Stories by Niels Lesniewski:
May 17, 2013
The Senate Judiciary Committee is gearing up for the grand finale in marking up a rewrite of immigration laws, with indications that work can be completed before the Senate departs for the Memorial Day break.
May 17, 2013
Senators and their staffs must pay attention to local issues, even in the midst of big national debates. That’s what led the Senate Judiciary Committee to back a Medicaid eligibility expansion Thursday, albeit a very narrow one.
May 16, 2013
Tea party conservatives may never fully trust Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, but the Kentucky Republican was talking about the dangers of limiting political speech long before the tea party movement existed.
May 16, 2013
Another federal appeals court is siding with the District of Columbia Circuit, saying that the president may only make recess appointments between sessions of Congress.
May 15, 2013
Sen. Orrin G. Hatch wants to vote for comprehensive immigration legislation, but he has a few conditions first.
May 15, 2013
Senate appropriators are moving forward with spending bills for the next fiscal year, even without a House-Senate agreement on the budget.
May 15, 2013
If history repeats itself, the opening salvo by Senate Democratic leaders in the debate over federal student loan rates hikes will go nowhere.
May 15, 2013
Sen. Claire McCaskill is among the female senators on the Armed Services Committee leading the push against sexual assault in the military, and the Missouri Democrat is now mobilizing her campaign supporters behind the effort.
May 14, 2013
Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma on Tuesday circulated a letter where he and five GOP colleagues explains circumstances in which he won’t allow legislation through the Senate quickly by unanimous consent using the chamber’s “hotline” system.
May 14, 2013
With the IRS embroiled in a scandal about undue scrutiny of conservative groups, the agency lacks a Senate-confirmed commissioner.
May 14, 2013
Updated 5:44 p.m. | On a day in which blossoming scandals dominated the headlines, some senators worked in relative anonymity on a bill that probably means more to many Americans than anything else going on today.
May 14, 2013
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., may not agree on much, but they do adore Bryce Harper.
May 14, 2013
Don Wolfensberger, a scholar at the Wilson Center and Bipartisan Policy Center, a Roll Call columnist and a former staff director of the House Rules Committee, follows up on our May 7 post, “Could Democrats Work Around ‘Budget Bullies’?” Here’s his analysis:
May 14, 2013
Sen. Al Franken could get national media attention whenever he wants it, but he seeks it so infrequently that when he does, his interests get a bigger megaphone, and Senate observers do a double-take at their TV screens.
May 13, 2013
The controversy embroiling the IRS kicked up another storm of rhetoric Monday over enforcement of campaign finance laws.
May 13, 2013
For Sen. Marco Rubio, multiple congressional investigations are not enough. The Florida Republican upped the ante on the IRS this afternoon, filing an amendment to an unrelated water resources bill to provide criminal penalties for similar acts in the future.
May 13, 2013
When the Senate Judiciary Committee resumes work Tuesday on an immigration overhaul, senators will jump ahead a few hundred pages.
May 13, 2013
Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg will make a rare appearance in the Senate this week to help move President Barack Obama’s choice to head the Environmental Protection Agency to the floor.
May 12, 2013
Eighteen senators want to encourage drinking craft beer. They’re touting new legislation to slash the excise tax on beer produced by smaller breweries.
May 10, 2013
Updated 6:04 pm | Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell wants a review of what he’s calling ”thuggish practices” by the Obama administration, after an IRS official acknowledged that conservative political groups were improperly targeted by the agency.
May 10, 2013
Updated 5:52 pm | House Republicans are seizing on the IRS admission that personnel improperly targeted tea party groups for scrutiny, with Speaker John A. Boehner drawing a connection to abuses of the past.
May 10, 2013
Sens. Patrick J. Leahy, Charles E. Grassley, Amy Klobuchar and their staffs will be among the busiest folks anywhere around the Senate next week. There’s so much going on in their jurisdiction, they might want body doubles.
May 10, 2013
Rep. Melvin Watt is not the only sitting House member facing Senate confirmation in the weeks ahead — there’s also the curious case of Republican Rep. Joe Heck of Nevada.
May 9, 2013
As a Senate panel kicked off what could be weeks of meetings to work through a bipartisan overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws Thursday, there were no shortage of interested observers, including Sen. Marco Rubio.
May 9, 2013
Britain’s Prince Harry had no shortage of gawking onlookers for his trip through the rotunda of the Russell Senate Office Building to look at an exhibit on land mines, on a day in which Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., served as tour guide for the prince.
