Opponents could take up to 30 hours of precious floor time debating her nomination while Congress debates key legislation on health care, climate change and the economy.

Republican senators are pushing controversial immigration and banking amendments to the unemployment insurance measure.

The Environmental Protection Agency last week threatened to revoke the permit for the largest mountaintop removal mine in all of Appalachia, citing the harmful effects the project would have on local water quality.

“This is not a tea party hangover,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of the Susan B. Anthony list. “It is every piece of the conservative base–the Club for Growth, social conservatives, right to work, pro-lifers, everyone–coming together.”

Democrats are in the uncomfortable position of claiming that an overhaul of the way doctors are paid under Medicare is somehow not part of health care reform.

The candidates share a rationale: if any Democrats deserve to lose next year, it will be the powerful committee chairmen who are shepherding the party’s agenda through Congress.

Reid called the insurers’ anti-trust exemption “anticompetitive and damaging to the American economy.”

What seemed like a clear path ahead was upstaged by the health care battle.

Not even a third of the nation’s lowest-income children receive dental care, and Congress isn’t doing a thing about it.

Stung by losses in states that either refused to authorize their high-rate, short-term loans or moved to limit finance charges, the industry isn’t ready to give up.