This afternoon, just days before the Senate leaves for recess, Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) have introduced a bill to provide $600 million for upping security on the U.S.-Mexico border. The bill would give $176 million to hire 1,500 additional officers for a strike force More…
This weekend, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) announced that she has enough votes and support to put an end to “secret holds” — an individual senator’s ability to anonymously delay nominees or legislation:
McCaskill, a first-term Democrat, appears to have persuaded enough of her colleagues to back her effort to take
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) tells Ryan Grim of the Huffington Post that he is leaning toward voting for two controversial amendments: one provision by Sen. Ted Kaufman (D-Del.) and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) to break up big banks and create hard asset and leverage caps, and More…
After the failure of the third cloture vote to start formal debate on Sen. Chris Dodd’s (D-Conn.) financial regulatory reform proposal, Senate Democrats say that they might force Republicans to filibuster — the old-fashioned, all-night, stand-up-and-read-the-phone-book kind of filibuster — this evening.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) released More…
The Hill reports on the battle brewing between liberal and conservative Democrats over whether to move forward with a clean energy bill that does not address carbon emissions or to roll some of that bill’s provisions into a larger energy and climate bill. Ultimately, that question could be answered More…
The Senate Armed Services Committee’s hearing on Blackwater/Paravant’s subcontract with Raytheon and the Army to train Afghan security forces has just ended, but not before Blackwater pushed all the blame onto Raytheon.
Fred Roitz, Blackwater’s top contract compliance officer, told the panel that Raytheon instructed Blackwater to hide its shell More…
A group of powerful Senate Democrats is urging leadership today to repeal the federal anti-trust exemption that insurance companies have enjoyed for more than six decades. In a letter to President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the Democrats More…
Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) is holding a hearing right now about contractors in Afghanistan before a Homeland Security and Government Affairs subcommittee. (I regret I can’t cover it right now, but you can watch it live here.) Still, the senator’s staff has prepared a memo about the parlous state More…
Nine Democratic senators sent a letter to President Obama this morning laying out ten conditions that will allow them to support domestic and international climate deals. The senators, who all hail from manufacturing of fossil fuel-dependent states, are mostly moderates, and their votes will be crucial to passing a More…
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