Events in the year 2012 in the United States.
Incumbents
Federal government
President: Barack Obama (D-Illinois) Vice President: Joe Biden (D-Delaware) Chief Justice: John Roberts (New York) Speaker of the House of Representatives: John Boehner (R-Ohio) Senate Majority Leader: Harry Reid (D-Nevada) Congress: 112th
Events
January
January 1 – New laws that go into effect on January 1: Hawaii and Delaware's civil union laws go into effect. Illinois allows motorcyclists the right to yield at red lights since magnetic streetlight sensors will not recognize motorcycles. Utah bans discounts or specials on alcoholic drinks, essentially banning happy hour. Arizona, Oregon, Washington, Montana, Colorado, Ohio, Vermont and Florida raise their minimum wage. San Francisco raises the minimum wage within its jurisdiction to over $10 per hour, making it the highest minimum wage in the country. California adds the historical contributions of sexual minorities and disabled people to its school curriculum. Kansas, Texas, Rhode Island, and Tennessee will now require photo identification for voters as a measure to combat voter fraud. January 3 – Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum wins the Republican Iowa Caucus by a record low margin of 34 votes over former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. January 4 – Michele Bachmann, a Republican presidential candidate, drops out of the race. January 5 – Classified documents are leaked detailing a range of advanced non-lethal weapons proposed or in development by the U.S. Armed Forces. Among the systems described are a laser-based weapon designed to divert hostile aircraft, an underwater sonic weapon for incapacitating SCUBA divers and a heat-based weapon designed to compel crowds to disperse. January 9 – White House Chief of Staff William M. Daley steps down. The Office of Management and Budget Director Jack Lew takes his place. January 10 Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour pardons 200 prisoners. On January 12, a Mississippi judge blocks the release of 21 of those inmates. Alaska sees record snowfall. The U.S. Supreme Court makes an 8–1 decision in Minneci v. Pollard that abused inmates cannot sue a privately, state-hired prison company in federal court. The ruling went against prisoner Richard Lee Pollard in a dispute of damages over a violation of the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, claiming that Wackenhut/GEO, a privately run federal prison in California, had deprived him of adequate medical care. Writing for the majority, Associate Justice Stephen Breyer said that "... the existence of an Eighth Amendment-based damages action ... against ... a privately operated federal prison .. state tort law authorizes adequate alternative damages actions, ... actions that provide both significant deterrence and compensation ... For these reasons, where, as here, a federal prisoner seeks damages from privately employed personnel working at a privately operated federal prison, where the conduct allegedly amounts to a violation of the Eighth Amendment, and where that conduct is of a kind that typically falls within the scope of traditional state tort law (such as the conduct involving improper medical care at issue here), the prisoner must seek a remedy under state tort law. We cannot imply a Bivens remedy in such a case. The judgment of the Ninth Circuit is reversed." January 14 – Miss Wisconsin, Laura Kaeppeler, wins Miss America pageant. January 16 Zappos.com computer system is hacked, compromising the personal information of 24 million customers. Jon Huntsman, a Republican presidential candidate, drops out of the race. January 17 – Volunteers in Wisconsin submit more than a million signatures to start a recall election of Governor Scott Walker in protest of his public fight last year to restrict collective bargaining rights of public workers and his cuts in the social safety net. January 18 The U.S. Supreme Court makes a unanimous 9–0 decision that telephone consumers can gain standing in federal courts to sue abusive telephone marketers. The ruling went against Arrow Financial Services (Arrow), a debt-collection agency, in a dispute of standing over the federal jurisdiction of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) of 1991. The act was passed so that out-of-state telemarketers, by operating interstate, could not escape state-law prohibitions on intrusive nuisance calls. Petitioner Marcus D. Mims filed a damages action in Federal District Court, alleging that respondent Arrow, seeking to collect a debt, violated the TCPA by repeatedly using an automatic telephone dialing system or prerecorded or artificial voice to call Mims's cellular phone without his consent.