Congress
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Madison Avenue would call it “building brand identity.” In a tightly contested election year, Republicans and Democrats used the machinery of Congress and their members’ votes to polish their images with voters and distinguish themselves from the competition.
The hasty and haphazard completion of nine overdue fiscal 2005 spending bills raised new appeals from lawmakers that Congress figure out a better way to enact its annual budget.
Despite losing seats Nov. 2, House Democratic leaders said Wednesday their caucus is energized and ready to confront the Republican majority in the new Congress.
Although the Republican leadership in the House and Senate has been emboldened by the gains made in the Nov. 2 election, cracks are begging to show in the veneer of party invulnerability that GOP leaders sought to promote over the last two weeks.
Emboldened by their election success, House Republicans changed their rules yesterday to allow Majority Leader Tom DeLay (Tex.) to keep his post even if a grand jury indicts him, and Senate GOP leaders continued to weigh changing long-standing rules governing filibusters to prevent Democrats from blocking President Bush's most conservative judicial nominees.
House Republicans changed their Conference rules Wednesday to allow indicted party leaders and committee chairmen an opportunity to remain in their posts, even as Democrats moved to toughen their own internal guidelines on the subject.
As the 108th Congress prepares to take its final votes, this also will be the week that the 109th Congress starts to take shape.
Congressional Democrats returned to Washington in a defiant mood yesterday, making no apologies for the campaign in which they lost congressional seats and the presidential race and vowing to hold President Bush accountable for his handling of the deficit, the Iraq war and other issues.
Last week, the American people saw Washington at its worst. Partisan politics, turf battles and status quo complacency took precedence over Congress's most fundamental and sacred obligation - to protect the citizens of this country against our enemies. America saw members of Congress sent scurrying home by Speaker Hastert, leaving unfinished the most important legislation of all - fixing the core problems that allowed 9/11 to happen.
House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (MD) released the following statement today after the House considered legislation directing the Clerk of the House to delete a provision from the Omnibus Appropriations Bill that could have given staff members of the Appropriations Committee broad access to Americans’ tax returns: