Category: US House

With Congress in Disarray, Phillips Brings Reforming Spirit to Select Committee on Modernization

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Phillips: “I have never encountered an organization so utterly dysfunctional and in need of reformation as our Congress.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN) announced that he will join the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress. As a new member of the Select Committee, Phillips will draw upon his extensive entrepreneurial experience to advance ideas, processes, and technologies that foster cooperation and restore Americans’ faith in government.

“Over my 30-year career in business and philanthropy, I observed hundreds of organizations, institutions, and enterprises throughout the world. I have never encountered one so utterly dysfunctional and in need of reformation as our Congress. A system that elevates dividers and ignores uniters, that promotes those who raise the most money for their party and sidelines those who raise the best ideas for their country, and that over appreciates tenure and under appreciates talent, makes a mockery of our Founders’ greatest contributions. It’s time for Congress to value winning policies over winning elections,” said Phillips.

The bipartisan Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress was created in 2019 and tasked with making recommendations to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of Congress. After months of hearings, the Select Committee released 29 recommendations, including one inspired by Rep. Phillips to overhaul the onboarding process for freshmen members so that newly-elected Republicans and Democrats – who are normally separated by political party – spend more time together. 

Continue reading “With Congress in Disarray, Phillips Brings Reforming Spirit to Select Committee on Modernization”

House Oversight Committee demands release of $6B USPS vehicle contract

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The House Oversight and Reform Committee is demanding that the U.S. Postal Service release a contract with a private company for a new delivery vehicle fleet that is reportedly worth up to $6 billion. 

Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) sent a letter to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy on Friday voicing several concerns about potential interference and asking for documents relating to a contract with Oshkosh Defense. 

The Postal Service is contracted to purchase up to 165,000 new fuel-efficient or electric postal vehicles. Continue reading.

GOP goes on the attack against Biden relief bill

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Republicans are going on the attack against the newly signed $1.9 trillion coronavirus bill as they scramble to find a messaging foothold against Democrats’ first big win heading into 2022.

GOP lawmakers, who voted in unison against the legislation, are gambling that they’ll be able to tamp down the bill’s popularity in the long run, even as polls have shown it garners broad approval, including from their own voters.

The focus among congressional Republicans is twofold: highlighting provisions they hope will be damaging to Democrats and accusing their political opponents of trying to take credit for an economic recovery Republicans say was set in motion by the Trump administration. Continue reading.

WATCH: Jamie Raskin unloads on right-wing hypocrites after Jim Jordan rants about cancel culture

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During a House hearing this Friday tasked with “saving the free and diverse press,” Ohio GOP Rep. Jim Jordan railed against “big tech, big media, and big government” and their alleged censorship of conservative voices.

When Jordan’s time came to a close, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said that while the right-wing rants against “cancel culture,” there’s a whole litany of people and entities that right-wing conservatives “have tried to censure or cancel privately and publicly or defund or boycott.” 

“Here’s some of them: Congresswoman Liz Cheney, who they tried to kick off her chairmanship of the House Republican Conference, Senator Bill Cassidy from Louisiana, Senator Richard Burr — any of the 17 Republican members of Congress who voted to impeach and convict Donald Trump for inciting violent insurrection against the Union,” Raskin said. Continue reading.

Companies are scaling back layoffs because of Biden’s stimulus package

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Airlines, Amtrak, New York’s MTA cancel or delay thousands of layoffs after passage

Two airline giants said that they would cancel tens of thousands of planned layoffs because of aid earmarked for them in the $1.9 trillion stimulus measure passed by Congress this week, an early sign of job losses averted by the landmark package.

Scott Kirby, CEO of United Airlines, which had warned employees about 14,000 layoffs last month, said in a social media post that Congress’s new funding for airlines would allow the workers to receive their paychecks and health care through September.

American Airlines said it planned to rescind notices it sent last month to 13,000 employees about coming layoffs. Continue reading.

While Republicans Vote No, Their States Win Big In Rescue Plan

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As President Joe Biden signed Democrats’ $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill into law Thursday afternoon, Republicans falsely claimed the bill only serves to bail out “blue states” at the expense of “red states” — but the landmark legislation will deliver massive funding and relief to many deep-red states in need during the pandemic.

