Category: US Senate

Inspector general cites glaring problems within Capitol Police

Roll Call Logo

House Administration Committee on Thursday will hear from IG himself

The Capitol Police department needs to restructure its civil disturbance unit and overhaul its intelligence operation, glaring problems that hampered the department’s ability to secure the Capitol during the attack on Jan. 6.

The summary of Capitol Police Inspector General Michael A. Bolton’s findings, obtained by CQ Roll Call, illustrates a department woefully unprepared for the deadly pro-Trump insurrection, including a lack of training and operational planning deficiencies. Bolton will appear Thursday before the House Administration Committee to discuss his work.

Bolton, in his prepared testimony, says the department needs to undergo a fundamental culture transformation. Continue reading.

Senate confirms Gensler to lead SEC

Roll Call Logo

Confirmation raises expectations for political spending disclosure

The Senate voted 53-45 Wednesday to confirm Gary Gensler as Securities and Exchange Commission chairman, potentially opening the door to increased political and climate risk disclosures from companies. 

Gensler will lead the agency amid growing calls for more public company disclosures from both Democrats and corporate shareholders. With his arrival, Democrats will have a majority on the commission. 

Mandated corporate disclosure of political spending and climate risk merits a closer look given strong investor interest, Gensler said during his March 2 confirmation hearing. Continue reading.

Federal prosecutors will not bring charges in Ashli Babbitt death

The Hill logo

Federal prosecutors said Wednesday that they would not file charges against the U.S. Capitol Police officer who shot and killed Ashli Babbitt during the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.

Babbitt, who was 35, was one of the five people who died as a result of the riot as supporters of former President Trump overran the Capitol while Congress was preparing to certify President Biden‘s Electoral College victory.

Her shooting was captured on video just outside the House chambers where a crowd was trying to make its way past police. Continue reading.

‘Urgency’ creates a Senate path for AAPI hate crimes legislation

Roll Call Logo

Schumer, McConnell to discuss amendments

Something unusual happened in the Senate on Tuesday, when both sides of the aisle showed a willingness to debate legislation to address a rise in violence against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.

The divisive partisanship of recent years has kept even popular legislation from the kind of floor action expected for the bill, starting Wednesday, including the possibility of votes on bipartisan amendments.

But Democrats cited both an urgency to address the hate crimes against AAPI individuals and the straightforwardness of the legislation by Sen. Mazie K. Hirono, D-Hawaii, as reasons to skip the typical committee process and hold a floor vote. Continue reading.

Texas Republican’s Complaint: Biden Doesn’t Tweet Enough

National Memo logo

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) on Monday attacked President Joe Biden for his restraint on social media, suggesting Biden isn’t “in control” because he’s not tweeting all day long.

Cornyn tweeted a quote from a Politico article that pointed out the difference between Biden and Donald Trump’s communication strategies:

“The president is not doing cable news interviews. Tweets from his account are limited and, when they come, unimaginably conventional. The public comments are largely scripted. Biden has opted for fewer sit down interviews with mainstream outlets and reporters,” Cornyn tweeted, a word-for-word paragraph from the Politico article. Continue reading.

Senate GOP Memo On Biden Jobs Plan Is Replete With Lies

National Memo logo

A new messaging memo from the Senate Republican Conference to its members’ communications teams frames President Joe Biden’s American Jobs Plan as a “job-crushing slush fund.”

According to Politico, the memo, dated April 11, dismisses the $2.25 trillion infrastructure package as a “partisan plan to kill jobs and create slush funds on the taxpayer dime.”

The memo is the latest in a series of attempts by Congressional Republicans to dent the bipartisan popularity of Biden’s plan. Recent polling has shown that the vast majority of likely American voters, including 57 percent of Republicans, back the plan to invest trillions of dollars in roads, bridges, broadband, transit, water systems, clean energy, and human infrastructure like child care. Continue reading.

Is broadband infrastructure? Republicans used to think so

Roll Call Logo

Republicans less sure that providing the service to all Americans is infrastructure, or at least at Biden’s price tag

The debate in Congress over President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion-plus infrastructure plan has featured a clean, simple attack line from Republicans: Most of the money wouldn’t really go to infrastructure.

Of course, that depends entirely on how you define infrastructure. For their purposes, Republicans are opting for a classic definition, seeking to limit the scope to things like roads and bridges. Russell Vought, who led the Office of Management and Budget under President Donald Trump, asserted in a recent Fox News appearance that “only 5 to 7 percent” of the plan is actual infrastructure.

And although that assertion was awarded “Three Pinocchios” by a Washington Post fact-checker, one can make an argument that funding in the plan for things like home-care services and electric vehicle purchases isn’t exactly infrastructure. But Republicans’ objection to one piece of the plan, broadband expansion so that households in all parts of the country have access to fast internet service, seems the result of a particularly curious case of political amnesia. Continue reading.

In a Bipartisan Meeting, Biden Makes the Case for His Infrastructure Plan

New York Times logo

The president met with lawmakers from both parties in an effort to show some flexibility on the size of his $2 trillion proposal and how to pay for it.

WASHINGTON — Facing opposition from Republicans and some centrist Democrats to parts of his $2 trillion infrastructure proposal, President Biden on Monday convened a bipartisan group of lawmakers at the White House, hoping to make progress toward a deal that can pass a bitterly divided Congress.

Sitting in the Oval Office with the group, Mr. Biden said he was “prepared to negotiate as to the extent of the infrastructure project, as well as how we pay for it.”

The meeting was an effort by the White House to show that it was willing to at least consider proposals to scale back or reshape the package and listen to alternatives to its own plan to pay for it by raising taxes on corporations. Continue reading.

Exclusive: GOP senators seek FBI investigation into Biden Pentagon nominee

The Hill logo

A group of 18 Republican senators on Tuesday wrote to FBI Director Christopher Wray seeking an investigation into President Biden‘s nominee for a top role in the Pentagon over whether he disclosed or solicited classified information after leaving his government job in the Obama administration.

The senators requested Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) not advance the nomination of Colin Kahl for under secretary of Defense policy for a full vote until the FBI has completed an investigation, according to a copy of the letter obtained exclusively by The Hill.

Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), who led the letter-writing effort, accused Kahl of using social media to disclose classified information. Continue reading.

The GOP’s ‘structural welfare’: Why the next 2 years will determine the fate of US democracy

AlterNet Logo

Knowing that they are a shrinking party and that changing demographics do not work in their favor, Republicans all over the United States are aggressively pushing voter suppression bills in state legislatures. Journalist/author Adam Jentleson, in an article published by The Atlantic on April 12, stresses that Republicans enjoy great “structural” advantages despite becoming more and more of a “minority” party.

“President Joe Biden came into office facing four ‘converging crises’: COVID-19, climate change, racial justice and the economy,” Jentleson explains. “But after a few weeks of fast action on a pandemic relief plan, a fifth crisis will determine the fate of the rest of his administration, and perhaps that of American democracy itself: the minority-rule doom loop, by which predominantly White conservatives gain more and more power, even as they represent fewer Americans.”

The GOP has lost the popular vote in seven of the United States’ last eight presidential elections, and Republicans are coping with that reality by making it more difficult to vote. Another GOP tactic is ruthlessly gerrymandering U.S. House of Representatives districts. Continue reading.