Dan McCue

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Friday said it would postpone oral arguments scheduled for its April session due to the coronavirus pandemic, making it increasingly unlikely they will be able to hear every case they planned to before their summer recess begins in July. In... Read More

WASHINGTON - The U.S. economy lost 701,000 jobs in March as the coronavirus outbreak spread, ending more than a decade of uninterrupted employment growth, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. The bureau's monthly employment situation report attributed the shedding of jobs both to the effects... Read More

WASHINGTON - The rating agency Moody's downgraded its outlook for non-bank mortgage lenders in the U.S. from "stable" to "negative" on Thursday, warning the industry faces "intense" liquidity problems due to the ongoing coronavirus outbreak. As previously reported in The Well News, nonbank lenders like ABC... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts has directed federal courts across the nation to conduct a search for surplus medical supplies after two Florida courts discovered such stockpiles and donated them to local hospitals. Employees in the Northern District of Florida, a court... Read More

WASHINGTON - "Surreal" is the first word Shaun Thompson uses to describe what's happened to his business since the coronavirus outbreak took hold in the U.S. just over a month ago. Tele-Town Hall was founded in 2006 with a single customer -- a freshman California congressman... Read More

A federal judge on Thursday refused to push back the date of Wisconsin's April 7 presidential primary despite concerns about the ongoing coronavirus outbreak. U.S. District Judge William Conley's ruling came after listening to arguments Wednesday over whether the primary should be moved while dire warnings... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Democratic National Committee announced Thursday that it will delay its presidential nominating convention until the week of Aug. 17, citing the uncertainty surrounding the coronavirus pandemic and how long it will last. “In our current climate of uncertainty, we believe the smartest approach... Read More

WASHINGTON - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the formation of a bipartisan select committee to oversee the allocation of trillions of dollars in approved funding to address the coronavirus crisis and ensure taxpayers dollars are "spent carefully and effectively." Pelosi told reporters during a conference call... Read More

WASHINGTON - A pair of veterans service organizations are calling on Congress and the National Governors Association to re-examine the nation's current medical credentialing system to allow veterans with medical experience to join in the fight against COVID-19. Both the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America... Read More

WASHINGTON - While less than 16% of consumers currently pay for news and another 44% pay for entertainment, a willingness to pay for content they really want to see is on the rise, according to new research from the World Economic Forum. The resulting report, "Understanding... Read More

WASHINGTON - More than 6.6 million Americans filed new claims for unemployment benefits last week, shattering the record number for the second week in a row, the Labor Department announced Thursday. Last week, 3.3 million people filed jobless claims, meaning the two week total comes to... Read More

WASHINGTON - House Democrats unveiled a wide-ranging and ambitious plan Wednesday to significantly make over the nation's infrastructure while also tamping down on the economic distress caused by the coronavirus outbreak. “We need to invest in our infrastructure to address some of the critical impacts and... Read More

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Census Bureau, which had already suspended its field operations due to the coronavirus outbreak, has announced it will further postpone those operations at least through April 15. In a written statement, the agency said it made the decision based on continuing assessments... Read More

WASHINGTON - House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn has not been shy in recent weeks in touting a number of women he believes are well-qualified to be the first African-American vice president of the United States. “I really believe that we’ve reached a point in this country... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Treasury Department provided some guidance Monday night on how it will award grants and loans to airlines affected by the coronavirus outbreak, urging them to apply for "payroll support" by Friday. The department said the resources it was making available online are intended... Read More

WASHINGTON - Even before Congress had passed the third economic stimulus package of the coronavirus era on Friday, talk had turned to what should be included in a currently hypothetical, but no less likely, fourth stimulus bill. Among the welcome steps taken so far are decisions... Read More

Federal judges in three states blocked efforts to shutter abortion providers during the coronavirus outbreak. In Texas, U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel held that the Supreme Court has already "spoken clearly" on a woman's right to abortion and therefore Texas was acting unlawfully when it attempted... Read More

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Capitol building will remain closed to tourists through May 1, the Sergeants at Arms of the House and Senate announced Monday. The decision comes after the White House extended its voluntary guidance on social distancing to the end of April. Both moves... Read More

WASHINGTON - In a case with implications to both maritime transportation and international trade, the Supreme Court ruled a firm that contracted for a delivery of oil was obligated to provide “safe berth” for the vessel carrying it. The underlying facts of the case go back... Read More

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear a challenge to Seattle's "Democracy Voucher Program," leaving in place the city's public financing program for local elections. Though the justices offered no explanation for their decision not to weigh in on the case, their... Read More

New York is postponing its April 28 presidential primary until June 23, a late date that places it at risk of forfeiting some of its delegates at the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee. The reason for the delay, which was announced Saturday, is the coronavirus outbreak... Read More

WASHINGTON - Presidential Donald Trump announced Sunday that federal social distancing guidelines that were set to expire March 30 will be extended another month, this after aggressive lobbying by his coronavirus task force. In recent days President Trump has repeatedly said the time has come to... Read More

WASHINGTON - Reps. Joe Cunningham, D-S.C., and Mike Kelly, R-Pa. are the latest members of Congress to test positive for the coronavirus. The representative from Charleston had already been in self-quarantine after learning from the attending physician of the House that he'd been in contact with... Read More

Less than a week after Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo approved a board of elections request to move the state's presidential primary from April 28 to June 2, a plan to have a mostly mail-in election in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak is already taking... Read More

WASHINGTON - The U.S. House of Representatives passed a $2.2 trillion economic stimulus package in what had to be record time on Friday, speedily sending the bill on to the White House for the president's signature. “This will deliver urgently needed relief," President Donald Trump said... Read More

WASHINGTON - Although it barely caused a ripple given the understandable focus on the worldwide coronavirus outbreak, a historic new chapter in North American commerce began two weeks ago Friday, when Canada became the third and final country to ratify the region's new trade pact. The... Read More

WASHINGTON - U.S. unemployment claims reached a historic high of 3.28 million last week due to a wave of layoffs and business closures stemming from the coronavirus outbreak, the Labor Department reported Thursday. The figure shattered the previous record of weekly jobless claims from October 1982... Read More

WASHINGTON - As of this week, eight states - Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Ohio and Rhode Island - and one territory - Puerto Rico - have postponed their presidential primary elections due to the coronavirus outbreak. Additionally, three states - Alabama, Mississippi and North... Read More

WASHINGTON - Despite the fact the White House and Senate were able to reach a deal on a roughly $2 trillion stimulus bill early Wednesday, the U.S. economy is still facing a huge shock to its system, the president of the St. Louis Federal Reserve said.... Read More

WASHINGTON - With the latest economic stimulus bill stalled on Capitol Hill since Sunday, both the Blue Dogs and New Democrat coalitions in the House are calling for an end to the partisanship that is preventing the roughly $2 trillion plan from getting done. On Tuesday,... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Federal Communications Commission's Wireless Telecommunications Bureau has granted requests from AT&T and Verizon to use additional spectrum to help meet escalating wireless demand during the coronavirus outbreak. AT&T has been granted authority to operate in the AWS-4 band Spectrum licensed to DISH, and... Read More

WASHINGTON -- All K-12 schools in Virginia will remain closed "at least" for the remainder of the current academic year, and all restaurants must end dine-in service, Gov. Ralph Northam announced Monday. Northam announced the new measures as the number of coronavirus cases in Virginia, Maryland... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court ruled Monday that state governments cannot be sued for copyright infringement, rejecting a case filed against North Carolina over footage of a pirate shipwreck. In a unanimous ruling, the justices held North Carolina is shielded by state sovereign immunity from a... Read More

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster on Saturday directed the state's Department of Revenue to waive regulations and allow restaurants to include sealed containers of beer and wine for curbside pickup or to-go orders. The move came just days after McMaster ordered all restaurants in the state... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Canada-U.S. border will close to all non-essential travel in both directions Friday night, and officials are set to impose similar restrictions at the U.S. border with Mexico later today. It was only two months ago President Donald Trump signed the implementing legislation for... Read More

The leaders of Wisconsin's Republican-controlled legislature told a federal judge Thursday they are opposed to a request by Democrats to amend absentee and online primary rules in light of the ongoing coronavirus outbreak. The state Democratic Party and the Democratic National Committee filed a federal lawsuit... Read More

WASHINGTON - The House appears close to adopting new voting procedures on bills in the wake of two members testing positive for the coronavirus this week. Though the situation is evolving rapidly, as of Thursday afternoon, House Rules Committee Chairman Jim McGovern was preparing a report... Read More

WASHINGTON - Rep. Kurt Schrader doesn't miss a chance to reach across the aisle if it will benefit his constituents. Among the most recent of multiple examples is the Oregon representative’s introduction of H.R. 4455, the Bolstering Innovative Options to Save Immediately on Medicines (BIOSIM) Act.... Read More

WASHINGTON - The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits surged to its highest level in more than two years last week, causing House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer to vow the government will do "everything necessary" to help families weather the coronavirus outbreak. According... Read More

WASHINGTON - Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, and former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld have ended their 2020 election bids. Gabbard, who endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden, left the race after poor showings in every primary and caucus but one -- American Samoa, which she won, garnering... Read More

WASHINGTON - Rep. Tom O'Halleran, D-Ariz., is no stranger to fighting to create jobs and a stronger economy for all Americans. His latest effort in this area is co-sponsoring bipartisan legislation to foster workforce training for transitioning military personnel in the growing field of solar energy.... Read More

WASHINGTON - Rep. Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J., knew it would be a crippling blow to her constituents and the local economy. It had been bad enough when the Republican Tax Cut and Jobs Act enacted in 2017 capped the deduction middle class taxpayers would take for their... Read More

WASHINGTON - Rep. Kathleen Rice, D-N.Y., is one of the leaders in a bipartisan effort to address an oft-overlooked area of jobs development -- the dramatic shortage of support professionals to work with the disabled. Rice, along with Reps. Peter King, R-N.Y., John Katko, R-N.Y., Sean... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Democratic Party sued the state of Wisconsin Wednesday in a bid to expand access to voting in response to the ongoing coronavirus outbreak. The filing of the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin coincides with the state... Read More

WASHINGTON - Reps. Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla., and Joe Cunningham, D-S.C., have written a letter to the Congressional leadership, urging them to temporarily suspend tariffs imposed by the White House as part of Congress’ upcoming coronavirus response bill. Both Murphy, a member of the House Ways and... Read More

WASHINGTON  - Rep. Ben McAdams, a Utah Democrat and Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, a Florida Republican, both said Wednesday they had tested positive for coronavirus. In a statement, Diaz-Balart, the first to announce his condition, said he first developed symptoms, including fever and a headache, Saturday evening.... Read More

WASHINGTON - The head of the Democratic party asked the remaining primary states on Tuesday to embrace alternatives like voting by mail during the coronavirus crisis, rather than entertain last-minute cancellations of the vote that would only bread "more chaos and confusion." The statement from Democratic... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Trump administration announced Tuesday that individuals and businesses will be allowed to delay paying their 2019 tax bills for 90 days past the usual April 15 deadline to July 15. The extension is an effort to inject up to $300 billion into the... Read More

The first presidential primary day held against the backdrop of self-quarantines and widespread shortages of toilet paper and hand sanitizer was a mixed bag for the three states that opted to go ahead with the vote despite concerns over the global pandemic. Officials in Ohio pulled... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Senate reached a short-term deal Monday night on reinstating national security authorities that expired over the weekend, giving the chamber a chance to pivot to debate coronavirus relief legislation. Senators unanimously agreed to a 77-day extension of three Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act powers... Read More

WASHINGTON - House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer has told members they can remain in their districts through next Monday, but at least for now, no decision has been made on the balance of House schedule for the week. In a conference call with members, Hoyer said... Read More

After hours of confusion the Ohio primary scheduled to be held Tuesday has been canceled by order of the state Health Director, Dr. Amy Acton. Acton's decision, announced shortly after 10 p.m. Monday night, capped a seven-hour period when it appeared the election was off, then... Read More

WASHINGTON - U.S. Airlines are asking for close to $60 billion in government assistance to help them deal with industry travails associated with the ongoing coronavirus outbreak. Airlines for America, the trade association that represents Delta, United, American and Southwest, among other carriers, urged the Trump... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Office of Management and Budget on Sunday asked federal agencies in and around the nation's capitol to offer telework to all eligible employees, the latest in the government's evolving steps to deal with the coronavirus. In a memo sent to all agency and... Read More

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday postponed oral arguments scheduled for the rest of March, "in keeping with public health precautions recommended in response to COVID-19." In a written statement the court said it "will examine the options for rescheduling those cases in due... Read More

WASHINGTON - The House passed an emergency spending package in overwhelmingly bipartisan fashion Saturday morning, just hours after reaching an agreement with the White House on the next steps in addressing the unfolding coronavirus outbreak. The vote on the 110-page bill, which will provide billions of... Read More

Louisiana is postponing its presidential primaries, originally set for April 4, becoming the first state to take the step as a result of the coronavirus outbreak. Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin said Louisiana will now hold its presidential primaries on June 20, and will delay local... Read More

WASHINGTON - The American Constitution Society has launched a new data tracker that will monitor the gender, racial and ethnic diversity of the nation's federal courts. According to the nonpartisan legal think tank, while the overwhelming number of judges who sit on the federal courts of... Read More

WASHINGTON - Blue Wall counties that flipped to Trump in 2016 were smaller, had a less skilled workforce, and had fewer businesses than their safe blue neighbors, but most importantly, they were all predisposed to struggle in the face of manufacturing decline, a new report says.... Read More

North Charleston, South Carolina, the smaller, hard-working neighbor of the historic coastal city that shares its name, suddenly found itself at the center of a regional crisis. Home to a thriving Navy base for nearly a century, it learned in the early 1990s the massive facility... Read More

WASHINGTON - Members of both the House and Senate are enthusiastically reaching across the aisle in a bid to fend off a proposal by Major League Baseball to drop big league affiliation with 42 minor league teams. Major League Baseball is seeking a new deal with... Read More

WASHINGTON - Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell canceled the Senate's planned recess next week in order to continue working on legislation to address the economic implications of the coronavirus outbreak. "Notwithstanding the scheduled state work period, the Senate will be in session next week," McConnell said... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Democratic National Committee is moving Sunday’s presidential primary debate between Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders from Phoenix to Washington, D.C., due to concerns over the coronavirus. In a brief written statement, DNC communications director Xochitl Hinojosa said the move was... Read More

WASHINGTON - Former Vice President Joe Biden announced Thursday that Jennifer O'Malley Dillon, a veteran of five presidential campaigns including two with Barack Obama, will now be his campaign manager, replacing Greg Schultz. The change comes after Schultz helped guide the presidential candidate to a commanding... Read More

WASHINGTON - The United States stopped drafting young men into the military in 1973, but the issue of the draft, and whether women as well as men should be subject to it, is very much alive. On March 25, the National Commission on Military, National and... Read More

WASHINGTON - Public tours of the Capitol building are being suspended -- at least through the end of March -- in response to the novel coronavirus. In a joint statement, House Sergeant at Arms Paul D. Irving, and Senate Sergeant of Arms Michael C. Stenger, said... Read More

WASHINGTON - The House passed bipartisan legislation Tuesday aimed at making Congress more effective, efficient and transparent. H. Res. 756, is the brainchild of the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress, and the product of 16 formal hearings and scores of member- and staff-level briefings... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Blue Dog Coalition of House Democrats are throwing their support behind a potential economic stimulus package aimed at helping Americans deal with the coronavirus outbreak. But in doing so, the coalition of fiscally-responsible Democrats said the crisis illustrates why running a $1 trillion... Read More

WASHINGTON —Speaker Nancy Pelosi told attendees at the House Democratic caucus meeting Tuesday morning that they should stay at work as "captains of the ship" this week as Capitol Hill scrambles to respond to the coronavirus. Among the items under consideration will be the still ill-defined... Read More

WASHINGTON - A federal appeals court ruled that Justice Department officials must release grand jury testimony, compiled by Special Counsel Robert Mueller during his probe into Russian interference in the 2020 election, to the House of Representatives. A divided U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C.... Read More

The Virginia House of Delegates has voted to place a constitutional amendment on the November ballot to largely strip itself of the power to draw new political maps next year, instead placing responsibility in the hands of an independent commission. By a 54-46 vote late last... Read More

