Congress

WASHINGTON -- A Senate committee voted to subpoena the chief executives of Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. Thursday over what its chairman called censorship of information potentially embarrassing to presidential candidate Joe Biden. The social media giants limited the sharing... Read More

WASHINGTON – Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., introduced a bill in the House of Representatives with bipartisan support that would guarantee access to the future novel coronavirus vaccine at no cost to Medicare beneficiaries. The bill, entitled the “Securing Affordable Vaccines... Read More

WASHINGTON - Two of three judges on a Washington appeals court appeared skeptical of President Donald Trump's renewed efforts to prevent accounting firm Mazars USA LLP from turning over his financial records to House Democrats. At a hearing Tuesday before the U.S. Court of Appeals, two judges appointed by... Read More

WASHINGTON - House Democrats on Tuesday unveiled broad ocean-themed climate legislation, touting the world's oceans as underappreciated tools to combat rising temperatures. "Until today, ocean climate solutions have been mostly out of sight and out of mind in the U.S.," said Jane Lubchenco, who led... Read More

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday told fellow Republicans that he has warned the White House not to divide Republicans by sealing a lopsided pre-election COVID-19 relief deal with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — even as... Read More

WASHINGTON – Newly proposed legislation by Reps. André Carson, D-Ind., Don Young, R-Alaska, and Rick Larsen, D-Wash., in the House of Representatives would support and promote a national aviation center for research, education and training. The “National Center for the... Read More

WASHINGTON -- Last week, Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney, D-N.Y. and Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., announced their plan to introduce a pair of bills that take a holistic and community-based approach to addressing the growing crisis of childhood trauma. The announcement... Read More

LANGHORNE, Pa. — Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, D-Pa., Derek Kilmer, D-Wash., and Gerry Connolly, D-Va., brought forth a bill that would ensure disabled veterans can fully utilize their benefits following disruptions in veterans’ health care due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Back... Read More

WASHINGTON – Rep. Brad Schneider, D-Ill., revealed plans to fully repeal the cap on the state and local tax deduction that was included in the Republican-backed Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. The state and local tax deduction, also... Read More

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Senate is scheduled to vote October 22 on whether to confirm Amy Coney Barrett as a member of the U.S. Supreme Court. The Senate Judiciary Committee set the date Thursday on the fourth day of contentious... Read More

WASHINGTON - Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., is pushing to kick-start the creation of a new infrastructure grant program that would improve the energy efficiency of the U.S. transportation sector while boosting the nation's competitiveness in the global marketplace. A new... Read More

WASHINGTON - It happens like clockwork, every two years. Whenever one Congress ends and another is about to begin, House Historian Matthew Wasniewski and his staff of nine know the next several weeks will be busy indeed. Not only do... Read More

WASHINGTON – U.S. Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., and U.S. Senators Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., announced in a release that the U.S. House of Representatives passed a critically needed fix to the 2018 Water Resources Development Act that would... Read More

WASHINGTON. – U.S. Senators Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., James Lankford, R-Okla., and Angus King, I-Maine, reintroduced their bipartisan legislation to save taxpayer dollars by reducing the federal funding available for the acquisition and leasing of new federal vehicles. The Domestic Reduction... Read More

WASHINGTON – This week, Reps. Cindy Axne, D-Iowa, and Brad Sherman, D-Calif., chairman of the Subcommittee on Investor Protection, Entrepreneurship, and Capital Markets, led nine Financial Services Committee members in a letter to Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Jay Clayton... Read More

WASHINGTON - This week the Blue Dog Coalition hosted a roundtable discussion with experts in the K-12, higher and tribal education fields on rural education and workforce development. Blue Dog member Rep. Kendra Horn, D-Okla., moderated the roundtable discussion on... Read More

WASHINGTON - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi unveiled legislation on Friday that would task a congressional commission with reviewing whether future presidents are mentally fit to remain in office. Pelosi has been raising questions about Trump's mental fitness since his COVID-19 diagnosis and... Read More

On Wednesday, Rep. Antonio Delgado, D-N.Y., was honored by the American Farm Bureau Federation with their prestigious “Friend of Farm Bureau” award, an honor bestowed on lawmakers in recognition of their agricultural efforts for their farming communities. To receive the... Read More

WASHINGTON (AP) — The topic was high tech: the code behind smartphones. But on Wednesday the Supreme Court looked to more low tech examples, from the typewriter keyboard to restaurant menus, try to resolve an $8 billion-plus copyright dispute between... Read More

WASHINGTON -- Lawmakers joined the Internal Revenue Service’s commissioner Wednesday in making a plea to upgrade the computers and staff that collect the nation’s taxes. They said budget cutbacks and the coronavirus have resulted in shortcomings in the agency’s ability... Read More

WASHINGTON – United States Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., received the “Friend of Farm Bureau” award from the American Farm Bureau Federation on Tuesday.  Spanberger, who serves on the House Agriculture Committee and as chair of the Subcommittee on Conservation and... Read More

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic lawmakers are calling for Congress to rein in Big Tech, possibly forcing Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple to break up their businesses, while making it harder for them to acquire others and imposing new rules to... Read More

WASHINGTON — If Democrats win control of the Senate and White House in November, many progressives want to get rid of a long-standing Senate rule — the legislative filibuster — to ensure that their agenda in a Joe Biden presidency... Read More

WASHINGTON — Anger on Capitol Hill boiled over Tuesday after President Donald Trump called an abrupt end to negotiations with House Democrats over additional coronavirus relief, delaying action until after the election. Trump announced he was walking away from the... Read More

The attorneys general from 18 states are pushing back against the Small Business Administration for what they describe as an overly zealous crackdown on fraud in the coronavirus relief loans. They are bothered by the SBA's proposed appeal process for... Read More

Rep. Derek Kilmer, D-Wash., and his House colleagues recently introduced the Federal Worker Leave Fairness Act of 2020, legislation that will allow all federal workers to carry over their earned annual leave received during the coronavirus pandemic. Approximately 2 million... Read More

WASHINGTON - This week, the America’s Conservation Enhancement Act achieved final passage in the U.S. House of Representatives with support from a wide swath of bipartisan lawmakers.  The ACE Act helps conserve wildlife and wildlife habitat, including by reauthorizing the... Read More

WASHINGTON - "What you're about to witness will be a kind of a Kabuki theatre," Ron Bonjean said the other day. The communications Sherpa during Justice Neil Gorsuch's confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court, he was reflecting on that experience... Read More

WASHINGTON - Rep. Tom O’Halleran, D- Ariz., criticized the U.S. Department of Agriculture during a recent House hearing on the western wildfires, saying “forest management has long been on the backburner at the federal level.” Halleran made his observation during... Read More

WASHINGTON - A bipartisan resolution introduced by Sens. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and Chuck Grassly, R-Iowa, would designate Oct. 5-9 “Malnutrition Awareness Week.” Malnutrition is a significant problem in the United States and results from eating a diet which does not... Read More