Samuel Kent is the first judge to be impeached by the House in 20 years. [more inside]
posted by orrnyereg on Jun 22, 2009 - 26 comments

Single-payer health care advocates arrested at Senate hearing. On May 5, 2009 advocates of a U.S. national health care program disrupted a Senate Finance Committee event to call for single-payer healthcare to be part of the discussion. The eight protesters were subsequently arrested. The protesters included representatives of Physicians for a National Health Program, which favors the The United States National Health Care Act, H.R. 676. Committee Chair Max Baucus (D - Montana), who has received more money in contributions from health insurance companies than any other member of Congress, favors requiring Americans to purchase private health insurance from those companies. Baucus, who has previously said that single-payer is "off the table," responded to the doctors and their fellow activists with, “I want you to know I care deeply about your views," and then, "we need more police [to eject protesters]."
posted by univac on May 6, 2009 - 146 comments

The last time any party had a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate was 1977-1979. With Arlen Specter's announcement that he is switching parties and Al Franken's recent court victory all but guaranteeing his victory in Minnesota, the Democrats will have a filibuster-proof 60 seats in the Senate. Eight years ago, Jim Jeffords switched parties to change control of the Senate from a 50-50 tie (resolved by VP Cheney in favor of the GOP) to Democratic control. [more inside]
posted by allen.spaulding on Apr 28, 2009 - 227 comments

With so many of our citizens in prison compared with the rest of the world, there are only two possibilities: Either we are home to the most evil people on earth or we are doing something different--and vastly counterproductive. Obviously, the answer is the latter.

A list of cut, halved, and quartered items from the Senate version of the stimulus bill was released to CNN. [more inside]
posted by WCityMike on Feb 7, 2009 - 162 comments

Welcome to Congress, YouTube. Check out House Hub and Senate Hub for a state by state directory of YouTube videos created by House Representatives and Senators for the purpose of, among other things, "increasing transparency." [more inside]
posted by lunit on Jan 15, 2009 - 12 comments

Minnesota's recount of the Senate race between incumbent Norm Coleman (R) and challenger Al Franken (D) began yesterday. Some results are already being reported. One unintended consequence of the recount is the exposure of a shocking write-in challenger: Lizard People.
posted by nathan_teske on Nov 19, 2008 - 70 comments

One last goodbye for the memories. Theodore Fulton Stevens has lost his Alaska Senate seat.
posted by daHIFI on Nov 19, 2008 - 75 comments

Sen. Stevens (R, AK) found guilty of of seven corruption charges. Stevens was behind in the polls before this point anyway, so it looks like a solid Dem gain at this point. Palin has obviously thown him under the bus.
posted by jaduncan on Oct 27, 2008 - 131 comments

Humorist and candidate for the US Senate for Minnesota Al Franken draws a map of the United States from memory.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Aug 5, 2008 - 83 comments

Fmr. US Senator Jesse Helms, 1921 - 2008. [more inside]
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Jul 4, 2008 - 315 comments

Senate Intelligence Committee Unveils Final Phase II Reports on Prewar Iraq Intelligence. Phase II Report on Public Statements [PDF] and Phase II Report on DoD Policy Office [PDF]. This may come as a shock, but most of what the Bush Administration said about Iraq wasn't true. Republican co-chair Bond, Kit Bond, says the reports are "political theatre." [more inside]
posted by kirkaracha on Jun 5, 2008 - 70 comments

NewsFilter: Sen. Joe Lieberman (ID - Conn.) strikes a decisive blow against another Islamic terror front group: YouTube.
posted by digaman on May 19, 2008 - 96 comments

Want to live it up at the U.S. party conventions and get access to Senators and Congressmen? USA Today has posted the campaign committee price lists:
Democratic Senate and Congress
Republican Senate and Congress

If you've got the dough, you may conveniently request a convention package online from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. The National Republican Congressional Committee and the NRSC have other price lists on their sites, but it seems like the DSCC and DCCC sites keep theirs under wraps.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim on May 1, 2008 - 10 comments

Senate lawmakers in Florida move to ban fake testicles on vehicles. NSFW(?)
posted by mrducts on Apr 24, 2008 - 88 comments

Opencongress.org is a website for keeping track of the U.S. Congress. (previously) But, now it also a social network. So, sign-up and see what your favourite Senator has been doing, track bills and, follow important issues. Then, share that information with your friends or write about it on your blog.
posted by geos on Feb 4, 2008 - 20 comments

The 30-Second Senate Session: In order to prevent President Bush from making recess appointments, the U.S. Senate will technically stay open over the Thanksgiving holiday. The result? A U.S. Senate session that lasts, gavel-to-gavel, exactly 30 seconds.
posted by Cool Papa Bell on Nov 21, 2007 - 79 comments

