Senate

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Bill to Lower Student Loan Rates Fails in Senate

GOP blocks measure; parties can't agree how to pay for it

(Newser) - Hope your federal student loans are paid off, kids, because Washington appears deadlocked over legislation that would prevent their rates from doubling this July. A Senate bill to do so failed in a 52-45 vote along party lines today, failing to get the 60 votes needed to avoid a filibuster,...

Senate Passes Plan to Save Postal Service

Overhaul would cut costs, prevent closures

(Newser) - A plan to save the US Postal Service from financial collapse has passed the Senate with unusual speed. The Senate plan calls for a major overhaul of the service, which is losing $36 million a day. The bill would allow the service to cut its pension and retiree benefit costs,...

2011 Senate 'Laziest' in Decades

2011 saw least-productive session since 1992

(Newser) - The 2011 Senate produced less legislation than any other since 1992, according to a report by the chamber's own secretary. Throughout its 170 days, the Senate was in session an average of just 6.5 hours per day; only 2008's Senate had a lower figure, with three members...

Senate Sends Insider Trading Bill to Obama

Congress approves weaker version of bill designed to police itself

(Newser) - The Senate today sent President Obama a scaled-down bill to explicitly ban members of Congress, the president, and thousands of other federal workers from profiting from nonpublic information learned on the job. In an unusual move, the legislation passed unanimously without a vote on the measure itself. Instead it passed...

GOP Balks at Renewing Violence Against Women Act

Because Democrats added provisions about immigrants, same-sex couples

(Newser) - Conservative senators are coming out against renewing the Violence Against Women Act, which provides federal funding for domestic violence programs and passed with broad bipartisan support in 1994. Democratic women plan to march to the Senate floor today and demand a quick vote to extend the bill, the New York ...

Senate Kills GOP Measure to Push Keystone Pipeline

But vote was close, a warning for Obama

(Newser) - Looks like a good-news, bad-news result for President Obama today on the Keystone oil pipeline. The good news for him is that a Republican measure to fast-track the controversial pipeline fell short in the Senate, reports the Hill . Obama had personally lobbied against the measure, and passage would have been...

Maine's Angus King: Next Senate Power-Broker?

Independent ex-governor hopes to replace Olympia Snowe

(Newser) - There's a decent chance his name won't ring a bell, but the Washington Post today declares Angus King to be the "most important Senate candidate in the country." As the Fix blog explains, King is running for Olympia Snowe's seat in Maine , and as a...

Senate Cat Candidate Hounded by Attack Ad

Will Hank insist on ultrasounds before spaying?

(Newser) - Me-ouch. Hank the tabby who's running a spoofy campaign for a Virginia Senate seat had no idea politics could be such a catfight . Hank's already being hit with a dog-eat-dog attack ad firing questions off about his birth certificate, tax returns (he hasn't filed any), alleged use...

Olympia Snowe: I Quit Because Senate Is Hopeless

Maine senator says it's become a depressingly partisan knot

(Newser) - Olympia Snowe has had it with the Senate's intractable partisan gridlock. In a Washington Post op-ed, Snowe explains her impending retirement , and she doesn't mince words. "Simply put, the Senate is not living up to what the Founding Fathers envisioned," she writes. "The greatest deliberative...

63% Back Birth Control Coverage

 63% Back  
 Birth Control 
 Coverage 
survey says
Mar 2, 2012 10:41 AM CST

63% Back Birth Control Coverage

No big surprise that Democratic support outweighs that of the GOP

(Newser) - The Senate knocked down the Blunt contraception amendment 51-48 yesterday, but had America voted, it may have looked something more like 63-37. In the country at large, some 63% back federal rules requiring private insurers to cover birth control, the New York Times reports. But the issue is heavily partisan:...

Expect Senate Gridlock to Remain in 2013

Neither party likely to take effective majority

(Newser) - The 2012 election may generate plenty of headlines, but it's not going to get a gridlocked Washington moving again—in large part thanks to the outlook for the Senate. Neither party is poised to win the kind of majority that could exert any real authority, the Washington Post notes....

