Senate, Congress | featured news

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the panel that John Kerry has led for the past four years, unanimously approved his nomination, and the full Senate was set to vote.

Congress and the White House have just begun exploring policies that would revamp the country’s immigration laws. A bipartisan group of senators have proposed a new pathway to citizenship Monday and, later Tuesday, President Obama is expected to unveil his own reform plan.

A bipartisan group of leading senators has reached agreement on the principles for a sweeping overhaul of the nation's immigration laws, including a path to citizenship for the 11 million illegal immigrants already in this country. The deal, to be announced at a news conference Monday, also covers border security, non-citizen or "guest" workers and employer verification of immigration status.

When Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) announced Saturday that he wouldn’t seek a sixth term, Republicans rejoiced at the possibility of picking up the seat in 2014. But, that joy soon gave way to political reality — the likelihood of a primary between conservative, tea-party-aligned Rep. Steve King and a more establishment GOP figure such as Rep. Tom Latham or Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds. And, just in case Republicans thought they might avoid that sort of primary fight, King released this statement Saturday night: “Iowans now have a real opportunity to elect a true Constitutional conservative.” (In case you were wondering, he is referring to himself.)

Leading Democratic and Republican senators said on Sunday there were encouraging signs in the push to overhaul U.S. immigration laws - a top priority for President Obama's second term - and they would introduce their plan this week.

The Senate is preparing to begin debating new gun control measures, and some of President Barack Obama's fellow Democrats are poised to frustrate his efforts to enact the most sweeping limits on weapons in decades....

In an embarrassing setback for President Barack Obama, a federal appeals court panel ruled Friday that he violated the Constitution in making certain recess appointments and moved to curtail a chief executive's ability in the future to circumvent the Senate in such scenarios.

The two packages will alter procedural rules to speed up the process in certain cases, but they fall far short of the sweeping reforms sought by liberal senators and their allies. The Senate approved changes to the filibuster Thursday night, adopting modest limits on the partisan obstruction that has ground action in the chamber to a near standstill.

A senior lawmaker said on Sunday that he and fellow Senate Democrats, for the first time more than in three years, intend to meet Republican demands to finally pass a U.S. budget.

Ever since her victory in November, Tammy Baldwin has almost downplayed the historic significance of her winning a seat in the U.S. Senate.