Tag: U.S. House

Lawmakers pile on the spending in $1.4 trillion deal

The Hill logoLawmakers added $24.7 billion in emergency and “off-book” spending to a nearly $1.4 trillion package as they sought to settle differences and finish the congressional appropriations bills for the fiscal year.

The White House and Congress had reached a $1.37 trillion deal in July that increased defense spending by $22 billion and domestic spending by $12 billion.

But the final deal brings the sum total to $1.394 trillion and includes emergency funding for natural disasters, the 2020 census, medical funding and other priorities.

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‘I am not yielding’: Watch Rep. Pramila Jayapal shut down Jim Jordan’s attempt to hijack impeachment hearing

AlterNet logoRep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) stood her ground at an impeachment hearing on Thursday after Republicans tried to derail her arguments in favor of removing President Donald Trump.

Jayapal began her remarks by pointing out that Florida Republican Matt Gaetz was wrong to suggest that President Donald Trump was invested in Ukraine’s fight against Russia.

“Why then did he decide he was so concerned about ‘corruption’ that he was not going to release military aid?” Jayapal said, prompting Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio to demand that she yield the floor.

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Democrats seek leverage for Trump impeachment trial

The Hill logoSenate Democrats are quietly talking about asking Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to hold articles of impeachment in the House until Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) agrees to a fair rules package for a Senate trial.

Democratic senators are concerned by talk among Senate Republicans of holding a speedy trial without witnesses, which would set up a shorter time frame than when the Senate considered President Clinton’s 1999 impeachment.

They want to hear from Trump’s advisers and worry that if they don’t use their leverage now, they’ll have little say over how a Senate trial is run.

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Partisan battles erupt as Judiciary begins final phase of impeachment

Jerry Nadler told Republicans to “please keep in mind that — one way or the other — President Trump will not be president forever.”

The House Judiciary Committee began formal consideration of two impeachment articles against President Donald Trump on Wednesday night, a four-plus-hour partisan slugfest that changed few minds but yielded dozens of political attack lines that will be repeated endlessly in coming weeks.

Republicans blasted the process as unworthy of the storied Judiciary panel. They accused Democrats of a “political hit job,” “a rigged process” and a “naked partisan exercise” designed to remove a president whom they always opposed.

But Democrats hit back hard, calling Trump “the smoking gun” who engaged in a “constitutional crime spree.” And they said the quick pace of the impeachment proceedings is critical because of the “clear and present danger” Trump poses to the integrity of the 2020 presidential election.

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The articles of impeachment against President Trump, explained

Washington Post logoNow we have it: The reasons House Democrats will give to their fellow House lawmakers, to senators conducting a trial and to the history books for President Trump being unfit for office. They are giving two specific reasons, in the form of articles of impeachment unveiled Tuesday: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

Let’s break them down.

1. Abuse of power

What it means: That Trump used the power of the presidency for his own benefit. Specifically the allegation that he leveraged the State Department, the White House budget office, his unique ability to conduct high-level diplomacy and taxpayer dollars to pressure Ukraine to announce political investigations into former vice president Joe Biden and a conspiracy theory that Democrats and Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election, downplaying Russia’s broad involvement.

Nadler: Trump showed ‘pattern’ that poses ‘danger’ to elections

The House Judiciary chairman says Trump acted against his country’s interests.

House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) said Sunday that President Donald Trump has shown “a pattern” of seeking foreign interference in U.S. elections but stopped short of saying that obstruction charges would be included in articles of impeachment.

“The central allegation is that the president put himself above his country several times, that he sought foreign interference in our elections several times, both for 2016 and 2020,” Nadler said on “State of the Union“ on CNN. “All this presents a pattern that poses a real and present danger to the integrity of the next election.”

Pressed by host Dana Bash on whether charges related to 2016 would be included in articles of impeachment, Nadler demurred.

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Democrats unveil articles of impeachment against Trump

The Hill logoHouse Democrats on Tuesday unveiled two articles of impeachment against President Trump, accusing him of abusing his office for personal political gain and all but guaranteeing he becomes just the third president in the nation’s history to be impeached.

The historic move, which follows weeks of closed-door and public hearings on Trump’s dealings with Ukraine, carries far-reaching implications for a fiercely divided country that’s split roughly in half on whether Trump should be removed from office and ensures that the impeachment debate will carry far into an election year.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who had resisted impeachment for most of the year, struck a somber tone when announcing the articles in the Capitol, saying Trump’s handling of foreign policy in Kyiv had left Democrats no alternative.  

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House Passes Voting Rights Bill Despite Near Unanimous Republican Opposition

New York Times logoThe legislation restores the core of the Voting Rights Act, the landmark civil rights statute to guard against racial discrimination in elections.

WASHINGTON — The House voted on Friday to reinstate federal oversight of state election law, moving to bolster protections against racial discrimination enshrined in the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the landmark civil rights statute whose central provision was struck down by the Supreme Court.

Representative John Lewis, Democrat of Georgia, who was beaten in 1965 while demonstrating for voting rights in Alabama, banged the gavel to herald approval of the measure, to applause from his colleagues on the House floor. It passed by a vote of 228 to 187 nearly along party lines, with all but one Republican opposed.

The bill has little chance of becoming law given opposition in the Republican-controlled Senate and by President Trump, whose aides issued a veto threat against it this week.

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Rep. Smith Seeking To Exclude Democratic Candidates From Senate Trial

Rep. Jason Smith (R-MO) is introducing a resolution demanding that the GOP-controlled Senate exclude anyone running for president from participating in Trump’s increasingly likely impeachment trial. This is the latest in a series of stunts by Trump and his congressional GOP defenders aimed at distracting from Trump’s conduct.

Smith’s resolution urges the Senate to change its rules “to require a sitting United States Senator actively seeking election to the Presidency of the United States to recuse himself of herself” from the impeachment trial for any first-term incumbent president. Such a move would exclude Sens. Michael Bennet (D-CA), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and the millions they represent from having a say on whether to remove the president for high crimes and misdemeanors.

With a Democratic House majority, the resolution is unlikely to make it to the floor — much less be adopted. But it comes on the heals of an array of other stunts and bizarre arguments made by Trump and his GOP defenders in recent weeks.

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House approves two-state resolution in implicit rebuke of Trump

The Hill logoThe House on Friday approved a resolution supporting a two-state solution to the Israeli and Palestinian conflict, recording opposition to any peace plan put forth by the Trump administration that doesn’t expressly call for an independent Palestinian state living side-by-side with a Jewish state of Israel.

Only 5 Republicans backed the measure in the 226-183 vote, though 11 GOP lawmakers had joined a bipartisan amendment reaffirming U.S. commitments to providing military aid to Israel that was added to the bill.

The resolution follows criticism by Democrats of several moves by the Trump administration that they said endangered a two-state solution, including moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights and cutting the majority of U.S. aid to the Palestinians.

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