Automated donations draw scrutiny and more news from the states

Good evening. We start in Missouri, where federal regulators are looking into why a handful of donors appear in campaign finance records tens of thousands of times. In Idaho, a U.S. senator denies he has a plan to cancel voting in his election. And after botched executions, Tennessee lawmakers are looking for answers.

In national news, the president and vice president seek to rally their GOP base. Across the country, more law enforcement agencies are accepting payments to cooperate with immigration agents. And a push to restrict services for LGBTQ+ people is threatening the entire support system for disabled people, advocates say.

Finally, South Korean officials are sharply contradicting the White House on a possible deal to fund a new trans-Alaska gas pipeline.

Since 2023, the name of a woman living near Austin, Texas, has appeared, connected to small-dollar political donations, 126,739 times in federal campaign finance reports — including 1,011 times in reports filed by Republican U.S. Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri, Missouri Independent reports.

And she is one of 13 donors with numerous contributions flagged in three letters the Federal Election Commission sent this year to Schmitt’s campaign committee asking about donations that appear to exceed federal limits and other issues with his filings.

None of the 13 donors flagged in the FEC letters lives in Missouri, and none gave to Schmitt when he sought election to his first term in the Senate in 2022. He has raised $4.3 million since the start of 2025 for the 2028 election.

Those 13 donors are, collectively, listed in Schmitt’s FEC reports almost 5,700 times, donating $85,672 after accounting for negative amounts entered for each donor in subsequent and amended reports. The totals for each donor range from just over the donation limit of $3,500 to more than $10,500.

The records offer a window into the increasingly automated world of online political fundraising, where a small number of donors can generate thousands of transactions and campaigns must keep track of whether those contributions exceed federal limits.

Online fundraising platforms can process recurring contributions automatically, and a single donation can generate multiple entries in federal records as money moves through a platform, political committee and candidate campaign. That can leave regulators sorting out whether unusual patterns reflect legitimate giving, reporting errors or contributions a donor may not have intended to continue.

Related coverage: 

As the Nov. 3 general election nears, rumors have cropped up that a never-used, 1917 Idaho state law could be used to circumvent the race for U.S. Senate, Idaho Capital Sun reports.

The never-used law states that if a U.S. senator from Idaho resigns or dies within 30 days of the general election, then the governor could appoint a replacement and “no election for United States senator to fill said vacancy shall be held at such general election.”

The campaign for incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Jim Risch strongly denied rumors that he might resign as a way to prevent the voting.

Risch is running against Todd Achilles, who has taken heat from Risch’s campaign for running as an independent after serving in the Idaho Legislature as a Democrat.

Former U.S. Senate candidate Democrat David Roth won his primary election in May, but withdrew from the race and removed his name from the ballot in September, citing a lack of support from his party. 

“This rumor is completely false. … This conspiracy theory is being perpetrated by our desperate opponent to take attention away from his liberal record,” Risch’s campaign manager Marc Kilmer told the Capital Sun in an email. “The only people who gamed the system this election were our opponent’s supporters who coerced Democrat David Roth to drop out and clear the field for Todd Achilles.” 

Republican and Democratic lawmakers are calling for death penalty reform and legislative oversight after the state of Tennessee tried and failed Wednesday to execute a death row inmate for the second time in five months, Tennessee Lookout reports.

Republican state Sen. Tom Hatcher, said he supports Republican Gov. Bill Lee’s order for a hold on executions and third-party review after the state botched Christa Pike’s execution, but that lawmakers are going to have to “step forward” during the next legislative session in January to change death penalty laws.

“We may look at several other things instead of just lethal injection,” said Hatcher, who chairs a Senate corrections subcommittee. “I think we’ve got to look at alternative ways.”

​Lee stepped in to stop the execution of Tony Carruthers when physicians tried and failed for more than an hour to insert intravenous lines to begin the lethal injection process. On Wednesday, Lee stopped the execution of Pike after two failed rounds of the lethal injection protocol.

When Pike’s execution failed, ​Lee put a pause on all executions in Tennessee until the end of 2026 and started a third-party review.

Pike’s lawyers say she is alive but in critical condition, the Lookout reports.

Related coverage: 

New Mexico: The state requested a district court judge fine Facebook up to $40 billion after a jury found it willfully violated state law on unfair and deceptive trade practices.

New Jersey: A Senate panel advanced legislation to require preapproval for a range of automated digital tools in the workplace and limit the use of electronic monitoring.

Washington: A judge threw out tough new job standards for county sheriffs approved by state lawmakers this year that critics argued would force some out of office.

Indiana: Republican Gov. Mike Braun has selected a new chief for public access requests and grievances, after months of complaints about his previous pick’s responsiveness.

Utah: Salt Lake County prosecutors have  used for the first time a new law that strengthens penalties for gang members who recruit minors.

Michigan:  A state senator wants to require the state to reimburse county, city and township governments for the cost of conducting a special election. 

South Dakota: A group seeking to reinstate longer timelines for qualifying ballot questions suffered a setback as a federal appeals court overturned an earlier favorable ruling. 

Minnesota: The Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office has stopped classifying deputies as “undercover” to shield their body camera footage from the public, following a campaign by public defenders.

South Carolina: The governing board of the state Arts Commission denied grants to a pair of LGBTQ+ arts groups without giving a reason.

Maryland: Democratic Gov. Wes Moore signed a package of executive orders to identify administrative bottlenecks that delay housing project permit approvals.

Iowa: Environmental groups sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture over changes to a renewable energy program that impacts solar projects. 

