House of Representatives

Thou shalt not share fake news.

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

It's a real possibility, and it's worth gaming out

Jim Jordan’s bid to succeed Paul Ryan.

Allegations of fraud, theft, bigamy, and violence surround Imran Awan.

Below is a transcript of an interview of House Speaker Paul Ryan by Stephen F. Hayes, editor in chief of THE WEEKLY STANDARD at the TWS Midwest Conservative Summit earlier Monday in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and concision.

For the past week, Trump's approval rating in the RealClearPolitics average has hovered close to 42 percent. That's an improvement from early March, when the average briefly dipped below 40 percent. FiveThirtyEight didn't shift as much in that interval, but its aggregate shows that Trump gained…

We are coming down to the wire in Pennsylvania’s 18th District, where Republican Rick Saccone will face Democrat Conor Lamb in a special election, for a term of just seven months. Here are four questions (and answers) to clarify what’s at stake, how close the contest is, and what it means for 2018…

House Speaker Paul Ryan is pushing back on President Donald Trump’s announcement that he will impose hefty tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum, his spokeswoman said on Monday.

Lawmakers in the Senate are expected to pass a bipartisan two-year budget deal ahead of a midnight government shutdown deadline when it comes to a vote Thursday evening, leaving the ball in the House’s court.

“What would you do if you were stuck in one place and every day was exactly the same, and nothing that you did mattered?” Bill Murray asks in Groundhog Day. “That about sums it up for me,” a drinking buddy answers.

It’s not surprising that members of Congress would have a habit of repeating a short list of talking points, given how often they face the media and how important it is for them to stay on message. But that tendency was more apparent than usual last week during a feud over a stopgap spending…

A short-term funding bill to end a three-day government shutdown passed the House Monday evening after getting a thumbs-up from the Senate earlier in the day.

On the first anniversary of President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the U.S. government shut down.

Update, 9:54 p.m. ET: The Senate voted overwhelmingly 97-2 to proceed on the House CR late Thursday night. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell objected to Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s attempt to force a cloture vote Thursday night, pushing the final vote closer to the government shutdown deadline…

Former White House aide Sebastian Gorka vehemently denied charges from a Democratic congressman that he endorsed a Hungarian neo-Nazi political party during a congressional hearing Wednesday.

Republicans are scrambling to pass a short-term spending bill to keep the government up and running, just 72 hours before a shutdown deadline.

Federalist 68, by Alexander Hamilton, is not much read today. It consists of a defense of the original Electoral College in which the electors, chosen by the people, would assemble in each state and deliberate on their choice for president. This version of the Electoral College never really took…

For two hours on December 19, Paul Ryan loved his job.

This post had been updated.

Congressman Trent Franks announced his resignation from Congress Thursday evening, saying he was unwilling to undergo an Ethics Committee investigation into conversations about surrogacy he had in recent years with two female staffers.

Congressman John Conyers of Michigan announced Tuesday he would retire from Congress effective immediately, making him the first sitting congressman to resign amid the wave of sexual misconduct allegations that has swamped the nation in recent months.

Longtime congressman and civil rights icon John Conyers is under fire for a previously undisclosed settlement with a former staffer who claimed she was fired for rejecting Conyers's sexual advances. Buzzfeed broke the story that after the woman was fired in 2014, she filed a complaint with…

It's becoming increasingly unlikely that Roy Moore will be elected to the Senate—or, perhaps, endure as the Republican nominee for the seat once held by Attorney General Jefferson Sessions. But in the event that Judge Moore wins his election, it is interesting to note that more than a few…

GOP Rep. Bob Goodlatte of Virginia announced on Thursday that he will not seek re-election in 2018, citing the upcoming end of his tenure as chair of the House Judiciary Committee.

Republicans finally released a full working draft of their mammoth tax reform plan on Thursday. The 400-page Tax Cuts and Jobs Act doesn’t deliver the full Christmas list of tax priorities the White House requested in April, but it’s still a massive reorganization of the tax code that includes huge…

Rep. Jeb Hensarling, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, told constituents in a Tuesday email that he will not seek re-election in 2018.

The House of Representatives narrowly approved a Senate budget proposal on Thursday, paving the way for the long-anticipated tax reform package Republicans hope to pass by the end of the year.

The head of the House’s Ways and Means Committee isn’t disputing that tax reform will be harder now that President Donald Trump is at war with two members of the rickety GOP Senate majority. But he does want you to know that he and Trump are doing just fine.

Tennessee congresswoman Marsha Blackburn announced Thursday that she would run for the Senate seat that retiring senator Bob Corker is vacating in 2018.

