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Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, NV) announced on the Senate floor today that he is going to try to bring Russ Feingold's (D, WI) bill "to safely redeploy United States troops from Iraq" to a vote tomorrow. I say "try" because Republicans will almost certainly attempt to filibuster this vote which would force all senators to put themselves on record for or against ending the war in Iraq. The bill, which Reid is co-sponsoring, would require that troop withdrawal begins no later than 120 days afte...

Despite frequent attempts, the Democrats' November election campaigning can't accurately be narrowed down to one issue. The issues varied from race to race. Three issues, however, seem undeniably overarching and common to them all: changing the course of action in Iraq, restoring fiscal responsibility, and ending the "culture of corruption." Progress, however slow and gradual it may be, is being made on the first two issues. The Democrats are working on sending their second attempt at Iraq ...

With votes on Iraq done with in the House of Representatives for now, all eyes turn to the Senate, which is not quite ready for all the attention. Iraq and immigration reform, the two legislative battles that are most likely to be remembered of the 110th Congress, are currently held up, behind the scenes, in the Senate's hands. The House is now waiting for the Senate to act on both so that the necessary next steps can be taken and Congress as a whole can move forward. And yet, no plan, for e...

The supplemental appropriations bill, H.R.2206, passed the House late this afternoon. The bill, nicknamed "the short leash," would provide $43 billion for the war immediately and require the President to report back to Congress in July about progress being made in Iraq before Congree votes again to free up another $53 billion in funds. Here's the roll call. Democrats did not gain any Republican defectors from when they passed H.R.1591, the previous supplemental. Wayne Gilchrest (R, MD) and ...

Congress is loaded right now. Iraq is at the forefront in the House today, immigration legislation is being contested behind the scenes of the Senate, and underlying it all, major budgeting decisions are being made. Today marks the beginning of the budget resolution conference, the only time this session that members of the House and Senate will formally meet to work out the big picture of federal revenues and expenditures. The budget conference committee is a ten-member group -- five r...

The new "short leash" plan for Iraq will hit the House floor tomorrow, but a major question about Congress's follow-up Iraq plan still remains unanswered: what's going to happen in the Senate? Earlier in the week, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, NV) was saying that he needed more time to look over the House's plan, and added, "nothing has been ruled out, nothing has been ruled in." Now, the Politico's blog, The Crypt, is reporting that Reid hardly cares what bill the Senate votes on. He just...

The 10th Amendment states that the federal government is designed to have limited power and that the rest of the powers are "reserved for the States respectively, or to the people." Thus, OpenCongress only provides a part of the picture. However, as an open-source project, we have made our framework available to anyone who wants to start filling in the rest of the picture. We are pleased to announce the first of what we hope will be many such projects: OpenMass, a new site built on the Ope...

The President is being picky about how he wants all that additional war money he requested. Congress is barely beginning to regroup after the last bill was vetoed, and already the President is saying he will veto their new plan, details of which were just released yesterday. The plan, known as the short leash, would provide funds in two separate chunks designed to last two months each. In order to get the second chunk of funds released, the President would have to report back to Congress i...

The new plan for Iraq, as endorsed by the Democratic leadership in the House, does not include a timetable for troop withdrawal. Instead, Democrats plan to provide funding while keeping some control over the war by dishing out the funds in two-month chunks. On Thursday or Friday, the House will vote to make $42.8 billion immediately available for defense funds and to set aside $52.8 billion for possible release in July. The President will have to report to Congress at that time as to whether o...

After months of online collaboration -- wikiing, blogging, and list-serving -- The Open House Project released its report to members of the House today. From a release coinciding with this morning's press conference on the Hill: >“Americans are communicating with each other in a ‘Web 2.0′ dynamic environment, but Congress is restricted in its online activities by outdated rules implemented when the Web first launched over 10 years ago,” said Ellen Miller, executive director of th...

The Washington Post this morning is reporting that, despite some reservation in the Senate, the House leadership is planning to move forward with the plan to provide war funding in two two-month chunks: >House Democratic leaders are coming together around legislation that would fund the war through September but would withhold more than half of those funds until July, when Bush would have to report on the Iraqi government's progress toward benchmarks such as quelling sectarian violence, disarm...

When the Senate returns today, it will be a quick series of make-it-or-break-it moments for the bill to reauthorize FDA funding. The bill, which has been reauthorized every five years since its first authorization in 1992, establishes a system that allows the FDA to collect "user fees" from companies that manufacture pharmaceuticals and medical devices in order to fund safety testing and the FDA approval process. These funds are essential to the operation of the FDA, so the bill is consider...

Lat week, I mentioned a bill introduced by Frank Lautenberg (D, NJ) that would close a loophole that currently allows suspected terrorists to legally purchase guns. Today, the AP is reporting that the NRA has officially come out against the bill: >The National Rifle Association is urging the Bush administration to withdraw its support of a bill that would prohibit suspected terrorists from buying firearms. Backed by the Justice Department, the measure would give the attorney general the discr...

With their work on the 2008 budget so far, Democrats have backed themselves into a corner. Now the responsibility of straightening things out is being passed on to the budget conference committee, which, news sources are reporting, is just about ready to be assembled. In mid March, when the Senate was voting on the fiscal year 2008 budget resolution which sets the spending cap for the overall budget and outlines other budgeting priorities, Democrats nearly unanimously joined Republicans in ap...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, NV) is committed to bringing immigration reform legislation to the Senate floor during the week of May 14. The only problem is that no such bill has been introduced in the Senate and recent attempts to work one out have been unfruitful. But Reid has a plan: >Senate Democratic leaders, increasingly unhappy with an immigration overhaul taking shape in bipartisan talks with the White House, are considering moving their own, more permissive bill. > >The mo...