Jared Loughner’s question for Gabrielle Giffords was utterly incomprehensible. When the Arizona representative couldn’t makes sense of Loughner’s nonsense during a 2007 rally, it set the alleged Tucson gunman off (“Can you believe it, they wouldn’t answer my question“). Loughner felt ignored and then the questions stopped. (more)
I was moved and touched by the Arizona memorial service on Wednesday night. In part by President Obama’s speech, but a bigger part was the surrounding cast of women. Governor Brewer’s hopeful speech and Secretary Napolitano’s reading from the Old Testament. The miraculous story of Congresswoman Giffords opening her eyes for the first time during a visit from her friends Senator Gillibrand and Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz. (more)
Speaker of the House John Boehner and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi sent out an email Monday inviting colleagues to a “bipartisan congressional prayer service,” as a tribute to the victims of Saturday’s Tucson, Ariz. shooting that left six dead, many injured, and Ariz. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in critical condition. (more)
Speaker of the House John Boehner and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi sent out an e-mail Monday regarding “Signing of the Book of Well Wishes & Book of Condolences,” a tribute event for Ariz. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and other victims of Saturday’s shooting in Tucson. (more)
Members of Congress and their staff joined a bipartisan conference call Sunday afternoon to discuss how to proceed in the wake of a shooting in Tucson, Arizona that severely injured Arizona Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and left six dead, including federal judge John Roll. (more)
Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, who’s slated to deliver several speeches in Iowa in the coming weeks, is keeping mum on a potential presidential bid, but told The Daily Caller that she plans to use her platform to speak out against President Barack Obama. (more)
Rep. Jason Altmire of Pennsylvania was the first House Democrat to stand and defiantly call out his vote against Nancy Pelosi’s bid for minority leader on the first day of the new Congress Wednesday. (more)
Apart from a somewhat rough start and a minor disruption by a “birther” who yelled from the public gallery, the reading of the Constitution on the House floor by U.S. Representatives on the second day of Congress went fairly smoothly. (more)
When Ohio Rep. John Boehner was sworn in as Speaker of the House Wednesday, it offered a rare mirror image of the last gavel hand-off. In 2006, then-Majority Leader John Boehner, sporting a deeper tan than this week, handed the gavel over to California Rep. Nancy Pelosi. (more)
House Democrats’ goal is to make Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) the Speaker of the House again, their campaign chairman said Wednesday evening. (more)
On the opening day of the new Congress, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi spoke longer than the newly minted Speaker of the House John Boehner. What should one make of that? (more)
On Thursday, as part of the new House rules package, members of the United States House of Representatives will read the United States Constitution from the House floor. This is a reflection of a call from “the genius of the American people,” as Alexander Hamilton so aptly described the American people in The Federalist, that Congress not forget the guiding principles set forth in our nation’s Constitution. After all, in a republic it is the people who rule through their representatives. Even James Madison, who believed that “Liberty is to faction, what air is to fire,” would be thrilled that Congress has taken the time out of bickering to remember the foundations of our country. (more)
John Boehner of Ohio took the gavel from Nancy Pelosi after being voted as the new speaker of the House, and waited for the applause reverberating around the chamber to die down. (more)
Speaker Nancy Pelosi has an outgoing New Year’s Eve wish, asking House campaign supporters to give money to fight back against “shameful attack ads” that use her to target vulnerable Democrats. (more)
Four years after Speaker Nancy Pelosi promised the “most honest, most open and most ethical Congress in history,” her Republican successors appear intent on finally fulfilling that pledge. (more)
Congressman-elect Tim Scott, one of two incoming freshman Republicans who will serve as part of GOP leadership, is voicing doubts about raising the debt ceiling, a key showdown vote poised for the first few months of the next Congress that incoming Speaker John Boehner has called “first really big adult moment” his conference will face. (more)
Spending reform, a pivotal motivation of the November “shellacking” suffered by Democrats, has shown some signs of life ahead of the 112th Congress — the Republican Pledge to America outlined several steps GOP lawmakers took in the minority to stem the flow of spending and has been reiterated in the adopted conference rules package and congressional calendar. Republicans have eschewed the institutional practices that aid federal profligacy, pledging waiting periods for bills before they can be heard on the floor. These initiatives show that taxpayers may have reason to be hopeful heading into the new Congress. (more)
House Democrats Wednesday passed a resolution allowing them to rapidly bring any bill without normal procedural delays until Dec. 18, arguing the move will help them speed passage of their ambitious agenda for the remainder of the lame duck session. (more)
