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Tag: U.S. Congress

  • Another Democratic Congressman Announces Retirement

    Congressman Bill Owens today announced that he will not seek re-election to the U.S. House of Representatives this fall. Owens is the Democratic representative from New York’s 21st District.

    Owens has served in the House since 2009, when he won a special election for his district that took place after Congressman John McHugh took a position as Secretary of the Army. Owens won a subsequent election in 2010.

    In a statement released today, Owens said that it is time for him to “undertake new endeavors and spend more time with [his] family.” He also reassured his constituents that he would serve out the rest of his term advocating for jobs, the military, and a farm bill. The statement, in full:

    “After careful thought and consideration, I have decided not to seek re-election for the 21st Congressional District this November. I have enjoyed the opportunity to travel the district, meeting and serving the families and business owners of this vast community. It has truly been a privilege to serve, and I plan on continuing to work for a brighter future for the region.

    My appreciation for the support of my wife, children, grandchildren and close friends cannot be sufficiently expressed in words. There are others — too numerous to list — to whom I owe a great debt of gratitude. The remainder of my term will be spent in much the same way as the previous four years: assisting constituents with their individual concerns, continuing to focus on passing a Farm Bill, helping to create jobs in our communities, working for our troops and veterans, keeping the northern border secure and fluid and being a voice in Congress for bipartisanship, as well as fact-based decision making. You can count on me to work with and for you over the remainder of my term.

    It is time for me to undertake new endeavors and spend more time with my family. Even though I will not seek re-election, it is my goal that the next phase of my life will continue to focus on helping to improve the lives of all New Yorkers, primarily through job creation and economic development.

    Thank you for letting me serve you since November 2009.”

    Owens’ retirement announcement comes just one day after fellow U.S. Representative George Miller announced his retirement from congress. Miller was a long-serving Californian Democratic representative and the fifth most senior member of the U.S. House.

  • Congressman George Miller Announces His Retirement

    U.S. Representative George Miller today announced that he will not be seeking re-election for his California district seat this fall. Miller is currently one of the longest-serving Democratic representatives in congress, having first been elected to his seat in 1974. He is the fifth most senior member of the U.S. House of Representatives,

    “This is a great institution and I cannot thank my family and my constituents enough for having given me the honor and privilege of representing my district in Congress these past 40 years,” said Miller. “I have tried to repay them for their confidence by working hard every day to make our country a better place. I’m proud of what I have been able to accomplish on behalf of children, working people and the environment, in my district and for our country, especially passage of national health care reform. Now, I look forward to one last year in Congress fighting the good fight and then working in new venues on the issues that have inspired me. What a wonderful experience this has been.”

    Miller is currently the ranking Democratic member of the House Education and the Workforce Committee. In addition to his long-standing advocacy for education reform, Miller has been at the forefront of recent efforts to raise the federal minimum wage.

    As part of his retirement announcement, Miller stated that he will continue to working to raise the minimum wage, as well as extend unemployment benefits during his final months in congress. In addition, he plans to push for the Higher Education Act, early childhood education funds, immigration reform, improved labor standards, and a fix for the No Child Left Behind Act.

    “Capitol Hill and California are filled with Democrats and Republicans alike who have enjoyed working with George Miller and who deeply respect him because his dedication to the issues and his excitement for the legislative process are infectious and undiluted by the years he has served or the challenges he had faced,” said Nancy Pelosi, house minority leader. “For me, as Speaker and Democratic Leader, George’s patriotism, wisdom, and guidance have been especially valued, and he has been a close friend since my first days in the House.”

  • Congressional Approval Dropped to a New Low in 2013

    Though it seems as though congress has always had low approval ratings, Americans’ views of the legislative branch actually increased throughout the 90s. According to Gallup‘s yearly congressional approval ratings, however, that goodwill took a nosedive after peaking at 56% approval in 2011.

