Legislation | featured news

Online, searching for a bill in Congress feels a little like time travel: Go looking for legislation, and you wind up in the Internet of 1995. At Congress’s ’90s-vintage archive site, there’s no way to compare bills side by side. No tool to measure the success rate of a bill’s sponsor. And there’s certainly no way to leave a comment. Congress makes it hard for outside sites to do any of this, either, by refusing to give out bulk data on its bills in a user-friendly form.

On recent initiatives, President Obama used his executive authority rather than seeking legislation... During a three-day Western trip that ended Wednesday, Obama announced initiatives that could help 1.6 million college students repay their federal loans, 1 million homeowners meet their mortgage payments, and 8,000 veterans find jobs.

The injunction from the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals came after the U.S. Justice Department requested that the legislation be put on hold until larger constitutional questions can be addressed.

A Wisconsin judge struck down that state's controversial new collective bargaining law Thursday, ruling that GOP legislators failed to provide sufficient public notice before passing the measure this year.

Although it lacks a 'do not track' provision, the bill's advocates say it would enact the first comprehensive protections for consumers' digital data transmitted from computers or other devices.Internet privacy is shaping up as the consumer issue of the year in Congress, as evidenced by new legislation introduced with bipartisan support from two former presidential candidates.

The Senate is headed toward a landmark vote Saturday on legislation that would let gays serve openly in the military.

Senate Republicans intend to block virtually all Democratic-backed legislation unrelated to tax cuts and government spending in Congress' postelection session, officials sayGOP Softens Stance on STARTObama Faces Pay Freeze BacklashBipartisan Panel to Negotiate Ta

The bill still needs to be reconciled with legislation passed by the House in July 2009, but the Senate action was hailed by advocates as a sign that the nation's food-safety laws will receive their first major overhaul in decades. After languishing for more than a year, a food-safety bill that has enjoyed strong bipartisan support passed the Senate on Tuesday, raising prospects for tougher and more extensive federal inspections and other safeguards.

With the strokes of 20 pens, President Obama signed his health care overhaul — the most sweeping social legislation enacted in decades — into law on Tuesday during a festive, at times raucous, White House ceremony.

In a report to be released Friday, Harvard and USC economists say legislation being considered would slow cost increases and free up money for companies to raise wages and hire more workers.

National healthcare legislation in Congress could slow the growth of medical costs, allowing employers to create 250,000 to 400,000 new jobs a year over the next decade, economists from Harvard University and USC are predicting.