Congress

Even before she won her hotly contested Georgia congressional seat in 2020, Carolyn Bourdeaux was always something of a budget nerd. As director of Georgia’s Senate Budget and Evaluation Office during the Great Recession, the Democrat won recognition from a Republican-controlled Senate for her work to cover a budget shortfall. On Capitol Hill, she pursued […]

Former Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., stood on the House steps of the Capitol under silver clouds on Friday morning, remembering how she had gathered outside with colleagues 25 years ago, unsure of what to expect after planes hijacked by terrorists attacked the Pentagon and World Trade Center. Harman also paid tribute to United Airlines Flight […]

Taxpayers footed the bill for more than half a million dollars in sexual harassment settlements involving members of the House, according to estimates released Thursday by the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights.  While the document, which totals seven pages, does not contain any bombshell revelations, it offers a snapshot of past settlements as Congress grapples […]

The Supreme Court paused on Thursday an order from a federal trial court requiring Missouri to use a congressional map that favored Republicans. Thursday’s order leaves in place a state Supreme Court ruling that held the map adopted by the Republican-held legislature in 2025 was not legal because of a pending ballot initiative. The fast-moving […]

​A grim new milestone for U.S. debt and surging interest rates haven’t sparked much urgency for a new round of deficit cutting on Capitol Hill. Yet. But with federal debt topping $40 trillion for the first time last month, lawmakers will likely have to lift the $41.1 trillion statutory debt ceiling within the next year […]

The Trump administration proposed on Wednesday to exclude undocumented and temporary immigrants from the data used to apportion House seats after the 2030 census, continuing a push from his first term. The changes, coupled with reducing the demographic data collected about Americans, could mean shifts in congressional seats among states after the 2030 count. The […]

Brian Baird has spent a lot of time thinking about death over the last 25 years.  Not just his own, but also his former House colleagues’.  Making his way through the Longworth House Office Building on 9/11 and urging people to evacuate after seeing smoke rising from the Pentagon out of his seventh-floor window, Baird […]

A federal court in Missouri ordered the state to use a GOP-preferred congressional map Tuesday following a state court ruling that would have axed the plan for this fall. The ruling, from Judge Stephen R. Clark for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, came minutes after Supreme Court Justice Brett M. […]

As Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch announced he will be leaving his role by the end of the year, Democrats in Congress praised him for trying to show the “full history” of America.  Bunch was the first African American and the first historian to be appointed to the role. He has led the institution during a […]

As anger mounts over the impacts of data centers, Republicans are wrestling with legislation that would address concerns over increased electricity and water demand that many voters associate with higher utility bills. But it’s not yet clear if any solution can move in the now-shortened September work period before House members go home to campaign. […]