114th Congress



The Senate’s Return to Regular Order?

Josh Huder | January 23, 2015

For the past week, Majority Leader McConnell experimented with an open amendment process in the Senate. Members offered amendments on everything from climate change, to federally protected land, to limiting the President’s ability to initiate and sign bilateral agreements with foreign countries. The broader question is can McConnell take a positive step toward a functioning


It’s not all Gridlock: What Republicans can accomplish in the 114th Congress

Can decades of dysfunction reverse course in a single Congress? No. But despite the general pessimism surrounding Congress there are several reason to expect the 114th to be more productive than its recent predecessors, which were historically bad on several fronts. Now that divided congressional control is over a sense of mild optimism


Is Seat Flipping in the Senate a Big Deal?

A lot is being said about the historic nature of Republicans flipping 8-9 Senate seats and beating four incumbent Democrats (and possibly as many as five by December) during the election of 2014.  However, that’s not terribly unusual in the Senate.  Of the current Members of the Senate, 48 won their seats either by


New Republican rule complicates Rep. Paul Ryan’s future

New House Republican Conference rules prevent members seeking higher office to hold committee and subcommittee chairs. Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK) said, the “idea is not to have major committees, appropriations or subcommittees chaired by people who are running for the Senate. If you’re shuttling back and forth, that’s just a huge problem for


114th Congress: Plenty of New Faces, but None in Top Party Leadership Posts

Susan Sullivan Lagon | November 12, 2014

There’s an old adage in American politics that campaigns boil down to a choice between one of two simple messages: “It’s time for a change,” or “Stay the course.” Democrats can blame President Obama’s unpopularity, their party’s boom-and-bust turnout, an extraordinarily challenging map of seats to defend in the Senate, the Republicans’ structural advantage in


1 2 3 4