Since the recent shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, and at the Clackamas Town Center in Portland, much has been said about gun control and gun rights. Here’s a small sampling of what’s come across my desk: The…

Legislators introduced a bill today that would settle the argument about whether duplicate signatures on a Vancouver light rail petition should be invalidated along with their original signatures. Earlier this month, Clark County officials invalidated the signatures of 19 people…

The proposal didn’t get anywhere during her first term, but U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Camas, has reintroduced a bill that would cut the salaries of Congress members, the president and the vice president by 10 percent. “We’re past due…

Do you have a gripe about federal spending? Or maybe a suggestion? Democratic U.S. Sen. Patty Murray wants to know. Earlier this week she launched a web page that allows constituents to tell her, through filling out a series of…

It was huge news when it broke earlier this week: the Pentagon is ending its policy that excludes women from the front lines of combat. When reached for comment about this policy change, U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Camas, said…

A bill that would require physicians to notify parents when a daughter, 17 or younger, is going to get an abortion has strong support from conservatives in the Senate. Opponents of the bill say it’s written in a way that…

If Democrats want to win future elections in Clark County, they need to focus on registering more people to vote in the Democratic-leaning 49th Legislative District, and increase voter turnout, a defeated Joe Tanner said last week during a meeting…

Ridgefield Republican Joe Zarelli might have resigned from the state Senate in May, but one of his policy ideas was a topic of talk at last week’s press briefing on the 2013 legislative session. That topic: increasing the amount the…

And now, a dispatch from Lucas Wiseman, The Columbian’s new intern covering the 2013 Washington Legislature: OLYMPIA — Six Clark County residents on Thursday morning helped protest against what they say are poor safety conditions for prison employees, shouting “Teamster…

In the aftermath high-profile shootings at the Clackamas mall and at an elementary school in Connecticut, several legislators from Clark County say they expect to have difficult discussions in the upcoming legislative session about preventing those acts of violence. State…