The U.S. economy added 216,000 jobs in March to beat economists’ predictions. The additions dropped the nation’s overall unemployment rate from 8.9 to 8.8 percent, but U.S. Rep. Dave Loebsack says there’s more that can be done.
“I come home every weekend, and what I hear time and time again More…
The midterm hangover having finally worn off, the 111th Congress returns today to kick off the lame-duck session, its last hurrah before its successor takes over. And the 112th Congress will look radically different, with Republicans in control of the House and the Democratic majority in the Senate significantly reduced. 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…
My article on the DISCLOSE Act today mentions that Democrats are hoping, yet hardly confident, that a stripped-down version of the bill might do the trick and attract at least two Republican votes in the lame-duck session of Congress set to resume next week. The Hill, it turns out, More…
Despite widespread public opposition to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision and multiple exhortations by the president for Congress to act, Senate Democrats were unable to overcome a Republican filibuster to pass the DISCLOSE Act, a bill requiring interest groups to name the donors behind their campaign ads, More…
Momentum is building for Democrats to try one last time to pass a version of the DISCLOSE Act once Congress resumes, this time without the extraneous (and some say, onerous) prohibitions on campaign spending by federal contractors or companies with partial foreign-ownership. The New York Times and Politico More…
Whether the Tea Party rank-and-file decide to get on board remains an open question, but conservative figures like Dick Armey, the former Republican majority leader who now chairs FreedomWorks, and Erick Erickson, managing editor of the blog RedState, are already excited about the prospect of directing Tea Party outrage toward More…
Mark Kirk, the Republican senator-elect from Illinois, could be sworn in as early as Nov. 29 due to special circumstances regarding his seat, which used to belong to President Obama but was handed over to Sen. Roland Burris (D-Ill.) when Obama took office. Kirk will serve in the More…
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) promised last week that he would try to pass the DREAM Act, a bill that would allow some undocumented young people to gain legal status, during the lame duck session. The news came out Friday, but the TV interview where he made More…
Sens. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) have introduced an energy tax incentives bill that they are urging the Senate to pass before the end of the year. The bill includes tax incentives for homes and businesses that invest in energy efficiency, manufacturers of clean energy technology and developers More…
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