    This year congressional approval ratings have hit the lowest point ever recorded by Gallup since the company began measuring the metric in 1974. An average of only 14% of Americans approved of the way the U.S. congress handled its job in 2013. Each month of the year saw a congressional approval rating under 20% – another first for Gallup’s polling.

    This low rating was brought down by November’s monthly congressional approval rating of just 9% – the lowest of any month in the Gallup metric’s history. That month followed October, the month in which House Republicans shut down the U.S. government in protest over the rollout of the Affordable Care Act (AKA “Obamacare”).

    Now that the government is up and running again and the botched rollout of the Healthcare.gov website is being corrected, Americans are softening on congress during the holiday season. Congressional approval in December so far has reached a relatively generous 12%.

    Throughout congressional approval history Democrats and Republicans have sometimes had wildly differing opinions on congress depending on which party controls the legislature. For the current congress, however, nearly everyone is in agreement. An average of only 16% of Democrats approved of congress’ job in 2013, while only 13% of Republicans approved. Independents split the difference with a 14% approval rating average.

  • Congressman Reviews Jay-Z’s New Album on Twitter

    On Twitter, Florida Republican Congressman Trey Radel describes himself as a “husband, father, entrepreneur, champion of conservative causes.” Maybe he should add “aspiring hip hop head” to the list.

    For the past couple of hours, in a series of tweets, Radel has been reviewing Jay-Z’s new album Magna Carta… Holy Grail. Yep, you heard that correctly. He had some time to kill on a flight to D.C., so, you know, what the hell right?

    He goes track by track, giving his opinion on sick beat drops and Jay-Z’s bounty of musical references. There are also a few Kanye West digs in there.

    I guess this shouldn’t really come as a surprise considering Radel has put his affinity for rap on the record. According to recent profile in The Hill, Radel says he even produces his own remixes of classic songs called “Beats by Trey.”

    Twitter’s Government team used the review-by-tweets to point on how politicians can help themselves connect via social media by being a little more real and accessible. “Share personal interests, not just politics” as they put it.

    Still waiting on the #factsonly response from @S_C_.

  • Pregnant Congresswoman Announces Via Facebook

    Jamie Herrera Beutler, the Republican congresswoman from Washington’s 3rd district, has announced that she is pregnant. The 34-year-old Beutler was elected to congress in 2010, making her the second youngest female in the current U.S. Congress. She is married to Daniel Beutler, and the couple do not yet have any children.

    In a sign of the times, Beutler announced that she is expecting on her Facebook page. She stated that she and her husband are “blessed” and “excited” to be able to give their parents grandchildren.

    The Facebook note, in full:

    A few years ago when I was newly married and recently elected to Congress, I remember fielding some speculation as to whether or not I was “expecting.” Well… my husband Dan and I are thrilled to announce that this fall, there will be yet another person in Southwest Washington who will – for their entire adult life – get to explain “No, no, it’s pronounced Butler.” That’s right – we’re expecting a baby!

    Not only are we blessed to begin building our family, we’re also pretty excited to be giving Dan’s parents, Paul and Patti Beutler of Salem, their first grandchild and to be giving my parents, Armando and Candice Herrera of Camas, a grandchild to visit only a few miles away. I am thankful for the close proximity to both sets of grandparents because like any new parents, I’m sure we’ll need the help!

    Thank you for your thoughts, prayers and encouragement.

    Jaime and Daniel

    Beutler isn’t the first congresswoman to be pregnant, though the event is rare. Eight other women have become pregnant during their terms in office. Most recently, another Washington congresswoman, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, gave birth to a daughter in December 2010, making her the first congresswoman to give birth twice in office. Her first time giving birth in office was in April 2007. Similar to Beutler, Rodgers also announced her pregnancy through her Facebook page.

  • United States Postal Service Losing $25M a Day

    It’s no secret that the United States Postal Service (USPS) has been struggling for years. The company has seen its revenues fall in the face of email and the new internet economy.

    In February, the USPS announced that it would be dropping Saturday mail delivery to try and cut its losses. However, congress just this month passed a resolution barring the USPS from getting rid of Saturday delivery. It’s the type of congressional mandate that Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe has been complaining about in every dismal USPS quarterly financial disclosure.

