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A new poll, indicating that the Democratic Congress' job approval is slipping, may be responsible for Democratic party Progressives and House Democratic Leaders changing their tunes. >In a March 11-14, 2007, national poll -- 28% of Americans approve of the job being done by Congress and 64% disapprove. This marks a substantial change from January and February, with approval down nine points and disapproval up nine points. The report goes on to suggest that Iraq is the likely reason: >I...

Whether or not you like the bill, you have to be impressed by how precisely the Democratic leadership has crafted the war supplemental to get the maximum support of House Democrats. Right now, it is looking like the vote on the bill, which is scheduled for Thursday, may be decided by a margin of only a couple of votes. The bill's support swells, from its base with the Democratic centrists, outwards in both directions, collecting some votes from both the left and right of the Democratic pol...

The past couple weeks of investigation into the firing of eight U.S. attorneys, for what appear to be political reasons, are boiling down to concrete legislative action in the Senate. Debate will begin today on S.214, a bill introduced by Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) (pictured at right, questioning the fired attorneys), titled the Preserving United States Attorney Independence Act of 2007. Yesterday on Meet the Press, Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) stated what he sees as the problem with...

Today is the deadline, as set forth by David Obey (D-WI) for members of the House to submit their earmark requests to the Appropriations Committee. However, some lawmakers suddenly have cold feet. They are stumped by a new rule which requires that they sign off on their requests, certifying that neither they nor their spouse has a "financial interest" in it. The new rule was passed in the first 100 hours of legislative business as part of the House ethics package. But, according to Minori...

Democratic budget makers are trying to do it all in this years budget -- increase spending, eliminate the deficit, and extend tax cuts. Kent Conrad (D-ND) (pictured at right), Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, will bring his draft of the fiscal year 2008 budget resolution to a mark up vote in his committee today. According to The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), this draft will serve in the budgeting process as "a vehicle that allows the Congress to set and enforce over...

After three failed attempts, the Senate has finally voted to begin a debate on Iraq. However, the progress made today may only be symbolic. The same roadblocks that stalled the previous debates are going to show up again this time, just a little further down the line. The Senate passed the cloture vote this morning to begin debate with an overwhelming majority (89-9). The bill in question, which is co-sponsored by Joe Biden (D-DE) and Carl Levin (D-MI), sets a "target date" of March 2008 for ...

While the House of Representatives is meeting for Sunshine Week to vote on some pro-transparency legislation, the war supplemental, a bill to provide funds for the Iraq war and a timeline for troop withdrawal, will be making its way through what is possibly the least transparent of all Congressional institutions: the committee process. Committees make final adjustments to bills before they reach the House floor. They have the ability to alter a bill, add to it, or scrap it entirely. It is ...

Sunshine Week has officially begun! Momentum to make the government more transparent has been continually building up, and this week is a time for all of the energy surrounding issues of corruption, transparency, and accountability to come to the forefront. Bloggers, activists, watchdog groups, libraries, non-profits, schools and members of Congress are coming together this week with efforts to further the cause of creating a more open government. Here are some of the more official efforts t...

Earlier today, "On The Media" from National Public Radio aired a segment about the launch of OpenCongress. They interviewed Sunlight Foundation technology advisor Micah Sifry about the site, and we're very pleased: the piece is as an excellent summary of our mission to help make Congressional information more accessible to the public. You can listen to the segment about OpenCongress on the site of On The Media. Click the link to "listen" just under the description: "If you’re wondering wh...

C-SPAN announced yesterday, in this press release, that they are adopting a new copyright policy: >C-SPAN is introducing a liberalized copyright policy for current, future, and past coverage of any official events sponsored by Congress and any federal agency-- about half of all programming offered on the C-SPAN television networks--which will allow non-commercial copying, sharing, and posting of C-SPAN video on the Internet, with attribution. This comes after a controversy involving the Spe...

Yesterday, Senators approved an amendment to make the collective bargaining rights, given to TSA officers in the 9/11 bill, "waiveable" in emergency security situations. The Senators who voted for this amendment did so primarily to make the overall bill, which implements the unfinished recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, more palatable to the President, who is threatening a veto. With that issue partially resolved, a couple more seem to have come up. Subscription-only Congress Daily: ...

As the Democratic Leadership approaches a conclusion on how to address the issue of Iraq in the war supplemental funding bill, rumors, about unrelated funding that might be included in it, abound. The rumored additional funds may secure more votes for the bill, but they may also cause the President to veto it, citing its exorbitant cost. It could end up costing over $110 billion. This supplemental bill was originally intended to provide $93.4 billion in additional funds for the wars in Iraq ...

Representative Steve Israel (D-NY) has a feeling that the division among House Democrats over how best to move forward with a plan for Iraq, which has been a highly discussed subject in the past week, may be reuniting around a new plan by David Obey (D-WI). Israel speaking to, subscription-only, Congress Daily after the Democratic caucus meeting that was held earlier this evening: >"I think you're getting fewer members demanding extremes and more trying to find a sensible compromise," Is...

Craig Newmark tipped us off on USA Today's new Legislative Action Center. It's got some nice features that make it easier for people to get involved with pending legislation. For example, you can look up letter campaigns that you can easily sign onto by issue area, elected official, or state locality. If you look up elected officials (that's them on the right, pledging to work on your behalf) on the national, state, or local level, either by zip code or last name, you can see an abridged dir...

The Senate just voted to table the amendment by Jim DeMint (R-SC) that would strike the provision giving collective bargaining rights to TSA officers in S.4, a bill to implement the unfinished recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. To clarify, a vote to table a motion is a vote to leave it behind, unapproved. The vote found 51 in favor of tabling the amendment. 46 voted against tabling it, and three Senators did not vote. The vote was divided almost perfectly along party lines, with only ...