You don’t have to do extensive legislative history research to see why Democrats chose to use equal pay to help win them some votes for the upcoming midterms. It’s a decades old legislative news topic–even JFK tried to tackle it with legal statutes of his own–and it’s one that appeals to a demographic that helped Obama win each election, single women. The legislative intent behind the Democrats proposed legislation isn’t only to close the wage gap, but also to earn this demographics votes again.

However, equal pay is only one of a myriad of other political issues that will affect the midterms. Here are some of the other legislative news topics that politicians will surely need to take a stance on by this November.

Climate Change.

Climate change is seemingly never entirely out of legislative news, but you can bet that with midterm elections coming up it’ll be more headlines than ever. In fact, Forbes has already posted a legislative news piece about Obama realigning his climate change efforts to target methane instead of carbon dioxide.

Marijuana Legalization.

Marijuana is being decriminalized and legalized at a rapid rate all across the United States. Even now, well before the election, it’s making legislative news as an issue. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie recently had to field questions about the topic, saying that as long as he was governor, it’d never be legal.

Same Sex Marriage.

While it might seem like the national conscience has grown accustomed to the idea of same sex marriage, but it’s still illegal in the vast majority of the country. Only 17 states have legalized it in fact. As legislative news headlines fill with more and more stories of states passing legislature allowing same sex partners to wed, you can bet that it’ll be a prime issue for the other 33 states.

These are just a few of the legislative news topics that will undoubtedly affect the upcoming midterm election. If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments. More on this.