    This week, the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee held a hearing titled Options to Bring the Postal Service Back From Insolvency. Donahoe was invited to give testimony at the hearing, during which he revealed just how bad the situation is for the USPS.

    “In the past two years, the Postal Service has recorded $21 billion in losses, including a default of $11.1 billion in payments to the United States Treasury,” said Donahoe. “The Postal Service has exhausted its borrowing authority and continues to contend with dangerously low liquidity. We are losing $25 million a day, and we are on an unsustainable path.”

    Donahoe went on to outline the usual points made by the USPS when addressing its financial situation. First class mail use has dropped 28% since 2007, and the Postmaster General complained that restrictive laws governing the Postal Service prevent it “from fully responding to these changes in consumer behavior.”

    Donahoe’s testimony was then countered by Fredric Rolando, the president of the National Associatio of Letter Carriers (NALC), the union that represents the USPS’ letter carriers. Rolando stated that the congress-mandated pre-funding of retiree health benefits is the major factor in the USPS’ insolvency.

  • Charlie Wilson Dies; Congressman Was 70

    Former U.S. Representative Charlie A. Wilson has died at the age of 70.

    According to an Associated Press report, Wilson had a stroke in February and had been recovering since that time. He reportedly became sick over the weekend and died Sunday afternoon at a hospital in Boynton Beach, Florida.

    Wilson owned funeral home and furniture store businesses before entering state politics in Ohio. In 1996 he was elected to the Ohio House of Representatives, where he served until 2002. In 2004 Wilson was elected to the Ohio Senate, and in 2006 he ran for U.S. congress when Ohio congressman Ted Strickland ran for governor of the state.

    Though Wilson’s name did not appear on the primary ballot, he ran a successful write-in campaign to become the Democratic candidate for Ohio’s 6th district. He won the general election and served two terms before being defeated by current U.S. Representative Bill Johnson in 2011.

    Charlie A. Wilson is not related to Charlie Nesbitt Wilson, the former U.S. Representative for Texas who is the subject of the book and movie Charlie Wilson’s War.

  • Obamacare ‘Kills’ Says Michelle Bachmann

    Michele Bachmann, the U.S. congressional representative from Minnesota’s 6th district, is well-known for saying things that strike Americans in the middle or on the left of the U.S. political spectrum as inflammatory and pandering. Though her posturing rings true with the most conservative Americans, it has also made her the subject of many a joke.

    This week, Bachmann continued her Don Quixote-like campaign against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act – known derisively by conservatives as “Obamacare.”

    The day after the 113th U.S. Conogress was sworn in, Bachmann proudly announced that she had introduced the first bill of the session, titled “To repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and health care-related provisions in the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010.″

    This week, Bachmann took to the house floor to rail against the president’s health care reform once again. She claimed that Americans, specifically women, children, and the elderly, are now paying more for less health coverage. She goes on to press her point with some hyperbole, saying,”Let’s repeal this failure before it literally kills women, kills children, kills senior citizens. Let’s not do that. Let’s love people. Let’s care about people. Let’s repeal it now while we can.”

    Presumably, someone has convinced Bachmann that the “Obamacare” legislation contains a provision that spares non-elderly men from the legislation’s secret death mandate.

  • Repeal Obamacare Bill Introduced by Michelle Bachmann

    The 113th U.S. Congress were just sworn-in yesterday, and already House Republicans are reiterating their feelings about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, colloquially known as “Obamacare.”

    Republican Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann has introduced a bill that would repeal Obamacare “in its entirety.” She also notes that her bill, currently known as H.R. 45, is the first bill introduced in the 113th Congress. Though the text of the legislation hasn’t yet been released by the Government Printing Office, the bill’s title – “To repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and health care-related provisions in the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010” – is fairly self-explanatory.

