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(KUTV) On Wednesday the U.S. Senate voted to repeal gun control regulations on those with mental illness from getting firearms.

The Obama administration rule strengthened the federal background check system for those who receive disability benefits and have mental disorders. Some 75,000 people are affected by the rule.

The measure will now be send to President Donald Trump who is expected to sign it.

Here in Utah, a surprising reaction from top democratic law makers. They are actually in favor of Washington lawmakers appealing the rule.

"I'm concerned when you look at due process," said Democratic Leader, Rep. Brian King. He believes the current regulation is just too broad, targeting all mentally ill individuals.

"There are a lot of folks who are mentally ill and who are absolutely at no greater risk for violence or for offenses involving guns then anybody else," King said.

And Democrat Rep. Sandra Hollins, who fights for tougher gun restrictions and is a licensed clinical social worker, agrees. The rule was just too broad.

"Just because you are mentally ill, it doesn't mean your going to automatically walk in a place with a gun and start shooting," Hollins said.

But Matt Anselmo, with LDS Democrats of America, said it's a mistake to be appealing the current Obama regulation.

"It does a fair job of getting guns out of the hands of people who are mentally challenged," said Anselmo. "These are the type of individuals we are trying to protect society from having weapons."

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Some local Democrat leaders favor repealing Obama's mental health gun regulation - KUTV 2News

Democrat Jennifer Carroll Foy has entered the race for the 2nd District seat in the Virginia House of Delegates.

Foy is the second Democrat to launch a bid for the seat, which represents Stafford and Prince William counties. She will face Democrat Josh King, who narrowly lost to two-term Republican Del. Mark Dudenhefer in 2015, in the June primary.

Many issues important to me and the constituents in second district are not being advocated for in Richmond, she said. There are a lot of national, broad picture issues and not enough focus on the things affecting people on a daily basis.

Foy lives with her husband, Jeff, in Woodbridge. She works as a public defender, and is also an adjunct professor at Northern Virginia Community College.

She is running on a platform that emphasizes education, womens rights and transportation.

As a daily commuter to Arlington, she has experienced first-hand the effects of traffic congestion and long commute times on families and businesses. She said traffic issues should not be tolerated as a consequence of living in Northern Virginia, and that the situation demands a solution.

Whether it is fighting to get the Metro down to Potomac Mills or using Virginia Department of Transportation dollars to extend HOV lanes past Stafford, there has to be a solution to traffic congestion in Northern Virginia, she said.

In addition, she advocates the availability of early childhood education for everyone, and supports pay increases for teachers as a key mechanism to attract and retain top talent. She also champions a womans right to make choices regarding her education, career and health.

Foy has tried to lead by example. She attended Virginia Military Institute, and became one of the first female African Americans to graduate from the historically all-male college. She went on to receive her masters degree in English from Virginia State University and later attended law school in San Diego.

After graduation, she spent several years teaching and then worked in Los Angeles as a litigation associate. Eventually, she moved back to Virginia and opened up a private practice, which focused on criminal defense. She also served in Richmond as a magistrate judge for several years.

Outside of work, Foy has been a foster parent for past eight years. She is very passionate about fostering and assisting children.

I have dedicated my life to public service and fought for the rights of the most vulnerable people in our society, whether it is children or the mentally ill or indigent, she said. I have campaigned for national and local leaders who have promoted issues important to us as a community. Now I want to campaign for myselfI want to be that voice and advocate. I have the ability to effectuate change.

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Democrat Jennifer Carroll enters race for Second District seat - Fredericksburg.com

Rep. Ami Bera (D-Calif.) is the new ranking member of the House space subcommittee. Credit: Office of Rep. Bera

WASHINGTON House Democrats have named Rep. Ami Bera (D-Calif.) as the new ranking member of the space subcommittee as they finalized the roster of members who will serve on that subcommittee.

Bera, entering his third term in the House, succeeds Donna Edwards, a Maryland Democrat who previous served as the top Democrat on the subcommittee. Edwards chose not to run for reelection to the House in 2016, unsuccessfully running for the Senate instead.

As a kid who grew up during the height of the space race dreaming of what lay beyond us, its an honor to be selected to serve as the ranking member for the subcommittee on space, Bera, 51, said in a Feb. 14 statement about his selection as subcommittee ranking member. His district, which covers part of the Sacramento area, includes a major Aerojet Rocketdyne facility.

The Democratic caucus of the House Science Committee named seven other members to the space subcommittee in the statement. The members feature a mix of returning subcommittee members and new members, including Rep. Bill Foster (D-Ill.), the only physicist currently in Congress; and Rep. Charlie Crist (D-Fla.), who previously served two terms as governor of Florida as a member of the Republican party.

The Republican leadership of the House Science Committee announced subcommittee assignments in January. Rep. Brian Babin (R-Texas), whose district includes NASAs Johnson Space Center, returns as chairman of the subcommittee. Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), whose district includes NASAs Marshall Space Flight Center, will again be vice-chairman of the subcommittee.

