Mary Lynn Jones

It’s a sad state of affairs when a lawmaker has to introduce a bill prohibiting other lawmakers from hacking into one another’s computer files, bribing other members on the House floor, or calling the Capitol police to have another member removed from a room. But that’s exactly what legislation being introduced this week by Rep. […]

With about 30 legislative days left this year, Republicans have decided to spend a good part of that time focusing on the issue of gay marriage. Yes, they still haven’t passed a budget, most of the appropriations bills, or legislation like class-action reform (which went on life support recently) but no matter — this year […]

Conservative Republicans continue to show that it’s their way or the highway when it comes to Washington. Illinois Republican Sen. Peter Fitzgerald told The Chicago Tribune recently that Republicans “sabotage[d]” the campaign of Senate candidate Jack Ryan, who had to pull out of the race after embarrassing disclosures from his divorce records. “Why fight a […]

Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle made a revolutionary speech on the Senate floor last week. He didn’t call on the president to resign or tell a senator to “fuck yourself,” as Vice President Dick Cheney suggested to Patrick Leahy on June 22. Instead, Daschle said senators should rise above their partisan differences and work together. […]

Throughout the 2000 presidential campaign, George W. Bush invoked the name of Bob Bullock, the late Democratic lieutenant governor of Texas. Bush said his relationship with Bullock represented the spirit of bipartisanship that had ruled Texas during his years as governor. In his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, Bush called the […]

With the House and Senate shut down on Friday for the funeral of former President Ronald Reagan, lawmakers lost yet more time on the expiring congressional calendar. Congress is scheduled to be out from June 28 to July 5 for the July 4 recess (or, in official parlance, the “Independence Day District Work Period”). From […]

At her weekly press conference on Thursday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi gave several instances of the White House being less than forthright recently on important issues. First, there was the prison-abuse scandal; the administration withheld information from Congress until the day it was going to be aired on 60 Minutes II. Pelosi also learned […]

Democratic Senator Zell Miller says the Senate has become “just one big, bad ongoing joke, held hostage by special interests and so impotent an 18-wheeler truck loaded with Viagra would do no good.” He’s proposed abolishing the direct election of senators — laid out in the 17th Amendment — and allowing, instead, state legislatures to […]

On Thursday, the same day President Bush trekked to Capitol Hill to rally Republicans (but not to answer any their questions) about the war in Iraq, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi spoke to reporters. She said that while some people think Bush has “great resolve … resolve must be accompanied by judgment and a plan. […]

“Gridlock, uncertainty, inaction, backlog, and delay: That is all the Senate is serving up these days,” Assistant Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell bemoaned on the Senate floor recently. “Gridlock, uncertainty, inaction, backlog, and delay is all that is on the menu in the Senate these days.” It’s a complaint coming from both parties this election […]