    The bill could be seen as Bachmann and other conservative Republicans’ attempt to re-frame themselves as populist Republicans after some in their party compromised with Democrats for new higher taxes during the recent “fiscal cliff” showdown. However, bills to repeal the health care reform bill have popped up repeatedly since the legislation passed in 2010 and none of them have even come close to passing a full house vote. It’s more likely that this is another seasonal jab at the president for the benefit of constituents in Bachmann’s and other conservative congressional districts.

    Bachmann was proud enough of her bill that she tweeted her about it:

    Of course, Twitter isn’t the most friendly environment for politics, and especially politicians. The responses to Bachmann’s announcement were full of sharp, to-the-point criticism:

  • Sam Gibbons Dies at 92, Florida Congressman

    On the eve of the 2012 Vice Presidential debate, we say our goodbyes to a very loyal Florida congressman, Sam Gibbons, who passed away yesterday (October 10th, 2012).

    Prior to his involvement with politics, Gibbons joined the U.S. Army in 1941, where he became Second Lieutenant, and was involved with the 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division on D. Day.

    In 1958, Gibbons became involved with the Florida House of Representatives in the Democratic party until 1962, and then moved up to the United States House of Representatives by electoral vote; however, in 1996, Gibbons decided not to run for an 18th term, and then retired after never being defeated in the 40+ years he was in office.

    Prior to retiring from the heavy Florida political scene, Gibbons also served on the House Ways and Means Committee, the chief tax-writing committee of the United States House of Representatives. On this committee, Gibbons served as acting chairman until the Democrats lost control of the house in 1995.

    On October 10th, 2012, Sam Gibbons died at the age of 92. The cause of Gibbons’ death has not yet been released.

  • Google Issues a Call For Legislative Transparency

    Google has issued a statement announcing that it believes public policy should be based on sound data analysis. Seth Webb, a senior policy manager for Google, stated that Google takes transparency seriously, and that it also believes citizens can be more active in politics when more data is made public. Webb announced Google’s transparency stance in a post on the Google Public Policy Blog:

    Last year, for example, the U.S. House of Representatives identified transparency as one of its top priorities, and since then it has taken several steps towards becoming more open. The House now streams and archives video of committee hearings, and it shares draft legislation for public consultation online.

    As part of its ongoing effort to promote openness and transparency, the House of Representatives voted for an appropriations bill that directs a task force to examine and expedite the process of disclosing large amounts of legislative data to the public. Even before the bill was passed, Congressional leadership issued a statement on the importance of transparency and requested for the task force to begin its work immediately.

    Google is promoting the ability for bulk legislative data to be provided in formats such as XML, so that websites and apps can parse it and provide up-to-date information on legislation. Also, it hopes that researchers will be able to analyze the data for research purposes.

    Webb praised earlier initiatives to open government data, such as President Obama’s recently issued Digital Government Strategy, which called for executive branch offices to open up more of their data and for more deployment of mobile technology that will allow citizens to access government data at all times. Alongside this praise, Webb also stated that Google looks forward to even more increased legislative transparency in the future.

  • 26-Year-Old Software Engineer Congressional Candidate Impresses Reddit, Matt Cutts

    26-Year-Old Software Engineer Congressional Candidate Impresses Reddit, Matt Cutts

    According to 26-year-old Patrick Kelly, Washington needs more engineers and less lawyers. That’s why he has decided to run for U.S. Congress in the 6th district of the great state of Kentucky. This congressional district covers Lexington as well as the state’s capital, Frankfort.

    Kelly, whose unique draw (other than his age) is the fact that he’s a software engineer, participated in a reddit AMA on Monday. AMAs (or Ask Me Anything) kind of work like crowdsourced interviews, where the interviewee can choose which questions to respond to.

    This reddit AMA caught the eye of one University of Kentucky graduate. You guys probably know him more for his work with Google. “A software engineer running for US Congress…In Kentucky? Right on,” says Matt Cutts:

    @mattcutts
    Matt Cutts    A software engineer running for US Congress. In Kentucky? http://t.co/YT1SDW8I Right on. 7 hours ago via Tweet Button ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    Kelly has lived in Lexington, KY for 20 years and is a graduate of the University of Kentucky with a degree in Computer Science. He works as a software engineer for a local company and also does freelance work.

