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The WaPo reports: President Bush vetoed a $124 billion measure yesterday that would have funded overseas military operations but required him to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq as early as July. (Pictured at right: the well-recognized banner backdrop of President Bush's May 1, 2003 appearance on the USS Lincoln.) Slate is running an excellent "Explainer" titled "What happens when a war spending bill gets vetoed", written by Michelle Tsai with input from Steve Ellis of Taxpayers for Com...

The Open House Project, a temporary working group of bloggers, government watchdog groups, and media activists, has been working for months on a series of recommendations that they will present to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) in order to help her live up to her pledge of making the 110th Congress "the most honest, ethical and open Congress in history." The Hill is running a series of op-eds in anticipation of the Open House Project releasing its report. The first in the series was written by Ro...

It's May Day: a huge day for the labor movement and immigrants' rights, and the first day of the month that comprehensive immigration reform legislation is expected to see floor time in Congress. Immigration is a major issue for the users of OpenCongress. Since the site launched, "immigration" has continually been, by far, the most commonly searched-for term. This tendency is of course indicative of the big picture. Americans everywhere have immigration issues on their minds. For the past ...

The first order of business as the Senate returns this week will be the reauthorization of the Prescription Drug User Fee Act, or PDUFA. Depending on how things go down on the Senate floor, the bill could contain a provision targeting pesky advertisements, like the one pictured on the right, that mislead consumers about the safety and benefits of drugs. PDUFA was originally authorized by Congress in 1992 and it has been reauthorized every five years. The main purpose of the bill is to allo...

With Iraq legislation out of Congress's hands for now (that's Iraq-bill crafters Murtha and Obey celebrating at right), we can start to look ahead to some other interesting and upcoming legislative battles in Congress. Here is a brief list of some bills that have recently been making progress in the long journey towards becoming law: On Thursday, Senator Frank Lautenberg (D, NJ) introduced a gun control bill that may be non-controversial enough to see some action despite the fact that the...

It's official: the bill that calls for U.S. troops to be withdrawn from Iraq beginning in the fall has been passed from Congress and is now in the hands of President Bush. The Senate today joined the House of Representatives in passing the conference committee report on the bill that was agreed upon on Monday. In both chambers, Democrats passed the bill without a "no" vote to spare -- it got exactly the amount of "aye" voted needed for passage in both. The bill funds the wars in Iraq and A...

It has been a tough month for Republicans when it comes to ethics. The Carpetbagger Report has this convenient rundown of currently ongoing ethics scandals involving Republican lawmakers: >-FBI agents raided Rep. John Doolittle’s (R-Calif.) (pictured at right) home, forcing him to step down from his seat on the House Appropriations Committee. > >-FBI agents also raided Rep. Rick Renzi’s (R-Ariz.) family business, forcing him to resign his committee assignments. > >-FBI officials have ...

At 4PM on Wednesday, Congress will move one critical step closer towards initiating another fierce battle in the Culture War. That's when the House Judiciary Committee is planning to mark up H.R. 1592, a bill that would expand the definition of hate crimes to include crimes committed against a person based on their sexual orientation or gender. The bill would also allow the U.S. Attorney General to provide assistance to state and local officials in investigating and prosecuting hate crimes c...

It looks like senators will have a little extra time this year to enjoy their favorite, but least popular, pastime: submitting requests for their pet projects to be funded by the federal budget. The above email was circulated around Capitol Hill today to alert senators that the deadline, which was previously extended to April, 27, has been extended one again. Phew! h/t Rob Bluey...

Congress has been working long and hard on a bill that funds the war in Iraq while putting more pressure on the Iraqi government to step up and setting a date for U.S. troops to be withdrawn. The bill has been passed in both the House and the Senate, and at 4:30 this afternoon negotiators from the two chambers will meet to hammer out some minor differences before sending it along to President Bush, who has repeatedly stated his intention to veto it. Much of the actual negotiating has been h...

California Representative Juanita Millender-McDonald, who was 68, died of cancer this morning. Earlier this week, she announced that she would be taking a a four to six-week leave of absence from Congress to deal with her illness. "Juanita Millender-McDonald was a trailblazer, always advocating for the full participation of all Americans in the success and prosperity of our country," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement. "The dignity with which she faced her illness was an indicatio...

If you want a daily reminder of where all the tax money that doesn't go into your paycheck actually goes, then put this stunning new poster up on your wall. You may be relieved just to see what a magnificent display the people at BudgetGraph.com can make materialize out of those dollars that seem to disappear so abstractly from your paycheck. The brand new "Death and Taxes" poster, which represents the entire 2008 federal discretionary budget as requested by President Bush, has just been re...

The Sunlight Foundation has made a lot of progress in their attempt to find out which senator has placed a secret hold on S.223, a bill to require senators to file their campaign finance reforms electronically. Help them put the pressure on the remaining main suspects so we can get to the bottom of this so the Senate can move forward with this important piece of transparency legislation. >Major media outlets are reporting that the Senator in question is definitely a Republican. Since we know...

Robert Novak has an interesting article outlining how Jim DeMint's (R, SC) stand-alone bill to require full disclosure of earmarks played out in the Senate on April 12. Novak's main point is that senate Democrats kept DeMint's bill at bay to allow Robert Byrd (D, WV) (pictured at right) the Chairman of the Appropriations Committee, to enact the tough-on-earmarks rule before him, in order to hold the appearance of Democrats as the pro-transparency party. >... the Democrats prepared carefully. ...

The bill to give Washington D.C. residents their first-ever voting member of the House of Representatives and Utah an additional Representative, has been revamped and is back on the House floor today. When it came to the floor last month, it stalled because a group of Republican representatives attempted to attach a provision to it that would have lifted D.C.'s ban on semiautomatic weapons. It was originally numbered H.R.1433, but, after being being officially postponed on the House floor, a ...