Stories by Emily Pierce:
July 31, 2013
Senate Democratic leaders struggled Wednesday to beat back a filibuster of President Barack Obama’s pick to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, holding a vote open for more than five hours and convincing one GOP senator to switch her position.
July 30, 2013
The Senate GOP’s personal parliamentarian and floor manager will leave the chamber for the private sector at the end of this week, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., announced Tuesday.
July 25, 2013
Sen. Richard M. Burr on Thursday took aim at conservatives who have threatened to shut down the federal government if the 2010 health care law is not defunded, calling it the “dumbest idea I’ve ever heard.”
June 27, 2013
After three weeks of debate and 18 votes, the Senate overwhelmingly voted, 68-32, to pass an immigration overhaul Thursday, capping a process begun in January when the bipartisan “gang of eight” announced it had agreed to a set of key principles for overhauling the system.
June 21, 2013
Forget about the unseemliness of questioning a dead man’s ability to sign off on a piece of legislation. The real issue at hand in the dustup between Sen. Barbara Boxer and supporters of the late Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg’s chemical safety bill is Senate protocol.
June 2, 2013
Illustrator R.J. Matson’s latest cartoon needs a caption.
June 2, 2013
Thanks to the many readers who contributed captions for last week’s Capitol Quip contest. Here’s the winning entry as voted by readers of Heard on the Hill.
May 21, 2013
The Senate Judiciary Committee’s markup of a comprehensive immigration rewrite took an emotional and tense turn Tuesday evening when Chairman Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., sought to offer an amendment to expand the bill to gay and lesbian couples.
May 20, 2013
The tornado damage near Oklahoma City is still being assessed and the death toll is expected to rise, but already Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., says he will insist that any federal disaster aid be paid for with cuts elsewhere.
May 15, 2013
The White House worked overtime Wednesday to try to change the narrative on two ongoing controversies embroiling the Obama administration.
May 13, 2013
Way back in March 2012, Roll Call published a story about how tea party types were pretty irate over the amount of info they were being asked to provide to the IRS in order to get nonprofit status.
May 10, 2013
The Congressional Hispanic Caucus called on the Heritage Foundation Friday to renounce the writings of Jason Richwine, a former Heritage employee and one of the authors of the group’s recent immigration report.
May 10, 2013
Rep. Marlin Stutzman’s outrage over the “horrors” revealed at a Philadelphia abortion doctor’s office led the Indiana Republican down a personal path of discovery recently.
May 9, 2013
On the heels of a marathon Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing Wednesday on the U.S. consulate attack in Benghazi, Libya, Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, said he planned to push the White House to release sensitive emails that could further illuminate what transpired.
April 17, 2013
U.S. Capitol Police have removed several suspicious packages from the Hart and Russell Senate Office Buildings.
April 12, 2013
Updated 6:02 p.m. |Keeping with the trend of burying the news, the announcement that President Barack Obama will sign a partial rollback of the STOCK Act came in a court filing Friday in Maryland.
April 11, 2013
The Senate on Thursday cleared a major hurdle on a gun background check bill, voting 68-31 to overcome a filibuster of the bill. However, the ultimate fate of the bill is uncertain as it is likely to face another filibuster attempt before any vote on final passage.
April 5, 2013
Sen. Mark Pryor does not appear to be ready any time soon to follow the example of many of his Democratic colleagues who have recently come out in support of gay marriage.
April 5, 2013
Host David Brody explained at the outset of his Christian Broadcasting Network show that he doesn’t usually spend an entire half-hour on a single subject, but that Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul merited a closer look — and that’s exactly what Paul got.
April 4, 2013
A majority of senators now support gay marriage rights after Florida Sen. Bill Nelson became the latest member to issue a reversal on the issue Thursday.
March 27, 2013
Sure, it’s become en vogue for Senate Democrats to come out in support of gay marriage this week. But several members are taking things a step further — with at least 13 members changing their Twitter avatars in support of gay marriage.
March 20, 2013
“I’d rather be heckled than ignored. Or, as I like to say, you only tease the ones you love.”
March 18, 2013
Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. clearly brought his A-game to Rome for Pope Francis’ inaugural Mass celebration.
Feb. 28, 2013
It went unsaid in Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse’s childhood home, whether that home was in Guinea, Cambodia, the Philippines or any of the other outposts his father was stationed at as a foreign service officer.
Feb. 4, 2013
Embattled Sen. Robert Menendez told CNN on Monday that his failure to reimburse almost $60,000 in flights on a political donor’s plane was an oversight and that he righted the mistake “when it came to my attention.”
