David Hawkings
Bio:
David Hawkings has been editor of the CQ Roll Call Daily Briefing – which offers forward-looking, non-partisan analysis of the top stories in Congress and around official and political Washington, online or by e-mail before lunchtime every weekday – since its launch in November 2010. For six years before that he was managing editor of CQ Weekly, a magazine covering federal policies, people and politics. He’s has also been the senior editor for legislative affairs, economics editor, congressional affairs editor, managing editor for daily news and co-editor of "Politics in America," the company’s signature reference work on members of Congress. He offers analysis every Monday and Friday on NPR’s Washington affiliate, WAMU, and makes frequent appearances as a guest commentator on Fox News, CNN and MSNBC.
Before joining the company in 1995, he was a correspondent in the Washington Bureau of Thomson Newspapers and a reporter, columnist and editor at the San Antonio Light. He’s a native of New York and a graduate of Bucknell University.
Stories by David Hawkings:
Aug. 1, 2013
Senators are heading off for the August recess with a smoky, not bitter, taste in their mouths.
July 31, 2013
On domestic spending, it’s been assumed all year that the two halves of Congress were on a collision course.
July 31, 2013
President Barack Obama was armed with better than expected news about economic growth when he went to the Capitol today, where he’s having separate meetings with House and Senate Democrats but having nothing at all to do with Republicans.
July 30, 2013
The logjam of confirmations appears to be breaking in the Senate — just in time for the August recess — with one prominent nominee left behind.
July 29, 2013
“It’s just lunch!” insist the handlers for both participants in today’s most closely watched inside-the-Beltway meal.
July 29, 2013
Upon her death on July 27 at age 97, Lindy Boggs had been gone from the Capitol for more than 22 years, longer than her time as the Democratic congresswoman from New Orleans. But the tributes pouring forth indicate a political force still quite close to the present. They also suggest congressional ways of doing business that have almost disappeared altogether.
July 28, 2013
The final week before the August recess in a non-election year: Customarily, it’s the occasion for climactic votes on some of the most important matters of the year. This time, it will come and go with little more than a rhetorical torrent about how little’s been done to justify a five-week vacation.
July 24, 2013
President Barack Obama’s effort to pivot Washington’s attention back onto the economy — and claim the public opinion upper hand before his budget battle with Congress is rejoined this fall — had all the hallmarks of a recent State of the Union address.
July 24, 2013
The four members of Congress likeliest to run for president in 2016 are all bunched together near the top of a front-runner-free Republican field, according to this year’s most extensive poll about the next race for the White House.
July 23, 2013
At first blush, one of the first measures introduced by one of this year’s youngest, tech-savvy House freshmen sounds as virtuous as it does innovative.
July 23, 2013
With the new fiscal year starting 10 weeks from today, and the budget process on a collision course with total impasse, it was only a matter of time before talks of a government shutdown would bubble to the Capitol surface.
July 22, 2013
Seventeen years and 774 cloture petitions after he left the Senate, Bob Dole celebrated his 90th birthday Monday with the sort of plain-spoken tough love that marked his run as one of the most accomplished congressional leaders of all time.
July 21, 2013
The just-updated résumé of Edward J. Markey points to one of the more unusual characteristics of the Capitol this year: It’s swarming with newbies.
July 18, 2013
President Barack Obama is making another attempt today to sell his health care law to the public. He learned Wednesday that he’s got more work to do than he expected.
July 17, 2013
There’s a ready temptation for those who dismiss any talk that Congress might agree on a way to revamp the Voting Rights Act.
July 17, 2013
Congress is the main impediment to a more robust economy, Ben S. Bernanke told Congress today in what may well be his swan song on Capitol Hill.
July 16, 2013
There’s a strong argument that the most important meaning of Tuesday’s pivotal roll call isn’t that the Senate has saved the Senate from itself. The filibuster showdown was averted, for now, but it hasn’t gone away.
July 15, 2013
For evidence of just how close the Senate has come to seizing up, consider the forum chosen by its leaders to conduct a last-ditch search for a restorative tonic.
July 15, 2013
Members of the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus have been at the forefront of the campaign for federal prosecution of George Zimmerman on civil rights or hate crimes charges in the killing of Trayvon Martin.
July 14, 2013
One of the summer’s hottest local stories has become the standoff between the D.C. Council and Wal-Mart over how much the big-box behemoth should have to pay its Washington workforce.
July 10, 2013
Updated 5:06 p.m. | It would have been unthinkable, maybe only a year ago, that legislation to expand gay civil rights would win more bipartisan support than legislation protecting college kids from a doubling of their student loan rates.
July 9, 2013
A Senate nuclear showdown is looking almost inevitable this month.
July 9, 2013
Very unusual fault lines are hardening in Congress on the most consequential foreign policy dispute of the summer, with senior lawmakers in both parties taking opposite stances about whether aid to Egypt should be withheld if civilians aren’t quickly put back in charge.
July 8, 2013
Wednesday’s all-House-Republicans-on-deck meeting on immigration has lost its potential to generate the summer’s biggest congressional news.
July 8, 2013
One of the most consequential effects of the sequester began today: Weekly unpaid furlough days for more than 650,000 civilian workers at the Defense Department, who will effectively see their pay cut by 20 percent for the final 11 weeks of this budget year.
