“No offense to my colleagues here, but we’ve created a caucus for just about everything under the sun except creating a job.” — Republican Representative Reid Ribble, March 29 2011 This was the claim made by Reid Ribble in announcing his new Congressional Job Creators’ Caucus. But is Ribble really the first member of Congress [...]

In the U.S. House of Representatives, one of the primary means by which a member of Congress can demonstrate an interest in an issue, besides the writing or supporting of a bill — is membership in a Congressional Member Organization, also known as a CMO or less formally as a “caucus.” As the 111th Congress [...]

This morning, the website Blue Collar Republican has planted the Soviet symbol of the hammer and the sickle next to a claim that Rep. Steve Cohen is one of the “Congressmen who are members of the American Socialist Party”. The cited source for this claim is Gateway Pundit at the fundamentalist Christian website First Things, [...]

The new Tea Party Caucus contains no African-Americans, even though there are many African-Americans in the House of Representatives.

Back in December of 2009, a survey of the Congressional Prayer Caucus’ Twitter page found that the caucus was following 20 Christian religious groups and 0 non-Christian religious groups. As of July 9 2009, the Congressional Prayer Caucus is following 29 Christian religious groups on Twitter. The CPC is still not following a single group [...]

In the first eleven months of the 111th Congress, 276 Congressional Member Organizations — more familiarly known as “caucuses” — registered with the Committee on House Administration as the rules of the House require. A caucus focuses members of Congress on a subject, be it broad (the Water Caucus), narrow (the Congressional Caucus to Pass [...]

There exist broadly-themed congressional caucuses in the House of Representatives, such as the House Oceans Caucus. On the other hand, many House caucuses take on exceedingly narrow subject matter, such as the Interstate 49 Caucus and the Interstate 69 Caucus. Perhaps the narrowest caucus of them all was inaugurated this earlier month, the Congressional Caucus [...]

Number of Christian organizations followed by the Congressional Prayer Caucus on Twitter: 20 Number of organizations with a religious affiliation other than Christian followed by the Congressional Prayer Caucus on Twitter: 0

Number of Congressional Prayer Caucus twitter posts regarding Christianity: 18 Number of Congressional Prayer Caucus twitter posts regarding any other religion: 0

In the first seven months of the 111th Congress, 251 organizations in the House of Representatives registered formally with the Committee on House Administration as Congressional Member Organizations. Known informally as CMOs or caucuses, these organizations serve various purposes — to bring together members of Congress to work on legislation together, to hold informal hearings [...]