Texan Larry Kilgore is running for a seat in the US Senate. Agree or disagree with the man, he certainly has the courage of his convictions.
posted by dersins on Oct 10, 2007 - 45 comments

Lieberman-Kyl’s Iran amendment passes. By a vote of 76-22, the Senate passed the Lieberman-Kyl amendment, which threatens to “combat, contain and [stop]” Iran via “military instruments.” Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) called the amendment “Cheney’s fondest pipe dream” and said it could “read as a backdoor method of gaining Congressional validation for military action.”
posted by psmealey on Sep 27, 2007 - 111 comments

Senate kills bill to give D.C. representation (L.A. Times). [more inside]
posted by Navelgazer on Sep 19, 2007 - 76 comments

The Sergeant at Arms of the US Senate, as chief law enforcement officer of the "greatest deliberative body in the world", wears many hats. Capitol security, IT support and network security, telecommunications, videography and photography, human resources, getter of you out of bed and dragger of your ass to work, and house mother for the occasional slumber party.
posted by litfit on Jul 24, 2007 - 28 comments

"If this pace of blocking legislation continues, this 110th Congress will be on track to roughly triple the previous record". Ah, for the halcyon days of yore, when obstuctionism was so obviously unconstitutional that it required a nuclear response.
posted by Flunkie on Jul 20, 2007 - 23 comments

Senate disrupted by jerks. Three members of anti-abortion Operation Save America disrupted the daily opening prayers of the Senate yesterday morning, which were being lead that day Rajan Zed, a Hindu priest. This was the first time a Hindu priest lead the opening prayer. Operation Save America has a small press release. Youtube link.
posted by Snyder on Jul 13, 2007 - 81 comments

NewsFilter: Sen. Craig Thomas (R-WY) has died. He had been receiving chemotherapy for acute myeloid leukemia. Wyoming's Democratic Governor will appoint a successor from one of three finalists chosen by the state Republican party.
posted by pruner on Jun 4, 2007 - 55 comments

A senator places a secret hold on a bill designed to counter secrecy in government. The Society of Professional Journalists, which supports the bill, smoked out Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) as the source of the hold, one of the more obscure parliamentary tactics possible in the Senate. The bill in question is the OPEN Government Act of 2007, which is an overhaul of the Freedom of Information Act. (See also.) Kyl claims the bill would force the release of "sensitive information." Kyl is also behind a measure that would criminalize the leaking of classified information.
posted by beagle on Jun 1, 2007 - 47 comments

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is in the middle of his testimony before Congress on firing of eight US Attorneys. The questioning has gotten heated at times, and TPM Muckraker has many highlights from the testimony. DailyKos has been giddily blogging live, and there are many sites carrying the live video feed. Conservative blogs have been mysteriously quiet about this.
posted by OldReliable on Apr 19, 2007 - 190 comments

OpenCongress.org is a site that aggregates data about the United States Senate and House. Keep track of your senators or representatives through rss feeds, read bills on topics that are important to you, and find out what industries are behind the scenes providing money to your politicians in Washington among many other uses of this new resource.
posted by rfbjames on Feb 27, 2007 - 18 comments

From the Candy Desk to the Cherokee Strip, the desks in the U.S. Senate Chamber have a long and fascinating history.
posted by Vidiot on Jan 4, 2007 - 21 comments

Newsfilter: The United States Senate may once again be up for grabs. Senator Tim Johnson, D-SD, 60, has reportedly just suffered a stroke and is currently undergoing tests at The George Washington University Medical Center.
posted by The White Hat on Dec 13, 2006 - 71 comments

Abu Gharib? Feh. The newest Dark Side: telemarketing abuse. The National Republican Congressional Committee has launched a $2.1 million campaign calling individuals, including those on the Federal Do-Not-Call Registry, with automated telephone messages scripted to sound as if they are coming from the Democratic candidate up for election, in the hopes of driving away support come Tuesday's elections. "Hello. I'm calling with information about [Democratic candidate]," the recording begins, and then pauses for the traditional hang-up. If the recipient does indeed hang up, they then receive repeated phone calls back. This manner of scripting violates 47 CFR 64.1200(b)(1), which requires that "the identity of the business, individual, or other entity that is responsible for initiating the call" be "state[d] clearly" "at the beginning of the message." The New Hampshire Attorney General got them to stop calling those on the Do-Not-Call Registry, at least. (In their best interests, perhaps, due to the $5,000 fine per call potentially racking up hefty fines.) This is going on at the very least in the Pennsylvania 6th, the Connecticut 4th, the North Carolina 11th,, the New Hampshire 2nd, and nationwide.
posted by WCityMike on Nov 5, 2006 - 142 comments