If Americans today know John Quincy Adams, whose 250th birthday we celebrate on July 11, it is probably as Congressman Adams—Anthony Hopkins’ character in the film Amistad. Congressman Adams was Adams at his best. But that was a late development.

I stuffed notebook paper into my dress sleeves and got praised for being a “shero” on Twitter.

Atlanta

Rock Hill, S.C.

Atlanta

Rock Hill, S.C.

In a short briefing of reporters in the Oval Office late Friday afternoon, President Donald Trump said he was "disappointed" and "a little surprised, to be honest," that the American Health Care Act did not have the votes to pass the House of Representatives. Flanked by Vice President Mike Pence…

President Trump is "moving on" from health care after the House scuttled a planned Friday afternoon vote on the White House-backed American Health Care Act, says a senior White House aide.

The least suggestion of genetic engineering throws rational people into a blind panic, as it should: Man-made innovations threatening to out-mode humanity have freaked out every right-thinking person for most of modern history. This entirely natural anxiety has driven a whole subgenre of…

The House voted 268-151 Friday afternoon to waive retired Marine Gen. James Mattis from a restriction that would prevent him as serving as secretary of defense, sending the bill to the president's desk.

The Washington Post reports that House Republicans have revived an obscure rule that could prove to be the most significant civil service reform in decades:

The House of Representatives on Thursday voted to condemn a United Nations resolution critical of Israeli settlements as anti-Israel and one-sided, in a rebuke of the Obama administration's decision to allow the resolution to pass.

Top GOP officials say their first order of business in the new year is to repeal and replace Obamacare. But the first order itself has a clear first step.

The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with senior writer Michael Warren on the House GOP's Office of Congressional Ethics foibles in the newly gaveled in 115th Congress.

The House formally reelected Paul Ryan to the speakership Tuesday in a vote that was tamer than what the GOP majority has endured in recent years, with only one of his party colleagues defecting.

Donald Trump gently criticized the House Republican conference Tuesday for approving a rule change that would curb the powers of an independent ethics office in Congress. Taking to Twitter, the Republican president-elect said Congress should focus instead on taxes and health care first.

Politico reports:

Majority leader Kevin McCarthy and Foreign Affairs committee chairman Ed Royce announced Monday night that the House of Representatives will hold a vote Thursday on a resolution blasting last month's United Nations Security Council resolution regarding Israeli settlements. The Obama administration…

The Washington Post reports:

The United Nations Security Council passed on Friday a resolution calling for an end to further Israeli settlement—with the United States government and its U.N. ambassador Samantha Power abstaining from the vote. The United States is one of five permanent members of the Security Council with veto…

American military assistance to Lebanon should be reevaluated in the coming year, top congressional sources and experts tell THE WEEKLY STANDARD, following reports that equipment provided to the Lebanese army had been transferred to the Hezbollah terrorist organization and used to boost the Assad…

The Obama administration finalized a long rulemaking process Monday to tighten regulation of coal mining near streams, drawing pushback from Capitol Hill who questioned the move's necessity and had hoped the government would leave the issue alone before the president departs office next month.

A leading House Democrat called on his party to reconsider its political strategy ahead of the 2018 elections and praised incoming president Donald Trump for making a "smart" political decision by convincing an American manufacturer to keep some jobs in the United States. Adam Schiff, an eight-term…

Republican members of Congress have introduced companion resolutions urging the newly opened Smithsonian musem of African-American history to include the achievements of Justice Clarence Thomas, the second (and currently only) black member of the Supreme Court.

The New York Times's Jonathan Martin reports that congressman Keith Ellison is "facing increasingly vocal resistance" from influential groups within the party over the Minnesotan's effort to become Democratic National Committee chairman. That resistance apparently includes Jewish organizations like…

Tom Price, a Republican congressman from Georgia and orthopedic surgeon, is Donald Trump's choice for secretary of Health and Human Services. The New York Times reports:

Keith Ellison, the Minnesota congressman who is seeking the chairmanship the Democratic National Committee, is beginning to feel the heat for his past profession of radical views and associations with extremists. At the New York Times, Jonathan Martin and Maggie Haberman report that "some…

In the aftermath of the election of Donald Trump and a Republican Congress, Minnesota representative Keith Ellison has emerged as a leading contender to chair the Democratic National Committee. Ellison resides on the far-left fringe of the Democratic party. But perhaps it is a fringe no more.…

Lost in the momentous events of the recent election was the news that the citizens of the District of Columbia overwhelmingly approved a "state constitution" for the proposed state of New Columbia. This presages a renewed public campaign for D.C. statehood. One can easily imagine how much the…

Minnesota congressman Keith Ellison is the progressive favorite for Democratic National Committee chairman. If Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders get their way, he'll replace disgraced Donna Brazile, who replaced disgraced Debbie Wasserman Schultz, as the party's chief organizer.