WASHINGTON - House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., introduced legislation Monday that would remove a bust of Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney from public display in the U.S. Capitol and replace it with a bust of Associate Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. Taney, the Maryland-born Chief... Read More

WASHINGTON - A Senate panel held a confirmation hearing Tuesday on President Donald Trump's GOP nominee to the Federal Election Commission, a hearing that could put him a simple majority vote away from confirmation by the full chamber. The session ended without a vote and the... Read More

To settle a federal lawsuit, Georgia election officials have agreed to quickly notify voters that their absentee ballots have been rejected, allowing them time to correct mistakes and other issues, and have their ballots counted. The settlement was announced on Saturday in a joint release issued... Read More

WASHINGTON - Former Vice President Joe Biden's string of Super Tuesday victories has temporarily calmed fears about what a Bernie Sanders nomination or actual presidency might mean for the Washington establishment. But longtime members of the city's downtown community - those who work in the district's... Read More

WASHINGTON -- The Democratic National Committee increased the threshold for qualifying to participate in its next presidential debate, meaning the next time candidates take the stage, viewers will likely see only two: former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. The new rules announced... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Blue Dog Coalition is calling on the House Budget Committee to live up to its name and produce a budget this year, in spite of the fact spending caps have been set through the end of the 2021 fiscal year. In a letter... Read More

WASHINGTON - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sharply criticized Facebook on Thursday for allowing President Donald Trump's re-election campaign to run an ad that some might confuse for the upcoming 2020 census. The U.S. Census Bureau is set to launch the once-a-decade head count on Monday with... Read More

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren is dropping out of the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination after a Super Tuesday route that saw her coming in third in her home state. Warren’s announcement came shortly after a conference call with staff from her home in Cambridge,... Read More

WASHINGTON - Chief Justice John Roberts issued a rare statement rebuking Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, for remarks the Senate minority leader made regarding Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, outside the Supreme Court on Wednesday morning. Speaking about two hours into a rally of... Read More

California Assemblywoman Christy Smith advanced Wednesday in her bid to fill the House seat left vacant by the resignation of former Rep. Katie Hill. Smith entered the race almost immediately after Hill quit following a nude photo scandal which led to a House ethics probe. As... Read More

WASHINGTON - Rep. Henry Cuellar, a centrist House Democrat and longtime member of the fiscally-conservative Blue Dog Coalition, defeated a well-funded primary challenger backed by Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. The contest between Cuellar and Jessica Cisneros, a 26-year-old immigration attorney, was widely seen as... Read More

WASHINGTON - Congressional negotiators have reached an agreement to provide $8.3 billion in funding to combat the growing coronavirus outbreak. The full House is scheduled to consider the funding bill, H.R. 6074 – Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2020 – under suspension of its... Read More

WASHINGTON - Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg dropped out of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination Wednesday and endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden. "I've had the chance to work with Joe on those issues over the years, and Joe has fought for... Read More

WASHINGTON — All eyes were on Chief Justice John Roberts Wednesday as the Supreme Court appeared to be sharply divided over issues raised during the first major abortion case of the Trump presidency. The case out of Louisiana could test whether a high court that has... Read More

WASHINGTON - The New Democrat Coalition has rolled out an ambitious policy agenda it says will reinvigorate the government while also establishing the group's goals for the remainder of the 116th Congress. In announcing their "20 for 2020" plan on Friday, the coalition, comprised of 104... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court wrestled Tuesday with the politically charged dispute over whether the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, created in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, is constitutional. The arguments the justices heard Tuesday stemmed from an appeals court decision that upheld the structure... Read More

Saturday's First-in-the-South Democratic presidential primary had the highest turnout ever recorded in the history of the contest. According to the South Carolina Democratic Party, more than 539,000 voters cast a ballot in the primary, about 7,000 more than cast a ballot in 2008, the previous record-holder... Read More

While most of the attention on this Super Tuesday is focused on the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, voters in four of the 14 states and one territory will also be casting ballots in congressional primaries. The four states -- Alabama, California, North Carolina and... Read More

In the wake of complaints that Illinois' news automatic voter registration system is riddled with problems, Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Ill, last week convened a congressional listening session to get a handle on the problem many fear is compromising voters' rights. "We've seen firsthand that our nation's... Read More

WASHINGTON - Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, will end her presidential campaign Monday night and endorse Joe Biden at his campaign rally in Dallas. The decision comes one day after former Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., departed the race, and after weeks of Democratic... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Monday granted petitions filed by the House and Democratic state officials to consider a lower court ruling that threatens to wipe out the Affordable Care Act. The underlying case was brought by a Republican state official who argued that when... Read More

Former Vice President Joe Biden had long said South Carolina would be his "firewall" and on Saturday, his faith in the state proved well placed as it handed him a commanding victory and his first primary win in three decades of seeking the White House. Meanwhile,... Read More

As thousands of supporters of President Donald Trump gathered outside the North Charleston Veterans Memorial Coliseum Friday, hours before his scheduled rally there, the consensus in the crowd was nothing would help his re-election bid more than Sen. Bernie Sanders being the Democratic nominee. "Why? Because... Read More

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell vowed Friday that the central bank will use its entire toolbox to support the economy in the face of worldwide fears over the coronavirus outbreak. "The fundamentals of the U.S. economy remain strong," Powell said. "However, the coronavirus poses evolving risks to... Read More

A poll released Friday finds most Americans are deeply concerned about the security and integrity of elections, with only about a third having high confidence votes cast in the 2020 presidential election will be counted accurately. The latest Associated Press-NOC Center for Public Affairs poll was... Read More

The American Bar Association filed an amicus brief Thursday asking the Supreme Court to hear the case of an Arkansas man challenging the way a lower court assessed whether he received effective counsel during the punishment phase of his death penalty trial. Timothy Wayne Kemp was... Read More

It's the race President Donald Trump hoped would never happen. When Sen. John Isakson announced last summer that he would be vacating his seat at the end of the year due to health reasons, the president was sure he had the perfect replacement -- four-term Rep.... Read More

The Arizona Republic, which drew global attention in 2016 for endorsing a Democrat for president for the first time in its 126-year history, announced Wednesday that it will stop endorsing candidates for public office. In a lengthy column, Executive Editor Greg Burton and Editorial Page Editor... Read More

The Blue Dog Coalition of House Democrats on Thursday endorsed H.R. 5209, a bill that would hold social media companies accountable for aiding in the spread of terrorist content on line. The bill, also known as the Raising the Bar Act of 2019, was introduced by... Read More

A federal appeals court has declared the winner-take-all system 48 of 50 states use to assign their electoral college votes is constitutional. A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously upheld a lower court's dismissal of a lawsuit challenging the Texas system.... Read More

The House, in an overwhelmingly bipartisan fashion, passed legislation that would classify lynching as a federal hate crime. The Emmett Till Antilynching Act, introduced by Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., passed on a vote of 410-4. The Act is named for Emmett Till, who was lynched in... Read More

House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, widely considered to be the political kingmaker in South Carolina, endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden Wednesday, just three days ahead of the nation's First in the South primary. The endorsement was announced minutes after the two men shared the stage... Read More

It is the kind of assertion that brings a reporter up short, temporarily. To hear it twice, in two completely separate conversations, was astounding. It was the idea that as result of changing demographics and highly successful voter registration drives across the state, Sen. Lindsey Graham,... Read More

A total of 105,195 voters turned out for last weekend's Nevada Democratic caucuses surpassing the 84,000 voters who participated in 2016, the Nevada State Democratic Party said. Despite the big crowd, the numbers fell short of the record 118,000 people who participated in the 2008 caucuses.... Read More

Vice President Joe Biden holds the lead heading into the South Carolina presidential primary, opening up a 15 point gap with second place Sen. Bernie Sanders, according to a poll released Monday by Democratic polling firm Public Policy Polling. Biden has led the race in the... Read More

It was an unusual way to spend a Thursday morning in January to say the least. Though the 2017 House of Delegates election was for the most part in its rear view mirror, the Virginia State Board of Elections had gathered for its closing act. Also... Read More

It was an unusual way to spend a Thursday morning in January to say the least. Though the 2017 House of Delegates election was for the most part in its rear view mirror, the Virginia State Board of Elections had gathered for its closing act. Also... Read More

The National Governors Association is joining with the National Guard Association of the United States to oppose the Department of Defense’s planned reprogramming, which would cut nearly $1.7 billion from the National Guard and Reserve. At the request of the nation’s governors, Congress, on a bipartisan... Read More

The Republican National Committee and Michigan Republican Party last week filed a motion to intervene in a lawsuit over the right of organizers to participate in elections. The underlying lawsuit was filed by Priorities USA, a Democratic super PAC, in November. It challenges Michigan state laws... Read More

In a blistering dissent issued late Friday night, Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor chastised the Trump administration for repeatedly asking the  high court to allow controversial policies to go into effect on an emergency basis. At the same time, and in a rare instance for the... Read More

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards this week announced his priorities for the state’s coastal program for the next four years, and in a related move, named G. Charles Sutcliffe as the state’s first chief resilience officer. Edwards also announced the state will receive its maximum payment... Read More

Rep. Colin Allred, D-Texas, met with North Texas business, education and labor leaders this week to discuss ways to expand job training opportunities for students, retain talent in the area and ensure higher education is both accessible and affordable for the region's young people. “Our region... Read More

The Blue Dog Coalition of House Democrats on Friday called for the immediate passage of bipartisan legislation safeguarding the nation's elections in the wake of a New York Times report Russia is meddling in the 2020 race to assure President Donald Trump's re-election. The report, based... Read More

The arrival of the bus made all heads turn. Mostly blue, its side was dominated by the name "Biden" in large red and white letters, and a slogan, declaring it was dispatched to wage a "Battle for the Soul of the Nation." As the bus pulled... Read More

WASHINGTON — The American Bankers Association, in partnership with the Texas Bankers Association, threw its support behind Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, this week, and urged Texans to join in supporting his efforts. In a series of new ads launched Wednesday, the organization, which serves as the... Read More

As Congressional lawmakers close in on finalizing a bipartisan, comprehensive bill governing the testing and deployment of autonomous vehicles, the nation's county governments are reminding them not to forget to leave room for local decision-making. In a blog post published this week, the National Association of... Read More

China expelled three Wall Street Journal reporters Wednesday saying it was revoking their credentials due to a headline that appeared above an opinion column two weeks ago. The expulsions came less than 24 hours after the Trump administration designated five state-run Chinese news outlets that operate... Read More

President Donald Trump's tariff war with China significantly restricted the growth of the nation's solar energy workforce last year, an industry analysis shows. According to a report released Wednesday by The Solar Energy Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to advancing the use of solar and... Read More

An overwhelming majority of Americans -- 82% -- fear made-up news and other false reports about the candidates will undermine the 2020 presidential election, a new Pew Center study finds. The report, released Wednesday, said nearly half of those survey participants, a full 48%, placed themselves... Read More

A group of activist Republicans are planning to cross party lines and vote for Sen. Bernie Sanders in next week's South Carolina primary in a bid to ensure that President Donald Trump faces a Socialist in the November general election. Last year, the South Carolina Republican... Read More

The Peter G. Peterson Foundation launched an online hub on Tuesday to provide voters with everything they "need to know about the United States’ $23 trillion national debt," and why it matters for the 2020 campaign. The foundation has long been dedicated to addressing economic and... Read More

Former Vice President Joe Biden's supporters in South Carolina are not cutting and running after the candidate's disappointing finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire. In fact, canvassers going door-to-door in the neighborhoods of Charleston, South Carolina say what they're hearing more than anything else in their... Read More

A year after the EPA pledged to act on limiting exposure to a class of extremely hazardous chemicals, a group of Senators is asking why the agency has yet to fulfill its commitments and when it plans to do so. The group, comprised of 30 Senators,... Read More

Former Vice President Joe Biden, Mike Bloomberg and Sen. Bernie Sanders are all currently among Virginians’ top choices when it comes to the Democratic presidential nomination, but few voters have made a final choice, a Monmouth University Poll released Tuesday found. Virginia goes to the polls... Read More

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has qualified for Wednesday night's presidential candidate debate, the first time the billionaire will appear onstage with his Democratic rivals. A national poll from NPR, PBS NewsHour and Marist released on Tuesday morning showed Bloomberg with 19% support among... Read More

WASHINGTON - A Pentagon proposal to cut funding for Stars and Stripes is causing an uproar among media organizations and reporters covering the Defense Department who contend the independent newspaper remains a vital source of information for military personnel stationed overseas. Stars and Stripes was first... Read More

Nevada's powerful Culinary Workers Union, an early force in propelling Sen. Barack Obama toward the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, said Thursday it will not endorse a candidate ahead of the state's February 22 caucuses. “We’re going to endorse our goals, what we’re doing — that’s... Read More

WASHINGTON -- A trio of experts has told a Select Committee tasked with improving how Congress functions to forget harkening back to an earlier era and instead embrace methods of deliberation better suited to our times. Meeting in the Cannon House Office building last week, the... Read More

WASHINGTON -- New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo met with President Donald Trump Thursday afternoon to discuss the Department of Homeland Security's decision to ban New Yorkers from enrolling in programs that expedite border crossings. The meeting between the two men, scheduled to start at 3 p.m.,... Read More

Iowa Democratic Party Chairman Troy Price resigned Wednesday night, saying in a lengthy letter that his continued "presence in my current role" would only serve as a distraction as the party seeks to move on from the state's caucus fiasco. Price’s resignation is effective following the... Read More

WASHINGTON - The start of primary season tends to focus the mind on the race for the White House, but if Democrats want to retake control of the U.S. Senate as well, they need to be looking at a decisive Electoral College victory, a new analysis... Read More

Turnout in Tuesday’s Democratic presidential primary in New Hampshire surpassed that of the record turnout year of 2008. With 98% reporting as of 12:30 p.m. Eastern Time, the New Hampshire vote tally stood at 295,129 - blowing by the 288,672 votes cast in the record-breaking Democratic... Read More

WASHINGTON — Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont eked out a win in New Hampshire by appealing to young, liberal college students in the state, but his victory was far from an endorsement of the party's far left. In fact, with more than 98% of precincts reporting... Read More

WASHINGTON - Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell told a House panel on Tuesday that while the U.S. economy continues to show steady growth, the broadening coronavirus outbreak “could lead to disruptions in China that spill over to the rest of the global economy.” Powell offered his... Read More

WASHINGTON - Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer asked the Justice Department's inspector general to investigate the department’s interference in the sentencing of former Trump insider Roger Stone. Schumer sent his written request to Inspector General Michael Horowitz after a key prosecutor resigned and another withdrew from... Read More

WASHINGTON — Businesses across the U.S. cut back in the number of new job openings they advertised in December, the Labor Department reported Tuesday. The pullback, following a similar decline in November is seen by some economists as a sign that the hot job market may... Read More

WASHINGTON - The virtue of absentee ballots has no doubt been argued everywhere from Shelly's Back Room in Washington, D.C., where the give-and-take was accompanied by cigars and whiskey, to the crowded dining room of the Red Arrow 24 Diner in Manchester, New Hampshire, where the... Read More

Voting is still underway in New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary, but in two of three locations that voted at midnight, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., emerged as the clear winner. In Hart's Location in Carroll County, N.H., Klobuchar received six votes. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren came in second... Read More

WASHINGTON - Seven House members have come together in a bipartisan effort to help state and local governments address cybersecurity weaknesses in their networks. The lawmakers engaged in the effort are Reps. Cedric Richmond, D-La., John Katko, R-N.Y., Derek Kilmer, D-Wash., Michael McCaul, R-Texas, Dutch Ruppersberger,... Read More

WASHINGTON - New York Gov. Mario Cuomo struck an almost whimsical note at the opening of his address on infrastructure this past weekend before the National Governors Association. "Imagine if we had a magic wand," said Cuomo, who was unanimously elected vice chairman of the bipartisan... Read More

WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump's $4.8 trillion election year budget plan was largely panned on Capitol Hill and elsewhere Monday as just the latest example of a lack of fiscal discipline in the nation's capital. Trump’s fiscal 2021 plan does promise the government's deficit will crest... Read More

WASHINGTON -  Secretary of State Michael Pompeo delivered a stern warning about China in a speech to governors on Saturday, warning that Beijing is using economic promises as a wedge to exploit U.S. vulnerabilities. "The competition with China is not just a federal issue," Pompeo said... Read More

