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* There is some interesting discussion taking place at The Open House Project about whether or not video taping committee work will actually increase transparency. Check it out here and here. * In advance of a tight no-confidence in Alberto Gonzales vote, DailyKos has put up an outline of some past critical statements from GOP senators. For the no-confidence bill to pass, about 10 Republicans would have to defelect from their party and vote for the bill. * "The doctor overseeing Sen. Ti...

The Senate has grilled Alberto Gonzales in hearings and today they will have a chance to channel their displeasure into votes. This afternoon, the Senate will vote on a bill to determine if, in fact, it is... >the sense of the Senate that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales no longer holds the confidence of the Senate and of the American people. The U.S. Senate has never voted on a no-confidence bill before. The quoted text above is the entirety of S.J.Res.14, which will be the subjec...

Last night, after Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, NV) failed to bring the debate to an end, the Senate's attempt to reform Immigration policy came to an end. Now, the question is whether the bill is gone for good or if it will be brought back for a second chance. The final and deciding vote last night came on Reid's second attempt to invoke cloture, a motion that sets a time limit on the debate. Sixty votes were needed to pass the cloture motion. Reid's attempt only attracted 45 votes -- h...

The chances of U.S. immigration policy being reformed by the 110th Congress are suddenly not looking good at all. Two recent votes in the Senate give a strong indication that the current immigration bill will be heading nowhere but to the shelf. Dorgan Poison-Pill Approved As he made clear here, Senator Byron Dorgan (D, ND) -- pictured at right -- doesn't like anything about this immigration bill. Late last night, he drew on both Democratic anti-guestworker-program and bipartisan kill-the...

* Majority Leader Harry Reid's motion to limit debate on the immigration bill was blocked by senate Republicans. Roll call details here. CQ has more as well. * "The Senate Judiciary Committee just voted for the Specter/Leahy habeas restoration bill. The committee sent it to the floor with no amendments, no debate and on almost a party line vote (with the GOP sponsor, Senator Arlen Specter from Pennsylvania voting in favor)." - Find Habeas * "US Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-NY) has become the...

You may have noticed a new section on our left-hand navigation bar: OpenCongress Tools, launching today. Some of these tools are new ways to share info about Congress using our open-source website code, and some are links to useful new resources for greater government transparency. First is the new OpenCongress Syndication Panel -- we had received a lot of requests for this feature, and we're pleased to get it out into the world. It's sometimes referred to as a "widget" -- it's an easy way to...

Spurred by Monday's court ruling to dismiss charges against against two Guantanamo detainees, congressional Democrats are moving forward with legislation to restore Habeas Corpus. >A day after two military judges ruled against the Bush administration’s system for trying terrorism detainees, Democrats seized on the rulings on Tuesday as evidence that Congress should restore the right of those held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to challenge their detentions. > >Senator Harry Reid, the Nevada Dem...

The immigration bill is currently dodging bullets in the Senate. An amendment from Wayne Allard (R, CO), that would have caused some critical supporters of the bill and some who are on-the-fence to oppose the bill, was rejected this afternoon. However, the bill and its supporters are far from safe. A slew of contentious amendments have been offered and are waiting to be voted on. In an attempt to hold some of these amendments at bay, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, NV) has said that he wil...

* TPMMuckraker has been following the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing with former head of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice Bradley Schlozman. Really interesting stuff. * "Six weeks ago the Democrats held a 24-point lead over Bush as the stronger leadership force in Washington; today that's collapsed to a dead heat. The Democrats' overall job approval rating likewise has dropped, from a 54 percent majority to 44 percent now -- with the decline occurring almost exclus...

By the end of the week, it should be clear whether the Senate's immigration bill has been designed to sink or swim. Majority leader Harry Reid (D, NV) and the bill's sponsors are planning to bring the bill to a conclusive vote by Friday. The Senate will return from recess this afternoon and take up the immigration debate where they left off, debating and voting on a long list of amendments. With about 100 amendments still untouched, there is an enormous amount of potential for this delicat...

* "The Senate and House Intelligence Committees are asking former attorney general John Ashcroft to testify about a March 2004 hospital-room confrontation during which he refused to sign off on a continuation of President Bush’s warrantless eavesdropping program, according to congressional and administration sources." - Newsweek * A new study from the Washington Post shows that, during the five months that the 110th Congress has been in session, House Democrats have displayed an unprecedente...

John Hawkins of RIght Wing News conducted a survey among right-of-center bloggers on the Senate's immigration bill. Not surprisingly, they were in strong agreement with most of their responses, indicating that the bill is both bad bad policy and bad politically. But on only one question did everyone agree. When asked, "Do you believe that the bill in the Senate would, if passed, secure the border and stop the influx of significant numbers of illegal aliens into the United States," one hundred...

The Senate's immigration bill is a compromise through and through. As such, we need to look beyond whether or not we like the bill, and instead ask: is it good enough to take, or is it so bad that we should wait and hope that a near-future political situation allows for a better bill? Or put another way, what weighs more heavily: the damage that could be done by not doing anything about the current immigration situation, or the damage that could be done by enacting the current bill? For most p...

The immigration debate this week moves out of the Senate and into the country at large. Having worked for a week on the immigration bill, the Senate -- and the House of Representatives -- are taking a week-long Memorial Day recess. Debate of the immigration bill, however, will not take a break. It will follow Congressmen home as they go to work in their districts and it will continue to evolve and mature through discourse and the media. This country-wide debate will no-doubt have a major impa...

* The 110th Congress has been in session for 150 days. Check out this First-Session Scorecard from the New York Times for a clearly-organized outline of what Congress has accomplished and what still remains to be done. via ThinkProgress * The Politico's Sunday Talk Show Tip Sheet * The Internet Radio Equality Act, H.R.2060, gained its 100th co-sponsor on Friday. See also SaveNetRadio.org. * The AP's Immigration Bill FAQ * "Prodded by Democratic leaders and by freshmen elected par...