Calling All Wingnuts blogger Mike Stark (previously discussed here) found himself in a fight with George Allen's staffers after asking the Senator an impertinent question about his first wife and sealed divorce file and court records.
posted by homunculus on Oct 31, 2006 - 29 comments

Vote for James H. "Jim"? Voters in certain Virginia precincts will see electronic ballots featuring only part of some candidates' names. For some reason this is said to be "unfixable", even though this has been discovered two weeks ahead of election time. This problem only affects voting machines made by... not the one you'd expect, but Austin, TX-based Hart InterCivic, whose motto is "Always Accessible". Senatorial Candidate James H. "Jim" Webb (D) is, one may assume, not amused.
posted by clevershark on Oct 24, 2006 - 56 comments

Senate Releases Pre-War Intel Reports. The two sections of the report released by the Senate intelligence committee are: "Postwar Findings about Iraq's WMD Programs and Links to Terrorism and How they Compare with Prewar Assessments" and "The Use by the Intelligence Community of Information Provided by the Iraqi National Congress" (both PDFs). This seems to contradict previous evidence. [Via TPMmuckraker.]
posted by homunculus on Sep 8, 2006 - 51 comments

Santorum on Gorilla Action Friday Fun - A giant gorilla is chasing around Rick Santorum
posted by cjoh on Aug 25, 2006 - 11 comments

As in the 2004 elections, several useful sites have sprung up to keep track of the 2006 midterms for House, Senate and state gubernatorial races. Some have a political point of view, others don't, but they don't differ significantly on the outcome at this point. One of the veterans in this game is ElectionProjection.com, which was pretty close to actual results in '04. (A creation of "the Blogging Caesar"). From the right, there's MyElectionAnalysis.com, while ElectionPredictions seems to come from a neutral corner. All of these track statewide polls as they are published; they may differ in how they weight results. For a more subjective approach, see Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball or the Cook Political Report. Overall, the consensus seems to be that the GOP will hold both houses, but with slimmer margins, and lose on the gubernatorial front.
posted by beagle on Jul 10, 2006 - 30 comments

GOP Senators have lost their bid to kill the currently-defunct estate tax. This defeat of the permanent repeal effort is a major triumph for the 98% of Americans who've never been in danger of having to pay the tax.
posted by maud on Jun 8, 2006 - 164 comments

Harry Reid accepted free boxing tickets from the Nevada Athletic Commission says John Solomon of the AP. Solomon implies that Reid might have gotten himself into an ethical dilemma as the NAC opposes the creation of a federal boxing commission, something the Senate was considering at the time. The article also tosses in some digs at Reid by repeating the claim that Reid is involved in the Abramoff scandal.

However, Media Matters points out that Reid did not act in the NAC's favor and instead allowed the passage of legislation that would create a federal commission, in opposition to the giftgiver's wishes. This is not the first time Solomon has attacked Reid. Politics/News-filter
posted by papakwanz on May 31, 2006 - 34 comments

Mr. Rogers before the Senate in 1969. [video; YouTube]
posted by Sticherbeast on May 25, 2006 - 63 comments

Have the netroots finally hit solid ground? There's been a lot of debate about how effective left-wing blogs have been in the political process, but tonight a huge factor has just been added to that debate. Fueled by net support from big-name blogs, Ned Lamont has secured the vote of nearly twice the necessary 15% of delegates in Connecticut's state Democratic convention to force a Senate primary against Joe Lieberman.
posted by XQUZYPHYR on May 19, 2006 - 78 comments

Taste's great! Less filling! So did "several former judges who served on the panel also voiced skepticism at a Senate hearing about the president's constitutional authority to order wiretapping on Americans without a court order" or did "FISA judges say Bush within law"? Just in case you doubted that different newspapers present news stories (even those with official audio coverage available!) differently...
posted by twsf on Mar 29, 2006 - 15 comments

"Resolved that the United States Senate does hereby censure George W. Bush, president of the United States, and does condemn his unlawful authorization of wiretaps of Americans." Invoking "high crimes and misdemeanors," Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold introduces a motion to censure [PDF link] President Bush for his controversial, legally dubious NSA wiretapping program. Feingold declares: "The President must be held accountable for authorizing a program that clearly violates the law." Republican leader Frist retorts: "It's a crazy political move" that sends a "terrible" signal to Iran. Democratic bloggers say: Call your senator. [More legal fallout from the NSA program recently discussed here.]
posted by digaman on Mar 13, 2006 - 259 comments