Three-term U.S. House member Mike Pompeo of Kansas has been selected by Donald Trump to head the Central Intelligence Agency. A cursory glance at his biography shows he's eminently qualified. Pompeo was first in his class at West Point, served as an Army officer during the cold war in Europe, and…

A group of Democratic lawmakers met with an alleged member of a terrorist organization during a trip funded by an anti-Israel nonprofit last spring, according to government documents obtained by THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

House speaker Paul Ryan stepped in Wednesday to block an effort by some House Republicans to partially resurrect earmark spending, six years after the practice was banned. Here's the Wall Street Journal with the report:

The newly elected House Republican conference voted to nominate Paul Ryan for speaker on Tuesday, a little more than a year after first being elected speaker. Ryan will now face a full vote of the House of Representatives in January, when the new Congress is called into session.

Donald Trump's incoming chief strategist and senior counselor, Steve Bannon, has described House speaker Paul Ryan as the "enemy" and has called for his removal from the speakership. But Ryan said at the Capitol Tuesday he is moving past that criticism and called on his fellow Republicans to "look…

Marco Rubio, Paul Ryan, and Kelly Ayotte, and of all you desperate GOP candidates, threading the needle between a working class base in thrall to a demagogue and another fairly large bloc that detests him: Ike feels your pain. So does John Kennedy, and a very large group of the best and the…

The presidential race continues to be the main focus of most pundits, but next week the country will vote for the entire House of Representatives and a third of the U.S. Senate. What is the state of play in these races? Over the course of this week, I'm going to outline where things stand, starting…

We've heard some weird political arguments this year. The strangest of them is raging in California, where else? There the hotly contested question revolves around an electoral initiative known as Proposition 60.

Republicans may have an opportunity to salvage the election on the congressional level by making an explicit pitch to voters that they can stop Hillary Clinton on Obamacare and taxes. Online editor Michael Warren joined MSNBC's Morning Joe on Wednesday to discuss the lessons of 1996, as well as why…

Republicans are still fighting tooth and nail to maintain their majority in the Senate, but their prospects in the House don't look nearly as dubious, even with the X-factor of Donald Trump's presidential candidacy looming over many office-seekers.

House speaker Paul Ryan has issued a statement condemning President Obama's decision to lift trade restrictions with Cuba, the Carribbean island nation still controlled by Fidel and Raúl Castro's Communist regime. Obama announced Friday the United States would be lifting the limits to importing…

Republican Abraham Lincoln waged his Civil War with malice towards none. Republican Donald Trump is waging his intra-party civil war with malice towards just about everyone. Bodies will be strewn across the political landscape, and the projected body-count is rising.

During an appearance on On the Record with Brit Hume Tuesday night, WEEKLY STANDARD senior writer John McCormack discussed House speaker Paul Ryan's decision to focus entirely on House races and not campaign with Donald Trump. Ryan made the announcement on a conference call Tuesday with House…

Paul Ryan deserves credit and support for his decision to stop defending and campaigning for Donald Trump, says the Washington Examiner in a new editorial published Wednesday. Here's an excerpt:

Alabama representative Martha Roby is the latest Republican member of Congress to denounce her party's presidential nominee and call for him to step away from the presidential race. The three-term House member released a statement Saturday morning in response to the report that Donald Trump, in…

The earmark, banished by House Republicans in 2011, could be making a comeback.

The Associated Press reports:

History will not end on November 8, 2016. The next day, the party that loses will pick itself up, dust itself off, and try again—in just 24 short months. That's how politics in a democratic republic works. While claiming that the Battle of Armageddon is upon us helps gin up turnout every two years,…

Why hasn't there been more disruption in Congress? Looking at the highly disruptive presidential primary campaign, some analysts are scratching their heads and asking that very question. In primary election after primary election, Republican congressional incumbents—such as Paul Ryan, John McCain,…

One noteworthy feature of the ideological divide in Washington is how immune the country’s foreign policy practitioners have been from the disfiguring aspects of hyper-partisanship. Take any random left-wing specialist in constitutional law and a counterpart from the Federalist Society, and odds…

Brian Mast, a first-time candidate and political novice, won a crowded Republican primary for a South Florida House seat Tuesday. Among the candidates he beat were the wife of the state senate president. The 35-year-old father of three isn't just a multi-tour combat veteran of Afghanistan—he's a…

What I was trying emphasize with all the poll talk Wednesday is that this race is over. There is no coming back from where Trump is now. A candidate with high-favorables and a semi-competent campaign—say, Bob Dole—couldn't do it. A conspiracy-obsessed narcissist who is hated by 60 percent of the…

Donald Trump looks set to lose the presidential election to Hillary Clinton by a fair margin. But what about Congress?