Rhode Island: The state’s largest hospital operator is offering buyouts to 200 nonclinical supervisors and laying off 10 executives amid financial pressures, including federal cuts.

Nebraska: The southeast part of the state is under a state of emergency following heavy rain and severe flooding as state officials assess damage to potentially apply for federal support.

Donald Trump waves during a midterm election rally at the Choctaw Event Center on Oct. 1 in Durant, Oklahoma, where he told an adoring and boisterous crowd to vote like he was on the ballot. (Photo by Jessica Tobias/For Oklahoma Voice)

Trump launched what is expected to be a monthlong campaign blitz in Oklahoma in hopes of energizing Republicans going into the midterms.

“We do great when I’m on the ballot,” Trump told thousands packed into the Choctaw Event Center, which is located about 2 1/2 hours southeast of Oklahoma City.

Trump’s favorability rating has declined significantly nationwide as the war with Iran has increased gasoline prices and inflation and tariffs have hit pocketbooks.

Trump, though, spoke about what he viewed as his administration’s economic successes, which he said have gone unreported by the media, and the benefits of the war in Iran.

Read more from Oklahoma Voice.

Related: In Florida visit, Vance says Democratic US Senate candidate ‘doesn’t belong in America’

This summer, arrests of immigrants in the United States soared to the highest levels since Trump returned to office, States Newsroom’s D.C. Bureau reports.

An unprecedented increase in cooperation between local and state law enforcement and federal immigration officers through collaborations known as 287(g) agreements helped drive numbers up. 

The agreements allow state and local law enforcement agencies to enforce parts of federal immigration law and have become an arm of Trump’s mass deportation campaign. Republicans in Congress have provided billions of dollars in federal funding for local departments that accept the agreements, creating a deluge of new partners.

Theresa Cardinal Brown, a senior Department of Homeland Security official during the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations, said the new funding has helped the program grow. 

In June, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement recorded roughly 43,000 immigration arrests, followed by 49,000 in July and nearly 51,000 in August. ICE does not distinguish between arrests initially made by local law enforcement or federal officials.

Those three months also saw the most new 287(g) agreements signed since Trump took office, according to a States Newsroom analysis of government data.

“Mostly, 287(g) agreements were voluntary, and the costs were borne by the state and local government to train their own people,” she said. “Now, the federal government has money to pay them, and so that's encouraging more states and localities to do it because it's a budget plus-up.”

More immigration coverage:

A court battle that began when conservative-led states sued to block protections for transgender people has ended in a rollback of protections for people with disabilities — a result disability advocates have feared for months, Stateline reports.

At the end of August, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services joined the handful of conservative-led states suing it, and asked a court to strike language from a federal disability rights regulation that directed states to prioritize serving disabled people in their communities rather than in nursing homes or institutions.

Last week the judge did so, ending the case, Texas v. Kennedy, by removing all mentions of community integration from the regulation that implements a piece of landmark federal disability law known as Section 504.

The Trump administration’s move — along with a June memo from the Justice Department that argued federal law doesn’t require states to provide community-based services for disabled people — marks a sharp about-face for the federal government, which has long been the chief enforcer of such protections.

The change to the Section 504 rule, disability rights advocates fear, will make it harder for disabled people to receive services they need to live in their communities — and to stay out of institutions.

“This affects children, this affects adults, it affects your elderly parents. It affects everyone,” said Charlotte Cravins, a Baton Rouge, Louisiana, attorney whose toddler son, Landry, was born with Down syndrome and has impaired vision.

More from Stateline: Hiring slows in September with job growth of 29K

Analyst: Democrats show promise in gaining congressional control

Despite a hard push by Republicans to bolster their chances of retaining control in Washington by redrawing congressional districts to the party’s advantage, Democrats are in a good position to gain several seats in the U.S. House in November.

And which party controls the U.S. Senate after January is now a true toss-up, according to The Cook Political Report. Historically, the party that’s out of power picks up seats in the midterm cycle.

In Episode 48, you’ll hear from the leader of The Cook Political Report’s U.S. House coverage. Cook’s analysts have recently moved 15 House races in the Democrats’ direction, and say it’s realistic that the party could also take a majority in the U.S. Senate amid a worsening political environment for the GOP.

Listen to Stories From The States below, or subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube.

Hours after Trump announced a major deal with South Korea to fund a planned new gas pipeline across Alaska, South Korean officials said, in effect, “not so fast.”

Korea has not agreed to invest $54 billion in the proposed trans-Alaska natural gas pipeline — and has not even agreed to invest at all, its national industry minister, Kim Jung-kwan, told reporters in Seoul, Alaska Beacon reports.

His remarks came after Trump held a news conference in the White House to claim that officials from the Asian nation had agreed to spend $54 billion from a $200 billion investment pledge on the pipeline project.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, standing next to Trump during the announcement, had said that Korea would invest more than $50 billion in the project, which is intended to carry natural gas from Alaska’s North Slope to a to-be-constructed export terminal south of Anchorage.

“This morning, I lodged a strong protest with Lutnick as the announcement went far beyond what was agreed,” Kim told reporters in remarks covered by the Korea Times, The Wall Street Journal and other news outlets.

The South Korean government has characterized its agreement with the U.S. government as merely a starting point to determine whether the gas project is worthwhile.

In a post on social media, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung acknowledged “difficulties” in negotiations with the United States and said, “(T)he Alaska LNG project will proceed to working level under the preconditions that 1) its commercial viability is confirmed and 2) it complies with the legal procedures of the Republic of Korea.”