We are working on Capitol Hill for a new direction for our country.
I'm excited about our opportunities in the next Congress and I'm fortunate to be in a unique position to help advance many of the goals we share.
First and foremost, with solid Democratic majorities in both houses, we will move boldly and quickly with President Barack Obama to protect homeowners and revitalize our nation's economy.
An excerpt from Roll Call, 6/1/09
Reps. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) and Jo Bonner (R-Ala.) have gone off on a tangent.
The top lawmakers on the House ethics panel are in the midst of evaluating the chamber’s ethics rules — the value of restrictions added in recent years, and whether some changes cause too much confusion for staff and mean too little to constituents — but now they’re talking about ice cubes.
Inside the committee’s office suite in the basement of the Capitol, Lofgren and Bonner are recalling an earlier round of reforms, when then-Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) curtailed ice delivery to House offices in 1995 and then showcased the move as an effort to trim Congressional perks and operating costs. “I thought it was a great idea,” Lofgren said. “I could not make them stop delivering the ice.”
“And I thought it was a terrible idea because, as a young staffer, I used to go get the ice,” Bonner chimed in.
Victoria McGrane
With California’s state government deadlocked over a $24 billion hole in its budget, the Golden State is hurtling toward financial apocalypse.
Washington’s response? Deal with it yourselves.
Tyche Hendricks
President Obama plans to sit down today with congressional leaders for the first serious discussion about the thorny issue of immigration policy since he became chief executive.
The meeting is likely to cover the issues of legalizing illegal immigrants, enforcing immigration law, accommodating future immigrants and, some analysts hope, incorporating them into American society.
David Lawsky
Silicon Valley is facing a brain drain of high-achieving foreign-born students, more of whom are leaving in the face of a chilly local immigration environment in a trend experts say will hurt U.S. high-tech industry competitiveness in the long run.
