Congress

​​House Republicans are scrapping the last two weeks the chamber was scheduled to be in session before the midterm elections. Under the revised schedule announced Thursday, the House will return for votes the evening of Monday, Sept. 14, a week after Labor Day, for what is now expected to be only a one-week session before […]

Some Republicans are slowly warming to the idea of raising payroll taxes on upper-income households to shore up Social Security. Rep. Lloyd K. Smucker of Pennsylvania, a top candidate to lead House Budget Committee Republicans in the next Congress, said Thursday that raising the cap on income subject to Social Security payroll taxes could be […]

Former Rep. Charles Hatcher, who championed Georgia’s peanut industry for over a decade until losing his seat in House in 1992, has died at the age of 87. The Georgia Democrat died Tuesday in Alexandria, Va., according to local news reports. The cause of death was not specified. “Georgia lost a true public servant and […]

For Rep. Thomas Massie, time is running out in his latest effort to extract more files from the Justice Department related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. He’s leading a push to sidestep House leaders and bring another bill to the floor, dubbing it the Epstein Files Transparency Act II. It would allow state […]

Wild horses roaming the untamed West have become a symbol of the American frontier. But through gaps in existing policy, many still find themselves in slaughter pipelines across both the southern and northern borders each year.  Advocates are calling on Congress to change that and codify protections for wild mustangs and burros into federal law, […]

By the time Brittany Pettersen’s son was 6 months old, he’d taken 24 flights.  The Colorado Democrat’s son is no world traveler — his time on planes as an infant was spent with Pettersen flying back and forth to Washington for votes.  As the House considers potential rules changes for next Congress, Pettersen and other […]

House members on Tuesday censured Rep. Chuck Edwards for sexual harassment of two former staffers, even as he insisted that poetry he wrote and gifts he gave were not intended to be romantic.  They voted overwhelmingly, 413-2, to censure Edwards and adopt a report from the Ethics Committee detailing “persistent unprofessional and inappropriate conduct.”  Speaking […]

The House on Tuesday adopted a resolution denouncing “socialism in all its forms,” boosting a Republican messaging push just two months before the midterm elections. It also calls for passage of a GOP-backed voter ID bill — language that further diminished Democratic support for the measure, even among lawmakers who otherwise agreed with its underlying […]

The House easily cleared a stopgap spending bill Tuesday that would keep federal agencies funded through Dec. 11, avoiding the risk of a partial government shutdown this fall. On a lopsided vote of 370-48, the House sent to President Donald Trump’s desk a short-term funding patch despite objections from hard-right conservatives over various policy concerns. […]

Defense-minded lawmakers are growing concerned about leadership vacuums in the military following the resignation of Army Secretary Dan Driscoll. “I’m tired of all the churn. I want to see some stability,” House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike D. Rogers, R-Ala., told reporters Tuesday. Pressed on if he’s concerned about a leadership vacuum in the Army now, […]