Salon.com > Laurie Kellman

Boehner: House will go ahead with contempt vote

Wed, 27 Jun 2012 14:47:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (AP) — Speaker John Boehner (BAY'-nur) says the House will move forward with a contempt of Congress vote against Attorney General Eric Holder over the botched gun-tracking operation known as Fast and Furious.

The Ohio Republican told reporters Wednesday that last-minute talks with the White House about releasing documents had failed to avert the vote. President Barack Obama has asserted executive privilege to keep the documents secret, but Republicans say there's no basis for that.

The issue has political implications this election year. The National Rifle Association is keeping score, prompting some Democrats to join Republicans in voting for contempt. Such a citation would not cause the release of more documents on the operation, in which guns were allowed to "walk" from Arizona to Mexico in hopes they could be tracked.

Palin: I didn’t “mess up” Paul Revere history

Sun, 05 Jun 2011 20:25:00 +0000

Sarah Palin insisted Sunday that history was on her side when she claimed that Paul Revere's famous ride was intended to warn both British soldiers and his fellow colonists.

"You realize that you messed up about Paul Revere, don't you?" "Fox News Sunday" anchor Chris Wallace asked the potential 2012 presidential candidate.

"I didn't mess up about Paul Revere," replied Palin, a paid contributor to the network.

"Part of his ride was to warn the British that were already there. That, hey, you're not going to succeed. You're not going to take American arms. You are not going to beat our own well-armed persons, individual, private militia that we have," she added. "He did warn the British."

Palin, who again said she has not decided whether to run for president, was asked about the Revolutionary War hero during a stop Thursday in Boston on her East Coast bus tour.

"He who warned the British that they weren't gonna be takin' away our arms by ringing those bells, and makin' sure as he's riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be sure and we were going to be free, and we were going to be armed."

Anti-abortion plans pose dilemma for Republicans

Sat, 05 Mar 2011 14:40:00 +0000

Restrict abortion or cut spending?

The Republicans' "Pledge for America" says the new majority will do both. But negotiations over the federal budget threaten to force the GOP, including its 87 House freshmen, to choose between them.

It's a lesson in congressional reality that has Republicans struggling with how to vote -- and what to do -- when a divided government pits pledge against pledge.

"That's a problem - and I mean, a real problem," said Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee's budget and spending task force.

How would he vote on a budget that cuts spending but lacks the promised abortion restrictions? Jordan winces.

"We haven't seen the finished product," he said.

The House last month passed its version of the budget that would fund the government through September. The measure would cut spending by $61 billion and prohibit federal dollars from going to Planned Parenthood as long as the organization performs abortions. It also reinstates restrictions, lifted by President Barack Obama, on government money for any organization that funds abortions in foreign countries.

Boehner launches effort to defend gay marriage ban

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 23:15:00 +0000

House Speaker John Boehner said Friday the House may go to court to defend the federal law against gay marriage, which President Barack Obama's administration has concluded is unconstitutional.

Boehner said he would convene a group of bipartisan congressional leaders that has the authority to instruct the House counsel to represent the chamber in court. The panel would include Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va.; Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.; Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi D-Calif., and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md.

"The constitutionality of this law should be determined by the courts -- not by the president unilaterally," the Ohio Republican said in a statement. "This action by the House will ensure the matter is addressed in a manner consistent with our Constitution."

The Obama administration last month announced it would no longer defend the constitutionality of the federal law that bans recognition of gay marriage. Attorney General Eric Holder said the section of the 1996 law defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman is unconstitutional. Nonetheless, he said the Justice Department would continue to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act, and it remains in effect.

Biden: American is evolving

Fri, 24 Dec 2010 18:07:00 +0000

Vice President Joe Biden predicted Friday the evolution in thinking that will permit gays to soon serve openly in the military will eventually bring about a national consensus for same-sex marriage.

Changes in attitudes by military leaders, those in the service and the public allowed the repeal by Congress of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, Biden noted in a nationally broadcast interview on Christmas eve.

"I think the country's evolving," he said on ABC's "Good Morning America." "And I think you're going to see, you know, the next effort is probably going to be to deal with so-called DOMA [Defense of Marriage Act]. He said he agreed with Obama that his position in gay marriage is "evolving."

Gay marriage is legal in only a handful of states, mostly in the Northeast, and in Iowa. President Barack Obama recently said his feelings on the gay marriage issue were in a state of transition. But he also said he still believes in allowing strong civil unions that provide certain protections and legal rights that married couples have.

Obama said he is still wrestling with whether gay couples should have the right to marry, now that the change in the law will allow them to serve openly in combat.

GOP Speaker-designate calls middle-class tax bill “chicken crap”

Thu, 02 Dec 2010 20:50:00 +0000

The tax cut bill considered by the House on Thursday isn't merely disappointing, it's "chicken crap." And Rep. Rob Bishop's three-piece suit?

"I told Mr. Bishop on the way in that just because he inherited this suit from his grandfather didn't mean he had to wear it," House Republican leader John Boehner teased his friend Thursday. "But his hair looks good."