WASHINGTON - Determined to build on the Democratic Party's success in flipping the House in 2018, the New Democrat Coalition Action Fund is endorsing six candidates to challenge Republican incumbents this election cycle. These challengers are part of the Frontier program, an early effort to expand... Read More

Although most of us focus on the candidates running for president, in reality, the primaries and caucuses in which we vote are a process of selecting delegates in each state to send to their party's national presidential nominating convention. Once at those conventions, delegates cast their... Read More

WASHINGTON - The New Democrat Coalition has endorsed a slate of seven bills aimed at improving health care coverage and reducing costs for millions of Americans. “The American people deserve solutions that move past partisan posturing and make real progress to improve our health care system,... Read More

WASHINGTON — The National Governors Association is warning that a newly proposed regulation by the Trump administration could lead to dramatic cuts in Medicaid and deny health care to millions of low-income Americans. In a bipartisan letter signed by Govs. Kate Brown, D-Ore., and Charlie Baker,... Read More

WASHINGTON - Proving that acrimony wasn't the only emotion felt on Capitol Hill this week, Reps. Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J. and Steve Stivers, R-Ohio delivered a unanimous House vote Wednesday in favor of granting access to treatment derived from working with service dogs. Though the name of... Read More

WASHINGTON - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will deliver the keynote addresses at this weekend's National Governors Association Winter Meeting in Washington. The meeting is being held at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center Saturday and Sunday. Pompeo, a West Point... Read More

WASHINGTON - Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez on Thursday called for a recanvass in Iowa following a glitch in a computer app that has delayed the release of complete results from the state’s Democratic caucuses earlier this week. “Enough is enough," Perez said in a... Read More

A Virginia senate panel has endorsed a proposed amendment to the state constitution that would create a bipartisan commission to draw the Commonwealth's political map following the 2020 census. The Senate Privileges and Elections Committee voted 13-1 to approve the constitutional amendment, which will now go... Read More

WASHINGTON - It started with President Donald Trump refusing to shake hands with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and ended with the speaker ripping up the president's speech in full view of  everyone in the House chamber, and thanks to television, everyone in the world. In between,... Read More

Although most of us focus on the candidates running for president, in reality, the primaries and caucuses in which we vote are a process of selecting delegates in each state to send to their party's national presidential nominating convention. Once at those conventions, delegates cast their... Read More

WASHINGTON - A majority of U.S.- based large employers are expanding paid leave benefits by increasing the number of days available for leave, broadening eligibility, and considering new types of paid leave, a new Business Group on Health survey found. The survey of 113 large employers... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Blue Dog Coalition of House Democrats Monday called for an end to federal budgeting by temporary, continuing resolution, throwing their support behind a measure requiring Congress to pass all appropriations bills on time. H.R. 5226, the Funding Deadline Enforcement Act, would prevent House... Read More

The Nevada Democratic Party said Tuesday that it will not use the app involved in the disastrous Iowa caucuses for their own election contest on Feb. 22. “Nevada Dems can confidently say that what happened in the Iowa caucus last night will not happen in Nevada,”... Read More

The speaker of Wisconsin's state assembly said Sunday that legislative maps soon to be created by a new nonpartisan redistricting board have very little chance of ever being used. Appearing on WISN television in Milwaukee, Speaker Robin Vos said he doesn't think drawing new electoral maps... Read More

WASHINGTON -- A bipartisan group of 48 lawmakers, led by Rep. Derek Kilmer, D-Wash., in the House, and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash, in the Senate, are urging the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention to quickly distribute rapid diagnostic tests for the coronavirus. In a letter... Read More

WASHINGTON - Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., Dick Durbin, D-Ill. and John Boozeman, R-Ark., are among those joining in a bipartisan push to get the Education Department to expand its planned analysis of K-12 education spending to include dual and concurrent enrollment programs as well as early... Read More

Former South Bend, Ind. Mayor Pete Buttigieg held a slight lead in a last-minute poll of Iowa Democrats, released by Focus of Rural America. In a poll conducted for the Democratic group last week by David Binder Research, Buttigieg, who has been campaigning furiously around the... Read More

WASHINGTON - Virginia motorists lose 9.5 billion annually on roadways that are rough, congested and lacking in some desirable safety features, according to a new report by TRIP, a nonpartisan research organization focusing on transportation issues. The nonprofit says the lack of sustainable, long-term funding costs... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Democratic National Committee on Friday eliminated a qualifying fundraising requirement for a February debate in Las Vegas, potentially paving  the way for Michael Bloomberg to appear on the debate stage for the first time. The debate is scheduled for February 19, just three... Read More

It has become the mantra for the run-up to the primaries and caucuses: pick the wrong Democratic nominee, and any one of the battleground states can wind up in President Donald Trump's column. This mindset comes heavily into play when one considers the role Colorado will... Read More

The Pennsylvania state Senate has voted to advance a proposed constitutional amendment that would end the current practice of having the governor and lieutenant governor run separately for their party’s nomination. Currently, candidates for Pennsylvania governor and lieutenant governor run in separate primaries for their party's... Read More

WASHINGTON - Former Rep. John Delaney, D-Md., ended his bid for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination Friday morning, saying an internal analysis showed he wouldn't do well enough in Monday's Iowa caucus to remain viable. In addition, his campaign said, though Delaney himself would not meet... Read More

Kentucky State Rep. Charles Booker called on his colleagues in the state legislature Wednesday to pass House Bill 6, a proposed constitutional amendment that could restore the voting rights of tens of thousands of ex-felons who have completed their sentences. “There is a saying my mother... Read More

Former Vice President Joe Biden continues to be the top choice for president among Pennsylvania voters, a new Franklin & Marshall College Poll finds, but the race for the Democratic nomination is tightening. At the same time, the poll released Wednesday found that nearly three-out-of-five voters... Read More

WASHINGTON - States will now have the ability to convert part of their Medicaid funding into a block grant under a new program announced by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on Thursday. According to Seema Verma, administrator of the Centers, the program is designed... Read More

WASHINGTON - The United States will expand screenings of international travelers in response to the outbreak of the potentially deadly new coronavirus, the Department of Health and Human Services announced. "At this point Americans should not worry for their own safety," HHS Secretary Alex Azar told... Read More

WASHINGTON - An appeals court in New Orleans rejected a request to review a December ruling invalidating a key provision of the Affordable Care Act. In December, a three-judge panel in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the Act's requirement that Americans purchase health... Read More

WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump signed the new North American trade deal into law on Wednesday, declaring an end to "the NAFTA nightmare" and the beginning of a "glorious future." During an outdoor signing ceremony at the White House, Trump said, "This is a cutting-edge, state-of-the-art... Read More

The European Parliament approved the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement Wednesday, paving the way for the U.K. to leave the EU on Friday. The vote in the European Parliament was 621-49. After the vote, emotional members of parliament sang "Auld Lang Syne." Signing the letter confirming the EU's... Read More

WASHINGTON - House Democratic Leaders unveiled a five-year, $760 billion framework for rebuilding the nation's infrastructure, vowing to try to reach bipartisan consensus as the details are hashed out in committee. The election-year package, billed as the "Moving Forward Framework," was drafted by Rep. Peter DeFazio,... Read More

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Department of Justice's chief internal investigator told a House panel on Tuesday that he and his colleagues across federal departments need more subpoena power to help protect whistleblowers alleging fraud and other malfeasance. DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz offered that assessment in... Read More

WASHINGTON - The federal budget deficit will likely top $1 trillion this year, despite the continued strength of the U.S. economy, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday. The report follows an increase in new spending last year and the repeal of several taxes that had... Read More

WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump unveiled his long-awaited Middle East peace plan on Tuesday, earning applause from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu despite staunch opposition from Palestinians who say it falls short of what they had hoped. The White House plan calls for the creation of... Read More

WASHINGTON -- In most presidential election years, being a sitting U.S. Senator might be considered an advantage a week ahead of the Iowa Caucuses. Not in 2020, however. Not by a long shot. That's due to the ongoing impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, which has... Read More

A divided federal appeals court overturned election rules in Arizona Monday on the grounds they discriminate against black, Latino and Native American voters. In a 7-4 ruling, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down an Arizona requirement that ballots cast in the wrong precinct... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court split along ideological lines Monday in a decision allowing the White House to proceed with a rule making it harder for immigrants who rely on public assistance to gain legal status. The unsigned order lifts a nationwide injunction imposed by the... Read More

WASHINGTON - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his chief political rival met separately with President Donald Trump Monday ahead of the administration's unveiling of its highly-anticipated plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. President Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met... Read More

WASHINGTON — The battle over witness testimony at President Donald Trump's impeachment trial reached a fevered pitch Monday after a draft of a book from former national security adviser John Bolton was found to include passages that undercut the president's defense. Trump has repeatedly insisted he... Read More

WASHINGTON - A year to the day after ushering reporters into a windowless conference room at the U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting here to announce his seemingly unlikely bid for the White House, former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg returned to the conference Thursday as a... Read More

WASHINGTON - The story is a familiar one if you've been reading or talking about battleground and swing states this election cycle. Thanks to a combination of Donald Trump’s razor-thin wins and Hillary Clinton's narrow losses in 2016, and the changing demographics of state electorates, a... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Blue Dog Coalition of House Democrats has endorsed H.R. 4990, the Election Technology Research Act of 2019, a bipartisan bill that will give the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the National Science Foundation new resources to enhance the security of U.S.... Read More

WASHINGTON – Though the Trump administration continues to deny the validity of climate science, a new report suggests that both Democratic and Republican mayors across the nation are taking definitive steps to reduce carbon pollution, a leading contributor to climate change. The report, which was released... Read More

WASHINGTON - Jim Lehrer, the longtime anchor of PBS NewsHour and moderator of 12 presidential debates -- more than anyone in broadcast history -- died on Thursday at his home in Washington, D.C. His death was announced by PBS, for which he served as the news... Read More

WASHINGTON -- Speaking before the U.S. Conference of Mayors Wednesday, former New York City mayor and current Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg promised local leaders will always have "a seat at the table" if he is elected president. Particularly when it comes to deciding how and... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Democratic National Committee said Wednesday it intends to spend millions in six battleground states to ensure they are in the win column for the party's eventual presidential nominee come November. The investment in Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, all states... Read More

The United States and France agreed Thursday to proceed with talks that could result in a global rewrite of cross-border tax rules for the digital era. The agreement to temporarily set aside a brewing tariff war over France’s digital tax on big tech companies to focus... Read More

WASHINGTON - The District of Columbia is suing the Trump inaugural committee and the two companies that control the Trump International Hotel here, accusing them of abusing nonprofit funds to benefit the president's family. The city's attorney general, Karl Racine, announced the filing of the complaint... Read More

WASHINGTON - A majority of Americans say House managers should be able to introduce new evidence in the Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, a new Monmouth University poll finds. Most also say that Trump and members of his administration should be asked to appear... Read More

The United Nations called for an immediate investigation Wednesday into the alleged involvement of Saudi Crown Prince Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the hacking of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ iPhone in 2018. “The information we have received suggests the possible involvement of the Crown Prince in... Read More

Given the massive media attention it receives every four years as home to the first-in-the-nation presidential primary, it's sometimes easy to forget that New Hampshire is also a swing state. For decades, polling has shown independent-minded New Hampshirites are nearly always evenly split on which presidential... Read More

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a request that it resolve a dispute over the authority of a judge to order the disclosure of secret grand jury material in rare circumstances. The underlying case stems from a researcher's 40-year quest to solve the disappearance... Read More

WASHINGTON - The International Monetary Fund has trimmed its forecast for global economic growth this year, saying that while some positive things have happened in recent weeks, including the completion of Phase I of a U.S.-China trade deal, the prospects for a full recovery are still... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Wednesday will wade into a thorny battle over school-choice programs and state aid for religious schools as it weighs a request from three Montana families to allow a state scholarship program to fund their children's Christian education. The petitioners in... Read More

President Donald Trump used his speech on the opening day of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland to ignore the "perennial prophets of doom" and to claim the U.S. economy has come "thundering back" under his watch. "This is not a time for pessimism, this... Read More

WASHINGTON - Even among battleground states, Wisconsin is considered special; a study in political contrasts if ever there was one. It went for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, flipped to Donald Trump in 2016 by the narrowest of margins -- just 0.77% -- then turned... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to decide an issue that could have a profound effect on the outcome of the 2020 election -- whether members of the Electoral College can defy their state's choice for president and cast a vote for someone else.... Read More

WASHINGTON - It has been a tough, some would say strange, few weeks for the press in Washington, D.C. Symbolically, it began with the shuttering of the Newseum, a museum dedicated to journalism and freedom of speech, which closed December 31 after increasing financial difficulties. For... Read More

WASHINGTON - The House voted Thursday to overturn regulations introduced by Education Secretary Betsy Devos that critics contend made it more difficult for students to have their loans forgiven in the event a college made misleading or false claims. The resolution to overturn DeVos' rule change... Read More

WASHINGTON — The Senate handed President Donald Trump a policy victory on Thursday, backing USMCA, the new North American trade deal, the same day the chamber turned its attention to the president's impeachment trial. Once it's signed by Trump, USMCA will replace the 25-year-old North American... Read More

WASHINGTON - The White House violated federal law in withholding security assistance to Ukraine, one of the actions that set the stage for President Donald Trump's impending  impeachment trial in the Senate, a nonpartisan federal watchdog said Thursday. In a long-awaited report released mere moments before... Read More

WASHINGTON - Two months ago, Cincinnati City Councilmember P.G. Sittenfeld told attendees at the NewDEAL Leaders Conference in Washington that he had a plan to remove a significant barrier to housing affordability in his city. This week, he and his fellow city council members acted on... Read More

Former Vice President Joe Biden has widened his lead to 26 points among Florida voters in the race to be the Democratic party's nominee for president in 2020, a new Florida Atlantic University poll shows. The statewide survey was conducted by FAU’s Business and Economics Polling... Read More

WASHINGTON - When presented with a list of 16 issues, at least 30% of adults rated five as being "extremely important" to determining how they will vote in 2020, the Gallup organization said Tuesday. The issues were healthcare, national security, gun policy, education and the economy.... Read More

Virginia Delegate Marcia Price has introduced legislation to create an independent redistricting commission to draw new legislative lines after the 2020 census. Delegate Price, whose district includes parts of the cities of Hampton and Newport News, said during a press conference that "redistricting reform must happen... Read More

WASHINGTON - If anyone ever doubted the crucial role Pennsylvania will play in selecting the next President of the United States, those doubts should have been decisively put to rest on December 10. That morning, House Democrats filed two articles of impeachment against the current occupant... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court signaled Tuesday that the government may have overreached when it prosecuted two ex-New Jersey officials for their involvement in the "Bridgegate" scandal. For those who don't remember, Bridgegate, also known as the George Washington Bridge lane closure scandal, stemmed from the... Read More

WASHINGTON - Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., announced Tuesday that the Senate will begin taking a series of steps this week so that President Trump's impeachment trial can start immediately after the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. Speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill, McConnell said... Read More

WASHINGTON - The co-chairs of a Blue Dog Coalition panel on fiscal responsibility and government reform blasted an assertion by a powerful committee chairman Monday that the House might just want to skip passing a divisive budget resolution this year. "Failure to pass an annual budget... Read More

WASHINGTON - Despite assurances from President Donald Trump that "Iran appears to be standing down," after responding to the U.S. killing of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani with a  casualty-free missile attack on U.S. bases in Iraq, intelligence and cyber security experts remain on edge. Though... Read More

WASHINGTON - Sen. Cory Booker announced Monday that he is dropping out of the presidential race, just three weeks before the Iowa caucus. In a message to supporters, Booker cited fundraising struggles and his failure to make the debate stage, and said he no longer sees... Read More

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham last week declared the burgeoning space industry is one of her nine economic growth sectors for the state. “New Mexico is truly breaking barriers in the space industry,” the governor said as she opened New Mexico’s first Space Valley Summit... Read More

WASHINGTON - "The first thing you have to understand about Florida is, it's a complex state," the political operative said. "Trump won by just 1.2 percentage points," she said, speaking on background as she assessed the 2016 presidential race. "That's just 119,770 out of something like... Read More

