Stories by John Stanton:
April 17, 2012
After two and a half months of open hostility from his own Conference, numerous false starts, a short-term extension and a host of revisions and rewrites, Speaker John Boehner on Tuesday appeared close to passing some sort of highway extension legislation.
April 16, 2012
House GOP leaders face a bumpy road within their own party over the direction of a long-term transportation spending extension, even as they prepare for a vote Wednesday.
April 12, 2012
April 16 might be tax day, but this year it’s also the start of the campaign season on Capitol Hill, with Democrats kicking off the fireworks by charging that a small business tax bill backed by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor will benefit the likes of Kim Kardashian, Oprah Winfrey and smut publisher Larry Flynt.
April 12, 2012
Speaker John Boehner is reportedly preparing a 90-day “clean” extension of federal highway and transit programs that would include provisions opening the Keystone pipeline as a vehicle for beginning conference talks with the Senate, GOP aides said today.
April 11, 2012
Rep. Aaron Schock’s office today said it remains confident the lawmaker did not violate federal campaign finance laws when he solicited a $25,000 donation for a super PAC from House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.).
April 6, 2012
In the waning days of a bruising primary between Illinois GOP Reps. Adam Kinzinger and Don Manzullo, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor donated $25,000 to an anti-incumbent super PAC for use against Manzullo — a move that may have helped swing the contest in favor of Kinzinger.
April 3, 2012
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s campaign launched its first ad of the 2012 election season, touting his upcoming small-business tax cut measure.
March 30, 2012
Even though the House Republican budget is dead on arrival in the Senate, the benchmark it sets for spending battles could cause serious headaches for top Agriculture Committee members tasked with passing a farm bill this year.
March 29, 2012
With lawmakers chomping at the bit to leave Washington, D.C., for the Easter recess, the House today passed, 266-158, a 90-day highway extension bill to avert a shutdown of key federal transportation programs.
March 28, 2012
After two failed efforts to pass a short-term extension of surface transportation law, House Republican leaders plan to take up a 90-day extension today in an effort to avert a shutdown of federal highway programs on Saturday.
March 28, 2012
Hoping to use the two-week Easter recess to ramp up the GOP’s attacks on President Barack Obama’s energy policies, House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy laid out a messaging agenda today designed to highlight the differences between the two parties’ energy development proposals.
March 28, 2012
House Republican leaders are postponing a vote on a short-term highway extension bill until Thursday in hope of forcing Democrats, who have opposed the bill, to fall in line behind it.
March 27, 2012
With the deadline for acting on a transportation bill approaching at the end of this week, Democrats are ramping up the pressure on Republicans to take up the Senate-passed bill or something similar.
March 27, 2012
For the second day in a row, House Democrats successfully beat back GOP efforts to pass a short-term highway extension, demanding Speaker John Boehner agree to take up a long-term, bipartisan Senate version instead.
March 27, 2012
The House today overwhelmingly passed Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s JOBS Act in a rare moment of bipartisanship.
March 26, 2012
The parents of a Florida teen who was killed by a neighborhood watch volunteer in February will attend a House hearing on racial profiling and Florida’s controversial “Stand Your Ground” law Tuesday.
March 26, 2012
House GOP leaders today scrapped a 90-day highway extension bill hours before the chamber was scheduled to vote on the measure after it became clear it would fail, largely because of Democratic opposition.
March 21, 2012
House Republicans might not like the idea of one of their leaders picking favorites in Member-vs.-Member primaries, but at least for Majority Leader Eric Cantor, his backing of a winner in the Illinois GOP primary decision has only solidified his power base.
March 20, 2012
House Republicans are fond of portraying the Senate as a graveyard for dozens of bipartisan bills. But for House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, a significant amount of blame for the legislative dead zone that is the Senate lies with that chamber’s Republican minority.
March 20, 2012
With bipartisanship a rare commodity on Capitol Hill and prospects of tax reform this year all but extinguished, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor is moving forward with a narrow tax cut measure aimed at reducing small-business tax rates for the next year.
March 19, 2012
With tax season approaching — and only two legislative weeks before the Easter recess — Senate Democratic leaders are preparing to pivot to tax issues and are considering a push to repeal oil and gas subsidies before the end of the month, Democratic leadership aides said Monday.
March 16, 2012
House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) recently found himself in an unusual position for the man tasked with herding Members behind his leader’s top policy proposal: He had to tell Speaker John Boehner “no.”
March 13, 2012
The Senate may have engaged in a shocking display of bipartisanship Tuesday by moving toward passage of a two-year transportation spending plan, but don’t expect the House to follow suit just yet.
March 8, 2012
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor today threw his weight behind freshman Rep. Adam Kinzinger in his primary fight against fellow Republican Rep. Don Manzullo in Illinois’ 16th district.
March 8, 2012
Speaker John Boehner’s once lofty hopes of fundamentally reforming how the nation funds transportation infrastructure projects are all but officially dead, with the House expected to take up the Senate’s version of highway legislation later this month.
