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Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently announced plans to spend $50 million this year to fight gun violence. Bloomberg will bring together the gun control groups that he already funds – Mayors Against Illegal Guns and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America – to form a
A little less than a year ago, President Obama delivered a major national security policy address at the National Defense University. The speech outlined specific proposals for revising important pieces of several thorny national security issues such as the closing of the Guantanamo Bay Prison and a long-overdue review of
On Thursday, Chris Cillizza examined an Obama statement in Texas: “This has become the least productive Congress in modern history, recent memory. And that’s by objective measures, just basic activity.” Cillizza agrees and extrapolates this a little too far, saying this Congress is the least productive in history. By the
Boehner’s time as Speaker may be limited. Yesterday Tim Alberta reported on substantial conversations to replace Boehner. This morning Brian Buetler verified that these talks are not particularly covert. According to several accounts, House Republicans are not hiding their dissatisfaction with the leadership. However, as both articles mention the plan
To say the Republican majority has struggled with the influence of outside groups during the past two congresses is to put it mildly. These groups have stymied progress on major legislation, counseled members into bad strategic stances with serious economic and political consequences, and generally frustrated House and Senate compromise.
Individuals now can make campaign contributions to an unlimited number of candidates, party committees, and federal political action committees (PACs). The Supreme Court’s 5-4 McCutcheon v. FECdecision did away with aggregate limits on individual contributions, freeing deep-pocketed donors to max-out to as many candidates and committees as they desire. At
Congressman Mike Rogers’s recent announcement that he will not seek reelection this November received a fair amount of news coverage. This is hardly surprising since he is the Chairman of the high-profile House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. While the media reported widely on the “succession race” for the chairman’s
This past week the House passed by voice vote the SGR patch, or “doc fix,” setting Medicare physician reimbursement rates. This means we don’t know how individual House members voted. Given the significance of the legislation, this was an unusual departure from normal floor process. It was even more unusual
This post originally appeared as an op-ed in Roll Call. In December, Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma issued his annual “Wastebook” that purports to highlight unnecessary and wasteful government spending both by Congress and by federal agencies. In this year’s edition, he’s especially critical of the 16-day federal government shutdown.
In yesterday’s Washington Post, Lori Montgomery did an excellent job laying out why Obama’s budget matters less this year than most. But don’t let that fool you; it still matters, and matters a ton. First, Congress has fewer than 150 staff in the House and Senate combined who review the
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