WASHINGTON - After days of denials, author and activist Marianne Williamson ended her presidential campaign Friday, assuring her supporters that "love will prevail." Williamson, Houston, Texas native who has written 13 books, including four New York Times number one bestsellers in the "Advice, How To, and... Read More

The New York State Senate on Thursday approved a measure that would automatically register state residents to vote when they file applications at the Departments of Health or Motor Vehicles. The bill, which passed by a 40-20 vote, builds on election reforms passed during the state's... Read More

A state appeals court in Wisconsin said this week it intends to stay out of a closely watched legal dispute over the planned purging of up to 209,000 from voter rolls in the battleground state. The District 4 Appeals Court, which is based in Madison, Wis.,... Read More

WASHINGTON — Employers slowed their hiring in December, adding just 145,000 jobs, the Labor Department said Friday. Though the unemployment rate held at 3.5%, matching a 50-year low for the second straight month, Friday's report suggests continued weakness in the nation's manufacturing sector. Economists surveyed by... Read More

WASHINGTON - A bipartisan bill intended to close gaps in the care of public school students with asthma and food allergies is "an important step" in promoting the health of the 11.5 million American children who suffer from these conditions, an expert on the issue told... Read More

WASHINGTON - Debt in emerging and developing countries climbed to a record $55 trillion in 2018, the result of an eight-year surge that has been the largest and fastest in nearly 50 years, a study by the World Bank says. As a result the bank, which... Read More

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear announced Tuesday that the state is waiving testing fees for residents seeking to earn a GED. The fee, which is $120 for all four courses required to get a GED in Kentucky, has long been seen as a barrier not just to... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday gave its approval to the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, moving it a step closer to ratification. The 25-3 vote by the committee sent the trade deal, also known simply as USMCA, to the full Senate. The House approved... Read More

WASHINGTON - Voters remain deeply concerned about Washington's wanton ways when it comes to spending and want leaders to take corrective action, a new survey by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation finds. The survey was conducted in December, just as Congress and the White House were... Read More

WASHINGTON - New updates to the official House communications rules and procedures include several improvements endorsed by the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress last month. The updates, which went into effect on Tuesday, include: Name Change - The House Commission on Congressional Mailing Standards... Read More

Two Democrats and one Republican have failed to qualify for certification to appear on ballots in the 2020 Ohio presidential primary election. Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose announced Tuesday that entrepreneur Andrew Yang and former Maryland Rep. John Delaney both failed to make the ballot... Read More

Let's face it, for all the attention paid the early caucus and primary states, no one seriously expects the voters in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada or South Carolina to have the final say on who is ultimately chosen to be the next president of the United... Read More

WASHINGTON - Chief Justice John Roberts issued his year-end report on the judiciary last week, coming closer than ever to publicly commenting on the partisan divide that has gripped the federal government. "Each generation has an obligation to pass on to the next, not only a... Read More

Shoshanah Bewlay, former chief legal officer at the New York State Office of Information Technology Services, has been selected as the new executive director of the state's Committee on Open Government. The committee, housed in the Department of State, oversees and advises the government, public, and... Read More

WASHINGTON - A bipartisan quartet of House members is urging national security officials to start an investigation into whether foreign adversaries are engaging in an effort to incite anti-Semitism and civil unrest across the United States. Democratic Reps. Kathleen Rice, Tom Suozzi and Gregory Meeks, were... Read More

WASHINGTON - The killing of Iran's top general in a U.S. airstrike in Iraq sent shockwaves across the Middle East, and inspired statements of grim anticipation among lawmakers on Capitol Hill as they await a response by Iran and further information from the White House on... Read More

WASHINGTON - Rep. Henry Cuellar had no sooner returned to his native Texas, then he was being asked to reflect on one of the busiest and most consequential Decembers in the history of the U.S. Congress. In the three days prior to the Christmas district break... Read More

If among your wishes this holiday season is that you arrive safe and sound at your destination, it would probably be a good idea to avoid complex and confusing highway interchanges. At least, that is what is suggested by a new report from Go Safe Labs,... Read More

Former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld and former Rep. Joe Walsh will appear on North Carolina's Republican presidential primary ballot, despite objections from state GOP leaders, the state Board of Elections said Friday. The bipartisan elections panel voted unanimously to add Weld and Walsh to the ballot... Read More

WASHINGTON - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on Friday invited President Donald Trump to deliver his annual State of the Union address on Feb. 4. In a letter that was short and to the point, Pelosi noted the Founding Fathers intended for the president "from time... Read More

WASHINGTON - House Democrats voted to lift a $10,000 limit on state and local tax deductions, known as SALT, repealing a deduction limit Republicans had imposed as part of their 2017 tax code overhaul. The bill, H.R.5377 , which was enthusiastically backed by Rep. Josh Gottheimer,... Read More

WASHINGTON - Rep. Kathleen Rice, D-N.Y., is leading a congressional effort to urge the U.S. Justice Department to open an investigation into potential fair housing violations exposed in a recent report in Newsday, a Long Island newspaper. Using undercover testers as potential homebuyers, a three-year investigation... Read More

WASHINGTON - In a strong show of bipartisan cooperation just hours after they were at each other's throats over the impeachment of President Donald Trump, Democrats and Republicans threw their support behind a new trade agreement with Canada and Mexico. The 385-41 vote in the House... Read More

WASHINGTON - Last week was a typical whirlwind week in the life of Rep. Lucy McBath. In the space of five days, the Georgia Democrat, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, voted on impeachment, health care, trade and joined a bipartisan group of House and... Read More

WASHINGTON - Hours ahead of his expected impeachment, an irate President Donald Trump unloaded on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, accusing House Democrats of a "perversion of justice" as they pursue a "partisan impeachment crusade." Throughout the letter, Trump continues to maintain he did nothing wrong in... Read More

WASHINGTON - We've all dealt with it, and many of us are about to experience it again as we head home for the holidays. The long flight followed by a breathless sprint across an airport terminal all the while hoping our connecting flight is somehow, miraculously,... Read More

WASHINGTON - The House voted Tuesday to pass a $1.4 trillion government-wide spending package, despite a disagreement over $1.4 billion for President Donald Trump's wall along the U.S. Mexico border. The two-bill package ballooned to some 2,371 pages after several tax provisions were added into the... Read More

A federal judge said he will allow Georgia to begin a sweeping purge of its voter rolls Monday, just hours after he initially put the potential removal of more than 300,000 inactive voter registrations on hold. U.S. District Judge Steve Jones, an appointee of President Barack... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Problem Solvers Caucus is throwing its support behind legislation that would update allergen labeling laws, and provide increased funding for research and treatment of food allergies. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 32 million Americans have food allergies, including... Read More

A judge in Ozaukee County, Wisconsin, just north of Milwaukee, has ordered the state to remove 234,000 from voter rolls because they may have moved from the area. The ruling by Circuit Judge Paul Malloy came after the state Elections Commission sent a letter to the... Read More

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear on Thursday restored the voting rights of more than 140,000 people with nonviolent felony convictions, making good on an inaugural promise he made after being sworn in recently. The order signed by Beshear applies to Kentuckians who have committed nonviolent offenses and... Read More

WASHINGTON - Sharply divided along party lines, the House Judiciary Committee voted Friday morning to send two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump to the full House for its consideration. All 23 Democrats on the judiciary committee voted in favor of both articles -- abuse... Read More

WASHINGTON — A bipartisan group of lawmakers wrote the House and Senate appropriations panels this week, asking them to withhold funding from a new Trump administration proposal to accelerate the capture of 130,000 wild horses across the west in the next decade. The House and Senate... Read More

WASHINGTON - The House passage of the National Defense Authorization Act means many things to many people, but to the residents of one region in Upstate New York, the massive spending bill means one thing: good-paying jobs for the foreseeable future. That's because through the efforts... Read More

WASHINGTON — The House on Wednesday approved a sweeping $738 billion defense policy bill that for the first time will provide paid family leave for all federal workers and fund the creation of a Space Force, a top priority of the White House. The bill also... Read More

WASHINGTON - A bipartisan coalition of House members sent a letter to House and Senate leadership Thursday calling for an agreement that will fully fund the federal government through the end of fiscal year 2020. The letter was signed by dozens of members of the House,... Read More

WASHINGTON - Rep. Kendra Horn believes it should come as no surprise to anyone that reining in runaway prescription drug prices has been a top priority of members of the 116th Congress. "After all, they are something that impacts just about everyone at some point in... Read More

Ohio's Secretary of State on Wednesday referred the names of 18 voters to prosecutors for allegedly casting multiple votes in the 2018 mid-term election. Secretary Frank LaRose said the voters were identified through the Electronic Registration Information Center, a coalition of states sharing data in order... Read More

WASHINGTON - Officers at the U.S. Coast Guard’s New London facility failed to conduct prompt, thorough and impartial investigations of harassment and bullying allegations, according to a report issued by two congressional committees on Thursday. The report, called “Righting the Ship,” also found Coast Guard leaders... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Blue Dog Coalition of House Democrats on Thursday threw their support behind H.R. 5211, The Sustainable Budget Act of 2019, which would create a fiscal commission charged with balancing the federal budget within a decade. The bill was introduced by Rep. Ed Case,... Read More

WASHINGTON — Trade experts told a congressional panel led by Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla., on Tuesday that the U.S. businesses and manufacturers will suffer if the decades-old rules-based trading system is allowed to fall by the wayside as the Trump administration appears to want. The hearing... Read More

WASHINGTON — Long after some thought an agreement between the House and the Trump administration on a new North American trade pact would require a miracle, a deal was finally announced on the same day the House unveiled impeachment charges against the president. Both sides said... Read More

WASHINGTON — Declaring President Donald Trump had betrayed the nation and his oath of office, House Democrats on Tuesday morning announced they will hold a vote to impeach him on abuse of power and obstruction charges. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee,... Read More

WASHINGTON - In a divisive political era, Rep. Scott Peters, a California Democrat, still manages to find a way to reach across the aisle to get things done. Whether it’s introducing legislation to make cost-effective biosimilar drugs more accessible, leading a bipartisan effort to expand mental... Read More

WASHINGTON - Paul Volcker, the Federal Reserve chairman who in the early 1980s pushed interest rates to historic highs to rein in runaway double-digit inflation and set the economy on a course to renewed growth, died on Monday. He was 92. Volcker, a New Jersey native,... Read More

WASHINGTON — House Democrats have reportedly reached a tentative agreement with labor leaders and the White House over a rewrite of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade deal, otherwise known as USMCA. News of the deal was initially reported by The Washington Post, with other news organizations, including The... Read More

WASHINGTON - The House last week voted overwhelming to advance a bill designed to tamp down on robocalls by increasing the fines on those who make them and requiring phone companies to play a more active role in stopping them. The bill, the Pallone-Thune Telephone Robocall... Read More

WASHINGTON -Earlier this week members of Congress sought to draw attention to a bill that would allow for the retirement of dogs, cats and other animals used in federal lab experiments. The bill, called the Animal Freedom from Testing, Experimentation and Research (AFTER) Act, is sponsored... Read More

WASHINGTON — The Democratic-controlled House approved a bill Friday that would restore key sections of the Voting Rights Act requiring officials in 15 states to receive federal approval before making changes to the voting process. The bill, H.R. 4, the Voting Rights Advancement Act, would effectively... Read More

WASHINGTON - Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren may score political points with the far left-wing of her party by vowing to rein in the ills of the private equity industry, but her proposals came under fire at a recent House Financial Services Committee. Warren's Stop Wall Street... Read More

WASHINGTON - Inaction in Congress on USMCA, the proposed new trade deal between the United States, Mexico and Canada, isn't just a political matter, it's causing real concern for some of the nation's most recognizable brands and the network of small businesses supporting them. That was... Read More

WASHINGTON - A Virginia commission tasked with researching racist laws adopted in the state's past recommended Thursday that scores of them be officially repealed, including measures that prevented black voters from casting ballots and prohibited interracial marriage. "The devastating long-term social, economic, and political impact of... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Blue Dog Coalition of House Democrats on Thursday endorsed a proposal to create congressional committees specifically tasked to restore and strengthen endangered federal trust funds. The coalition of fiscally-responsible, centrist Democrats said in a statement that without legislation like H.R. 4907, Time to... Read More

WASHINGTON - Rep. Tom Graves, the most senior Republican in Georgia's House delegation, announced Thursday that he will not stand for re-election in 2020. In a letter to constituents in Georgia's 14th Congressional District, northwest of Atlanta, Graves said, after some reflection over the Thanksgiving holiday,... Read More

WASHINGTON – The Department of Veterans Affairs has established a National Artificial  Intelligence Institute in an effort to further advance the health and well-being of veterans. In a statement, the department said the new Institute will incorporate input from veterans and partners across federal agencies, industry,... Read More

WASHINGTON  - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced Thursday that she's asked the House Judiciary Committee to proceed with drafting impeachment articles against President  Donald Trump. The move by the speaker advances the timetable for impeachment, setting the stage for a vote by the full House of... Read More

WASHINGTON - In the Lowcountry of South Carolina, Rep. Joe Cunningham's race for Congress quickly became the stuff of local legend. Here was a first-time candidate, a Democrat running in a staunchly Republican district, who defeated a well-financed GOP opponent, to become the first Democratic representative... Read More

WASHINGTON - Rep. Anthony Brindisi, D-N.Y., knows the stories all too well. Time and again during town halls and community events in his district, he's heard the first-hand stories of hardworking families who've had to choose between paying for a loved one's life-saving medicine and putting... Read More

WASHINGTON - Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla., joined with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., and Annie Kuster, D-N.H., to re-introduce the Road to Recovery Act, a bill that would improve addiction treatment options under Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program. Specifically, the bipartisan legislation would repeal a... Read More

WASHINGTON - While some continue to merely talk about the need to rein in prescription drug prices, Rep. Ben McAdams, D-Utah, has actually taken action on bipartisan legislation to help lower the cost of often life-changing medications. Along with fellow members of the moderate Blue Dog... Read More

WASHINGTON  — The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday ruled Congress is entitled to review President Donald Trump's banking records as it investigates possible foreign influence in U.S. elections, violations of the emoluments clause and other issues. The three-judge 2nd Circuit panel said Congress... Read More

WASHINGTON - Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., told staffers and supporters on Tuesday that she is ending her campaign for president. The announcement, which spread by word of mouth and text message early Tuesday afternoon, came just hours after Harris abruptly pulled the plug on a high-profile... Read More

WASHINGTON - The House Select Committee on Intelligence released a massive report Tuesday afternoon outlining the evidence of President Donald Trump's alleged wrongdoing involving Ukraine. The 300-page report from the Democrats on the committee will serve as the starting point for the debate over whether Trump... Read More

WASHINGTON - In many ways, Jeremy Butler is the perfect interview subject. It doesn't take much to encourage him to talk about topics he's passionate about. And as the newly appointed CEO of Iraq Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), Butler is supremely concerned with the well-being... Read More

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump seized on the traditional pardoning of a Thanksgiving turkey Tuesday to offer an extended, off-the-cuff riff on impeachment and the Democrat leading the inquiry, California's Adam Schiff. Officially, the president and first lady Melania Trump appeared in a packed White House... Read More

WASHINGTON — The National Governors Association announced Tuesday it is working with five states – Colorado, Alaska, Delaware, Rhode Island and Tennessee – to help them improve their business regulatory processes to promote economic development. This work is being completed in partnership with The Pew Charitable... Read More

WASHINGTON - Eighty-eight mayors representing cities across the country are urging the Trump administration to rescind an executive order that revamped the nation's system for resettling refugees and could entirely curtail the resettlement of refugees in their communities. In a letter sent to Secretary of State... Read More

WASHINGTON - "The thing about Texas is that people looking at it from the outside tend to have skewed view of what goes on here," Joshua Blank said the other day. We had turned to Blank, manager of polling and research at the Texas Politics Project... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Blue Dog Coalition is again urging the House leadership and committee chairs to abide by the bipartisan "Pay-As-You-Go (PAYGO) rule, which requires Congress to pay for new priorities. The letter sent Monday is the second the coalition has addressed to House Speaker Nancy... Read More

WASHINGTON  — House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff announced Monday that his committee's impeachment report will be submitted to the House Judiciary Committee "soon after Congress returns from the Thanksgiving recess." In a lengthy "Dear Colleague" letter sent to members of the House Democratic Caucus, Schiff... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Democratic National Committee has signed off on a plan that will allow Nevada to offer the first-ever early voting option for a presidential caucus. During a press briefing on Monday, DNC Chairman Tom Perez and Nevada party chairman William McCurdy II, said the... Read More

WASHINGTON - The House Energy and Commerce Committee this week advanced Rep. Abigail Spanberger’s plan to protect 5G and next-generation wireless communications systems and mobile infrastructure in Central Virginia and across the United States.  The Committee’s passage of the Virginia Democrat's Secure 5G and Beyond Act... Read More

WASHINGTON - Given the current political polarization in Washington, state and local policy makers are stepping up like never before to craft effective and innovative solutions to an array of tough issues. On Thursday, The NewDEAL, a national network of state and local elected officials, honored... Read More

WASHINGTON - A quartet of moderate Democrats took to House floor this week to press for a vote on the USMCA trade deal, despite the stark partisan divide inflamed by the ongoing impeachment inquiry. "I think it's important that the people who sent us here know... Read More

WASHINGTON - Ambassador Gordon Sondland, perhaps the star witness of the House impeachment inquiry, said to committee investigators Wednesday that President Donald Trump and his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, unequivocally sought a "quid pro quo" with Ukraine in order to dig up dirt on Democrats. Sondland,... Read More

WASHINGTON - The House will convene for its second session on January 7, 2020, and meet for 113 days, according to a legislative calendar released Thursday by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. The Maryland Democrat said the calendar has been arranged to ensure members "get their... Read More

WASHINGTON - A year out from the 2020 general election, more U.S. companies are opting for transparency when it comes to what they're spending on politics, according to a nonpartisan scorecard.  The CPA-Zicklin Index is a joint project of the Center for Political Accountability and the... Read More

WASHINGTON— The House passed a short-term spending bill Tuesday that would keep federal agencies running for another month, but at least one group of House Democrats, the Blue Dog Coalition, said having Congress "lurching from one self-imposed deadline to another is no way to govern." The... Read More

WASHINGTON - It used to be that when the general public thought of big U.S. policy, it thought of things like cold and hot wars, international diplomacy and sweeping changes in civil rights legislation. Trade, if it came to mind at all, was typically relegated to... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court agreed Friday to decide a long-running copyright dispute between technology giants Oracle and Google. The case stems from Google’s development of its hugely popular Android operating system by using Oracle’s Java programming language. Oracle claims Google owes it roughly $8 billion... Read More

WASHINGTON —  Chief Justice John Roberts on Monday imposed an indefinite delay in the House of Representatives’ demand for President Donald Trump’s financial records. Roberts’ order Monday provides no hint about how the Supreme Court ultimately will resolve the dispute. It was handed down just hours... Read More

WASHINGTON - The ongoing trade war between the United States and China has put about 1.46 million Americans at risk of being laid off or consigned to working dramatically reduced hours, a new study shows. Rolled out at a news conference at the National Retail Federation... Read More

Louisiana reelected Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards Saturday, dealing a stunning blow to Republicans who had banked on President Donald Trump's popularity in the conservative state to return the governor's mansion to the GOP. Edwards is the only Democratic governor in the deep south and was... Read More

WASHINGTON - The House voted on Friday to renew the charter of the Export-Import Bank, the U.S. agency that provides loans and other help to foreign buyers of U.S. exports, despite opposition from Republican lawmakers. Despite the bank having historically enjoyed strong bipartisan support, only 13... Read More

WASHINGTON - Seventy percent of Americans think President Donald Trump's request that Ukraine open an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden, his political rival, was wrong, according to a new ABC News/Ipsos poll. Perhaps worse for the president, 58% of Americans say they are following... Read More

WASHINGTON - A proposal by Rep. Anthony Brindisi that the VA's Women Veterans Call Center be transformed into an online, one-stop-shop for women veterans' benefits has been passed in the House. Brindisi's bill, H.R. 2972, was included in The Deborah Sampson Act, a reform omnibus bill... Read More

WASHINGTON - An estimated 13.8 million people tuned in to watch diplomats Bill Taylor and George Kent testify at the first public hearing of the House impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, according to Nielsen. Millions more streamed the day-long event on their mobile and other... Read More

WASHINGTON - The former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, told a House impeachment panel Friday that abruptly being ousted from her post was a heartbreaking experience that was compounded weeks later when she learned President Donald Trump had bad-mouthed her during a phone call to... Read More

WASHINGTON - The House on Thursday voted to extend the mandate of the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress through the end of the 116th Congress. The rule that created the Select Committee originally had it set to expire on February 1, 2020. The extension... Read More

WASHINGTON - Rep. Norma Torres, D-Calif., vowed to fight housing insecurity in her district and across the United States following her elevation Thursday to co-chair of the New Democrat Coalition Housing Task Force. Rep. Torres joins fellow co-chairs Rep. Denny Heck, D- Wash., and Rep. Ben... Read More

WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to bar his accounting firm from turning over eight years of his tax returns to prosecutors in New York. The case has significance far beyond Trump as it could determined the scope of presidential immunity... Read More

WASHINGTON - The first public impeachment hearing on Capitol Hill in two decades featured somber House Democrats, stoic witnesses, an angry but somewhat bungled response by House Republicans attempting to defend President Donald Trump without addressing the allegations against him, and hundreds of spectators, some of... Read More

WASHINGTON - A pair of House committee chairs want the General Services Administration to conduct audits of federal properties that have been leased to private parties, including the Trump Hotel. Reps. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, and Dina Titus,... Read More

WASHINGTON - Reps. Stephanie Murphy and Mario Diaz-Balart, both of Florida, are leading a push in the House to ensure that states receive the extra education funding they need to accommodate refugee students from hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico. The bill, called the ELEVATE Act, has also been... Read More

WASHINGTON - Former Congressman and South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford suspended his longshot campaign for the Republican presidential nomination Tuesday, explaining that sometimes "you've got to be a realist." Standing outside the New Hampshire statehouse while holding an oversized trillion-dollar check to represent the national debt,... Read More

WASHINGTON - A president has every right to undo a predecessor's policy he disagrees with, but if he does, he must do it the right way, the U.S. Supreme Court was told by immigrant advocates on Tuesday. That simple contention lay at the heart of one... Read More

WASHINGTON - Rep. Peter King, a 14-term Republican U.S. Representative from Long Island, New York, plans to retire from Congress at the end of his term, joining a growing list of Republicans who have decided to leave the House this year. In a brief announcement, King,... Read More

A federal judge in Ohio ruled the state must discontinue its practice of disenfranchising eligible voters who are arrested and held in pre-trial detention in the final days leading up to an election. The case has its roots in the 2018 midterm election. Just days before... Read More

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed a bill earlier this week that would have removed foreign citizens from voting rolls. At the same time, he signed into law a bill that restores early voting on the last Saturday before elections. “Only citizens should be allowed to... Read More

WASHINGTON - After two full days of debate, the House Education and Labor Committee voted to advance the College Affordability Act, including four pieces of legislation and an amendment introduced by Rep. Lucy McBath, D-Ga. The act, also known as H.R. 4674, reauthorizes the Higher Education... Read More

WASHINGTON - A bipartisan bill introduced by Reps. Kathleen Rice, D-N.Y., and Mike Turner, R-Ohio, will create incentives for states to provide complete domestic violence records to federal background check databases. Rep. Rice announced the filing of the bill at Bethany House in Baldwin, N.Y., where... Read More

WASHINGTON - In 2016, 10 Electoral College voters challenged the notion they were bound to vote for the winner of the presidential election in their state and at least tried to vote for somebody else. Seven electors actually cast that vote, while the other three were... Read More

WASHINGTON - Rep. Scott Peters, D-Calif., helped advance H.R. 3, the Lower Drug Costs Now Act, joining the majority of his colleagues on the Energy and Commerce Committee in voting to send the measure on to the full House. The measure, introduced in the House on... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear a case in which the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office contends that Booking.com’s name is too generic for trademark protection. As is their custom, the justices did not explain their rationale for adding the case, U.S.... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Democratic party believes whoever its eventual nominee is, the race to win the 2020 presidential election will come down to slim margins of victory in several key battleground states. As a result, said David Bergstein, the DNC's director of battleground state communications, the... Read More

WASHINGTON - Students who have committed deadly school shootings in recent years exhibited worrisome warning signs that went unreported to authorities, a U.S. Secret Service study released Thursday says. The report, "Protecting America's Schools: A U.S. Secret Service Analysis of Targeted School Violence," is the result... Read More

WASHINGTON - Multiple letters addressed to the House leadership shows there's widespread support for extending the mandate of a select committee that has been working for the past year on finding meaningful ways to reinvigorate the procedures and culture of Capitol Hill. The charter for that... Read More

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has rolled out a new video tutorial aimed at helping veterans file disability compensation benefits claims online. The tutorial tells veterans how they can learn about and apply for benefits earned using the online claims tool the department... Read More

WASHINGTON - House Democrats announced Wednesday that they will hold their first public hearings as part of the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump next week. In a brief statement, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said William Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat to Ukraine,... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Monday appeared to accept that it was reasonable for police to pull over a vehicle registered to someone with a suspended driver's license despite their not knowing who was driving the vehicle at the time. The case comes to the... Read More

North Carolina lawmakers convened Tuesday afternoon to take the first procedural steps to draw new congressional maps in time for use in the 2020 elections. In all, 18 Republicans and Democrats turned out for a committee meeting at the General Assembly building in Raleigh, N.C., a... Read More

WASHINGTON - House investigators released hundreds of pages of testimony from two top diplomats Tuesday, including a bombshell: revised testimony from one of the men in which he admits he told a top Ukrainian official the country likely would not receive American military aid unless it... Read More

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court  traded "Oyez!" for "Ahoys" Tuesday morning as they grappled with a modern-day dispute over the pirate Blackbeard's flagship. The Queen Anne's Revenge went down off North Carolina's coast more than 300 years ago and lay buried and undisturbed in shallow waters... Read More

WASHINGTON - The justices of the U.S. Supreme Court struggled on Monday to sort out ambiguities in the Immigration and Nationality Act related to when a noncitizen can apply for cancellation of a removal order. The case before the court involves Andre Martello Barton, a citizen... Read More

WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump couldn't help himself. Though he appeared to be in a festive mood as he welcomed the World Series Champion Washington Nationals to the South portico of the White House, the impeachment inquiry transpiring a few miles away on Capitol Hill was... Read More

WASHINGTON - Former Rep. Beto O'Rourke announced Friday evening that he's dropping his bid for Democratic presidential nomination. O'Rourke tweeted Friday that his campaign "has always been about seeing clearly, speaking honestly, and acting decisively." He writes, "In that spirit: I am announcing that my service... Read More

WASHINGTON - The House Problem Solvers Caucus, a group dedicated to finding bipartisan consensus on important issues, has endorsed a bill to extend earned visa status to individuals who can show they've been regularly employed as an agricultural laborer in the past two years. The bill,... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court agreed Friday to hear a case challenging the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s authority to seek disgorgement in fraud cases. Last year federal regulators recouped $2.5 billion in ill-gotten proceeds from securities fraud. But on Friday the justices said they will... Read More

WASHINGTON - The World Trade Organization said Friday that China can place new trade sanctions on $3.5 billion of U.S. goods in retaliation for U.S. restrictions on Chinese furniture, steel products and solar panels. The award by an arbitration panel with the Geneva-based organization is the... Read More

WASHINGTON - Despite recent controversies around social media, members of Congress are using the platforms as much if not more than ever before to reach out to constituents -- and no one approach applies to all, a Capitol Hill panel was told this week. The ostensible... Read More

WASHINGTON - Private equity sector is playing a positive role in the U.S. economy, supporting more than 26 million jobs while accounting for about 5% of the nation's gross domestic product, according to a new report. The analysis comes from Ernst & Young, which worked in... Read More

WASHINGTON - On Tuesday, November 5, voters in two states will cast their vote for governor, while in four states, the makeup of the legislature will be determined -- noteworthy all on their own because they will have a significant impact on the redistricting that will... Read More

WASHINGTON - A sharply divided House of Representatives voted 232-196 on Thursday to endorse the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump and establish the ground rules for the impending public phase of that process. The vote was almost entirely along party lines, with two Democrats, Reps.... Read More

WASHINGTON - The House on Tuesday approved a bill that explicitly allows campaign funds to pay for childcare expenses, making it easier for working parents to run for elected office. Introduced in March by Rep. Katie Porter, D-Calif., the bill builds upon H.R. 1, sweeping electoral... Read More

WASHINGTON - House Democrats unveiled a draft resolution Tuesday afternoon outlining the next phase of their impeachment inquiry after weeks of closed-door witness testimony. The document, which is scheduled to be marked up by the House Rules Committee Wednesday afternoon, was released by that panel's chairman,... Read More

WASHINGTON - Unfavorable feelings about President Donald Trump are growing despite a strong economy, and his biggest weakness heading into the 2020 election may well be the suburbs, a new poll finds. The Grinnell College National Poll is a partnership between Grinnell College in Iowa and... Read More

WASHINGTON - Two in three finance officers in large U.S. cities believe the nation will slip into a recession as soon as next year, testing their resiliency after years of sustained growth, a new report from the National League of Cities says. Released on Monday, the... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Blue Dog Coalition of national security-minded Democrats called on the leaders of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees on Tuesday to provide "robust" funding to a federal commission that partners with states to protect their election infrastructure. Established in 2002 by the Help... Read More

A federal judge blocked an Alabama abortion ban Tuesday that would have made the procedure a felony at any stage of pregnancy in almost all cases. U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson, who was appointed to the bench by President Jimmy Carter and who presides in Montgomery,... Read More

The Republican supermajority in the North Carolina legislature unlawfully banned early voting on the last Saturday before Election Day to suppress the black and Democratic vote, a lawsuit filed Tuesday claims. The plaintiffs in the case, the North Carolina Democratic Party, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and... Read More

WASHINGTON - With billions of dollars in federal funding potentially hanging in the balance, the nation's counties are determined to play an active role in ensuring the 2020 Census reflects their full populations. Toward that end, the National Association of Counties has formed a bipartisan working... Read More

WASHINGTON - The House of Representatives will hold the first floor vote on the Trump impeachment inquiry, laying out the rules for the remainder of the ongoing investigation. The House Rules Committee is scheduled to start marking up the resolution introduced by committee chairman, Rep. Jim... Read More

WASHINGTON - The federal deficit for fiscal year 2019 was $984 billion, $205 billion more than in the prior fiscal year, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced Friday afternoon. The final accounting from the Treasury Department of the Office of Management and Budget confirmed a projection released... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Democratic National Committee has again revised the threshold for qualifying for upcoming presidential candidate debates, a move that could winnow the onstage participants to just five. The new participation criteria apply to the DNC's sixth debate, which will be held in Los Angeles... Read More

Mayor Pete Buttigieg is building momentum in Iowa, according to an Iowa State University/Civiqs poll released this week. The university and Civiqs, an online polling company, surveys the same pool of voters each month in the lead up to the Iowa Caucuses to understand how voter... Read More

WASHINGTON - The conventional wisdom this summer was that House Democrats who flipped red districts in 2018 would be particularly vulnerable if the chamber moved forward with an impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump. But an analysis by the Center of Responsive Politics has found that... Read More

WASHINGTON —House Democrats approved legislation this week to better protect the country's elections from foreign interference, the third major bill the chamber has passed this year addressing problems that arose in the 2016 presidential election. The 227-181 vote on Wednesday came months after special counsel Robert... Read More

WASHINGTON - A group representing veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has thrown its support behind a pair of lawsuits aimed at halting President Donald Trump's use of military funding for his long-promised wall along the U.S. Mexico border. The state of California, the... Read More

WASHINGTON - A bipartisan trio of House members are fighting to increase mental health care options to address the growing rate of suicide in rural America. Rep. Anthony Brindisi, D-N.Y., a member of the House Agriculture Committee, led a bipartisan group of lawmakers, including Reps. John... Read More

WASHINGTON — Rep. Tim Ryan is dropping out of the presidential race. The Ohio Democrat announced his decision in a video posted to his Twitter account. "I got into this race in April to really give voice to the forgotten people of our country. I look... Read More