The American Rescue Plan will send more than $195 billion in aid to all 50 states and Washington, D.C., as well as $130.2 billion in aid to local governments throughout the country, benefiting red and blue states alike. In fact, according to a recent Reuters analysis, traditionally Republican states will receive a slightly disproportionate amount of federal aid from the package as compared to traditionally Democratic states — $3,192 per state resident as opposed to $3,160. And the bill levies no extra taxes on red states.

But on Thursday afternoon, Rep. Jody Hice (R-GA) took to social media to criticize the legislation, tweeting, “It’s red states like Georgia who will have to bail out the deep blue states who recklessly spent taxpayer $ on irresponsible decisions over the past year. They need to face the consequences of their actions rather than lean on the red states & the stimulus to bail them out!” Continue reading.

Lauren Boebert’s tall tale about a man’s death that led her to pack heat

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“When I became a business owner, I needed to protect myself. There was an altercation outside of my restaurant where a man was physically beat to death. There were no weapons involved. He was beat to death by another man’s hands.”

— Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), in a speech on the House floor, March 10

“Shortly after we opened our restaurant, there was an altercation where a man was beat to death … outside of my restaurant, beat to death by another man. No weapons. And I immediately wondered, how am I going to protect everyone?”

— Boebert, speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Feb. 27

“After a violent incident outside my business, I took advantage of Colorado’s open-carry laws and began to carry at work.”

— Boebert, speaking in a viral ad, tweeted Jan. 3

We’re often interested in the “origin stories” of politicians — regular lines that they use over and over to explain their political motivations.

Boebert is a strong booster of gun rights. She arrived in Congress this year after leveraging her fame as the owner of a restaurant, Shooters Grill of Rifle, Colo., where the wait staff often serve customers with open-carry firearms. A sign outside tells customers that guns are welcome.

Over and over, Boebert says she started allowing her staff to carry guns after a man was killed outside her restaurant. But we’ve obtained police and coroner reports that show her story is mainly fiction. Continue reading.

DeJoy asks House panel for more USPS money to support plan that includes slower mail delivery

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The postmaster general testified before lawmakers for the second time in three weeks on struggling delivery rates and postal reform legislation

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy asked congressional appropriators for more money Thursday to support his still-unreleased strategic plan for the nation’s mail agency and tried to reset expectations for slower but more consistent service.

Testifying before the House Appropriations subcommittee on financial service, DeJoy said the U.S. Postal Service needs to “recast that expectation of what it is that we’re able to do” to stem financial losses. Lawmakers had previously questioned DeJoy on a Washington Post report that he would stop flying first-class mail cross-country and planned to eliminate a speedier category of first-class mail to cut costs and help the agency make delivery windows.

DeJoy confirmed those plans Thursday and said they were a necessary evolution for the agency, which is struggling to both right its balance sheet and define its core services in an era of less paper and more packages. Continue reading.

House votes to expand gun background checks

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The House voted 227-203 Thursday to pass a bill that would require background checks for all gun purchasers. Within hours, the chamber voted 219-210 on a second background check bill to close the “Charleston loophole,” which allowed Dylann Roof to buy a firearm used to kill nine people at a Black church in 2015.

Why it matters: Overhauling the nation’s gun control laws is a priority for Democrats and the Biden administration, but the bill is unlikely to pass the 60-vote threshold in the Senate, where Republicans oppose attempts to curtail gun rights.

Details: The first bill (H.R. 8) became the first gun control legislation considered by Congress in nearly 25 years after it was first passed by the House in 2019, following a wave of youth-led activism in the wake of the Parkland shooting. It was never taken up by the GOP-controlled Senate. Continue reading.

MAGA rioter demands Texas trial because DC jurors would be too eager to ‘cancel’ her for ‘white supremacy’

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MAGA rioter Jenny Cudd, who infamously boasted on video about breaking into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office, is now demanding that her trial be held in her home state of Texas due to concerns about bias of jurors in Washington D.C.

Reuters legal reporter Jan Wolfe flags a new filing made by Cudd’s attorneys that claims D.C. jurors would be far more likely to unjustly “cancel” Cudd because they’d believe that she’s a racist.

“There is a social expectation of punishment for anyone accused of being a ‘white supremacist,'” the filing states. “In Washington, D.C., people have been readily ‘canceled’ for being politically conservative and for their public support of Donald Trump.” Continue reading.