Let’s start this column off with a bold assertion. Paying lawmakers good salaries is one of our country’s most important progressive reforms because it means that they don’t have to be wealthy to serve. High congressional pay is a safeguard against corruption, not a sign of it.
Bear this assertion in mind as you consider this proposal.
This morning I co-sponsored a bill to end congressional pensions with @SenatorBraun.
Americans shouldn't...
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The investigations by Democrats that have Trump worried
Updated 8:30am EST Feb. 8 with information on Whitaker’s hearing.
“Adam Schiff?” Donald Trump said Feb. 6 at the White House, when asked about the Democratic congressman from California who chairs the House Intelligence Committe...
Dick Saslaw was the lone VA Democrat to rush to Northam’s defense. It could cost him re-election.
Virginia’s US senators Tim Kaine (D) and Mark Warner (D) late Saturday joined a growing chorus of politicians and organizations calling on Gov. Ralph Northam (D) to resign, after a racist photo from his 1984 medical school yearbook page was published by a right-wing website.
Yasmine Taeb, a progressive candidate for the Virginia State Senate, told ThinkProgress that it shouldn’t have taken them so long.
“The two highest officials in our state are older white men who w...
The US government owes federal workers over $5 billion in back pay
The US government shutdown has blown a nearly $5.3 billion ...
Democrats waste no time, announce first oversight measures of the new Congress
The 116th Congress — dubbed the most progressive and most diverse Congress in U.S. history — officially came to order on Thursday, and members of Congress have wasted no time introducing legislation and scheduling hearings to provide oversight over the White House.
With the Democrats in control of the House of Representatives for the first time since 2011 and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) wielding the gavel, the party is intent on using their new power to advance progressi...
New Congress’ history-making members got a Day 1 visit from Medicare for All activists
“Please count us as allies,” said a staffer for Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) to grassroots activists who were wearing Medicare for All t-shirts and were gathered in the congresswoman’s newly-minted office Thursday.
Pressley’s staff were among many of the House of Representatives’ freshmen class that warmly welcomed dozens of advocates who visited the offices Thursday. It didn’t matter that they were early for open house; Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cort...
All the reasons why the US government has ever been shut down
When US president Donald Trump ordered the government to shut down last week, it was the third shutdown since he took office in 2017—and the 21st since 1976, the year the modern congressional budget process was enacted.
The current shutdown ste...
How Trump’s government shutdown affects the average American
President Donald Trump has vowed that the partial government shutdown that began at midnight — the second government shutdown to occur while Republicans control the White House and both branches of Congress — will last for a “very long time.” The shutdown is the result of Trump reneging on an agreement to pass a “clean” bipartisan spending bill. Republicans then threw in more than $5 billion in funding for the wall, the president’s vanity project, ...
Amid swirling Trump scandals, Cummings backs rules change to allow indictment of a sitting president
Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), the Democrat who takes over chairmanship of the House Oversight Committee next month, called Sunday for the overhaul of legal guidelines that currently protect presidents from criminal prosecution.
“I think we should always reconsider laws and regulations, and this is one we definitely should reconsider,” Cummings told CNN’s State of the Union.
The Maryland Democrat raised the prospect of a rules change against the back...
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez isn’t the only 29-year-old Democrat who was just elected to Congress
Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) isn’t the only 29-year-old who was part of Democrats’ historic “blue wave” in last month’s midterms.
Her future House colleague Abby Finkenauer (D-IA) — who recently unseated two-term Rep. Rod Blum (R-IA) in Cedar Rapids’ 1st congressional district — is only nine months older, but she’s just as relatable.
If you aren’t already feeling old, let’s just get it all out of ...