperity
Americans for Prosperity (AFP), founded in 2004, is a Libertarian conservatism, libertarian conservative political advocacy group in the United States affiliated with brothers Charles Koch and the late David Koch. As the Koch family's primary political advocacy group, it has been viewed as one of the most influential American conservative organizations. After the 2009 inauguration of President Barack Obama, AFP helped transform the Tea Party movement into a political force. It organized significant opposition to Obama administration initiatives such as global warming regulation, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the expansion of Medicaid, and economic stimulus. It helped turn back emissions trading, cap and trade, the major environmental proposal of Obama's first term. AFP advocated for limits on the collective bargaining rights of Public-sector trade unions in the United States, public-sector trade unions and for right-to-work laws and opposed raising the federal mi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Medicaid Expansion
Under the public healthcare policy of the United States, some people have incomes too high to qualify in their state of residence for Medicaid, the public health insurance plan for those with limited resources, but too low to qualify for the premium tax credits that would subsidize the purchase of private health insurance. These people are described as falling into the Medicaid coverage gap. The 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA) aimed to ensure universal health care through a number of mechanisms. It expanded Medicaid by raising the income threshold for eligibility to 138 percent of the federal poverty line (FPL) among nonelderly adults. For those with income above the FPL who do not receive affordable health insurance from an employer, the ACA established premium tax credits that would subsidize the cost of buying private insurance through health insurance marketplaces. State participation in Medicaid is theoretically voluntary, although all states have participated since ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Journalist
A journalist is a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This is called journalism. Roles Journalists can work in broadcast, print, advertising, or public relations personnel. Depending on the form of journalism, "journalist" may also describe various categories of people by the roles they play in the process. These include reporters, correspondents, citizen journalists, Editorial board, editors, Editorial board, editorial writers, columnists, and photojournalists. A reporter is a type of journalist who researches, writes and reports on information in order to present using source (journalism), sources. This may entail conducting interviews, information-gathering and/or writing articles. Reporters may split their time between working in a newsroom, from home or outside to witness events or interview people. Reporters may be assigned a specific Beat reporting, beat (area of cov ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
