Amid the frustration of a sidelined policy agenda despite large majorities in both houses of Congress, attendees and policymakers at Netroots Nation turned to procedural reform as a way to break the deadlock and bring some accountability back to the legislative branch. The filibuster has the potential to be a real litmus test in the [...]

Democrats in the House of Representatives yesterday soundly criticized a health care reform bill they felt was being imposed on them by the Senate, and if they are to be believed, the chances for a smooth reconciliation and passage of a finished product is far from assured, and perhaps on life support. Mike Stark, FDL’s [...]

The AP’s Liz “Donuts” Sidoti has a conventional wisdom article out today about the 2009 Election, and not until paragraph six, as an afterthought, is one of the bigger races mentioned: Elsewhere, California Lt. Gov. John Garamendi is expected to maintain the Democratic Party’s hold on the open 10th Congressional District seat near San Francisco, [...]

On Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee will mark up a bill that would repeal the part of the 1945 McCarran-Ferguson Act that grants an anti-trust exemption to the insurance industry. In recent weeks, Democrats in both houses of Congress, including both Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid, have remarked favorably on repealing this exemption and [...]