Barbara Lee

Nappy. Kinky. Too curly. These are adjectives sometimes used to describe natural black hair. While they can be insulting, some lawmakers say these perceptions also lead to discrimination against African Americans.

Several recent high-profile incidents involving discrimination and racial insensitivity have convinced lawmakers that more federal protections need to be put in place to prevent prejudice against hairstyles associated with black culture.

Rep. Stephen Lynch announced Monday that he will run to be the next chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform after Chairman Elijah Cummings died two weeks ago.

The Massachusetts congressman is the second Democrat on the committee to seek the gavel. California Rep. Jackie Speier announced last week she was in the running to head the committee. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appointed Rep. Carolyn Maloney of New York to replace Cummings in an acting capacity based on Maloney’s seniority, Pelosi’s office said last week.

ANALYSIS — President Donald Trump’s comparison of his possible impeachment as a “lynching” set off a war of words Tuesday between his staunchest defenders and his fiercest critics. Accusations have flown back and forth during the nearly month-old inquiry, but they have not always rung accurate — or been even remotely true.

Trump’s “lynching” tweet is a prime example of the latter, with even some of his political allies making a rare break with a president who still has the support, according to multiple polls, of nearly 90 percent of Republican voters. But both sides have been guilty of pushing myths about how this impeachment is playing out and the nature of the constitutionally based process.

Rep. Carolyn Maloney will serve as acting chairwoman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform after Chairman Elijah E. Cummings died Thursday, with House Democrats choosing a formal replacement for Cummings at “a later time,” a senior Democratic leadership aide told CQ Roll Call.

The next leader of the committee will step into a bright spotlight, with the panel conducting multiple investigations into President Donald Trump and his administration and playing a key role in the impeachment process headed by Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff.

House Appropriations Chairwoman Nita M. Lowey’s decision to retire at the end of the 116th Congress will set off a lengthy and contentious campaign among her colleagues to determine who will become the top Democrat on the spending panel.

Unlike the Senate, which predominantly relies on seniority to determine who serves as a chairman or ranking member, the House weighs several factors before deciding who will lead a committee. And right now, assuming Democrats keep their House majority next year, signs may be pointing in the direction of Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, who will be the third-ranking Democrat on the powerful committee in 2021. 

As bunnies hopped around the Rayburn building on Tuesday, Longworth hosted a critter that wasn’t so cute — or cuddly.

Rep. Josh Harder toted a taxidermied “swamp rat” named Nellie to his hearing in front of the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Oceans and Wildlife.

An amendment inserted into the House's fiscal 2020 Homeland Security spending bill by Appropriations Committee Democrats during the panel's June markup would bust the subcommittee's allocation by nearly $3.1 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Adopted on a 28-21 vote, the amendment from Reps. David E. Price of North Carolina, Pete Aguilar and Barbara Lee of California, and Mark Pocan of Wisconsin would block a number of Trump administration immigration policies, including protecting beneficiaries of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals from deportation and revoking Trump's travel ban against predominantly Muslim countries.

While answering phones in the Mississippi congressional office where he worked, Ty James was called the n-word by someone on the other end of the line. It was 2017 and marked the second time he had been called that.

Those kinds of experiences have helped convince James, a native Mississippian and African American who is press secretary for Rep. Bennie Thompson, that the two statues representing the state in the Capitol’s National Statuary Hall Collection shouldn’t be devoted to men who were Confederates and white supremacists.

How do you become a Washington fixture? A congressional pin or a reporter’s credential are among the ways. So is a penciled likeness from an early morning appearance on C-SPAN.

The artist who draws C-SPAN’s guests is Michael McCutcheon, a 79-year-old retiree living in his native Austin, Texas. He dutifully sketches the guests of the Washington Journal program every morning.

The House on Friday approved its defense authorization bill after adopting a slew of progressive amendments that helped Democrats earn votes from the party’s more dovish members in the face of Republican opposition.

The final vote on the fiscal 2020 bill was 220-197. No Republicans supported the typically bipartisan measure that traditionally has earned more than 300 of the 435 available House votes.