A group of more than 70 former Republican officeholders and national committee staff and officers have penned a letter to RNC chair Reince Priebus urging him to stop spending party money to boost Trump's presidential campaign and instead focus on vulnerable House and Senate seats. Politico has the…

Donald Trump is not going to quit the race. The Republican party is not going to push him off the ballot. He may have a brief surge in the polls at some point, because the first rule of politics is that all races tighten.

A veteran American diplomat who was quietly paid by Boeing while pushing for the Iran nuclear deal—which paved the way for the aerospace giant to ink a $25 billion sale with Iran—is rejecting accusations that he hid a financial motive while pushing for the accord.

In the end, it wasn't even close. Kansas congressman Tim Huelskamp lost the Republican primary for his seat to a political novice, obstetrician Roger Marshall, by 15 points. Local news station KWCH reported just an hour after polls closed Tuesday night that Huelskamp's campaign staff "has told…

In a congressional race in which Ted Cruz clashed with House Republican leaders, the former mayor of West Point, Georgia, captured the GOP primary Tuesday and is all but certain of winning the general election in November.

Philadelphia

The House of Representatives passed a bill Wednesday that aims to prevent the federal government from discriminating against healthcare providers that do not provide abortions.

House speaker Paul Ryan spoke Friday morning on the floor of the House on the fatal shooting of five police officers in Dallas Thursday.

Among the many revelations that will emerge from the voluminous majority report of the Benghazi Select Committee when it is released Tuesday is this one: Barack Obama skipped his daily intelligence briefing one day after the Benghazi attacks on September 11, 2012. The president's briefer handed a…

The final majority report of the Benghazi Select Committee is set to be released later Tuesday morning. Representatives Jim Jordan and Mike Pompeo have signed onto the official majority document and authored a supplemental, 51-page "additional views" report of their own.

When word got out that Rep. Jim McDermott will be packing it in at the end of the year, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi was quick to plump the blustery leftist who has represented Seattle since 1989. He “has been a tenacious champion of hard-working Americans," he "has shown the strength of…

Iowa congressman Steve King has endorsed Texas senator Ted Cruz for president. Watch the video of King's announcement below:

Trey Gowdy, the Republican chairman of the House's select committee investigating the Benghazi attacks, spent several minutes at Thursday's hearing questioning former secretary of state Hillary Clinton over the unusual advisory relationship she had with an old friend who had business interests iin…

Hillary Clinton acknowledged that the U.S. ambassador to Libya who was killed on September 11, 2012, in a terrorist attack did not have the secretary of state's personal email address.

The Republican chairman of the House select committee on the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack told Hillary Clinton that his investigation is "not about" the former secretary of state, despite claims to the contrary from members of Congress in both parties.

All is fine and well in the House GOP conference, according to to the Republican rank-and-file.

It was just over a week ago when House majority leader Kevin McCarthy first considered dropping out of the race for speaker.

House speaker John Boehner has released a statement following the announcement that majority leader Kevin McCarthy is dropping out of the race for speaker. Here's the statement:

Kevin McCarthy, the California Republican and House majority leader, has pulled himself out of the running to replace House speaker John Boehner. National Review Online's Eliana Johnson broke the news:

The House Select Committee on Benghazi will be making public next week new documents that demonstrate Sidney Blumenthal was seeking business in Libya as he was advising then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on U.S. policy in the country. According to a letter from Chairman Trey Gowdy to Elijah…

Arkansas senator Tom Cotton will place a hold on three ambassador nominations until the Obama administration agrees to investigate and discipline officials within the Secret Service over a leak of private personnel information about a sitting congressman.

John Boehner announced that the election to replace him will be on October 29.