Congress Sends Payroll Tax Cut to Obama's Desk

House, Senate easily approve extension

(Newser) - No last-minute Capitol Hill surprises: Congress today passed legislation renewing a payroll tax cut for 160 million workers and jobless benefits for millions more, backing the main items on President Obama's jobs agenda in a rare burst of Washington bipartisanship. The Senate approved the $143 billion measure by a...

Payroll Tax Deal: $20 a Week in Paychecks

Tentative deal emerges in House-Senate talks

(Newser) - House-Senate talks on renewing a payroll tax cut that delivers about $20 a week to the average worker yielded a tentative agreement today, with lawmakers hopeful of unveiling the pact tomorrow and sending the measure to President Obama as early as this week. Under the outlines of the emerging agreement,...

Lawmakers Shuffled Millions to Relatives&#39; Causes
Lawmakers Shuffled Millions to Relatives' Causes
investigation
Feb 8, 2012 7:36 AM CST

Lawmakers Shuffled Millions to Relatives' Causes

'Washington Post' finds 16 members of Congress engaging in practice

(Newser) - A Washington Post investigation finds that 16 members of Congress have sent tax dollars, sometimes in the millions, to companies or other organizations with links to their family trees. Through direct funding or earmarking, these lawmakers have boosted the budgets of Pentagon programs, environmental groups, schools, and other places where...

US Looks to Grant Drones Airspace—Next to Your Plane

Civilian law enforcement and others increasingly want flying robots

(Newser) - Drones aren't just for Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, or Somalia anymore—they're coming to the good old US of A. The Senate sent a bill to President Obama yesterday that would require the Federal Aviation Administration to come up with rules to safely regulate domestic drones, USA Today reports....

Lawmakers Use Earmarks to Aid Own Properties
Lawmakers Use Earmarks to Aid Own Properties
INVESTIGATION
Feb 7, 2012 5:55 AM CST

Lawmakers Use Earmarks to Aid Own Properties

Just a coincidence that pork benefits own real estate, they say

(Newser) - Members of Congress are not only steering earmarks to their own districts, but also their own backyards, funding projects that boost the value of properties they own, a Washington Post investigation finds. Comparing disclosure forms against public records revealed that over the last few years, some 33 members of Congress...

Sen. Mark Kirk Has a Stroke
 Sen. Mark Kirk Has a Stroke 
Jan 23, 2012 11:36 AM CST

Sen. Mark Kirk Has a Stroke

Illinois Republican who won Barack Obama's seat hospitalized

(Newser) - The Republican who replaced Barack Obama in the US Senate underwent surgery today, after suffering a stroke this weekend, his office has revealed. Mark Kirk, 52, is currently recovering in Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, the Chicago Tribune reports. "Due to his young age, good health, and the nature...

Bad News for Dems? Ben Nelson Retiring

Nebraska seat could shift to Republicans in Senate

(Newser) - Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson won't seek reelection next year, potentially harming Democratic hopes to hold onto the Senate majority, Politico reports. Though Nelson's approval ratings had struggled, they were on the rise this year, thanks in part to $1 million in national Democratic Party advertising. Meanwhile, Republicans spent...

GOP Pulls 'Reverse Braveheart' on Payroll Tax

Scots got slaughtered, points out Dana Milbank

(Newser) - Last night, as the House was on the verge of scuttling the payroll tax cut extension , House Republicans gathered in a Capitol basement to talk—Braveheart? “You, Mr. Speaker, are our William Wallace," one rep has said. "Let’s rush to the fight." Besides being a...

Boehner Cancels Payroll Vote
 Boehner Cancels Payroll Vote 
Dec 20, 2011 7:56 AM CST

Boehner Cancels Payroll Vote

House Republicans revolt, call for conference committee

(Newser) - House Republicans didn’t hold their expected vote on the Senate’s two-month payroll tax cut extension last night, a hairpin turn so abrupt that Politico ’s story on it is headlined, “Has John Boehner Lost Control?” The House had planned to vote down the Senate bill and...

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