For two years, I worked on Capitol Hill as a legislative aide to Congressman Alan Grayson.  During this time, Congress passed major legislative initiatives, including most prominently health care reform and the Dodd-Frank package addressing the financial crisis.  Lobbyists infested the place, and a lot of the legislative activity was determined by the enormous sums
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 Last week, Republic Report’s Lee Fang revealed that leading defense contractors, including the manufacturers of military drones, were lavishing Rep. Buck McKeon’s (R-CA) wife Patricia — who is running for a state legislature seat in California — with campaign donations. McKeon is Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, and received $339,000 from the defense
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Will the House of Representatives strengthen the Stock Act, legislation to curb lawmakers and government officials from profitting from their position in government? In the Senate, a strong amendment offered by Senator Sherrod Brown to force members of Congress to either divest from companies that stand to benefit from policymaking or dump their investments into
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Later today, Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, is hosting a hearing about the purported negative effects of Environment Protection Agency’s (EPA) MACT rules. The new rules, which apply to industrial boilers, would place stricter limits on mercury, dioxin, particulate matter, hydrogen chloride, and carbon monoxide — environmental pollutants known
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Today, the Washington Post  — drawing on publicly available data as well as research by conservative author Peter Schweitzer — published an interactive map showing how 33 members of Congress “helped direct more than $300 million in earmarks to dozens of public projects for work in close proximity to commercial and residential real estate owned
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With widespread obesity, heart disease, lung cancer, and other ailments that can result from unhealthy diets continuing to be pressing problems in the United States, freshman Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-TN) introduced a bill last week to shield food and beverage companies from any government advertising or publicity informing the public about the dangers of consuming
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On January 21st, the two year anniversary of the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, the entire House Republican caucus traveled to a hotel along the Baltimore waterfront for a retreat to plan their legislative agenda this year. The timing was coincidental, but interesting given the event’s hosts. The Congressional Institute, the ostensibly “educational” organization that
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Earlier this week, the House and Senate Ethics committees released their report summarizing activity from 2011. Roll Call reports that the committees looked into very few ethics issues. In the Senate, out of the five that were pursued, none resulted in any disciplinary action: The Senate’s annual report shows that its Ethics panel received 77
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