WASHINGTON - Four women journalists will moderate the next Democratic presidential candidate debate, MSNBC announced Wednesday. Rachel Maddow, host of "The Rachel Maddow Show"; Andrea Mitchell, host of "Andrea Mitchell Reports"; Kristen Welker, the NBC News White House correspondent; and Ashley Parker, a Washington Post White... Read More

WASHINGTON - The bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus on Thursday threw its support behind a proposal to expand Pell Grant eligibility for short-term training programs that will allow more Americans to gain industry-recognized credentials. The House bill, H.R. 3497, also called the Jumpstart Our Businesses by Supporting... Read More

WASHINGTON - A bill introduced Tuesday by the chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security would establish a bipartisan commission of non-government experts to examine the ways social media and other online platforms have been exploited to promote and carry out acts of terrorism. “Today,... Read More

WASHINGTON - Federal employees overseeing public lands in the U.S. were assaulted or threatened at least 360 times over a five-year period ending in 2017, a sign of increased tensions between the employees and anti-government groups, the Government Accountability Office said Monday. The findings were the... Read More

WASHINGTON - Accustomed as they are to believing government can do a great deal of good for a great many, serious Democrats have grown increasingly concerned over the potential long-term ramifications of Medicare for all proposals. While it's easy -- and perhaps hopeful -- to view... Read More

WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump on Monday pushed back at the widespread criticism of his now abandoned plan to host the upcoming G-7 summit at his Doral resort in South Florida. "You people, with this phony Emoluments Clause," the president said in rambling remarks before a... Read More

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Supreme Court threw out a lower court ruling on Monday that would have forced Michigan Republicans to redraw congressional and state legislative district maps to be fairer to Democrats. In a one-sentence statement at the top of their Monday order list, the... Read More

WASHINGTON - A quartet of House Democrats want to see Medicare Part B coverage expanded to include routine vision benefits. Right now, Medicare only covers surgery and screenings for people who are at a high risk of getting cataracts and glaucoma, but it but does not... Read More

WASHINGTON - Rep. Max Rose hosted a roundtable for seniors in Brooklyn, N.Y. on Saturday to bring them up to speed on his proposal to lower prescription drug prices. Rose met with members of AARP Bay Ridge Chapter 3630 to talk about his support of the... Read More

WASHINGTON - Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., wants $10 billion allocated to the National Institutes of Health over the next 10 years as a catalyst for medical cures and scientific breakthroughs. The Biomedical Innovation Expansion Act introduced last week by Spanberger and Reps. Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J., and... Read More

A new law in New York State requires pharmacies to inform patients of Class I drug recalls made by the Federal Drug Administration within seven days. Generally speaking, drug recalls occur when the quality or safety of a drug has been compromised. It can be due... Read More

WASHINGTON - The House has passed an amendment offered on the floor by Rep. Josh Gottheimer that will ensure the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission gives specific consideration to senior investors and the challenges they face. The amendment to H.R. 1815, the SEC Disclosure Effectiveness Testing... Read More

WASHINGTON - A circuit court judge in South Carolina heard more than two hours of oral arguments Friday in a lawsuit challenging the state GOP executive committee's vote last month to forgo a 2020 Republican presidential primary. In the end, Circuit Judge Jocelyn Newman indicated her... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court agreed Friday to wade into a politically charged dispute over whether the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, created in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, is constitutional. The justices will be reviewing an appeals court decision that upheld the structure of... Read More

The governors of five northeastern states came together for a summit on Thursday to discuss the outlines of a joint regional approach to cannabis and vaping policies. "This issue is complicated, controversial and consequential. It is probably one of the most challenging I've had to address... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Progressive Policy Institute is calling for a more aggressive approach to bridging America’s skills gap following House Democrats’ introduction of major legislation to reauthorize the landmark Higher Education Act. The centrist public policy think tank said though reauthorization is long overdue, the new... Read More

WASHINGTON - A House Panel that deals with water resource and environmental issues will travel to South Florida this weekend for a roundtable on infrastructure projects to be considered for inclusion in the next Water Resources Development Act. Rep. Grace Napolitano, D-Calif., chair of the House... Read More

WASHINGTON - The New Democrat Coalition endorsed four pieces of housing legislation it sees as "actionable solutions" to help Americans who are struggling to find homes in a market in which they are increasingly scarce and increasingly expensive. The endorsements by New Democrat Coalition chair Rep.... Read More

WASHINGTON - Mark Zuckerberg allowed himself only a brief smile Thursday afternoon as he approached the podium awaiting him on stage in Georgetown University's Gaston Hall. After weeks of criticism over Facebook's decision not to moderate political speech or fact-check political ads, the company's CEO was... Read More

WASHINGTON —Rep. Elijah Cummings, D- Md., who started life as a sharecropper's son and  went on to become the chairman of one of the U.S. House committees leading an impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump, died on Thursday in Baltimore. His death was confirmed by a... Read More

WASHINGTON - The House delivered a resounding bipartisan condemnation of President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw U.S. forces from northern Syria on Wednesday, even as the president sought to distance himself from the Turkish assault against the Kurds that followed the withdrawal. Despite being bitterly divided... Read More

WASHINGTON - If Democrats want to hold their majority in House in 2020 they'll focus on core issues important to their constituents like protecting healthcare coverage, fighting corruption, and expanding economic opportunity, according to a new analysis by Third Way, the public policy think tank. In... Read More

WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump may be weak when it comes to job approval and public support for impeachment, but a number of factors, ranging from economy to unfavorable views toward some Democratic candidates, continue to make him competitive in 2020, a new poll finds. The... Read More

WASHINGTON - The New Democrat Coalition endorsed a pair of bills and a resolution Tuesday that they believe will keep the U.S. at the forefront of technology and artificial intelligence development. Coalition chair Rep. Derek Kilmer, D-Wash., vice chair Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., and the NDC... Read More

WASHINGTON - Do a pair of decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court require the resentencing of Lee Boyd Malvo, the surviving assailant in the D.C. sniper case? That's the question the justices will consider when it convenes Wednesday to hear oral arguments in the case Mathena... Read More

WASHINGTON -- Former National Intelligence Director Dan Coats has rejoined the King & Spalding law firm and serves as a senior policy advisor on its D.C.-based national security team. “Our clients around the world benefit from the insight of our team’s many former top government officials,... Read More

WASHINGTON — The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday downgraded its outlook for the world economy, predicting that growth in the developed world this year, stymied by trade conflicts, will be the weakest since the 2008 financial crisis. During a press conference Tuesday morning, IMF Chief Economist... Read More

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Wednesday will hear arguments about whether states can prosecute immigrants who use other people's Social Security numbers to get a job. The case not only has implications for the balance of power between the states and the federal government when... Read More

WASHINGTON  — Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards bid for a second term as the Deep South's only Democratic governor will stretch to a Nov. 16 runoff election after voters failed on Saturday to award him more than 50% of the vote in a six-candidate primary. Edwards... Read More

WASHINGTON - Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told reporters on Friday that President Trump has authorized his department to impose "very significant new sanctions" against Turkey for its military incursion into northern Syria. "I want to emphasize, at this point, we are not activating the sanctions," Mnuchin... Read More

WASHINGTON - The U.S. has come to a “very substantial phase one deal” with China, President Donald Trump said Friday. Though he offered scant details, the president declared that talks on a "phase two" trade deal "will start almost immediately.” Trump said the actual drafting of... Read More

WASHINGTON - The nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates on Friday announced the sites, dates and qualification details for three presidential debates and one vice presidential debate leading up to the 2020 general election. The sites and dates are as follows: ·       The first... Read More

WASHINGTON - A House subcommittee has advanced bipartisan legislation sponsored by Rep. Antonio Delgado, D-N.Y., that would require the EPA to list a dangerous class of compounds known as PFAS chemicals on its Toxics Release Inventory. Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known as PFAS chemicals, which... Read More

WASHINGTON - Representative Elaine Luria, D-Va., is leading a bipartisan effort urging the leadership of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees to fund $100 million in needed infrastructure projects in military communities. Luria and more than a dozen of her colleagues want to see the... Read More

WASHINGTON - A federal appeals court on Friday relied heavily on procedural rules adopted at the start of the 116th Congress in holding that President Donald Trump cannot ignore a subpoena for his financial records from House Democrats. Those rules were significantly revamped by the Problem... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget debuted a new tool Thursday -- a PAYGO Tracker -- to keep tabs on how well lawmakers are abiding by budget rules requiring new spending and tax cuts to be offset. The tracker will be regularly updated... Read More

WASHINGTON - Two Russian-born associates of President Donald Trump's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, were subpoenaed in the House impeachment inquiry just hours after their arrests on campaign finance charges. Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman have been tied to efforts by Giuliani to get Ukraine to investigate... Read More

WASHINGTON - Representative Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., chairwoman of the House Appropriations Committee and a fixture in Congress for 31 years, announced Thursday that she will not seek re-election in 2020. Lowey offered no explanation for her decision in a statement released through the committee, but said... Read More

WASHINGTON - The federal deficit reached $984 billion in fiscal year 2019, with spending far out pacing revenue, according to an estimate released by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office this week. This would be an increase of $205 billion over the 2018 deficit and the fourth... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court this week took up a question it has avoided in recent years: Whether the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution requires unanimous verdicts in criminal cases in both federal and state courts. In practice, the Bill of Rights applies to both the... Read More

WASHINGTON - Rep. Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J., convened a meeting last week with officials of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the N.J. Department of Environmental Protection and several local mayors to address the issue of repeat and intensifying flooding in her district. Flooding has been a... Read More

WASHINGTON - Alaska's government-mandated embrace of fossil fuel development is devastating the nation's northernmost state and infringing on the constitutional rights of young residents to a healthy environment, a lawyer for 16 young plaintiffs told the Alaska Supreme Court on Wednesday. Two years ago, the plaintiffs,... Read More

WASHINGTON - Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., has introduced a bipartisan, bicameral bill to deter narcotics traffickers from using illicit pill presses to manufacture counterfeit drugs. Spanberger, a member of the bipartisan Freshman Working Group on Addiction, said as the opioid epidemic continues to impact communities across... Read More

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Supreme Court this week turned down appeal of a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, effectively clearing the way for blind and vision-impaired individuals to sue retailers if their websites are not accessible. The 9th Circuit had ruled in a case... Read More

WASHINGTON — Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said for the first time publicly Wednesday that President Donald Trump has abused the powers of his office and must be impeached. Speaking to voters in New Hampshire, Biden accused Trump of "shooting holes in the Constitution" when he... Read More

WASHINGTON - A Defense Intelligence Agency employee from Alexandria, Virginia was arrested Wednesday morning for allegedly leaking classified information to his journalist girlfriend and a second journalist. Henry Kyle Frese, who is identified in court documents as a counterterrorism analyst, was arrested when he showed up... Read More

WASHINGTON - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has responded to President Donald Trump's refusal to cooperate with a House impeachment investigation, accusing him of trying to "normalize lawlessness" and vowing he will be held accountable. On Tuesday afternoon, White House counsel Pat Cipollone sent an eight-page letter... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Alaska Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday in a lawsuit claiming the state's policy on fossil fuels harms the constitutional rights of young Alaskans to a safe climate. In 2017, 16 young people filed suit over a state statute that says it is... Read More

WASHINGTON—As the House continues its consideration of H.R. 3, Lower Drug Costs Now Act of 2019, the Blue Dog Coalition has endorsed and called on Congress to take up a series of additional prescription drug pricing bills that, if taken up individually, could pass a Democratic-led... Read More

WASHINGTON – The Democratic National Committee announced Tuesday night that MSNBC and The Washington Post will host the fifth Democratic presidential primary debate, which will be held in Georgia on November 20. The debate will also be carried live on Urban One and an audio stream... Read More

WASHINGTON - In a letter delivered to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and the chairs of three House committees late Tuesday afternoon, the White House said it would not cooperate with the ongoing impeachment inquiry, dismissing it as an effort to "overturn the results of the... Read More

WASHINGTON - The cases came from New York, Georgia and Michigan. In one, Donald Zarda, a Long Island man who taught skydiving for 15 years, was fired by his employer, Altitude Express, when a female customer complained that he had told her he was gay to... Read More

WASHINGTON  — Kristalina Georgieva, the new head of the International Monetary Fund, said Tuesday that the world economy is in the grips of a "synchronized global slowdown" fueled by ongoing trade disputes. Speaking at the World Bank/IMF annual meetings being held in Washington, D.C. this week,... Read More

WASHINGTON - A bipartisan group of senators on Tuesday urged both Congress and the Trump administration to take sweeping action to ensure social media sites aren't used as platforms for interference in the 2020 presidential election. The Senate Intelligence Committee has been investigating Russia's efforts to... Read More

WASHINGTON - A poll just out Tuesday finds 55% of Americans believe President Donald Trump’s actions regarding Ukraine are a serious matter and merit an impeachment inquiry by Congress, while 39% don’t think so. Meanwhile, when asked about the eventual outcome of the probe, 43% said... Read More

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday returned a legal challenge to Ohio's politically gerrymandered congressional districts to a lower court, which is expected to dismiss the case in light of a high court ruling in June that federal courts have no place in such... Read More

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court began what is expected to be a closely watched election year term on Monday with a case that asked a fundamental question: Does the U.S. Constitution guarantee a defendant an insanity defense? At issue in Kahler v. Kansas is whether Kansas... Read More

WASHINGTON - More than 170 current and former members of the House filed a bipartisan amicus brief in the Supreme Court Friday in support of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival program. Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, is the 2012, Obama-era policy that protected... Read More

WASHINGTON - Reps. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., and Mark Meadows, R-N.C., have stirred up a hornet's nest of controversy with a proposal that Congress tighten its oversight of the District of Columbia. H.R. 4445, the District of Columbia Home Rule Improvement Act, would double the congressional review... Read More

WASHINGTON - A bill introduced by freshman Reps. Sharice Davids, D-Kan., and Jim Hagedorn, R-Minn., and intended to provide women entrepreneurs greater access to resources and training has passed through the House Committee on Small Business without objection. H.R. 4405, the Women's Business Centers Improvements Act,... Read More

WASHINGTON - U.S. Rep. John Katko, R-N.Y., is leading a bipartisan initiative to bolster aid for suicide crisis centers. The initiative, H.R. 4564, would amend the Public Health Service Act to ensure "the provision of high-quality service through the Suicide Prevention Lifeline." It is co-sponsored by... Read More

WASHINGTON  — Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., raised $24.6 million over the past three months, relying largely on a massive small donor operation. The senator's haul, announced on Friday, is just less than the $25.3 million her chief liberal rival, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, posted during the... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court agreed Friday to decide whether Louisiana can lawfully close down abortion clinics if their doctors do not have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. The case does not threaten to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that affirmed... Read More

WASHINGTON - Hackers backed by the Iranian government have been targeting the email accounts of at least one presidential campaign, current and former federal government officials and journalists covering political campaigns, Microsoft revealed Friday. In a blog post on its website, the tech giant says that... Read More

WASHINGTON - The scrum of photographers had been waiting for nearly an hour. Gathered at the railing of a stairwell adjacent to the U.S. Capitol visitor's center, they spoke casually amongst themselves, even as they subtly jockeyed for position and warily eyed the opening to a... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Blue Dog Coalition on Friday endorsed H.R. 3830, the Taxpayers Right-To-Know Act, a bipartisan bill that would provide Americans with more information on how federal tax dollars are being spent and help eliminate duplicative and wasteful government programs. The bill has passed the... Read More

WASHINGTON - Scottish whisky, French wine and Italian cheese all could feel the wallop of hefty tariffs now that the World Trade Organization decided it will allow the United States to place tariffs on $7.5 billion of European Union goods. During an otherwise testy press conference... Read More

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump traveled to The Villages, a retirement community of 125,000 residents north of Orlando, to tout a plan to "save" Medicare, but House Democrats quickly panned the president, his plan and his rhetoric. The central theme Trump attempted to drive home in... Read More

WASHINGTON — A federal judge in Boston ruled Tuesday that while "not perfect" Harvard University's admissions process does not discriminate against Asian Americans. U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs' ruling comes in a 2014 lawsuit filed by the group Students for Fair Admissions, which accused the... Read More

WASHINGTON - Fifty-four years after the U.S. Supreme Court heard its first case dealing with the televising and broadcasting of a trial, meaningful electronic coverage of federal courts remains an aspiration, this despite the exponential advances in technology to disseminate news and information. That was the... Read More

