Governors | featured news

A spokesman for the National Guard Association of the United States told The State that Michael Haley may be the first spouse of a sitting governor to be deployed into a combat zone. Nikki Haley, 40, is a Republican who assumed office in 2011. She has been discussed as a potential vice presidential pick for Mitt Romney and hit the campaign trail days ago for the presumptive GOP nominee.

Following pleas from victims' relatives and others, politicians and some journalists are refraining from naming the Colorado theater shooting suspect. Facing an audience of thousands gathered to remember victims of the deadly theater shooting here, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper made a strategic choice: He didn't mention the suspect's name.

California will become home to the nation's first truly high-speed rail system after Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law authorizing funding for its first leg. But California is broke, so how will they pay for it?

Gov. Rick Perry joined one other Republican governor and several GOP advisers in saying presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney should release his tax returns because transparency works best. “I’m a big believer that no matter who you are or what office you’re running for, you should be as transparent as you can be with your tax returns and other aspects of your life,” Perry said.

"You are still paying for that coverage expansion but not getting the benefit of it," said Herb Kuhn, president of the Missouri Hospital Association. "So you as a state are exporting your dollars to another state. If you have some adjoining state that accepts (the Medicaid expansion) then you are basically sending your dollars to your neighbor."

Health-care reform. Same-sex marriage. Illegal immigration. The social safety net. When it comes to some of the top issues facing the states, it might seem that the partisan divide among the country’s governors is as wide as it has ever been.

Democrats say the extra federal money attached to the expansion will prove too good for most governors to pass up, especially as Medicaid and other healthcare costs continue to soar... "My guess is that they will beat up the president for passing a great bill until he's re-elected and then join up and take the money because they know it's the best thing for their states," he told Reuters.

Texas Governor Rick Perry said on Monday his state will not implement an expansion of the Medicaid program for the poor or create a health insurance exchange, leaving the state with the highest percentage of people without health insurance outside President Barack Obama's signature law.

A 96-year-old former Arizona governor and former U.S. diplomat says he holds no grudges against the U.S. Border Patrol agents who he says detained him at a checkpoint for more than a half-hour in stifling heat after his pacemaker apparently set off a radiation sensor.

If governors opt their states out of the health law’s Medicaid expansion — as many are now threatening to do — it’s the poorest Americans who would find themselves getting the rawest deal.