Republican members of a key committee announced that they were not going to attend a hearing meant to advance Gina McCarthy to head the EPA. Which problem is trickier to solve: Senate chicanery or environmental pollution?
A battle royale is brewing on Capitol Hill after a bipartisan coalition in the Senate handily passed the Marketplace Fairness Act, the controversial bill that would impose a sales tax on Internet purchases.
On Tuesday evening, longtime congressman Ed Markey handily won the Democratic primary for a special election that'll decide who fills Secretary of State John Kerry's former Senate seat.
After stirring up trouble for months, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) died a quiet death in the Senate on Thursday.
In a marathon session before a weeklong recess, Senators finally found a way to agree on something Thursday night, when they passed a bill to end flight controller furloughs.
Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus's decision to retire instead of seeking a seventh term further complicates Democratic efforts to keep control of the Senate — unless the most popular Democrat in Montana decides to take a shot at the seat.
An overwhelming majority of Senators just voted to cut the debate short and get a final vote on a controversial bill that will impose sales tax on purchases made on the Internet.
And it could have been worse: Just over ten percent of Americans can block any federal legislation from moving forward, according to our compilation of data.
President Obama will not get his vote on gun control in the Senate on Wednesday. Or, at least, not on a package of bills that could pass. The Manchin-Toomey compromise on background checks has been declared dead by its sponsor.
There's a tangibility to numbers that's hard to escape in the gun control debate. Twenty-six killed at Newtown. Forty percent of gun sales that currently require no background check. But this week, the only important number is 60.
An analysis on the early details of the "gang of eight" proposal shows a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants that is an intentionally arduous bureaucratic labyrinth that will take two decades years to crawl through.
States aren't waiting to act on guns. But while high-profile restrictions packages make headlines, most new state gun laws have instead focused on loosening controls. Activism, partisanship, and time are a powerful combination.
The bipartisan Senate immigration reform bill was being held up by a dispute over how low-skilled workers would be incorporated into the all-encompassing agreement, but it appears that wrinkle's been smoothed over and the bill could be unveiled in a little more than a week.
During the long and arduous financial fights on Capitol Hill, one of the Republicans favorite attacks was how the Democratic Senate had not passed a budget in four years. Well, that changed last night. The Senate finally got around to approving a budget that will die on arrival in the House.
In a quiet news statement sent out at 3 p.m. on a Friday, the Obama administration officially withdrew the nomination of Caitlin Halligan to sit on the U.S. Court of Appeals' D.C. Circuit, replacing John Roberts. The withdrawal leaves the court with only seven of its eleven members in place — and reemphasizes the problem of slow or blocked judicial nominations.
Only two things have really changed in the push by Senate Democrats to enact a slate of new gun legislation. The first is that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid saved a little face. The second is that a vote isn't coming until April. What hasn't changed is that the Senate is a broken institution.
A summary of the best reads found behind the paywall of The New York Times.
President Obama's biggest problem used to be that he wasn't schmoozing with Congress. His biggest problem now is that he's schmoozing with Congress. Who gave him such terrible advice? The very same reporters who were demanding he get snacks with senators in the first place, obviously.
Sen. Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, announced his retirement from the Senate on Thursday evening. Until 2014, he'll work hard as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, but after that, it's time to relax.
It's easy to make fun of Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul riffing on drones and other stuff for hours on the Senate floor on Wednesday, but it's also something to celebrate.
Republican lawmakers have tried and failed for years to urge presidents to pardon the legendary boxer. Today it looks like some key Democrats might help nudge President Obama once again.
The most broadly supported component of legislation aimed at curbing gun violence, universal background checks, may not make it into the Senate's "best chance at legislative consensus" on firearms because, after all, this is Congress we're talking about.
What looked like another obstructionist tangle between the ever-competing chambers is now looking more like an unnecessary House debate and another win for Harry Reid over Boehner and Cantor and Co.
The tweets were obliquely racist — and even homophobic enough — to chime through the halls of the Capitol and even get potential candidate Ashley Judd to speak up.
The Senate got their successful cloture vote on Tuesday afternoon, finishing the filibuster of Chuck Hagel's nomination to be Secretary of Defense — and clearing the way for a successful vote on his confirmation, 58-41.
Jack Lew is well-known and well-respected for quietly doing his job well. He is not as well known for quietly quitting his job well.
