Congressional Democrats

Lost amid the turmoil of this year's exciting presidential campaign is what's shaping up to be a potentially fascinating congressional cycle. Here in Maryland, results from the "Potomac primary" provided an early whiff of the changing landscape of congressional elections. Incumbent members of Congress are normally untouchable. But sophisticated challenges mounted by conservative and liberal activists helped unseat, respectively, Eastern Shore Republican Rep. Wayne T. Gilchrest and Prince George's County-based Rep. Democrat Albert R. Wynn.

Dear Pelosi/Reid Congress — In the words of the monotonously repetitive holiday song, I want to wish you a merry Christmas. What a distinguished record you have amassed: •The stimulus, which added, oh, about $1 trillion to the deficit and did not, as heralded, either end the recession or drive down unemployment. •Obamacare, which, if it ever takes full effect, will impersonalize and socialize medicine along the lines of the European model and create government medicine with the regulatory hammer of the Internal Revenue Service and all the efficiencies of the Postal Service.

HERE'S Murray Kempton, writing in The New York Review of Books just before last November's elections:"The Democratic hegemony over both houses of Congress has been broken but twice in the last 42 years and only when a Democrat tenanted the White House. Harry Truman was president when Dwight Eisenhower brought in a Republican Senate in 1952; and Ronald Reagan doubly blessed his party with Jimmy Carter's defeat and a Republican majority of the Senate."The rule thus appears to ordain control of the Congress by the Democrats when the president is a Republican and withdraw it only when the president is a Democrat.

WASHINGTON - Democratic lawmakers criticized former vice president Dick Cheney on Sunday for allegedly ordering that a CIA counter-terrorism program be kept secret from congressional leaders, with two senators questioning the legality of such secrecy. A top Democrat called for an investigation. Republicans were far more circumspect, but some acknowledged the White House should have briefed Congress. Exactly what the secret intelligence program was remained a mystery, but sources said the CIA had opened an internal inquiry.

WASHINGTON -- After years of playing a marginal role in the Iraq war, congressional Democrats plan to move quickly next month to assert more control and undercut any White House effort to increase troop levels. As President Bush prepares to outline his own plan for Iraq in a major speech in the next few weeks, Democratic leaders will counter with weeks of oversight hearings, summoning military officers, administration officials, academics and foreign policy experts to Capitol Hill. The Democratic plans put Congress on a collision course with Bush over the direction of the nearly four-year-old war. And they signal a new phase in a war that has been directed almost exclusively by the White House with little dissent from a GOP-controlled Capitol.

WASHINGTON -- Congressional Democrats moved toward a renewed confrontation with the Bush administration over the war in Iraq as the House voted last night to tie $50 billion in new war funding to a call for most U.S. troops to withdraw by December 2008. Republicans have promised to resist the funding package in the Senate, where GOP lawmakers repeatedly have used procedural maneuvers to block previous attempts to impose limits on President Bush's conduct of the war. The White House has signaled it would veto the legislation if it does pass the Senate.

WASHINGTON -- Moving closer to a showdown over funding the war in Iraq, President Bush and congressional Democratic leaders emerged from a much-anticipated White House meeting yesterday without progress toward ending an impasse over an emergency spending bill. Despite Bush's veto threat, the Democrats continued to press ahead with legislation that would force the administration to begin withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq. "We cannot give the president a blank check," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said after the meeting, which included House and Senate Republican leaders.

WASHINGTON -- Attorney General William P. Barr ha rejected congressional demands for an independent prosecutor to investigate whether the government had committed a crime in a bank fraud case involving loans to Iraq. He asserts that the Justice Department had acted properly in every aspect of the politically contentious case.Mr. Barr's refusal to seek a judicially appointed prosecutor in the case involving the Atlanta branch of the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro followed the recommendation of Frederick B. Lacey, his own counsel.

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton may be learning one of many hard lessons for a new chief executive: he must work quickly to maintain the lead on his legislative agenda.As Mr. Clinton assumed the mantle of power yesterday, congressional Democrats were rushing to submit bills that picked up on his campaign themes of economic renewal and health-care reform. but --ed off in different directions, some where the new president may not care to go.AThe stream of proposals, which could swell into a river in coming days, illustrates both Mr. Clinton's success in marketing his domestic agenda to the nation and the difficulty he will have in controlling it. Transition officials had asked congressional Democrats to hold off on submitting bills of their own until Mr. Clinton had a chance to unveil his plans.

