A couple of weeks ago we talked about the possibility of Congress rolling the remaining appropriations bills into one package (called an omnibus bill) so lawmakers could approve the legislation before the end-of-year recess. Aside from that deadline, a continuing resolution (the second one this year) is set to expire on Dec. 18, and that [...]

While the country has experienced an almost unprecedented economic downturn this year, one of the most effective forms of stimulus has been unemployment benefits. As reported in a new study (PDF) published by the National Employment Law Project and the Center for American Progress Action Fund, “[t]he part of the stimulus providing the biggest bang [...]

The House today is set to vote on an extension of unemployment benefits. The comment threads on bills related to the issue have long been a valuable resource for people seeking information on unemployment benefits. For example, with huge interest in the House health care reform bill, the legislation generated 1,500 comments. By comparison, the [...]

That’s according to the ProPublica Reporting Network, which crowdsourced a spot-check of 520 projects across the country. There’s a great article up (compiled by my buddy Amanda Michel) showing the state of stimulus funding in the 50 states. New Mexico appears to be doing well: The federal Transportation Department data, listing the status through Aug. [...]

Recently, we at OpenCongress have received a lot of requests to see the text of the America’s Affordable Health Choices Act (HR 3200) with page numbers. There’s no denying this is a complex piece of legislation with far-reaching effects on Americans and the economy, and I think there’s a genuine movement by Americans to understand the [...]

The good people at ProPublica broke down the Recovery Act funding on a county-by-county level. Here’s the money going to Grant County. For example, you’ll see that Western New Mexico University received $1,423,579 for Pell Grants this year. If this page over at College Data is correct, that’s enough to cover full tuition for 415 [...]

That famous Donald Rumsfeld quote comes to mind as I watch this Huffington Post video of Congressmen using every move in the book to avoid answering questions about Barack Obama’s citizenship: The video is via David Waldman over at Congress Matters (which you should be reading if you’re not already), who aptly describes why this [...]

While the struggle to pass health-care reform legislation continues as the biggest story in Congress right now, that other “news” story just won’t seem to die: Dem Rep. Neil Abercrombie of Hawaii is going to introduce a resolution on the House floor today that seems designed to put House GOPers who are flirting with birtherism [...]

I was reading an article in the Washington Post this morning that raised a number of interesting questions for me. Specifically, the article is about the F-22 fighter jet that’s at the center of a high-profile showdown between President Barack Obama’s administration and Congress. Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates want to halt further production [...]

As Donny has been reporting, the House today is scheduled to vote on the Waxman-Markey climate change bill, a sweeping piece of legislation that will establish a program to cap emissions of pollutants and a system for trading emission permits. I won’t go into too much detail for two reasons: for starters, Donny has covered [...]

As you likely know, Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) admitted yesterday to an extramarital affair, and has since resigned from his leadership position with the Senate Republican Conference. On its face, the scandal is bad enough for the Ensign: he admitted to an affair with the wife of one of his staffers. As Donny wrote earlier, [...]

Regular OpenCongress users know that we lag a bit (about 24 hours) behind THOMAS, the official site of the Library of Congress, when we put bill information and roll call votes on OpenCongress. This is a result of several factors, but put simply, we have to wait for the information to be online before our [...]