Gillian Roberts
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Sen. John McCain, a lion of the Senate who spent three decades representing Arizona in the chamber died Saturday at age 81 after battling a brain cancer called glioblastoma since last summer.
Change is afoot in the ranks of the nation’s highest court. The longest serving justice, Anthony Kennedy, said Wednesday at the term’s conclusion that he would retire on July 31.
Kennedy has been a swing vote in many of the Supreme Court’s landmark cases since joining in 1988 at the nomination of President Ronald Reagan.
Tuesday was a somber morning on the Hill. The United States Capitol Police held a memorial service to honor the four officers who have died in the line of duty since 1984.
While an annual event, this year’s had added poignancy. It’s the 20th anniversary of the deaths of officer Jacob Chestnut and detective John Gibson, who died July 24, 1998, in a gunman’s attack on the Capitol.
House members scrambled out of town on Wednesday this week — a day earlier than originally scheduled. And on Thursday the Senate made history by welcoming an infant onto the chamber’s floor. Sen. Tammy Duckworth gave birth on April 9, and the rules were changed to accommodate the new mom.
Former first lady Barbara Bush died Tuesday at 92. The wife of former President George H.W. Bush and mother of former President George W. Bush was known for her wit, patriotism and devotion to her family — especially to her husband of more than 73 years.
As the matriarch of a public family, Barbara Bush often found herself in front of Roll Call’s cameras. Here are just a few from our archives:
The Senate subway is the new Red Line.
Washingtonians across the city were stuck in Metro cars and waylaid Tuesday en route to work due to a disturbance on the subway’s Red Line (a recurring issue for disgruntled commuters on the highly trafficked route).
Speaker Paul D. Ryan has spent nearly 20 years in Congress, having been sworn in just shy of his 29th birthday in January 1999. As he mentioned in his retirement announcement Wednesday, his time in D.C. has seen the birth of his three kids, his ascension to chairman of two powerful committees, 2012 Republican vice presidential candidate and of course, speaker.
After he made it public this week that he would not seek re-election for an 11th term, Roll Call went into its archives to dig up photos from the year he’s spent on the Hill.
The Mississippi governor’s appointment of Cindy Hyde-Smith to the Senate next month marks a milestone: She will be the state’s first woman in Congress.
And that would leave Vermont as the lone state in the union to have never sent a female lawmaker to Washington.
Congress is in during the snow storm that is expected to bring several inches of snow to D.C. (and much more in the outlying areas). Appropriators are negotiating a 12-bill omnibus to keep the government open past a Friday deadline.
As Washington awaits news of a government funding plan, some in the city have taken to the Capitol grounds for the ever-popular sledding on the West Front.
Rep. Louise M. Slaughterdied early Friday morning at age 88. The oldest member of Congress and first chairwoman of the powerful House Rules Committee leaves behind a legacy of three decades in Congress.
She fell at her home last week and suffered a concussion, according to her office.
TV host Stephen Colbert hit the Hill on Tuesday — on a Segway.
The Senate has reached a deal to reopen the government after a partial shutdown over the weekend turned into a full shutdown Monday morning, causing headaches for Hill staffers who had to wait in longer-than-usual lines to get to work. And any tourists who had Capitol tours slated for the morning were out of luck.
Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, a staple of the Senate for more than 40 years, said Tuesday that he will retire at the end of his term and not seek re-election in the 2018 midterms.
Roll Call dug into our archives to find a few highlights of the Utah Republican’s seven terms in office:
The House Ethics Committee established Thursday an investigative subcommittee to evaluate separate claims that Reps. Ruben Kihuen, D-Nev., and Blake Farenthold, R-Texas, engaged in sexual misbehavior, according to a statement from committee leaders.
The Office of Congressional Ethics had previously investigated sexual harassment allegations from Farenthold’s former communications director. The congressman reached a private settlement with the former employee.
BY GILLIAN ROBERTS and JASON DICK
Democratic senators started the week of June 19 on a mission — to find the Republican health care bill. Several senators took to the chamber’s floor early in the week to lament the absence of so-called regular order — a bill’s journey through subcommittee, committee and eventually the floor on its way toward consideration and possible passage — for the Senate’s version of the bill to repeal and replace the 2010 health care law. Leadership has said the bill would be released Thursday with the expectation of a vote next week.
If this week felt a little long, that’s because it was. When the Senate gaveled out at 9:07 p.m. on Wednesday, it adjourned a session that began Monday at noon. That made it the third-longest legislative session in Senate history since 1915. In the world of arcane Senate procedure, that means the chamber never moved off the legislative business day of Monday, leaving Capitol Hill watchers with that tired, cranky feeling they never could quite shake.
The Senate debated for those 57 hours and 7 minutes several of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees, including the senators’ colleague Jeff Sessions of Alabama for attorney general, and the contentious Education secretary pick, Betsy DeVos, which ended with a history-making tiebreaking vote by Vice President Mike Pence.