    He started off his AMA with this:

    To save some time I’ll tell you I’m anti-NDAA, anti-SOPA/PIPA/internet regulation, anti-patriot act, anti-drug war, pro-legalization, anti-war, pro-marriage equality, pro-thorium, among a host of other things and my opponents support of these things is a big part of why I got into the race. While we on reddit may not agree on the details of everything, I think it’s important that most of us probably share the same goals and that it’s important to keep a civil discussion.

    Kelly will be running in the Republican primary for U.S. Congress. Maybe Matt Cutts will do a little campaigning for him (if they match up on the issues, of course).

  • Weiner Scares Fellow Congressional Tweeters

    Weiner Scares Fellow Congressional Tweeters

    Not only has the Weinergate scandal had an effect on the American people, the beltway media and obviously Anthony Weiner, but it has apparently had a great effect on Weiner’s fellow members of the U.S. congress. A new report shows that since the Weiner story exploded the weekend of May 27th, House and Senate members have been a little Twitter-shy.

    Here’s the quick version of Weinergate: On May 27th, New York Congressman Anthony Weiner’s Twitter account sent an @ message to a young Seattle woman containing a lewd picture of a penis. Although the tweet was quickly removed, conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart’s site Big Government published a story containing the image, which had been captured.

    Weiner at first denied that he sent the tweet, saying that his account had been hacked. On Monday, he scheduled a press conference and admitted that he had in fact sent the tweet and that it was part of a pattern of inappropriate virtual communications with multiple women. Since then, many of his alleged cyber-mistresses have come out, describing their online affairs with the congressman and providing Twitter, Facebook and email evidence.

    Stats coming from TweetCongress and site/app design company IdeaLoop suggest that Weiner’s predicament has made most of Congress bashful when it comes to Twitter – both Republicans and Democrats.

    According to the stats, Tweet volume from Republicans shot down 27% in the week following the weekend scandal. Democratic Tweet volume went down 29%. What are the two lowest Tweet volume days for both Repubs and Democrats? May 30th, the Monday after the scandal broke and June 6th, the day Weiner admitted everything.

    Either U.S. Congress members just coincidentally didn’t have anything to say the past 10 days, or some of them are a little scared of all the scrutiny surrounding Tweets right now.

    Another interesting thing revealed in these stats – a lot of our legislators don’t Tweet. There are 232 active Republican members and 168 active Democratic members of the service. And when you add the House to the Senate, it equals 535 total members of the legislative branch. That means that about 25% of them are not active Twitter users. What gives?

    As far as the Weinergate scandal goes currently, a new lewd photograph supposedly of Weiner has been leaked. Breitbart, who originally said he would not release this particular photo because it was extremely graphic, appeared on the Opie and Anthony radio show this week. He claims that they leaked the photo, which shows a nude erect penis, without his permission:

    But during the interview, they asked me if they could see it. I said, “Well, make sure you don’t show it to anyone.” And Jim Norton said, “There aren’t any cameras here.” And so I felt very comfortable that nothing, you know, bad would happen with it. And next thing I know, I found out that they surreptitiously recorded it and tweeted it on the Internet. And they’ve subsequently said — admitted that they did so without my permission.

    What about Weiner’s future? A new Marist poll provides some insight. They surveyed part of his Brooklyn and Queens congressional district and found that only 32% said that he should resign. 56% said that he should not quit. Weiner has said that he has no plans to step down, as he has broken no laws.

    Talk about your strange sex scandal – the one where no sex actually occurred. I guess social media really is changing everything, even the sleazy world of political scandals.

    >>> Find all WebProNews coverage of Andrew Breitbart here … updated live. You can also subscribe to the Andrew Breitbart RSS feed to get notified of new articles related to the late conservative blogger.