The Senate plan for the JOBS Act today, a financial deregulation bill that would weaken investor protections with no economic benefit, was for three cloture votes – an amendment to add investor protections to the bill, an amendment to attach a reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank to the bill, and, if those failed, a cloture [...]

The Senate completed work on a two-year surface transportation bill, which costs $109 billion and will provide clarity to local infrastructure projects. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, extolled the measure, passed on a bipartisan vote of 74 to 22, as “a jobs bill in the true sense of the word.” “I hope [...]

It looks like Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans have backed down on their obstruction of judicial confirmations. But it’s a little unclear at the moment. What we know is that McConnell and Harry Reid reached a deal that will allow the judges to get a vote. However, the JOBS Act, the financial market IPO deregulation [...]

Through some parliamentary maneuvering, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid escalated his fight over judicial nominations today. The short version of this is: The House passed something they called the JOBS Act, with broad bipartisan support, which is actually a financial industry deregulation bill opposed by government watchdogs like Americans for Financial Reform. The full story [...]

The Senate defeated several Republican amendments to the transportation bill yesterday, but the major ones all lost votes on the Democratic side. In fact, two got majority votes in the Senate, though they needed to cross a 60-vote threshold. The amendment to kill the EPA’s rule on limiting toxic emissions from industrial boilers failed 52-46; [...]

Harry Reid has scheduled a vote on the Blunt amendment, which would allow employers to refuse insurance mandates on virtually any medical service simply by stating a moral objection to the practice, for tomorrow. Reid actually introduced the amendment himself when the Republicans wouldn’t: “We’re having our usual productive time in the Senate. Monday, no [...]

Both the House and Senate have passed versions of the STOCK Act, which would ban insider trading in Congress and accomplish a number of other ethics reforms, with large majorities. The Senate version includes a measure on “political intelligence,” forcing the network of people who hang around Congress and find out tidbits of information that [...]

Happy to allow a debate on birth control in 2012, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will give Republicans a vote on an amendment to the surface transportation bill authored by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO), known as the “Freedom of Conscience” amendment. The amendment, sponsored by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), would let employers opt out of [...]

One part of the State of the Union I forgot to mention is that the President formally backed legislation that wold ban insider trading among members of Congress. If the Administration has been serious about anything related to financial fraud, it has been insider trading, where they have engaged in multiple criminal prosecutions. And the [...]

PIPA will not survive next week. The latest whip count from Open Congress shows 45 Senators now opposed to the legislation, with 41 of those on the record in the media. That would be enough to stop the bill on the floor. Moreover, Mitch McConnell has asked Harry Reid to postpone the legislation, a pretty [...]

The series of anti-SOPA activism going on today has already claimed an early victory. Marco Rubio, the Florida Senator and Tea Party favorite, dropped his support after being a co-sponsor of the bill. Home to the Disney World and Universal Studios theme parks, Rubio’s Florida may be the most Hollywood-centric state outside California, and Rubio [...]