Russell Berman
The Once and Future Speaker?
Is Nancy Pelosi's leadership the key to Democrats regaining the House, or the thing that will hold them back?
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Leah Millis / Reuters Mike Pompeo Barely Avoids an Unprecedented Reproach
After a last-minute flip by Senator Rand Paul, President Trump’s pick for secretary of state wins approval from the Foreign Relations Committee despite opposition from Democrats.
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Alex Brandon / AP The Humbling of Mike Pompeo
President Trump’s pick to replace Rex Tillerson could become the first secretary of state to win confirmation over the objections of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
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Jacqueline Martin / AP Paul Ryan's Unrealized Conservative Vision
The House speaker rose through Congress with a goal of remaking—and slimming down—the American social safety net. All he got was tax cuts.
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Robert F. Bukaty / AP Maine's Fitful Experiment With a New Way of Voting
The state will be the first to implement ranked-choice voting in its June primaries, but not all the candidates will commit to accepting the results.
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Joseph Sohm / Chip Somodevilla / C Flanigan ... The White Men's Club Leading America's Largest Cities
The diversity of the country's urban centers is not reflected in City Hall: In the 15 biggest U.S. cities, all but three mayors are white men, and none are women.
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Andrew Harnik / AP Why President Trump Is Going It Alone on Infrastructure
With legislative action in doubt, the administration is trying to cut down on projects’ bureaucratic delays—the likes of which the president decried as “a massive self-inflicted wound” on the country.
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Fabrizio Bensch / Reuters A Domestic Budget to Make Barack Obama Proud
The Republican Congress didn’t just ignore Trump’s proposals: The $1.3 trillion spending bill actually fulfilled—or even exceeded—many of the funding requests of his Democratic predecessor.
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Andrew Harnik / AP The Two Major Deals Congress Couldn't Strike
Lawmakers couldn’t reach an agreement to stabilize Obamacare or extend DACA in their omnibus spending bill, possibly dooming the issues until after the November elections.
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Paul Morigi / AP Congress's 'Baby Steps' on Guns
The omnibus spending bill includes the Fix NICS Act, more money for school safety, and a clarification on federal research. But the changes fall short of what gun-control advocates have demanded.
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Charles Rex Arbogast / AP Democrats Bet on a Billionaire in Illinois
The party nominated businessman J.B. Pritzker to go up against Governor Bruce Rauner, the Republican incumbent who barely avoided an embarrassing primary defeat on Tuesday night.
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Steven Senne / AP A Win for Democrats, but Not for Nancy Pelosi
Conor Lamb won a red district in Pennsylvania after ditching his party’s leader. Will other Democratic candidates follow his lead this fall?
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Susan Walsh / AP Heidi Heitkamp Takes On Elizabeth Warren Over the Senate Banking Bill
The two Democrats are clashing over legislation that could ease regulatory requirements on banks adopted after the 2008 recession.
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J. Scott Applewhite / AP 'The Place Is Not a Frat House'
Members of Congress have been bunking in their offices for years, but now the Congressional Black Caucus is questioning the practice as inappropriate freeloading and a misuse of federal resources.
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Andrew Harnik / AP Republicans Can't Stop Trump's Trade War
Congress has the power to block the president’s proposed tariffs on steel and aluminum. Why aren’t lawmakers using it?
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Jae C. Hon / Associated Press Where the Gun-Control Movement Goes Silent
In decades of advocacy for restrictions on access to firearms, there’s never been an organized effort to rewrite the Second Amendment. Don’t expect one to start now.
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J. Scott Applewhite / AP Congress's Ever-So-Brief Return to the Debate Over Gun Control
A post-massacre ritual takes on a new twist, but with the same end result.
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Eric Thayer / Reuters The Great Senate Immigration Debate That Wasn't
Mitch McConnell promised an open, freewheeling process to finally resolve the fate of DACA and the Dreamers. But amid more partisan bickering, the attempt has stalled before it even began.
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Jonathan Ernst / Reuters All the Trump Budget Cuts Congress Will Ignore
Lawmakers scoffed at the president’s calls to slash funding across the government a year ago. With a new spending deal now in place, they’re likely to do so again.
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J. Scott Applewhite / AP A New Era of Big Spending in Trump's Washington
With a budget deal that will spike outlays by $300 billion over two years, lawmakers rediscover the key to consensus in Congress: Crack open the federal piggy bank.
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Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP House Democrats Turn on One of Their Own
A progressive activist is challenging Representative Dan Lipinski, who voted against the Affordable Care Act in 2010. And two of his Illinois colleagues have joined the primary campaign to oust him.
