Senate | featured news

First Read: The Senate failed to muster the necessary votes to confirm Richard Cordray, President Obama's nominee to lead the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

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Former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich on Wednesday was sentenced to 14 years in federal prison for political corruption included trying to sell the Senate seat vacated by then president-elect Barack Obama.

Senate Republicans on Tuesday filibustered the nomination of Caitlin Halligan to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, blocking the nominee President Obama chose last year to serve on one of the nation's most powerful courts.

Rod Blagojevich was clearly the ringleader of the schemes for which he was convicted, a federal judge said Tuesday at the sentencing hearing for the ousted Illinois governor on corruption charges that include trying to sell or trade an appointment to President Barack Obama's former Senate seat....

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) plans to introduce a compromise measure Monday to extend the payroll tax cut, according to a key Senate Democrat. “Majority Leader Reid called me yesterday and said he will propose tomorrow a compromise plan to extend the payroll tax cut,” Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) said on “Fox News Sunday.” “He will offer it at that point – I don’t think it’s probably in my purview to announce his plan – but he indicated to me it will be paid for. It will be paid for in a serious way.”

A court-appointed investigator has found that the high-profile prosecution of the late Senator Ted Stevens was “permeated” by the prosecutors’ “serious, widespread and at times intentional” illegal concealment of evidence that would have helped Mr. Stevens defend himself at his 2008 trial, a federal judge disclosed on Monday.

This is what a smaller government will look like: There will be less money for local cops, but more money for FBI agents. Less to repair public-housing complexes. More to feed hungry children. There will be less to fix polluted rivers. But more to fix crowded prisons.

A united Senate emphatically approved legislation Thursday intended to help unemployed veterans and companies doing business with the government, endorsing a measure that includes the first small slice of President Barack Obama's jobs plan that is likely to become law....

The Senate on Thursday voted to keep in place the Federal Communications Commission's controversial rules aimed at preserving open Internet access... The Democratic controlled FCC voted 3-2 along party lines in December to adopt regulations that prohibit telecommunications companies from favoring their online services over those of competitors. The rules, which apply to wired and wireless services, forbid companies from blocking access by their customers to any legal content, applications or services.

Senate Democrats who back gay marriage have decided now is the time to repeal a federal law defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman.