Last night, in the midst of debate in the House of Representative, Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) bravely offered her story of her personal right to choose. Speier shocked the lower chamber, half-full of lawmakers and staff, still hard at work on a government funding measure for the third straight day. Speier said she intended to [...]

Jared Loughner fired 31 shots in Tucson, Arizona on Saturday. At least 20 of those 31 struck individuals. Under the federal assault weapons ban which expired in 2004, it would have been difficult for him to fire more than 10. High-capacity magazine clips were banned from manufacture and hard to get, and the moment of [...]

After months of relative silence, House Democrats have finally begun to assert themselves on the issue of housing and foreclosures, which is directly harming millions of families and threatening economic recovery. Reps. John Conyers (D-MI) and Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) are circulating a blistering letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Acting Director of the Federal [...]

I’ve been telling you about the critical concessions in the last days of the FinReg conference committee. Let’s step back a second. This bill won’t end too big to fail. It won’t protect the country to enough of a degree in the event of the next crisis. But it could do some positive things that [...]

The Wall Street conference committee hasn’t really kicked off yet today, with lots of negotiations happening behind the scenes. The menu is pretty packed today with important issues. Resolution authority will be determined, and while the House and Senate mostly concur on this point, the House still wants to add back their banking industry pre-fund [...]