The Republican congressional leadership has been nominally--but sometimes it seems only nominally--committed to repealing Obamacare and replacing it with a conservative alternative.  Now one of the two leading candidates for House majority leader—the number-two position in leadership—is Dr. Tom…

Since becoming the leading candidate for House speaker, majority leader Kevin McCarthy has been treated with suspicion by some conservative commentators. Sean Hannity is one of them, and in an appearance on Hannity’s Fox News program Tuesday, McCarty faced tough questions from the host about what…

House majority leader Kevin McCarthy officially announced his campaign for speaker of the House. In a letter sent to his fellow Republican congressmen, McCarthy promised that if elected he would lead a House of Representatives that would "have the courage to lead the fight for our conservative…

For some, politics is the family business, and increasingly so in Washington. On Thursday, Illinois Republican Darin LaHood was sworn in to the House of Representatives, taking over the seat once occupied by disgraced congressman Aaron Schock and, before that, LaHood's own father, Ray LaHood.

Bill Kristol, the chairman of the Emergency Committee for Israel, has a statement on behalf of the group:

Rick Santorum is keeping expectations low for his second presidential campaign. Asked if he would need to win the Iowa caucuses to stay in the race, the former senator said it “depends.”

How should Republicans in Congress approach the process of repealing Obamacare? Jeffrey Anderson suggests a careful use of Senate reconciliation rules. Here's Anderson:

The The Republican National Committee is releasing a new video to argue that Democrat Hillary Clinton turn over the private email server she maintained while serving as secretary of state to an indpendent investigator. The web video showcases several reporters and members of the media excoriating…

Republican Jim Jordan went on Fox News this morning to discuss the fact that Republicans in the House of Representatives are considering impeaching the head of the IRS, John Koskinen:

After the Democrats passed Obamacare without a single Republican vote, Republicans generally (and wisely) united around the notion that they shouldn’t pursue partial repeal or “fixes” to Obamacare.  Rather than willingly giving Obamacare a newly bipartisan sheen, they publicly committed to…

President Barack Obama met with Senate and House Democrats to push trade, the White House announced this evening.

The Obama administration is funding a provision of the Affordable Care Act unconstitutionally and against the decision of Congress, a Republican House member says. Peter Roskam of Illinois joined Fox News's Greta van Susteren Thursday to talk about the details of his findings in an oversight…

Carly Fiorina has a message for Democrats who oppose a ban on late-term abortions: You don't represent most women. The Republican presidential candidate and former Hewlett-Packard CEO said she backs a bill, passed by the House of Representatives and just introduced in the Senate, that limits…

Republican House majority leader Kevin McCarthy is dubbing the third week of June “health care week.” It is then the House of Representatives will bring up a series of health care-related bills as the Supreme Court prepares to issue its ruling on a major provision of the Affordable Care Act at the…

President Obama is thankful the trade deal has passed the Senate. And he wants the House to "follow suit."

Speaker of the House John Boehner is praising the Senate's passage of the trade bill and calling on Democrats to join with Republicans to pass the law in the House.

Republican members of the House intelligence committee say the Obama administration should release more of the one million-plus documents found after the 2011 raid that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Clinton Foundation staffer Sid Blumenthal has been subpoenaed by the House Benghazi committee, Reuters reports:

The House of Representatives will vote on a bill next week that would ban nearly all late-term abortions, House majority leader Kevin McCarthy tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD. The legislation would establish a national limit on abortion at 20 weeks after conception—five months into pregnancy—which is the…

There are no guarantees in politics, but Joe Nosef feels pretty confident in his prediction regarding the May 12 special election for Mississippi’s open congressional seat.

"The single biggest threat to our national security is our debt.”

Just last week the White House boasted that President Obama is setting the agenda despite Republican control of the House and Senate. He’s in a stronger position now than before the midterm elections in November. “The White House is declaring victory over Washington,” according to Politico.

Jonathan Karl of ABC News reported this morning that Speaker of the House John Boehner will announce an "investigation next week into Hillary Clinton's email practices as secretary of state."

Roger Pielke Jr., a respected climate scientist at the University of Colorado, announced recently on his blog that he is being investigated by congressional Democrats. Rep. Raul Grijalva, the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Natural Resources, sent a letter to the university demanding to…

More than three-quarters of likely voters say negotiations with Iran should have the goal of stopping the regime in Tehran from ever getting nuclear weapons capability. According to a new poll from Republican pollster John McLaughlin, likely voters were asked about the United States's current…

On Tuesday, Democrats took advantage of the Senate's filibuster rules to block a bill that would fund the Department of Homeland Security through the fiscal year. The bill, which passed the House of Representatives last month, would fund the department at current levels but block funding for…

The White House has submitted its latest budget proposal to Congress, and the Republican chairs of the budget committees in both the Senate and the House are criticizing the plan for increasing spending and raising taxes. In a joint statement House budget chair Tom Price of Georgia and Senate…

Louisiana governor and potential presidential candidate Bobby Jindal said it was a "shame" that House Republican leaders had to put aside a bill banning abortions occuring after the 20th week of pregnancy. Speaking on Fox News Thursday night, the Republican said, "it shouldn't take a lot of…

The White House is accusing Republicans intent on stopping President Obama's executive amnesty as "essentially" voting for amnesty. "This vote is bad policy. It is essentially a vote for amnesty. It is also bad politics," the White House spokesman told reporters aboard Air Force One.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with executive editor Fred Barnes on the re-election of John Boehner as Speaker of the House, what it means for the caucus, the GOP agenda in 2015 and beyond.