This year's term begins Monday, Oct. 7, and will extend into late June, encompassing the presidential primaries and ending just before the Republicans and Democrats host their presidential nominating conventions. As always, one can expect the Justices' statements from the bench during hearings, the court's rulings,... Read More

This year's term begins Monday, Oct. 7, and will extend into late June, encompassing the presidential primaries and ending just before the Republicans and Democrats host their presidential nominating conventions. As always, one can expect the Justices' statements from the bench during hearings, the court's rulings,... Read More

This year's term begins Monday, Oct. 7, and will extend into late June, encompassing the presidential primaries and ending just before the Republicans and Democrats host their presidential nominating conventions. As always, one can expect the Justices' statements from the bench during hearings, the court's rulings,... Read More

This year's term begins Monday, Oct. 7, and will extend into late June, encompassing the presidential primaries and ending just before the Republicans and Democrats host their presidential nominating conventions. As always, one can expect the Justices' statements from the bench during hearings, the court's rulings,... Read More

WASHINGTON – Representative Cindy Axne, D-Iowa, led a group of freshman House Democrats in introducing legislation to protect Americans from "surprise bills" due to out-of-date insurance directors. The UPDATE Act requires insurance companies to regularly update their provider directories to prevent patients from unknowingly receiving out-of-network... Read More

WASHINGTON — Army Gen. Mark Milley became the nation's top military officer Monday, being sworn in during a rain-soaked ceremony at Joint Base Myer-Henderson in Arlington, Virginia. Milley assumes the position of chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at a challenging time in geopolitics, and... Read More

WASHINGTON - The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday issued a mixed ruling on the Federal Communications Commission's 2017 repeal of so-called net neutrality, allowing the claw back to stand while striking down a provision blocking states from adopting their own open internet rules. The... Read More

WASHINGTON - Reps. Anthony Brindisi, D-N.Y., and Mike Bost, R-Ill., led a successful bipartisan effort to extend key veterans programs such as support for traveling far for medical care. The Department of Veterans Affairs Expiring Authorities Act of 2019 extends the travel payments for rural veterans... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Drug Enforcement Agency allowed drug manufacturers to increase production of opioids, despite the fact that overdose deaths were becoming a national health crisis, a government watchdog said in a report released Tuesday. The Justice Department's inspector general review of the agency's regulatory activities... Read More

WASHINGTON - Every year, as reliably as the start of Major League Baseball's playoffs, and the arrival of multi-colored fall foliage, the U.S. Supreme Court returns in October to tackle 70 to 80 of the nation's toughest legal questions. This year's term begins Monday, Oct. 7,... Read More

WASHINGTON - Speaker Nancy Pelosi sharply rebuked Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Friday for allowing 200 days to elapse without any action on H.R. 1, the sweeping reform package the House of Representatives passed last winter. "We sent this legislation over to the ... McConnell, and... Read More

WASHINGTON - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday she believes Attorney General William Barr has "gone rogue" in his handling of a whistleblower complaint that implicates him in efforts by President Donald Trump to solicit Ukrainian interference in the 2020 election. Speaking on MSNBC's "Morning Joe"... Read More

WASHINGTON - The House passed a bill earlier this week that would grant legal marijuana businesses access to banking, resolving a longstanding challenge for the growing industry. The bill, called the SAFE Banking Act, passed 321-103 on the strength of near-unanimous support from Democrats and nearly... Read More

WASHINGTON - Faced with the prospects of simply running out of space by mid-century, the U.S. Army this week proposed new rules for who can be buried at Arlington National Cemetery. "Arlington National Cemetery is a national shrine for all Americans, but especially those who have... Read More

WASHINGTON - Kristalina Georgieva, a Bulgarian economist and top World Bank official, has been named the new head of the International Monetary Fund. She succeeds Christine Lagarde who is stepping down to take over as head of the European Central Bank. Georgieva grew up in a... Read More

WASHINGTON - The gap between those who are well-off in the United States and those who aren't is now the largest it's been in the past 50 years - this despite the median U.S. income setting a new record high, the U.S. Census Bureau said this... Read More

WASHINGTON - Reps. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., and Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., have introduced legislation to make financial data more easily available online and less opaque. McHenry, ranking Republican of the House Financial Services Committee, said with technology playing such a large role in American's financial lives, it... Read More

WASHINGTON - If Congressional leaders are serious about restoring civility, reasoned debate and a spirit of bipartisanship on Capitol Hill, they should seriously consider bringing back earmarks, a George Mason University professor told a House panel on Thursday. "They are everyone's favorite punching bag, [but] without... Read More

WASHINGTON  — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi launched a formal impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump Tuesday stemming from his allegedly putting political pressure on Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden. Pelosi made her announcement on the House floor Tuesday evening after... Read More

WASHINGTON - In an era of political polarization here in Washington, state legislatures just might hold the key to getting past the friction and on to bipartisan agreement on meaningful legislation. At least that was the consensus of a panel of state lawmakers and academics who... Read More

WASHINGTON - Women-owned businesses continue to fuel the economy and now represent 42% of all businesses — nearly 13 million — employing 9.4 million workers and generating revenue of $1.9 trillion, according to a new report commissioned by American Express. According to the annual State of... Read More

WASHINGTON - Last week, Georgetown University's Institute of Politics and Public Service hosted 12 presidential candidates for Climate Forum 2020, which was billed as a conversation with young voters about the issue of climate change and how candidates from across the political spectrum would address it... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Democratic National Committee announced its qualification criteria for the fifth Democratic presidential primary debate, which is scheduled to be held in November. As in the case of the most recent presidential candidate debate, the November criteria require the White House hopefuls demonstrate broad-based... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Federal Communications Commission must redo and better justify an order that eased restrictions on media companies wanting to consolidate their holdings in a single market, the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday. The highly anticipated ruling is a setback for companies... Read More

WASHINGTON - Sen. Cory Booker's presidential campaign raised just over a half million dollars in two days after the candidate suggested his run for the White House could be over by the end of the month. Campaigning in Iowa over the weekend, the New Jersey Democrat... Read More

WASHINGTON — California and 22 other states sued the Trump administration Friday to stop it from revoking the authority of The Golden State to set emission standards for cars and trucks. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra filed the lawsuit against the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration... Read More

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio called an end to his campaign for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination Friday after struggling to gain traction in a sprawling field of candidates. Appearing on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program, de Blasio declined to endorse any of his former... Read More

WASHINGTON - A House panel charged with improving Congress's procedures and performance took a hard look Thursday at one of the government's most difficult exercises, the annual budget and appropriations process. Last year, the Joint Select Committee on Budget and Appropriations Process Reform was tasked with... Read More

WASHINGTON - Andrew Yang could hardly contain himself. A day after he surprised a group of Georgetown University students by joining their pick-up basketball game, Yang had taken just three steps onto the stage at the university's Healy Hall Thursday morning when he impulsively jumped into... Read More

WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Mark Esper had a stark warning for attendees at a major U.S. Air Force conference Wednesday morning, telling them "great power competition has once again returned to the global stage" and as a result, "we must change course ... and face the... Read More

WASHINGTON - A majority of chief financial officers surveyed by Duke University believe the United States will be in an economic recession by the 2020 Election, despite continuing low unemployment. Fifty-three percent of the 225 CFOs participating in the latest Duke University/CFO Global Business Outlook survey,... Read More

WASHINGTON - A federal appeals court Tuesday threw out legal challenges to the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, ending a long-running legal battle involving multiple states and scores of other parties. In a brief order, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia held the... Read More

WASHINGTON - Representative Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla. told attendees at an election security forum Tuesday that tech platforms have become "battlefields" in a "bloodless conflict" and that winning requires arming voters with in-depth knowledge of the threat they face. "We need to recognize that when it comes... Read More

WASHINGTON - Rep. Colin Allred, D-Texas, is co-sponsoring a bipartisan effort to reform the Federal Election Commission so that it can enforce the nation's campaign finance and election laws in a non-partisan manner. The push to pass the Restoring Integrity to America’s Elections Act comes in... Read More

WASHINGTON - The number of U.S. military installations contaminated with potentially cancer-causing chemical compounds found in firefighting foam is expected to rise as a Defense Department task force continues to assess the problem, the Pentagon said last week. During a roundtable with reporters, Assistant Secretary of... Read More

WASHINGTON — Cokie Roberts, who grew up immersed in politics and spent several decades in Washington covering it, died Tuesday of complications from breast cancer. She was 75. “Cokie’s career as a journalist at National Public Radio and ABC News took her to the heights of... Read More

WASHINGTON - Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch may have been President Donald Trump’s first appointee to the high court, but onstage at the National Archive Monday night he seemed almost a throwback to a more gentlemanly and light hearted era. "I'm an optimist," the 52-year-old said more... Read More

WASHINGTON - The New York Times and CNN will co-host the next Democrat debate on Oct. 15, with the possibility of a second night being added depending on the number of candidates who meet the qualifying criteria. The Democratic National Committee announced Friday that the debate... Read More

WASHINGTON -  The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on Friday upheld an Obama-era update of the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule designed to protect downwind states from coal plant air pollution that blows across their borders. Congress enacted the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule with... Read More

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration announced Thursday that it is repealing an  Obama-era clean water rule that had placed limits on polluting chemicals that could be used near streams, wetlands and other bodies of water. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the repeal of the 2015... Read More

WASHINGTON - A group of centrist House Democrats best known for espousing bipartisanship to get things done on Capitol Hill, sharply criticized Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell Thursday for his continued refusal to allow election security bills to get a vote on the Senate floor. The... Read More

WASHINGTON - A far-reaching broadband connectivity should not be dictated by the location of a home or business, but rather should foster economic growth and sustainable communities by being equally accessible by all. That was the overarching message delivered to the House Small Business Subcommittee on... Read More

WASHINGTON - Rep. Francis Rooney, R-Fla., couldn't be happier that the House Wednesday passed a pair of bills blocking offshore oil drilling in almost all waters around the United States. But in an interview with The Well News, he acknowledged that the real work lies ahead... Read More

North Carolina's Republican-controlled House voted to override Gov. Roy Cooper's veto of the state budget in a surprise vote held while scores of the chamber's members were attending a ceremony honoring the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Democrats who happened to be in the... Read More

WASHINGTON - Across the nation and here in the nation's Capitol, Americans gathered for solemn ceremonies and remembrances Wednesday to honor those lost in the deadliest terror attacks on American soil. In New York, a crowd of victims' relatives assembled at ground zero, where an observance... Read More

WASHINGTON - The New Democrat Coalition on Tuesday endorsed a pair of bills intended to stabilize the Affordable Care Act while expanding health care coverage and driving down insurance costs for more Americans. Both bills were put forward by the coalition's Health Care Task Force. The... Read More

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump fired John Bolton Tuesday, a little more than an hour before his hawkish national security adviser was set to participate in a White House briefing for reporters alongside Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. Trump announced Bolton's... Read More

WASHINGTON - The cost of renovating of the Cannon House Office Building could rise to $100 million more than originally planned due to the discovery of hazardous materials in the historic building and plan changes over time, the inspector general for the Architect of the Capitol... Read More

WASHINGTON - In the latest of a series of public appearances since her recent bout with cancer, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg lamented the increasingly partisan nature of judicial confirmations. "Things have changed, and it shows up on both sides of the aisle," Ginsburg... Read More

WASHINGTON - Voters in North Carolina's 9th Congressional District head to the polls Tuesday to finally decide who will represent them: a moderate former Marine who came within a hair of claiming the seat for the Democrats last year, or a conservative Republican who hopes to... Read More

WASHINGTON - Fifty attorneys general launched an antitrust investigation into Google Monday, announcing their effort on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court building. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is leading the bipartisan coalition, said Monday the probe will look at whether Google has "engaged... Read More

WASHINGTON - Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford formally launched his long-shot bid for the Republican presidential nomination Sunday, a day after the South Carolina Republican Party voted not to hold a GOP primary election in the state next year. "I’m here to tell you now... Read More

WASHINGTON - As Congress adjourned for its August recess, the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade deal, known as the USMCA, seemed to be the last thing on anyone's mind. At the time, an impending fiscal crisis had just been averted, and lawmakers, media and the American public, quite frankly,... Read More

WASHINGTON - The House will vote next week on a trio of bills that would effectively block all new offshore oil and gas drilling in the waters around the United States. In a letter to House members, Democratic House Leader Steny Hoyer said "while much of... Read More

WASHINGTON - House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said Thursday that a continuing resolution will be necessary to keep the government funded past Oct. 1 and prevent the second shutdown in less than a year. In a letter to House members published on the Dome Watch... Read More

WASHINGTON - The co-chairs of New Democrat Coalition task forces on work and national security sent letters to the House Appropriations Committee this week urging them to retain key House-passed amendments when conference deliberations get underway on the FY2020 appropriations package. In July, the House passed... Read More

WASHINGTON - The co-chairs of the Blue Dog Coalition of security-focused House Democrats and the caucus's National Security Task Force on Wednesday called on the leadership of both parties and both chambers to bring bipartisan election security legislation up for a vote. In a letter addressed... Read More

WASHINGTON -- NewDEAL on Thursday unveiled the esteemed panel of judge for this year's New Ideas Challenge. This year's judges come to the challenge with a wealth of policy experience and expertise, bringing perspectives from leading research and policy organizations, leadership roles in the Obama White... Read More

WASHINGTON - On the one hand, it's easy to see why some in the party would embrace so-called "free" or "debt-free" college and the forgiveness of student loans. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.,  electrified younger voters with his ambitious proposals in 2016, and politics loves nothing more... Read More

WASHINGTON - When it comes to opposition talking points, the myth that Democrats advocate for "open borders" is both the most preposterous -- and persistent -- assertion of the still-young 2020 campaign season. Even Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., a self-described democratic socialist and therefore the most... Read More

WASHINGTON - What it comes down to is this: Despite many in the media trumpeting the "fact" that all the momentum in the Democratic Party in 2018 was on the far-left, mid-term voters overwhelmingly endorsed moderates, rewarding their common-sense approach to politics and governing with victory... Read More

North Carolina's state legislative district maps were so severely manipulated to benefit Republican candidates that they violate the state constitution, a three-judge state superior court panel ruled Tuesday. The 357-page ruling handed down in Wake County, North Carolina, by Superior Court Judges Paul C. Ridgeway, Joseph... Read More

WASHINGTON - Democrat Dan McCready holds a narrow lead over Republican Dan Bishop in the special election contest to represent North Carolina's 9th Congressional District, a new poll says. With precious little time left before the Sept. 10 election, a survey conducted by Harper Polling and... Read More

WASHINGTON - The House Judiciary Committee will reconvene next week taking on one of the nation's most contentious issues -- finding a way forward in the wake of a series of mass shootings. The markup on a trio of bills addressing some aspect of gun purchases... Read More

WASHINGTON - Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin announced Tuesday that he intends to remain in the U.S. Senate and won't run for governor of West Virginia. Manchin, who served as the state's governor from 2005 to 2010, had invited speculation for months about a possible run against... Read More

WASHINGTON - U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Saturday told a record crowd that had turned out to see her at the National Book Festival that "something needs to be done about partisan gerrymandering." Ginsburg was responding to a question posed by NPR legal... Read More

WASHINGTON - Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Saturday sought to dispel concerns over her health after a recent bout with cancer, telling a crowd of 4,000 at the National Book Festival that she's looking forward to the upcoming Supreme Court term, which opens in October. "I... Read More

WASHINGTON - In 2018, centrist Democrats flipped 38 seats previously held by Republicans in part because they vowed to protect the Affordable Care Act against the GOP's repeated attempts to dismantle it. Many expected a repeat heading into the 2020 election cycle. After all, health care... Read More

WASHINGTON — The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated a lawsuit over the flawed background check that allowed an avowed white supremacist to buy the gun he used to kill nine people in a racist attack on a South Carolina church. Last year, U.S. District... Read More

WASHINGTON - A bipartisan and bicameral coalition of lawmakers is pressing the Department of Homeland Security for answers after a Los Angeles Times report claims the White House has quietly scaled back programs intended to prevent terrorist attacks involving weapons of mass destruction. In an article... Read More

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration said Thursday that it intends to revoke regulations on methane leaks from oil facilities, a decision even some oil industry giants oppose. In announcing the plan, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler said the proposal delivers on President Donald Trump's directive... Read More

