U.S. Senate

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell denounced newly elected Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Monday, calling the far-right Georgia Republican’s embrace of conspiracy theories and “loony lies” a “cancer for the Republican Party.” “Somebody who’s suggested that perhaps... Read More

WASHINGTON - A bipartisan effort in the Senate Tuesday narrowly killed a Republican push to dismiss the impeachment charge against former President Donald Trump as unconstitutional. The staunch opposition of all but a handful of Republicans in the 55-45 vote,... Read More

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Democrats delivered the impeachment case against Donald Trump to the Senate for the start of his historic trial, but Republican senators were easing off their criticism of the former president and shunning calls to convict him over the deadly... Read More

WASHINGTON - Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell dropped his demand that Democrats maintain the Senate filibuster — ending an early stalemate in the Senate that prevented party leaders from negotiating a power-sharing agreement. McConnell announced Monday night that he was... Read More

WASHINGTON - Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, who has been trying to walk a political tightrope since the House impeached former President Donald Trump last week, revealed Monday morning that he will not seek re-election to a third term in 2022.... Read More

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell is proposing to push back the start of Donald Trump's impeachment trial to February to give the former president time to prepare and review his case. House Democrats who voted to impeach Trump last... Read More

WASHINGTON (AP) — Three new senators were sworn into office Wednesday after President Joe Biden's inauguration, securing the majority for Democrats in the Senate and across a unified government to tackle the new president's agenda at a time of unprecedented... Read More

WASHINGTON -- A Senate committee on Tuesday reviewed a Biden nominee to become secretary of state in a move that represents one of several big changes planned by the new president. Biden nominated his long-time foreign affairs advisor Antony J.... Read More

WASHINGTON — Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., opened the Senate on Tuesday with a sharp rebuke for President Donald Trump, saying the outgoing chief executive "fed lies" to protestors who carried out a deadly siege at the U.S. Capitol... Read More

WASHINGTON (AP) — Kamala Harris will make history on Wednesday when she becomes the nation’s first female vice president — and the first Black woman and the first woman of South Asian descent to hold that office. But that’s only... Read More

WASHINGTON (AP) — So what does a 50-50 Senate get President-elect Joe Biden? Washington has barely had time to process the implications of Democratic control after two Georgia runoff elections that are delivering the Senate to Democrats. Hours after the races were... Read More

WASHINGTON (AP) — Chuck Schumer is used to drinking from a firehose. But the incoming Senate majority leader has never taken on such a torrent of challenges, with the opening days of both the Biden administration and Democratic control of... Read More

WASHINGTON (AP) — For a second time, Republican senators face the choice of whether to convict President Donald Trump in an impeachment trial. While only one GOP senator, Utah's Mitt Romney, voted to convict Trump last year, that number could... Read More

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell pointedly did not rule out that he might eventually vote to convict the now twice-impeached President Donald Trump, but he also blocked a quick Senate impeachment trial. Minutes after the House voted 232-197... Read More

WASHINGTON (AP) — A sober, shaken Senate returned to its hallowed chamber Wednesday night to slap away a frivolous election challenge, but its secondary purpose seemed to be to rise from the wreckage of a shocking day in which they... Read More

ATLANTA (AP) — President Donald Trump came to the north Georgia mountains Monday night to gin up turnout in conservative strongholds and stave off the Democratic challengers who threatened the GOP’s Senate majority in two runoff elections. It didn't work.... Read More

Georgia voters will decide the balance of power in Congress Tuesday in a pair of high-stakes Senate runoff elections that will help determine President-elect Joe Biden's ability to enact his governing agenda. Incumbent Republican Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler... Read More

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday appointed his Secretary of State Alex Padilla to fill the Senate seat being vacated by Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. The child of Mexican immigrants, Padilla will be California’s first Latino senator,... Read More

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell congratulated Democrat Joe Biden as president-elect on Tuesday, saying the Electoral College “has spoken.” The Republican leader's statement, delivered in a speech on the Senate floor, ends weeks of silence over President... Read More

WASHINGTON – Senate Democrats on Wednesday made some of the most significant rules changes for their caucus in years, one of which will restrict their leaders from standing atop too many top committee slots. For example, Sen. Richard J. Durbin... Read More

WASHINGTON — The Senate confirmed three new commissioners to the Federal Election Commission on Wednesday, giving the campaign finance regulator a full slate of six members for the first time since February 2017. Senators voted 92-4 to confirm Shana M. Broussard, who will be the agency's first... Read More

ATLANTA — U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler and the Rev. Raphael Warnock faced off in their first, and possibly only, one-on-one debate Sunday night at the Atlanta Press Club, trading barbed attacks in their fight for the right to represent Georgia in the Senate for the next two years. Over the course of... Read More

WASHINGTON — Texas Sen. John Cornyn, a senior Republican and adviser to the majority leader, said flatly Thursday that President Donald Trump has no realistic path to overturning the election. After weeks of court defeats, he noted, Trump's legal team has yet to show evidence of... Read More

WASHINGTON — Sen. Lamar Alexander's farewell speech to the chamber in which he's served for 18 years — and was a staffer decades earlier — was a reminder to colleagues of why the retiring Tennessee Republican was such a popular and effective public figure. Alexander's... Read More

WASHINGTON — Sen. Mark Kelly took the oath of office Wednesday, following the path of Ohio's John Glenn and others who once orbited the Earth and later landed on Capitol Hill. The Arizona Democrat, a former NASA astronaut and Navy pilot who flew combat missions in the Persian Gulf, was sworn... Read More

WASHINGTON — Democrats and Republicans split on Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin's decision to end most of the emergency lending facilities established at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic at a Senate hearing Tuesday. "Even the Chamber of Commerce said that shutting down the emergency lending programs 'closes the door on important... Read More

WASHINGTON – Last week, U.S. Reps. Cheri Bustos, D-Ill., and Rodney Davis, R-Ill., along with U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., led the bipartisan Illinois Congressional delegation in sending a letter to the U.S. Department of Agriculture... Read More

WASHINGTON - Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said Monday she will step down as the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee when the 117th Congress convenes in January, apparently bowing to critics who believe she wasn't aggressive enough in her handling... Read More

WASHINGTON -- Medical experts told a Senate committee Thursday that misguided information about early treatment contributed to giving the United States the world’s highest death rate from coronavirus. Some of them blamed the Food and Drug Administration for halting a... Read More

WASHINGTON (AP) — Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the longest-serving Republican senator and third in the line of presidential succession, said he has tested positive for the coronavirus. Grassley, 87, had announced earlier Tuesday that he was quarantining after being exposed... Read More