My story today highlights how Tea Party pressure is making it harder for Republican senators to sit on the sidelines in the lead-up to Tuesday’s Senate Republican Conference showdown over a moratorium on earmarks being pushed by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) — and opposed by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell More…
With a fight brewing between Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Tea Party ringleader Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) over the practice of requesting earmarks in the Senate, most Republican Senators have been desperately hoping to avoid picking sides. But Tea Party groups, which are eagerly monitoring a closed-door Republican More…
Red State’s Erick Erickson pronounced Sen. John Thune’s (R-S.D.) potential 2012 presidential bid dead today when sources informed him that Thune was opposing Sen. Jim DeMint’s (R-S.C.) proposal for an earmark moratorium among GOP senators. Erickson wrote:
Thune is whipping votes for Mitch McConnell in order to defeat the Coburn-DeMint
With Republicans slated to vote next Tuesday on Sen. Jim DeMint’s (R-S.C.) proposal to end the practice of members requesting earmarks in the Senate, Mark Meckler, co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots, tells me that the group’s local chapters will be paying very close attention.
“We’ll do what we always More…
From the perspective of many conservatives, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is doing himself and Republicans a lot of harm by fighting Sen. Jim DeMint’s (R-S.C.) proposal to ban requests for earmarks among Republicans in next year’s Senate. The first reason, writes RedState’s Erick Erickson, has to do with last More…
For a nonbinding resolution, Sen. Jim DeMint’s (R-S.C.) proposal that Republican senators give up earmarks in the 112th Congress is generating a lot of controversy. Politico reports that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has been busy expressing his concerns with the idea in public and lobbying quietly to More…
Senator-elect Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is among the most forthright of conservative deficit hawks when it comes to straight talk about cutting spending, but in his interview with Christiane Amanpour on ABC’s This Week, even Paul largely shied away from specifics:
“Republicans traditionally say, ‘Oh, we’ll cut domestic spending, but
Lobbyists have been busy courting top GOP House members slated to take over the chairmanships on important committees should Republicans win the House, but it’s important to note that not every GOP committee leadership position has been decided. Some top Republicans are seeking waivers to preserve their ranking status More…
For much of the year, both Democrats and Republicans have tried to avoid looking like big spenders, disavowing earmarks and trying to outflank one another on the issue of fiscal discipline — because that’s what they believe voters want to hear. A comprehensive new study of voter preferences, More…
Watchdog groups tend to cry foul when lobbyists solicit earmarks for their corporate clients from legislators. Lobbyists, in turn, often blame the groups for conjuring up images of corruption when congressmen are merely responding to their constituents’ needs. Yesterday, however, members of both tribes got together and presented a More…
rss