WASHINGTON —President Donald Trump announced Thursday the Pentagon has established the U.S. Space Command, declaring space as being crucial to the nation's defense. "It's a big deal," the president said during a Rose Garden ceremony. "As the newest combatant command, SPACECOM will defend America’s vital interests... Read More

Voter registration is up in California, with 8-in-10 eligible adults registered. However, likely voters in the state still tend to be older, well-educated and disproportionately white, according to a study by the Public Policy Institute of California. The Institute, a non-partisan public policy think tank, found... Read More

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Interior Department, in collaboration with the U.S. Education Department and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, will host the first-ever National Tribal Broadband Summit, Sept. 23 and 24 in Washington, D.C. According to the Federal Communications Commission, only 46.6% of tribal... Read More

WASHINGTON - Last week's sales of Gulf of Mexico leases for oil and gas exploration generated over $159 million in high bids for 151 tracts covering 835,000 acres in federal waters, the Interior Department reports. A total of 27 companies participated in the sale, officially known... Read More

WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Mark Esper announced Wednesday that he and a representative of the Joint Chiefs of Staff will begin doing regular briefings "to maintain an open dialogue about the department's activities." Esper's announcement, made in the Pentagon briefing room as he stood alongside Joint... Read More

NEW YORK — The Trump administration said children adopted overseas by U.S. military personnel and government employees serving abroad will no longer be guaranteed citizenship. A “policy manual update” issued Wednesday by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services also would affect the children born to noncitizen... Read More

WASHINGTON - Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., dropped out of the 2020 presidential race Wednesday, after having failed to make the stage for the third Democratic candidate debate. Gillibrand, who positioned herself as a progressive and strong advocate for women’s issues, has suffered from a lack of... Read More

WASHINGTON —Ten Democratic presidential candidates have qualified to appear in the next debate, guaranteeing for the first time this election cycle that the front-runners in the contest will finally come face-to-face in a one-night event. The next debate, sponsored by ABC News and the Spanish-language network... Read More

WASHINGTON - Sen. Johnny Isakson, D-Ga., announced Wednesday that he will step down from the Senate at the end of the year, adding a competitive seat to the highly anticipated 2020 battle for control of the chamber. "After much prayer and consultation with my family and... Read More

WASHINGTON - Representative Stephanie Murphy announced the University of Central Florida will receive $494,412 from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to combat the opioid epidemic in central Florida. The funds will be used by the university to train a new generation of... Read More

WASHINGTON - Matt Petersen, a Republican appointment to the Federal Election Commission and most recently, its vice chairman, has resigned his seat, leaving the panel overseeing campaign laws without a quorum. Petersen's departure leaves the FEC with only three of the six commission seats filled heading... Read More

A federal judge on Tuesday temporarily blocked a Missouri law banning abortions after eight weeks, one of the most restrictive proposals nationwide. The law, which included no exceptions for rape and incest, was signed by Republican Gov. Mike Parson in May and was set to take... Read More

WASHINGTON - Senate Finance Chairman Chuck Grassley, R- Iowa, is expected to mount a full-court, bipartisan press to see that legislation lowering prescription drug prices is passed before the end of the year. Chairman Grassley recently met with Senate Health Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander, Ranking Member... Read More

WASHINGTON - With trade tensions between U.S. and China still on a high boil, Australia stands poised to become the Defense Department's primary supplier of Rare Earth metals, a department official said Monday. Rare Earth metals are a collection of 17 minerals used in everything from... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon is seeking to recruit private investors to invest in a new generation of American-made small drone technology as an alternative to Chinese models. Ellen M. Lord, the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, told reporters at a midday press briefing Monday... Read More

An Oklahoma judge on Monday ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay $572 million for its role in fueling the state's opioid abuse crisis. Cleveland County District Judge Thad Balkman's ruling concluded the first state opioid case to make it to trial. In handing it down, he... Read More

WASHINGTON - Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has completed three weeks of radiation treatment for a cancerous tumor discovered on her pancreas in July, the Supreme Court announced Friday. According to the statement, the tumor was discovered after a routine blood test at the Memorial... Read More

WASHINGTON - Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., dropped out of the 2020 presidential contest Friday, saying he will instead seek reelection in Massachusetts' 6th congressional district. Moulton made his announcement at the Democratic National Committee's summer meeting in San Francisco. "Today, I want to use this opportunity,... Read More

WASHINGTON — China on Friday announced tariff hikes on $75 billion of U.S. products in retaliation for President Donald Trump's latest planned increase, deepening the trade conflict between the two nations at a time when the president insists "China wants to make a deal with us."... Read More

WASHINGTON — Billionaire industrialist David H. Koch, who with his older brother, Charles, transformed American politics by pouring their riches into conservative causes, has died at age 79. Charles Koch announced the death in a statement, which gave no cause but noted that David Koch had... Read More

A new commission tasked with reforming how New York State runs and finances it elections got off to a rancorous start this week, with members struggling to deal with even the most mundane organizational matters and a fight erupting over how the nine-member body will ultimately... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Federal Elections Commission is seeking public comment on a proposal to include "valuable information" to the definition of a "contribution" used in its regulations. Currently commission regulations define a "contribution" as "any gift, subscription, loan ... advance, or deposit of money or anything... Read More

WASHINGTON — Washington Gov. Jay Inslee ended his climate change-focused 2020 presidential bid Wednesday night, announcing Thursday that he'll seek a third term as governor instead. Inslee revealed he was ending his run for the White House on MSNBC's "The Rachel Maddow Show." "It's become clear... Read More

A presidential campaign behind him, former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper said Thursday he's running for the U.S. Senate, vying for the right to challenge Republican incumbent Cory Gardner. With his announcement, which came via a video message posted on his website Thursday morning, Hickenlooper immediately became... Read More

A federal appeals court on Tuesday ruled that three presidential electors from Colorado were unconstitutionally forced to cast their Electoral College votes for Hillary Clinton in 2016. The ruling by a divided 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is a victory for so-called “faithless electors” who... Read More

North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper vetoed a bill Wednesday that would have required the state's sheriffs to honor detention requests from federal immigration standards. The veto came a day after the Republican-controlled North Carolina House voted along party lines to approve the measure mandating cooperation with... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Trump administration on Wednesday unveiled new regulations that would allow it to indefinitely detain migrant families who cross the southwestern border illegally. The regulations, which will be published in the Federal Register on Friday, voids a long-standing agreement with a federal court, known... Read More

WASHINGTON - The federal budget deficit is growing faster than expected and will reach $1 trillion next year, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday. Worse, over the next decade, the federal government will rack up $12.2 trillion in deficits --  $809 billion more than the... Read More

WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump said Tuesday that his administration is considering a temporary payroll tax cut as a way to bolster the U.S. economy though he continues to insist the nation is not inching toward a recession. "I’ve been thinking about payroll taxes for a... Read More

South Carolina will implement a $52 million upgrade of its voting system this fall, deploying a paper-based voting system in time for a special legislative election on Oct. 1 and municipal elections scheduled four weeks later. Until now, South Carolina was one of a handful of... Read More

WASHINGTON — New York State, Connecticut, Vermont and the City of New York sued the Trump administration Tuesday over its new Public Charge Rule, which aims to deny green cards and visas to immigrants that use or have used government assistance programs. “Generations of citizens landed... Read More

WASHINGTON — Seventy-four percent of U.S. business economists participating in a new survey believe the United States will slip into a recession by the end of 2021, despite the White House's insistence that the "fundamentals" of the economy remain strong. The survey, released Monday, was conducted... Read More

WASHINGTON - Dr. George Luber, one of the federal government's top experts on the health impacts of climate change is seeking whistleblower protection due to retaliation he claims he's faced since speaking out against the Trump administration's efforts to end climate research. Trump, a climate change... Read More

WASHINGTON - A majority of large employers believe the Medicare for all proposals being touted by some White House aspirants would lower the number of uninsured in the United States, but at a cost of higher taxes and a decline in the quality of health care,... Read More

WASHINGTON - Back home in South Carolina after a mid-week trip to New Hampshire, former Rep. Mark Sanford said Friday he was pleased with how things went in the Granite State and his decision on whether to mount a primary challenge against President Trump will be... Read More

WASHINGTON - With polls suggesting his disapproval rating is near an all-time high, President Donald Trump told attendees at a boisterous New Hampshire campaign rally Thursday night they had to vote for him "whether you love me or hate me." A Fox News survey on Wednesday... Read More

WASHINGTON - Representatives John Katko and Anthony Brindisi have launched a bipartisan effort to hold the international commission that manages outflows from Lake Ontario accountable for recent historic flooding. Katko, a Republican, and Brindisi, a Democrat, have gotten the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan group that... Read More

WASHINGTON - Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper dropped out of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination Thursday, fueling speculation that he will now set his sights on a U.S. Senate bid. Hickenlooper, 67, ran as a moderate, but never made any headway in a crowded... Read More

A federal judge on Thursday ordered Georgia to stop using its "unsecure ... and grossly outdated" voting machines after this year and to have hand-marked paper ballots at the ready if new, more secure machines aren't in place by the state's presidential primary. U.S. District Judge... Read More

New Hampshire's Republican governor, Chris Sununu vetoed a bipartisan bill Friday that would have created an independent redistricting commission to draw the state's legislative and congressional district maps following the 2020 elections. In a letter explaining his veto, Sununu said he believes issues related to partisan... Read More

WASHINGTON - A coalition of 22 states and seven major cities sued the Trump administration Tuesday in a bid to prevent it from dismantling an Obama-era regulation that established national limits on the carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants. In a petition filed in the U.S.... Read More

WASHINGTON -- After days of growing indications the U.S. may lapse into a recession before the 2020 election, the Trump administration announced Tuesday that it is delaying some of the additional tariffs it planned to impose on Chinese goods on Sept. 1. The announcement, which was... Read More

WASHINGTON - Democrats led by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., called on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and President Donald Trump on Tuesday to endorse House-passed legislation expanding background checks on gun buyers and to take other steps to prevent mass shootings like those in... Read More

U.S. Representatives Lauren Underwood, D-Ill., and Joe Kennedy III, D-Mass., hosted a forum in Yorkville, Ill. This week to discuss challenges young Americans face with mental health.  Underwood and Kennedy are members of Future Forum, an influential group of young members of Congress who advocate for... Read More

Freshman Representative Joe Cunningham, D-S.C., certainly didn't expect to be taking on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., let alone talking about gun control, when he returned to his South Carolina district for the August recess, but after mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton,... Read More

The Campaign Legal Center filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission Wednesday accusing the presidential campaign of New York Mayor Bill De Blasio and two PACs of violating federal law by arranging for a small number of wealthy donors to skirt contribution limits. In its... Read More

North Charleston Police Chief Reggie Burgess knew he had to do something. In 2016, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced South Carolina led the nation in drunk driving fatalities, with 44% of all auto accident deaths involving at least one driver with a blood alcohol... Read More

The Trump administration's decision to put a temporary hold on the majority of congressionally approved foreign aid funds, drew a sharp rebuke from the chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Wednesday. “This Administration's contempt for Congress is astounding,” said Representative Eliot Engel, D-N.Y. “When... Read More

Jim Hood, Mississippi's four-term attorney general, beat seven rivals Tuesday night to become the Democratic nominee for Mississippi governor, while on the Republican side, second-term Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves faces a runoff in three weeks against former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Bill Waller Jr. Reeves... Read More

The New Democrat Coalition on Wednesday released a statement of principles aimed at reasserting the United States’ role as a global leader in addressing climate change. A statement outlining the principles says they are intended to combat climate change “with the seriousness and urgency this crisis... Read More

The Trump campaign and the Republican Party sued California on Tuesday over a new law requiring presidential candidates to release their tax returns to run in the state’s primary. "Today we have taken decisive action in federal court challenging California’s attempt to circumvent the U.S. Constitution,"... Read More

WASHINGTON - In the wake of the mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, the Blue Dog Coalition of House Democrats announced its endorsement Tuesday of H.R. 1931, Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act of 2019, a bill aimed at addressing the growing threat of white... Read More

U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman, turned in his letter of resignation Monday, telling President Donald Trump that after two years in Moscow, its “time to reconnect with our growing family and responsibilities at home.” “American citizenship is a privilege and I believe the most basic... Read More

Representative Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., visited a Walgreens pharmacy in Waldwick, New Jersey with Bergen County Sheriff Anthony Cureton to discuss how local communities are addressing the opioid crisis and substance abuse in general. Deaths from drug overdoses in New Jersey have steadily risen over the past... Read More

Former President Barack Obama didn’t mention anyone by name Monday, but in a lengthy statement posted in response to two mass shootings over the weekend that left 32 people dead, he urged Americans to soundly reject “language coming out of the mouths of any of our... Read More

President Donald Trump addressed the nation Monday, two days after weekend shootings in Texas and Ohio left 32 dead, calling on Americans to condemn “racism, bigotry and white supremacy” in “one voice,” and vowing to seek a bipartisan response to what has become an epidemic of... Read More

WASHINGTON - A federal judge on Friday tossed a Trump administration policy that would only allow migrants who enter the country through legal ports of entry to apply for asylum. In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss, an Obama appointee presiding in Washington, D.C., held... Read More

WASHINGTON - With a week to go before the filing deadline, more than 10,300 Californians have applied to serve on the state's 14-member Citizens Redistricting Commission. "This is great news for direct democracy," said Elaine M. Howle, California's state auditor, as she made the number public.... Read More

WASHINGTON - Before leaving Washington to work in their home districts, members of the House Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress unanimously endorsed a second round of bipartisan proposals to improve life on Capitol Hill. “This committee is committed to delivering solutions that make Congress... Read More

WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump announced Thursday the U.S. is placing an additional 10% tariff on $300 billion worth of Chinese goods, effective September 1. “Trade talks are continuing, and during the talks the U.S. will start, on September 1st, putting a small additional tariff of... Read More

WASHINGTON - More than 155,367 Oklahomans had their voting status changes to "inactive" this week after they failed to respond to an address confirmation notice sent to them by the state election board. "Oklahoma has very few incidents of voter fraud," said Misha Mohr, public information... Read More

WASHINGTON - Despite pushback from conservative Republicans, the budget and debt ceiling deal struck by the White House and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., easily passed the Senate Thursday afternoon. Even with fears that the vote in the Senate would be tight, the legislation passed 67-28,... Read More

WASHINGTON - California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a law Tuesday that would require President Trump -- or any other candidate -- to disclose their tax returns in order to appear on California's primary ballot. The law, which was introduced by Democratic State Senators Mike McGuire and... Read More

WASHINGTON - A House working group formed to negotiate changes to President Donald Trump's proposed U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement told House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last week that while it's made substantial progress, it's still waiting for a counter proposal for requested changes from the White House. The... Read More

WASHINGTON - Seven months from Super Tuesday, the race to win the California primary and presumably, a lock to be the Democratic presidential nominee, is a toss-up, according to new poll released by the Public Policy Institute of California. California is one of 14 states that... Read More

WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Mike Pompeo addressed widespread speculation that he's considering a run for the U.S. Senate, telling an audience of business men and women Monday that such a bid "is off the table, as a practical matter." "I am going to serve as... Read More

WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Monday that President Donald Trump has ordered him to reduce the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan by the 2020 election and begin the closing chapter of the nearly two-decade-old conflict. "That's my directive from the President ...... Read More

Clearly concerned about what will happen if a federal appeals court upholds a lower court ruling overturning the Affordable Care Act, Democrats at the National Governors Association summer meeting said Thursday that rolling back the health care law would be devastating to families that depend on... Read More

WASHINGTON - If anyone doubted there's serious interest in getting a handle on the nation's debt and the federal budget, the standing room-only crowd that jammed a hearing room in the Longworth House Office Building Thursday afternoon would have quickly persuaded them otherwise. The event was... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Problem Solvers Caucus on Thursday endorsed H.R. 1980, the Smithsonian Women’s History Museum Act, which will establish a new women’s history museum on the Mall in Washington, as a part of the Smithsonian Institution. Twenty-four Democrats and 24 Republican members of the Caucus,... Read More

WASHINGTON - The House on Thursday approved a deal to lift the nation's debt ceiling and raise caps set on federal spending for the next two years. But even as the votes were being cast on the measure, members of the Blue Dog Coalition were actively... Read More