Driven by big gains in wealthy suburbs and in districts won by Hillary Clinton in 2016, Democrats lived up to pre-election expectations and won back the House of Representatives on Tuesday, winning a net of 26 House seats as of the publication of this post. However, Republicans took advantage of an extremely favorable Senate map and expanded … [Read more...]
U.S. Senate Approves Legislation With New Rules For FAA
According to a report by Reuters, on Wednesday, the United States Senate passed legislation that no longer allows passengers to be removed from flights. In addition to this, the 1,200-page bill overseeing the Federal Aviation Administration also allows the government to write new rules for commercial drones to deliver packages and get new … [Read more...]
Mick Mulvaney Purges CFPB Advisory Boards
Ever since Mick Mulvaney was appointed Acting Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), he has implemented a slew of measures meant to strip the agency of its purpose and structure, leaving an empty stalk where once there was a substantial agency capable of enforcing meaningful regulations. After launching a top-to-bottom … [Read more...]
House Republicans Might Be Willing to Pass Dodd-Frank Reform Measures
The Senate and the House have split on issues before. Most famously, last year, Congressional leaders were unable to come to a consensus on health care, despite the fact that Republicans have been saying for years that they want to repeal Obamacare. Now, it appears, they might be willing to put their differences aside in order to pass reforms to … [Read more...]
Doug Jones and Tina Smith Are Sworn Into the U.S. Senate
From the TIME magazine YouTube Channel: Two new Democrats, Doug Jones and Tina Smith, are sworn into the U.S. Senate, narrowing the Republican majority and complicating efforts by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to advance the White House's legislative agenda before the midterm elections in November. https://youtu.be/hqT_bHRPAcc?rel=0 … [Read more...]
Republicans Bypass Blue Slip Procedure for Judicial Nominee
As political scientist and commentator Corey Robin has argued on a number of occasions, the crux of the Trump presidency lies not in his insistent erosion of norms, but in the long-term impact of his judiciary nominations. This may sound counterintuitive because after all, the courts have been essential in the fight against Trump’s belligerence – … [Read more...]
Senate Appropriations Bill Would Cut Important EPA Program
On November 20th, the Senate Interior Appropriations Subcommittee released the Environmental Appropriations Bill for FY 2018. The bill, if implemented, would cut a program responsible for monitoring the negative health impact of certain chemicals. That program, known as the Integrated Risk Information System (or IRIS), would be combined with the … [Read more...]
Seeking New Ways to Cut Healthcare Costs
Republicans have revivified their efforts, yet again, to kill or weaken Obamacare in any way possible. Trump recently signed an executive order that he claimed would help save healthcare and he announced that the federal government would no longer be issuing payments to insurance companies to help reduce the price of insurance for low-income … [Read more...]
Senators Pass Regressive Budget Resolution
On October 19th, with a 51-49 vote, the US Senate passed its second budget resolution this year – the first resolution was tied to the Obamacare repeal effort, though that effort failed to take hold. This most recent resolution outlines the 2018 Budget, a highly-contested plan to cut taxes for the wealthy while allowing the federal deficit to … [Read more...]
