Conor Kenny's News Articles

The Congresspedia staff has recently been quietly working with a number of research and advocacy organizations to build more articles on federal legislation and policy. Today we're publicly unveiling the first of these articles: a page on U.S. federal oil and gas royalties that we worked on with the Project on Government Oversight. Beth Daley, POGO's Director of Investigations (and now SourceWatch/Congresspedia user "Bethdaley") explains why POGO thinks this topic is important:

Both the House and Senate are in session this week, with each expected to consider numerous bills and resolutions. The House is planning to vote on a measure reauthorizing the federal Head Start program, while both the House and Senate may be forced to attempt to override President Bush’s veto of a supplemental spending bill which would call for a phased withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq.

Update 2: On Thursday afternoon, the Senate followed the House in passing the spending bill, 51-46. It now goes to President Bush, who is expected to veto it.

Update: Late Wednesday night, the House passed the $124 billion supplemental spending bill which establishes timetables for a U.S. combat withdrawal from Iraq, 218-208.

Both chambers of Congress are set to vote this week on final passage of the contentious Iraq War funding bill.

Rain and cold temperatures were not enough this past Monday (April 16) to deter residents of the District of Columbia (including newly-elected Mayor Adrian Fenty) from marching in support of long-awaited voting rights in Congress. An estimated crowd of 3,500 turned out for the largest gathering regarding the issue in decades, which featured a march down Pennsylvania Avenue to the U.S. Capitol.

The District of Columbia, which has nearly 400,000 voting residents who are required to pay all federal taxes, has never enjoyed voting representation in either the House or Senate.