While the controversy surrounding House GOP whip Steve Scalise continues to simmer, a 2002 press release (first uncovered by John Sexton) by the European-American Unity and Rights Organization (EURO) promoting the May 17-18 "workshop" to "train future civil rights activists" fails to mention…

The Los Angeles Times reports:

The new dawn didn’t. There was to be no more sturm und drang, no more brinkmanship, no more government shutdowns, no more threats of default on America’s debt. Just routine passage of a $1,100,000,000,000 spending bill to keep the government running until next September when the current fiscal year…

The House of Representatives passed a long-term spending bill Thursday night, just hours before the current continuing budget resolution is set to run out. The vote of 219 to 206, including nearly 60 Democrats, took longer than the alotted 15 minutes as House members from both parties witheld their…

Fox News producer Chard Pergram reports that House speaker John Boehner told reporters this evening that he's a happy warrior. "Boehner walks into chamber. Says to reporters: I am a happy warrior," Pergram reports on Twitter.

House minority leader Nancy Pelosi of California has announced her opposition to the 2015 omnibus spending bill. Congress is attempting to pass the bill to continue funding for the federal government, which runs out at 12 midnight Friday morning. Without passing this bill or a short-term continuing…

In an open letter to Democrats, Nancy Pelosi urges her colleagues to continue fighting the House spending bill. 

Republican senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma delivered his farewell address to the U.S. Senate Thursday. An emotional Coburn thanked the staff of the Senate and the U.S. Capitol before delivering an assessment of the state of the Congress and of the country. Watch the video below:

Congress is closing in on a final spending deal in the last week of the lame duck session, Politico reports. Negotiations between the Republican House and the Democratic Senate on appropriations are nearly complete, and the impending deal would be, according to senior congressional reporter David…

John Boehner said he would not commit to bringing up a bill to strip critical funding from the Department of Homeland Security in the next Congress. Instead, the speaker of the House says there are "lots of options" for blocking President Obama's executive order on immigration. At a Thursday press…

The White House released a statement threatening to veto an anti-executive amnesty bill that's being considered in the House.

The Obama administration's Department of Homeland Security is hiring 1,000 new employees and has secured new office space to implement provisions of the November executive order on immigration. The Washington Times reports:

Tuesday’s House Judiciary Committee hearing on President Obama’s executive action on immigration opened with a video montage. Introduced by Republican chairman Bob Goodlatte during his opening statement, the Fox News-produced video featured clips of Obama repeating several times throughout his…

Senator Chuck Schumer of New York said Tuesday that he and his fellow Democrats made a mistake in pursuing health care legislation that eventually became Obamacare. Bloomberg Politics's Kathleen Hunter has the story:

Republican representative Mike Coffman of Colorado was the No. 1 target for defeat by House Democrats in 2014. Making matters worse, he had been gerrymandered out of his solidly Republican district and was opposed by the most impressive candidate Democrats could recruit. His future as a congressman…

House speaker John Boehner released a brief YouTube message ahead of President Obama's Thursday night address on his executive action on immigration.

Republicans on Capitol Hill remain unsure of how to proceed should President Obama issue his expected executive order on immigration.

Jonathan Turley, a liberal law professor and attorney, announced on his blog Tuesday he will be representing the House of Representatives in its lawsuit against the Obama administration. Here's Turley:

Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina called for the formation of a Benghazi select committee in the Senate. He made the comments on Hugh Hewitt's radio show, according to a partial transcript of the show provided by a producer.

Matthew Continetti, writing at the Washington Free Beacon, offers Congress a path for fighting against President Obama's plans to amnesty millions of illegal immigrants through executive order:

House speaker John Boehner told President Obama at a White House meeting last Friday to give the House "one more chance" to pass a bill on immigration. Boehner referenced this conversation at the House Republican conference meeting Thursday morning, according to sources in the room.