One of the commoner laments by political observers this past week was that President Clinton's highly public blandishments to congressional Democrats for support of his budget is one more sign of the twilight of party loyalty.Old-time Democratic presidents such as Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson, it is said, merely summoned their party's congressional leaders to the White House, plied them with a little bourbon, fired them up with party solidarity and sent them back with orders to deliver majorities for some important administration bill.

WASHINGTON - Congressional Democrats are pushing legislation to send $25 billion in emergency loans to the beleaguered auto industry in exchange for a government ownership stake in the Big Three car companies. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Democrat and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, both Democrats, hope for quick passage of the auto bailout during a post-election session that begins Monday. Legislation being drafted by Rep.

Lost amid the turmoil of this year's exciting presidential campaign is what's shaping up to be a potentially fascinating congressional cycle. Here in Maryland, results from the "Potomac primary" provided an early whiff of the changing landscape of congressional elections. Incumbent members of Congress are normally untouchable. But sophisticated challenges mounted by conservative and liberal activists helped unseat, respectively, Eastern Shore Republican Rep. Wayne T. Gilchrest and Prince George's County-based Rep. Democrat Albert R. Wynn.

WASHINGTON -- Congressional Democrats moved toward a renewed confrontation with the Bush administration over the war in Iraq as the House voted last night to tie $50 billion in new war funding to a call for most U.S. troops to withdraw by December 2008. Republicans have promised to resist the funding package in the Senate, where GOP lawmakers repeatedly have used procedural maneuvers to block previous attempts to impose limits on President Bush's conduct of the war. The White House has signaled it would veto the legislation if it does pass the Senate.

WASHINGTON -- In the 1990s, amid a growing so-called culture war over the role of religion and morality in public policy, Republicans used their congressional majorities to crank up funding for programs that encouraged teens to abstain from sex until marriage. But now, even though Democrats have taken over Congress, so-called abstinence-only programs are surviving attempts to shut them down. And they could even get an increase with the aid of an unlikely ally -- Rep. David R. Obey, one of the old liberal lions.

WASHINGTON -- Sensing their best opportunity yet to overrule a White House that has stymied them on stem cell research and Iraq, congressional Democrats and their supporters have launched a campaign to override President Bush's veto of plans to expand the popular State Children's Health Insurance Program. With polls showing broad support even among Republican voters to expand coverage to 4 million more children nationwide, congressional Democrats are rallying their allies publicly while speaking to their GOP colleagues privately.

WASHINGTON -- Earlier in the week, his younger sister helped congressional Democrats sell expanded funding for the State Children's Health Insurance Program. Yesterday, with the White House threatening again to veto the legislation, it was Graeme Frost's turn to take up the cause. The 12-year-old Baltimore boy, whose family relied on the government-funded insurance program after he and his sister were severely injured in a 2004 car accident, came to Washington yesterday to record the Democrats' weekly radio address.

ARLINGTON, Va. -- Questions are being raised by Democrats and the big media (but I repeat myself) about Dick Cheney's large profit from the sale of Halliburton stock options in August 2000. Mr. Cheney divested himself of Halliburton shares as he left the energy company to run for vice president. The fact that editorials in The New York Times and other papers called on Mr. Cheney to sell his stock to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest apparently has been forgotten. The suggestion now is that Mr. Cheney did something wrong.

WASHINGTON - Henry A. Kissinger abruptly resigned as chairman of the commission that will investigate the Sept. 11 attacks yesterday, telling President Bush he could not serve if it meant revealing the clients of his consulting firm. Bush, who aides said was surprised by the decision, vowed to quickly find a replacement. "His chairmanship would have provided the insights and analysis the government needs to understand the methods of our enemies and the nature of the threats we face," Bush said.

WASHINGTON -- Seeking to end the partisan standoff over funding the war in Iraq, politically moderate senators from both parties pressed their efforts yesterday to find a compromise that could put new requirements on the Iraqi government without holding up money for U.S. troops. At least seven GOP lawmakers are involved in the talks, which come as congressional Republicans are increasingly looking to distance themselves from the president's unpopular management of the war. Meanwhile, President Bush signaled a new willingness to compromise with Congress over the terms of a war funding bill, saying he would accept benchmarks for the Iraqi government as part of an agreement.