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The Native vote could be especially crucial in Democrat Denise Juneau's bid to become the first American Indian woman in Congress. Juneau, the state's two-term superintendent of schools, is one of nine Native Americans running for Congress, from North Dakota to Arizona. They include two incumbents: Reps. Tom Cole and Markwayne Mullin, both Republicans from Oklahoma.

By most accounts, Juneau will need strong Native American voter turnout to boost her chances of defeating the incumbent, Rep. Ryan Zinke.
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Native Americans weren't given the right to vote until 1924, when the U.S. government granted them citizenship. Even then, states erected obstacles that kept American Indians from the political process. Montana, for one, passed a law decreeing that only property taxpayers could vote. That meant Indians who lived on reservations, and were therefore not subject to state property taxes, had no access to the ballot box. At one time, the state barred polling places on tribal lands.

"Back in the day, there were all these voter suppression laws in place, and now we're just realizing how important it is for us to vote," said Dustin Monroe, who is Blackfeet and Assiniboine and founded Native Generational Change, a Missoula-based group that has registered and mobilized scores of new Native voters.

Martin O’Malley made a stop in Sioux Falls Friday.

O’Malley, former governor of Maryland and former presidential candidate in the 2016 election, spoke at the South Dakota Democratic Convention June 24 for one of his stops across the nation.

He spoke in support of Hillary Clinton, the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party for the 2016 presidential election.

The Argus Leader was able to ask O’Malley a few questions about his message to South Dakotans and uniting the Democratic Party behind Clinton.

Democratic former Sen. Russ Feingold says he still doesn't believe in super PACs. But he's about to start receiving support from one, whether he likes it or not.

The national campaign group For Our Future announced on Friday that it will work in Wisconsin to elect Democratic candidates in 2016 and beyond. The group has two arms: a super PAC and a non-profit issue advocacy group.

Wisconsin is one of five states to see action from the group backed by billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer, his company NextGen Climate and four labor groups: the AFL-CIO, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association.

The Wisconsin operation will work to elect Feingold, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and 8th Congressional District candidate Tom Nelson, and will target a handful of state legislative races as well.

Hillary Clinton has raised more than 70 times as much money from Maryland residents as Donald Trump in the race for the presidency, according to Federal Election Commission data.

Marylanders have given $6 million to Clinton's campaign and $85,633 to Trump's.

Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, has received more than 25,000 donations from Marylanders. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, has yet to reach 300, according to FEC data released this week that covers contributions through May 31.

The most recent FEC filings highlighted Clinton's extensive fundraising advantage nationally. They showed Clinton with $42 million in her campaign account and Trump with $1.3 million.

Buoyed by a confidence in its own exceptionalism, by memories of a great empire and a glorious war, Britain was after all a major power, with a seat on the UN security council, a special relationship with the US, and a Commonwealth. Detached from the continent physically and culturally, it did not need Europe, and showed it by sending a mid-ranking trade official, one Russell Bretherton, to the treaty signing – as an observer.

By the early 1960s, though, Harold Macmillan, the prime minister, had realised the mistake (it’s the trade, stupid) and started making overtures towards Brussels. (Labour, seeing it all as a capitalist plot, was anti: the party’s then leader, Hugh Gaitskell, railed against the loss of “1,000 years of history”.)

But this time the brush-off came from Europe, or more specifically France. In 1963, Charles de Gaulle said “non”. Britain had “very special, very original habits and traditions”, he said, and was “very different from continentals” – it would prove an Anglo-Saxon trojan horse in a European stable.

Faced with such a cruel, if prescient, put-down, Britain, in the shape of poor Macmillan, wept (literally). It was not until 1973, four years after De Gaulle departed, that Britain – by now headed by the convinced European Ted Heath – finally got it together with Europe.

Democrats’ numbers in the House have continually fallen since the chamber flipped six years ago. This year more than ever, however, they’re hopeful that will change — thanks, in large part, to presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump.

“We’re going to win this election,” Clinton told reporters as she emerged from the meeting beside House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). “We’re going to take back the House and the Senate.”

Clinton didn’t stop to answer any questions from press, but at least a dozen members of Congress told The Huffington Post she thinks the House is within reach. (The chances of that are slim, as Republicans hold their largest majority since 1928.)

“She said that ‘I know the difference between having the House and not having the House, and I want the House so I’m going to do everything I can to help,’” Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) said.

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Hillary Clinton pushed back against Donald Trump’s questions about her religion and her competence Wednesday, casting him as a candidate with not much else to say about how he’d lead the nation.
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“Think about it. He’s going after me personally because he has no answers on the substance,” Clinton told supporters at the North Carolina State Fairgrounds in Raleigh. “So all he can try to do is try to distract us. That’s why he’s attacking my faith. Sigh.”
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Earlier, Clinton received a rousing reception from House Democrats in her first stop on Capitol Hill since clinching the Democratic nomination.

Greeted by chants of “Hillary, Hillary,” Clinton promised to use her massive campaign infrastructure to help Democrats win congressional races as part of what she called a “50 state strategy.”

Wintermute says that gun deaths nationally have remained roughly the same in recent years, but have fallen more than 20% in California since 2000. That’s true for both homicides and suicides, he says.

“Why is that?” he asks rhetorically. “What are we doing right? Are we not doing something wrong that’s being done in other states? We need to know.”

We won’t find out from the federal government. The NRA persuaded Congress to kill off federal firearms research two decades ago, arguing the studies amounted to a gun control plot.

Finally, the Legislature last week allocated $5 million to create a firearm violence research center at the University of California, the first such state entity in the nation. Gov. Jerry Brown has promised to OK the budget item.