'The committee is, to put it bluntly, basically under the control of the White House," said Jay Rockefeller, vice-president of the Senate Intelligence Committee, after the committee quashed a broad inquiry into the legality of the NSA spying on Americans -- despite an increasing number of legal scholars coming forward and declaring that the program is "blatantly illegal," in the words of Yale Law School dean Harold Koh. Meanwhile, the GOP proposes giving spying on Americans the "force of law" while subjecting it to "rigorous oversight."
posted by digaman on Mar 8, 2006 - 175 comments

"I hold no hard feelings over your earlier disingenuousness." McCain and Obama engage in the Senate equivalent of The Dozens.
posted by empath on Feb 7, 2006 - 138 comments

Jack Bauer isn't afraid to cut the eyes out of any (deliberative) body; or, Rupert Murdoch demonstrates the 17th Amendment's fatal flaw.
posted by orthogonality on Feb 3, 2006 - 37 comments

Media outraced by Bloggers, Kerry appeal to netroots galvanizes suprise drive against Alito On Google News, you'll read how US Democratic Senators Obama and Biden are against a filibuster. Old news. They've agreed to support it. Encouraged by direct appeals by Senators. Kerry and Kennedy to internet activists, a blizzard of calls, emails, and faxes, organized via the Daily Kos and other blogs - with tactical direction from Kennedy - have helped flip the positions of several Democratic senators, and as of Saturday some claimed the push was already within 2 votes of forcing continued Senate debate on the Alito nomination. In fact, the pro-filibuster bloc might have started with 37 votes Meanwhile, today, Morning Edition, which declined to run the filibuster push as a top story and failed to mention the internet effort, asked Senator Kennedy on Senator Hillary Clinton's opposition to the filibuster: actually, she joined the effort last Friday [ see main link ] : D'oh !
posted by troutfishing on Jan 30, 2006 - 236 comments

"The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof...." The Seventeeth Amendement provides for the direct election of U.S. Senators. Originally, Article I Section 3 of the United States Constition provided that each state's senators be chosen by that state's legislature.

The Populist Party platform from 1892 on, called for direct senatorial election; and the Progressive movment made it, along with Prohibition (18th Amendment) and Women's Suffrage (19th), a cornerstone of reform. The 17th was ratified 8 April 1913, when the required 36th of 48 states, Connecticut, approved it. Utah, however, had rejected it 41 days earlier, on 26 February 1913. Although Utah never subsequently ratified it, the 17th Amendment, as part of the Federal Constitution, applies in Utah as in all U.S. States.

But in the name of re-invigorating States' Rights, some on the Right -- and some less easy to label -- have called for the repeal of the 17th Amendement. In 2003 Montana's Senate, after passing it out of committee, indefinitely postponed by floor vote a bill calling on Congress to repeal the 17th. Now, the President of Utah's 29-member State Senate [pdf], with 19 co-sponsers, thinks he's figured out a way around the Constitution's 17th Amendment. Debate on the S.B. 156 began yesterday.
posted by orthogonality on Jan 25, 2006 - 52 comments

Meet the Bloggers is a group of Ohio citizen journalists who have been interviewing state political candidates, podcasting the interviews and taking questions from anyone who is interested in the candidate's policies. [more inside]
posted by sciurus on Jan 10, 2006 - 3 comments

Pete Ashdown, the founder of Utah's oldest ISP, is apparently crazy enough to challenge Orrin Hatch's reelection. Ashdown descided to run when he heard Hatch propose that p2p user's computers should be required to explode (see also the INDUCE Act). Ashdown's campaign is the first to wikify its platform & strategy. Boing boing has endorsed him.
posted by jeffburdges on Dec 1, 2005 - 40 comments

CNN reports that the House passed HR 4241 this morning by a narrow vote almost entirely along party lines. This is part of the Republican Party's Operation Offset (previously discussed here) designed to cut spending to counter the deficit, growing by leaps and bounds because of Iraq & Katrina (among other things). Now they'll have to work to reconcile it with the Senate version, SR 1932 (voting record here). You may want to Write your representative to let them know how you feel. You might also want to express your displeasure to the two Dems who didn't vote, considering the bill passed by a margin of 2. [Budget Filter]
posted by papakwanz on Nov 18, 2005 - 48 comments

News Filter: Senate in closed session. Looks like Senate is now in close session, after Harry Reid invoked Rule 21 and asked for an investigation into the lead-up to the war. Does it sound like a major deal or is it political maneuvering?
posted by TNLNYC on Nov 1, 2005 - 126 comments