by jpitney | Feb 26, 2021 | Civility, Congress, Deliberation, House of Representatives
Jonathan Bydlak at R Street: Dear Majority Leader Schumer, Minority Leader McConnell, Chairwoman Klobuchar, and Ranking Member Blunt: The COVID-19 pandemic, growing economic hardship for many American families, a national reckoning over racial injustice, and the...
by jpitney | Feb 25, 2021 | Congress, Public Opinion
Jeffrey M. Jones at Gallup: Thirty-five percent of Americans currently approve of the way Congress is handling its job, a 10-percentage-point increase since January and the highest Gallup has measured in nearly 12 years. The current results are from a Feb. 3-18...
by jpitney | Feb 21, 2021 | Congress, Constitution, Deliberation, House of Representatives, Senate
Yuval Levin at National Review: If the problem to be solved is that cross-partisan agreement is necessary for Congress to legislate but such agreement is very rare now, then there are broadly two sorts of possible paths toward reform: You could look for ways to make...
by jpitney | Feb 18, 2021 | Biden, Congress
Nan Swift at R Street: President Biden deserves credit for resisting the calls of others in his party to wipe out $50,000 in student loan debt per borrower “with the flick of a pen,” as Politico reports. So far, it appears the president intends to work with Congress...
by jpitney | Feb 16, 2021 | Congress, House of Representatives, Senate
Tara Golshan and Kevin Robillard at HuffPo report that congressional Democrats are planning to revive earmarks. “Chair DeLauro supports Member-directed funding for community projects,” said Evan Hollander, a spokesperson with the House Appropriations Committee, which...
by jpitney | Feb 14, 2021 | Congress, Constitution, Impeachment, Presidency
Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE): “An impeachment trial is a public declaration of what a president’s oath of office means and what behavior that oath demands of presidents in the future. But here’s the sad reality: If we were talking about a Democratic president, most...