Complete rosters of the space subcommittee are below:

Republicans: Brian Babin, Texas, Chair Mo Brooks, Alabama, Vice Chair Dana Rohrabacher, California Frank D. Lucas, Oklahoma Bill Posey, Florida Jim Bridenstine, Oklahoma Stephen Knight, California Barbara Comstock, Virginia Ralph Lee Abraham, Louisiana Daniel Webster, Florida Jim Banks, Indiana Andy Biggs, Arizona Neal P. Dunn, Florida Clay Higgins, Louisiana

Democrats: Ami Bera, California, Ranking Member Zoe Lofgren, California Don Beyer, Virginia Marc Veasey, Texas Daniel Lipinski, Illinois Ed Perlmutter, Colorado Charlie Crist, Florida Bill Foster, Illinois

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Bera new top Democrat on House space subcommittee - SpaceNews - SpaceNews

BY JOEL CONNELLY, SEATTLEPI.COM

Photo: Patrick Colvin, Flickr Editorial/Getty Images

A Democrat is out of the block in contest to control the Legislature

A senior deputy King County Prosecutor, running as a Democrat, is early out of the block in a high stakes 2017 race that will decide control of the Washington State Senate, and with it the Washington Legislature.

Manka Dhingra will run for the Senate from the 45th District, an Eastside district held by Republican State Sen. Andy Hill until his death last year. The seat is being filled temporarily by two-time GOP gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi.

The stakes are simple: Power.

The Senate currently holds 24 Republicans, one renegade Democrat who votes with the GOP -- and gives Republicans control of the Legislature's upper chamber -- and 24 Democrats. The State House of Representatives has a narrow 50-48 Democratic majority.

If Democrats win in the 45th, a district easily carried by Hillary Clinton last year, they take control of the Legislature.

The Dhingra candidacy was rolled out Monday by Northwest Passage Consulting, in political boilerplate prose. The candidate was quoted as saying: "I am a working mom who sits in traffic every day. I appreciate that dynamic growth of our economy comes with challenges to our quality of life."

The candidate, however, is better than that. She has worked in mental health and violence prevention, and co-founded Chaya, a non-profit that works to reduce systemic violence in the Puget Sound area's growing Asian communities.

Dhingra is a past recipient of the State PSTA Golden Acorn Award. She is the mother of two children who attend Redmond Middle School and Redmond High School.

"I anticipate there will be other candidates that enter the race," said Andrew Villeneuve, head of the Northwest Progressive Institute and an active Democrat in the 45h District.

The Democrats made a major 2014 effort in the Kirkland-Redmond district, but Hill's local popularity was impossible to overcome. Hill had in one Senate term become Republicans' chief Olympia budget writer.

As well, a big chunk of money from California's "green" billionaire Tom Steyer was invested in the 45th District, only to disappear without being seen by Democrats working at the grass roots level. In the meantime, Hill raised nearly $900,000 for his reelection campaign.

Dhingra chairs King County's Therapeutic Alternative Unit, where she oversees the Regional Mental Health Court, Veterans Court and the Community Assessment and Referral for Diversion program.

The first hint that Republicans fear her came in an email blast less than 90 minutes after Dhingra's announcement.

A Republican website called Shift Washington, started by dead enders from Rob McKenna's 2012 gubernatorial campaign, responded with name-calling boilerplate of its own. It described Dhingra as a "radical leftist with values that don't come close to filling the district she claims to want to represent."

It's a curious statement to make about a senior prosecutor (working under a Republican boss), active in her children's schools, whose husband is a Distinguished Engineer at SpaceX and formerly a Microsoft executive.

Boilerplate can grate on the intelligence, and the Redmond-Kirkland area is populated by some of the state's most educated voters.

They'll expect more than "working mom" and laugh at "radical leftist." But they will not likely find enlightenment in consultant-crafted direct mailings.

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A Democrat is out of the block in contest to control the Legislature - seattlepi.com

Sara Townsend, a Fauquier County middle school teacher, is starting down the road to hopefully another crack at unseating longtime Del. Scott Lingamfelter, R-31st District.

The Democrat announced Feb. 13 that shell be running for her partys nomination to challenge the eight-term incumbent for the second straight election cycle. In 2015, Townsend lost out on the chance to represent parts of Prince William and Fauquier counties by roughly 7 percent, a total of about 1,200 votes.

As a middle school civics teacher, I've seen firsthand the challenges we face in Virginia's public schools," Townsend said in a statement. I want to bring a fresh perspective to Richmond. It's time for new ideas in the House of Delegates and I want to fight for our schools and for good paying jobs here in the 31st."

According to Townsends campaign website, she moved to Fauquier with her family when she was 15. She later earned her bachelors and masters degrees from George Mason University in Fairfax, before taking a job as a middle school teacher.

She then enrolled in Masons doctorate program full-time before launching her 2015 bid. After the narrow loss Townsend returned to the classroom, and she wrote on her website that decision only reinvigorated my passion for bringing another fresh voice to Richmond.

Townsend is the second Democrat to jump in the race to unseat Lingamfelter--Elizabeth Guzman, a Dale City social worker, announced her bid last year.

Lingamfelter certainly has the monetary advantage over his challengers in the early going. He reported having more than $40,400 in his campaign account at the end of 2016, according to state records, while Guzman reported just over $8,600 on hand and Townsend has yet to file a financial disclosure report.

Yet she certainly did prove to be a prolific fundraiser in her last race against Lingamfelter, raising more than $276,000 over the course of the campaign.

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Democrat Sara Townsend tries another run in the 31st District - Inside NoVA