Conor Kenny's News Articles

Senate Facing Another Busy Week of Hearings

by Conor Kenny — April 17, 2007 - 5:55pm
  • Topics: U.S. Congress, Democracy, U.S. Government

    • After a two-week recess, the House is back in session this week and ready to tackle a full legislative schedule, including a measure which would grant the District of Columbia a voting member in the House. The Senate plans to be active as well, and among other things will consider a bill (passed by the House in January) to allow the federal government to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceuticals for Medicare recipients. In addition to legislation, the Senate is again planning to hold a number of important committee hearings, including the highly anticipated testimony of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales before the Judiciary Committee concerning his role in the U.S. attorney firings scandal. Here, courtesy of GovTrack, is a quick rundown of all of this week’s Senate hearings (the House doesn't have easily accessible committee schedules, something the folks at the OpenHouseProject are trying to fix):

    TheWeekInCongress (April 7-13, 2007)

    by Conor Kenny — April 13, 2007 - 6:15pm
  • Topics: U.S. Congress, Democracy, U.S. Government

    • With the House out of session this week, there was less news than usual to report from Capitol Hill. The Senate, however, did consider a number of important issues such as stem cell research and funding for federal intelligence agencies. For a thorough analysis of this action, we again turn to Robert McElroy’s TheWeekInCongress. His site is a great resource for citizens wishing to keep track of what their members are up to in Washington, and we urge you to check it out. Follow the headlines below to the Congresspedia articles covering the respective issues, which in turn link to and heavily rely on McElroy's analyses.

    Senate Committees Busy With Hearings This Week

    by Conor Kenny — April 10, 2007 - 10:30pm
  • Topics: U.S. Congress, Democracy, U.S. Government

    • With the House out of session and the Senate tackling a lighter-than-usual legislative schedule this week, posting at Congresspedia has been light. There are, however, a number important committee hearings set to take place in the Senate that we wanted to bring to your attention. Here, courtesy of GovTrack, is a quick rundown of them:

    House Reps. Brady and Fattah in Tight Race for Philly Mayor

    by Conor Kenny — April 6, 2007 - 7:00pm
  • Topics: U.S. Congress, Democracy, Politics

    • While Congress has been out of session this past week, Democratic House Reps. Bob Brady (Pa.) and Chaka Fattah (Pa.) have been busy campaigning in the hopes of becoming Philadelphia’s next mayor. The primary will take place on May 15 and — given the city’s heavily Democratic lean (no Republican has been elected mayor since 1948) — is expected to effectively determine the outcome of the general election.

    Congress Inches Towards Joining the Information Age

    by Conor Kenny — April 5, 2007 - 4:44pm
  • Topics: U.S. Congress, Democracy

    • Guest Blogger: Paul Blumenthal of the Sunlight Foundation

    For the past seven years Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) introduced a bill requiring Senators to file their reports of campaign contributions in an electronic format. Currently Senators file these reports on paper with the Secretary of the Senate who then transmits the reports to the Federal Election Commission where the reports are retyped back into computers. The process costs about $250,000 a year and means that a lot of campaign contributions to Senators are not available for public review prior to a November election. This year, Sen. Feingold’s bill, S. 223, finally made it out of committee.

    Congresspedia's "Congress in the News" updates, Mar. 1-21, 2007

    by Conor Kenny — April 5, 2007 - 3:57pm
  • Topics: Congresspedia News Updates, U.S. Congress, Democracy, U.S. Government

    • The latest in the U.S. attorney scandal: Some testify, some plead the fifth and others cut a deal "just to talk."

    by Conor Kenny — April 3, 2007 - 6:26pm
  • Topics: U.S. Congress, Democracy, U.S. Government

    • Guest blogger: Congresspedia intern Joshua Lanzet

    Along with the Iraq War, the broadening investigation into the Bush administration U.S. attorney firings controversy continues to dominate the headlines coming out of Congress. Congresspedia's citizen and staff editors are following the scandal closely, documenting the congressional investigations as well as the details of the actual firings as they emerge. Here are the latest developments, but make sure to see the full article for complete details:

    TheWeekInCongress (March 26-30, 2007)

    by Conor Kenny — March 30, 2007 - 5:08pm
  • Topics: Citizen Journalism, U.S. Congress, U.S. Government

    • Capitol Hill dominated the news this past week, as Congress continued to move towards sending a bill to President Bush’s desk calling for an end to the controversial Iraq War. For a thorough look at congressional action on this issue and several others debated and considered since Monday, we again turn to Robert McElroy’s TheWeekInCongress.

    Senate Upholds Call for Iraq Withdrawal in Spending Bill

    by Conor Kenny — March 28, 2007 - 6:12pm
  • Topics: Iraq, U.S. Congress, U.S. Government

    • A bill calling for the 2008 withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq is now one step closer to reaching President Bush’s desk.

    On Tuesday, the Senate rejected a Republican-backed amendment to strip a timeline for withdrawal from a $122 billion supplemental spending bill, 48-50. Democrats were joined in opposing the amendment by two Republicans, Sens. Chuck Hagel (Neb.) and Gordon Smith (Ore.). One Democrat, Sen. Mark Pryor (Ark.), sided with the remaining Republicans and independent Sen. Joe Lieberman (Conn.) in supporting the amendment. Hagel and Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), both of whom supported keeping the withdrawal timeline in the spending bill, had just two weeks ago opposed a separate Senate resolution calling for an identical timetable.

    Congresspedia: Where Wonks and "Regular Citizens" Work Collaboratively

    by Conor Kenny — March 26, 2007 - 6:20pm
  • Topics: Citizen Journalism, Politics

    • The Congresspedia project on SourceWatch has been receiving a lot of great edits lately by students, wonks and people who are simply interested in policy and politics (and have a modem). As the "managing editors" of the site, we keep an eye on the edits made to articles to do fact checking, help citizen editors and watch for vandalism. One editor, Lczikowsky, caught our eye by systematically expanding the page on minimum wage legislation to include state-level legislative proposals in 30 states, resulting in an in-depth article that's a great resource for anyone researching the minimum wage. Here's Lczikowsky to discuss his contributions in more detail:

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