Roll Call Reporter
| Aug. 15, 2011, Midnight
Well, at least Republican and Democratic House leaders have agreed on something. But what Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) concurred on last week — abruptly killing the House page program after nearly 200 years of existence — could have been handled much better.
Roll Call Reporter
| March 30, 2011, Midnight
In 2007, when there was a flurry of speculation that President George W. Bush might bomb Iran’s nuclear installations, then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) declared it would be unconstitutional unless authorized by Congress. Obviously, now that he is president, Obama has changed his mind.
Roll Call Reporter
| March 16, 2011, Midnight
At $235,000 a year, expense accounts for top Congressional leaders is a sub-pittance by comparison to the federal budget or even the legislative branch budget. Our problem with it is that it’s hard to tell what the money is spent on.
Roll Call Reporter
| March 9, 2011, Midnight
In several past Congresses, former Rep. John Tanner (D-Tenn.) introduced bills, which we cheered, requiring states to redistrict House seats by independent commissions to avoid partisan gerrymandering. Unfortunately, the efforts went nowhere.
Roll Call Reporter
| March 2, 2011, Midnight
First the good news: House Republican leaders and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid agreed on terms of a two-week spending measure to prevent the government from shutting down at the end of this week. Now the bad news: The deal may not stick and the government may shut down after all.
Roll Call Reporter
| Feb. 16, 2011, Midnight
For at least a decade now, it’s been a mantra that Members of Congress ought to abide by policies that they prescribe for the rest of the country. But by that standard, the House Republican budget proposal falls short.
Roll Call Reporter
| Feb. 9, 2011, Midnight
Here we go again. Campaign finance reports for the fourth quarter of 2010 were due to be filed Jan. 31 — and those from House Members, the Republican and Democratic parties and all their campaign committees were instantly posted on the Web. But not the Senate’s.
Roll Call Reporter
| Feb. 2, 2011, Midnight
It could have gone further than it did, but we’re impressed with the “gentlemen’s agreement” between Republicans and Democrats on Senate rules. It gives us hope for more bipartisan achievements to come.
Roll Call Reporter
| Jan. 26, 2011, Midnight
A powerful constitutional, historical and procedural case can be made for doing away with the Senate filibuster. We doubt it’s going to happen, but Senate rules certainly ought to be modified — along with the behavior of Senators of both parties.
Roll Call Reporter
| Jan. 19, 2011, Midnight
We are encouraged by the response of leaders and most Members of Congress to the Jan. 8 shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and 19 others in Tucson, Ariz. We urgently hope they will live up to their vows to, in effect, detoxify American politics.
Roll Call Reporter
| Jan. 12, 2011, Midnight
Congressional leaders and Members are responding with appropriate horror, grief — and dignity — to the assassination attempt on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and the killing of her staffer, Gabe Zimmerman, and five others in Tucson. But outside Congress, a climate of rage persists.
Roll Call Reporter
| Jan. 5, 2011, Midnight
Speaker-designate John Boehner told the New Yorker that “the first really big adult moment” for Republicans will come when it’s time — probably this spring — to vote on increasing the national debt ceiling. Actually, though, the next two years are going to be filled with “adult moments” for the entire Congress.
Roll Call Reporter
| Dec. 15, 2010, Midnight
In this unconscionably jam-packed lame-duck session of Congress, one important item didn’t even make it onto the schedule: a revived attempt to pass the DISCLOSE Act, which would make corporate and union campaign expenditures more transparent.
Roll Call Reporter
| Dec. 8, 2010, Midnight
It took two years and four months for the House ethics committee to process charges that led last week to the censure of Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) — the capstone of a miserably weak performance in the 111th Congress.
Roll Call Reporter
| Dec. 1, 2010, Midnight
The Senate’s vote Tuesday to continue Congressional earmarks sets up a fascinating legislative and political dynamic inasmuch as the House’s new Republican majority and the Senate GOP minority are determined to forgo them, at least temporarily.
Roll Call Reporter
| Nov. 15, 2010, Midnight
Having utterly failed to do its basic jobs — funding the government and setting tax rates — and having done many other things the public resoundingly rejected, the 111th Congress is now faced with enormous challenges of its own making before it passes into history.
Roll Call Reporter
| Oct. 6, 2010, Midnight
It’s one of the most dismal rituals in Congress: The minority party bitterly complains about unfair treatment by the majority and promises that, when it’s in the majority, Congress will be run fairly and transparently.