Thus sayeth the next speaker of the House, purveyor of a far more cheeky style than his proper predecessor, Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Boehner, one of a dozen children of their bar-owning father, is given to smoking, tanning, golfing and teasing people he likes most. He's also a weeper at key public moments and liked for his geniality by many lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

The famously composed Pelosi, in contrast, is not known to have used even salty language in public. In private, the California Democrat might express her displeasure with something by describing it as "doggy doo" or just "poo," those who know her say.

Boehner often comes right out with it, even when cameras are rolling.

Senate Democrat joins GOP pushing for earmark vote

Tue, 16 Nov 2010 16:50:51 +0000

Missouri Democrat Claire McCaskill says senators should go on-record for or against pork-barrel earmarks this week and worries that her party will look out of touch if leaders block a vote or defend the practice.

McCaskill is a longtime opponent of the special spending requests that riled up the electorate this year. She said she's joining Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn in pushing for a floor vote as soon as Wednesday on whether to extend a moratorium through 2013.

The discussion comes a day after Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell reversed course and boarded the anti-earmark bandwagon, in a bow to voters who saw earmarks as a symbol of back room dealing and out-of-control spending.

House GOP leaders also are supporting an extension of the earmark moratorium.

Panel hits Charles Rangel with 13 ethics charges

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 23:42:00 +0000

House investigators accused veteran New York Rep. Charles Rangel of 13 violations of congressional ethics standards on Thursday, throwing a cloud over his four-decade political career and raising worries for fellow Democrats about the fall elections.

The allegations include failure to report rental income from vacation property in the Dominican Republic and hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional income and assets on his financial disclosure statements.

Other charges focused on Rangel's use of congressional staff and stationery to raise money for a college center in New York named after him; accepting favors and benefits from the donors that may have influenced his congressional actions; use of a subsidized New York apartment as a campaign office instead of a residence; and misuse of the congressional free mail privilege.

"Even though they are serious charges, I'm prepared to prove that the only thing I've ever had in my 50 years of public service is service," Rangel told reporters Thursday night. "That's what I've done and if I've been overzealous providing that service, I can't make an excuse for the serious violations."

Obama, Corker clash in private meeting

Tue, 25 May 2010 19:05:00 +0000

Republican officials say President Barack Obama and Sen. Bob Corker clashed during a private meeting over whether anyone in either party was really trying to be bipartisan this election year.

Four officials present at the rare session said that when Obama appealed for bipartisanship, Corker accused him of "audacity" given the administration's handling of the financial reform package and other legislation. Corker was a lead GOP negotiator on the bill to regulate Wall Street.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the private session, said Obama bristled and defended his negotiations over the bill.

Applause could be heard as Obama exited the room. Obama described the lunch-hour session as a frank discussion on a range of issues.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama and Senate Republicans called a high-noon cease-fire in their long-running political feud Tuesday, holding a rare, private meeting on Capitol Hill to discuss what legislation can be achieved during this volatile election year.

"We want to see if we can get some more work done," Obama told reporters on the way into the session.

Parliamentarian is rock star in healthcare debate

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 12:46:00 +0000

When Congress battles over thorny bills, parliamentarian Alan Frumin has been known to sleep in his office -- on call 24/7 as the Senate's Solomon, divining the answers.

Frumin's ability to review long-standing rules and centuries of precedent to resolve Senate questions makes the mustachioed parliamentarian something of a Washington rock star these days. As much as any elected official, Frumin, 63, holds decisive power over whether the Democrats' rewrite of the health care system survives or sinks.

"You're our new celebrity," Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., recently teased the bespectacled Frumin on the Senate floor.

It's fame in true Washington fashion as Frumin, an unelected Senate staffer who won't do interviews, wields outsized influence over the fate of President Barack Obama's signature domestic issue, the health care overhaul. That's every senator's dream, without the fundraising and vote-seeking chores that mark their daily elective lives.

But the parliamentarian's job can sound like a nightmare, too, especially with the stakes as high as they are on health care.

"I foresee a very miserable period for him," said Frumin's predecessor, Bob Dove, who was fired in 2001 when Republicans, then in the majority, disliked his recommendations on a budgetary matter.

Rep. Pete Stark to replace Rangel

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 23:39:00 +0000

Rep. Pete Stark is the California Democrat captured on YouTube in a steamy argument about body fluids, politics and lying. He challenged one colleague to a fist fight and called others an assortment of names through the years.

Not pleasant, but not as troubling to Democratic leaders is this: Stark, next in line for the gavel of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, has had his own ethics questions.

Stark's volatility and his conduct with ethics investigators made naming him even a temporary successor to embattled Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., an uncomfortable matter for Democratic leaders who had vowed to run the most ethical Congress in history.

It's what they didn't say for hours after Rangel stepped aside that conveyed plenty about their enthusiasm level, and the likelihood that Stark will face a challenge for the chairmanship next year.

Stark's promotion dribbled out just after 3 p.m., when Rep. John Carter, R-Texas, who headed up the effort to oust Rangel, rose on the House floor to ask: Who is the interim Ways and Means Committee chairman?

Rep. John Salazar, D-Colo., happened to be sitting in the speaker's chair, so it fell to him to announce: Pete Stark is the interim chairman. The promotion happens automatically unless the House votes to remove him, an action considered by officials to be highly unlikely.