After failing to win all but one* of its Oscar nominations, Zero Dark Thirty's filmmakers got some good news on Monday, when the Senate Intelligence Committee dropped its investigation into the movie.
Ted Cruz was so aggressive during Chuck Hagel's confirmation hearing that he was reprimanded by fellow Republicans. After it was revealed Cruz sees communists everywhere, the Texas Republican made a defense inspired by his recent foe.
The Senate finally passed the latest draft of the Violence Against Women Act on Tuesday. Now the bill will be sent back to Congress, where it seems to have an uncertain future.
In the week before John Brennan's confirmation hearing, the conversation about the nominee to be CIA director was almost entirely about drones. The hearing itself mostly wasn't.
Early into the John Brennan's confirmation hearing to be CIA director, his most difficult to believe statement is his claim, "I never believed it's better to kill a terrorist than to detain them." The Obama administration's drone program has, since 2008, incinerated not-even-high-ranking Al Qaeda members in thousands of drone strikes.
As the issue of gun control has flooded Washington since the Sandy Hook shooting, a lot of people have been wondering if lawmakers were actually serious about addressing mental health as well.
The former congresswoman spoke about gun violence before a Senate hearing Wednesday, but Michelle Malkin and Twitchy, her conservative tweet news site, uncovered a scandal: Giffords did not handwrite her speech. That's the handwriting of her therapist.
Several political people revealed in Wednesday's gun control hearing that they, too, have been the heroes in imaginary crimes. Fighting hypothetical crimes with guns has an obvious appeal, because when real people use real weapons, they screw up. A lot.
Actress Ashley Judd and Indy Car driver Dario Franchitti are ending their marriage after 11 years, and, yes, the news impacts Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Is Scott Brown running for John Kerry's old Senate seat? No one knows, yet. But we do know Brown is feeling a little thin skinned lately, and that he isn't getting along with people being mean to him on the internet. Except you, Matt: you're great.
The National Rifle Association's Wayne LaPierre will testify before the Senate about gun violence on January 30, and it should be fun to watch, because LaPierre never fails to put on a good show.
Today the House will finally voted on the long-delayed second half of a federal relief bill that allocates approximately $51 billion for damage wrought by Hurricane Sandy.
His instant comeback — and the Republicans' chance to pick up a Senate seat as soon as this spring — has been upended now that Brown appears to be weighing a run not just to fill Kerry's Senate seat but to become the next governor of Massachusetts.
Antonio Villaraigosa on immigration reform, George Packer on Southern Republicans, Jennifer Welsh on France's intervention in Mali, Chris Cillizza on the Senate losing its lions, and Gary Younge on Obama's Iraq amnesia.
The Newark mayor came under heavy, anonymous fire just hours after he filed paperwork to run in 2014 for New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg's seat — a seat he publicly committed to taking... even though Lautenberg hasn't given it up yet.
It's looking like the biggest obstacle to Chuck Hagel's confirmation as Secretary of Defense is not Republican opposition, but Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer.
In a move that may offer Republicans an opportunity to pick up a Senate seat in the next midterm elections., Sen. Jay Rockefeller has decided not to run for reelection in West Virginia in 2014.
If you thought the country's most outspoken big-money watchdog was going to take it easy once she got back to Capitol Hill, you were wrong.
Every day The Atlantic Wire highlights the video clips that truly earn your five minutes (or less) of attention.
Elizabeth Warren is in, and Scott Brown wants back in, but someone needs to step in for Kerry when he takes over for Hillary Clinton — and then there's going to be a special election. Here's a field guide as the 113th Congress convenes.
The Illinois Senator, who suffered a stroke in January 2012 and spent the last year learning how to walk again, returned to Capitol Hill Thursday for the convening of the 113th Congress, climbing the steps of the Capitol building for his swearing-in.
It's been a heck of a ride for Zero Dark Thirty, the torture-laden movie about hunting down bin Laden, and the next stop is extra exciting.
Much like the nasty fight he started over Elizabeth Warren's Native American heritage, Brown is already accusing a potential opponent of exaggerating where he comes from.
Scott Brown will soon be out of a job, and it's no real secret that he will become the leading contender — even with new competition — in a special election to fill John Kerry's soon-to-be vacant Senate seat. So why is he making all this stuff up?
Ten days after the death of Hawaii Senator Daniel Inouye, the governor of Hawaii named Schatz as Inouye's replacement Wednesday night. By Thursday just after lunchtime, Joe Biden was swearing him into the famous book of Senators.
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