Following the 2014 elections, Congressman John Kline remains the major and senior elected figure in the Minnesota Republican party. The powerful chairman of the House education committee, he will be a central figure in the reform measures ahead to improve the nation’s faltering public school…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with executive editor Fred Barnes on the best and worst policies for the new Congressional GOP leadership.

Rep. Matt Salmon of Arizona is pushing his Republican colleagues to try to block the president from using executive action on immigration, but his plan is likely to hit strong resistance from House leaders.

President Obama, an increasingly leaky White House tells us, fears irrelevance. I am still relevant, the president all-but declared at his recent press conference. And to prove it, he told us about his constitutional authority to issue executive orders and to veto bills that he finds in conflict…

"An nvitation to [Ben Bradlee and Sally Quinn’s] historic Georgetown home was one of the most coveted status symbols in the nation’s capital, an entry to an elite salon of the powerful, talented .  .  . ” (Washington Post, October 29).

A Republican aide says the House of Representatives will continue to move forward on passing a long-term omnibus spending bill in the upcoming lame duck session of Congress. While some conservatives in both the House and Senate have suggested the House pass a short-term continuing resoution to fund…

Nancy Pelosi is staying right where she is -- minority leader of the House of Representatives. And she emailed supporters last night to let them know she wasn't "going anywhere."

Republican Cory Gardner is projected to beat incumbent Democrat Mark Udall in Colorado's U.S. Senate race.

Democrat Mary Landrieu and Republican Bill Cassidy will continue their race for the U.S. Senate seat in Louisiana in a December runoff, NBC News projects. Cassidy, a congressman from Baton Rouge, leads the incumbent Landrieu, but neither candidate will earn 50 percent of the vote. Under Louisiana's…

Barbara Comstock of Virginia has won her race for the U.S. House, beating Democrat John Foust.

The Virginia Republican party says there are problems with some touchscreen voting machines in Virginia Beach and other communities. The party sent out a video of one voter attempting to vote for Republican House member Scott Rigell. As the voter's finger touches Rigell's box, the vote is…

"Republicans could lose their House majority because of the shutdown,” blared the headline of a story published at the Washington Post’s Wonkblog by Princeton professor Sam Wang on October 8, 2013, midpoint of the 16-day shutdown. Two weeks after Wang pointed to surveys showing control of the House…

Barbara Comstock, the Republican House candidate for Virginia’s diverse Tenth congressional district in the suburbs and exurbs of Washington, lost the first thing she ever ran for: a spot on her high school cheerleading team. “After that, I was like ‘I’m never doing anything again,’” she jokes.

It looks like the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is bracing for a bad election next week. At least, that's what they're openly telling supporters.

The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with senior writer Stephen F. Hayes on his editorial "An Election About Everything."

House Committee on Homeland Security chair, Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, released this statement on the attack yesterday in Ottawa, Canada:

The Democrats "are completely out of ideas." That line isn't from the head of the Republican National Committee; it's what the Democrats are saying in their latest fundraising pitch.

Republican Cory Gardner leads incumbent Democrat Mark Udall in the fourth straight poll of the U.S. Senate race in Colorado. The new Quinnipiac poll of likely Colorado voters finds Gardner ahead of Udall by 6 points, 47 percent to 41 percent, while 8 percent support an independent candidate. With…

All four members of Arkansas's delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives have signed a letter to President Obama urging the federal government to restrict travel into the country from African nations affected by the Ebola virus outbreak.

Iowa Democrat Bruce Braley opposed funding any American military operations in Iraq this year—before he supported them. The three-term House member, who is running for Iowa's open Senate seat in one of the year's hottest races, touted his support for military action against ISIS in Iraq and Syria…

Democrat Bruce Braley says those who want to know his commitment to our nation's veterans need only look at the website of his Senate campaign.

Democrats continue to sound the alarm. The latest fundraising email from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has this subject line: "kiss any hope goodbye."

At Real Clear Politics, Sean Trende offers a theory about why so many Senate races are close and yet Republicans seem poised to do well anyway. Looking at polling trends from past election cycles, Trende sees a situation where Democratic candidates are unlikely to improve much on their current…

Democratic congressman Gerry Connolly of Virginia may be vulnerable for reelection, according to details from an internal poll conducted on behalf of his Republican challenger. Connolly, the three-term Democrat who respresents a chunk of Washington's Northern Virginia suburbs, is reportedly below…

In case you’ve not been paying attention, an issue for House Republicans as the midterm elections draw near is what to do about a president they believe has offended the Constitution by usurping legislative power and failing to carry out his duty to faithfully execute the law.

