Conor Kenny's News Articles

While speculation continues as to whether Rep. Anthony Weiner will rekindle his New York City mayoral campaign in 2009, for now he is focused on retaining his seat in Congress.

Voters in Maryland's 4th congressional district are heading to the polls today in a special election to choose their representative to the U.S. House. The seat is open because former Rep. Al Wynn resigned at the end of May following his loss in February's primary election. Maryland's governor, Martin O'Malley (D), has called a special election to fill the remainder of Wynn's term.

Don't feel too bad for Wynn. When he left Congress last month he took advantage of a loophole in congressional ethics laws that bar exiting representatives from becoming lobbyists for one year. Wynn, following the example of others before him, has taken a job merely "advising" clients at the huge federal lobbying firm he has gone to work for, but will not directly "lobby" the federal government. It's nice work if you can get it.

More information on the candidates running for Wynn's seat after the jump.

The big events this week were the House, after two tries, approving an unemployment benefits extension Thursday, while Senate Republicans filibustered and blocked two bills: a an energy package that cut tax breaks for oil companies while encouraging more renewable energy alternatives and a reversal of scheduled cuts in Medicare services payments to doctors. President Bush also announced another nominee to the Federal Election Commission and three states held congressional primary elections.

After failing to reach a 2/3 majority required for “fast track” passage on Wednesday, House Democrats pushed an extension of unemployment benefits through with a simple majority vote on Thursday. Originally slated for inclusion in an Iraq War supplemental spending bill, the legislation includes an additional 13 weeks of benefits beyond the 26 already allowed. States with high rates of unemployment would be eligible for an additional 13 weeks.

As far back as January, Democratic leaders in the Senate wanted to expand jobless benefits and were lately looking to the Iraq supplemental funding package as the conduit, despite repeated veto threats from President Bush. Statistics released this week showed that the unemployment rate jumped .5 percent, the largest increase in 20 years, and Democratic leaders cited the worsening situation as the impetus behind the “fast track” option.

By Congresspedia assistant editor Avelino Maestas

We've moved past the presidential primary season, and through the summer and early fall we'll be focusing these election-day posts on congressional races. States holding nominating contests for House and Senate seats today include Maine, North Dakota and Virginia, and there are a few interesting match-ups to note.

Virginia should play a pivotal role in the 2008 election cycle, since Democrats have been making inroads there — especially on the congressional level — for the past few years. Still, only a few of the state's congressional districts have comptetive primaries today. At the top of the ballot, former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner is unopposed by other Democrats in the U.S. Senate race. Virginia Republicans, meanwhile, decided to nominate their candidate via convention, and chose Warner's predeccesor Jim Gilmore two weeks ago. Most of the activity is in House races, especially in the 8th and 10th districts.

Click through for more on the congressional primaries)