Supporters of Iowa Democrat Bruce Braley will raise money Wednesday night at the home of an attorney who once defended a Catholic bishop accused of molesting young boys. Trial lawyer Tim Bottaro will host the fundraiser at his home in Sioux City along with other supporters of Braley's Senate…

A Virginia Democratic candidate for the House of Representatives is getting blowback after saying his Republican opponent has never "had a real job." The Washington Post reports:

Republican Shelley Moore Capito leads her Democratic opponent Natalie Tennant by 17 points, according to a new poll of the West Virginia Senate race from Rasmussen Reports. An even 50 percent say they support Capito, the congresswoman and daughter of former governor Arch Moore, while just 33…

One summer morning almost exactly 20 years ago, I drove out to Leesburg, Virginia, to meet a courtly businessman named B. Powell Harrison and discuss the fate of Dodona Manor. Dodona Manor, a plain, early-19th-century Federal-style residence, had been the home of General George C. Marshall: His…

Democrat John Tierney, a nine-term House incumbent from Massachusetts, couldn't answer a straightforward question about whether his constituents are better or worse off than they were two years ago. At a Democratic primary debate Thursday, each candidate was asked to give a one-word, "yes or no"…

The race to replace retiring Democratic senator Tom Harkin of Iowa was considered to have favored the Democrat. At first, Republicans didn't appear to have an obvious candidate, and the state has been trending toward the Democrats for years. But the current GOP nominee, state senator Joni Ernst,…

New York congressman Tim Bishop has a new ad out today—well, it depends on your definition of "new." The Democrat's ad features 10 seconds of testimonials from constituents whose jobs were saved, they say, by Bishop. The ad closes with Bishop giving his own pitch. Watch it below:

Republican Senate candidate Cory Gardner is going after Democratic senator Mark Udall for voting for Obamacare in a new TV ad. The 30-second spot shows the GOP congressman holding up a cancellation letter he received from his health insurance provider. 

Two GOP Senate candidates in blue states are running new TV advertisementss knocking their Democratic opponents over immigration. In Michigan, Republican Terri Lynn Land's campaign has released an ad knocking Democratic congressman Gary Peters for "flip-flopping" on border enforcement and being…

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich told radio host Laura Ingraham Tuesday that if President Barack Obama proceeds to amnesty thousands of illegal immigrants through executive order, Republicans should make the case against such a move the party's "number one" campaign issue for the 2014 midterm…

For the most part, Republican candidates for Congress have been quiet about the immigration crisis on the border, with a few exceptions. But Rep. Tom Cotton, the GOP Senate candidate in Arkansas, has put his Democratic opponent's support for amnesty for illegal immigrants at the center of his new…

The House Republican leadership is having trouble getting 218 votes for its immigration bill. The policy objections to the bill seem convincing to me—among them that it seems to appropriate more money, on a pro-rated monthly basis, than the president's proposal; that it might well make it harder,…

A Democratic congresswoman told her colleagues at a House hearing Wednesday morning that the debate over a bill that would grandfather in otherwise canceled group plans under the Affordable Care Act reminded her of a comedy skit about "whiners."

Casual dining establishment TGI Fridays, you may have heard, is advertising what it bills as “endless” appetizers for a mere $10. Yet if you dine at Fridays here in the District of Columbia, you can expect to spend $11, not $10, on the “endless apps,” once DC’s 10 percent dining tax is included.…

Rep. Bruce Braley, the Iowa Democrat running for the U.S. Senate, missed three quarters of committee hearings concerning oversight of the Veterans Affairs administration in 2011 and 2012, including one, the Des Moines Register reports, on the same day Braley attended three fundraisers.

Businessman and first-time candidate David Perdue pulled off what the Atlanta Journal-Constitution calls a "political shocker" by winning the Republican primary runoff for the U.S. Senate in Georgia Tuesday. Perdue defeated Republican congressman Jack Kingston, who had the backing of much of the…

Gary Palmer, the founder of the conservative Alabama Policy Institute and a candidate for the House of Representatives, won his Republican primary runoff Tuesday against Paul DeMarco. Palmer is running to succeed retiring Republican Spencer Bachus for the GOP-friendly, Birmingham-area district. At…

With Barack Obama's job approval well below water these days, perhaps it's no surprise that Democratic candidates for Congress this year aren't jumping at the chance to have the president come campaign for them. Dave Weigel at Slate points out how remarkable it was last week when Democratic senator…

Speaker Boehner's proposed constitutional lawsuit against the president doesn't lack critics, including those who doubt that Congress has "standing" to bring such a case in federal court. And it's no surprise to find some conservatives among the critics: Conservative justices and judges were…