The Des Moines Tea Party is neither registered federally with the FEC or IRS as a political organization, nor at the state level with the Iowa Ethics & Campaign Disclosure Board. This makes the finances of the Des Moines Tea Party somewhat shadowy. Nevertheless, it has come out swinging in the Iowa 3rd District congressional [...]

One good sign of a party’s power is its effectiveness in carrying out bread-and-butter campaign tasks, tasks like getting the thousands of signatures to put party candidates on the ballot. Independent Political Report notes that the the Independent Green Party of Virginia has managed the feat of putting a candidate for the House of Representatives [...]

In the House of Representatives, members have the right to form voluntary associations that are formally called Congressional Member Organizations but informally called caucuses. These caucuses organize around identity or interest in order to pursue policy, signal identification, or boost a member’s public bona fides in some manner. When these caucuses are formed, members of [...]

Fact: in the 111th Congress of 2009-2010, the House Judiciary Committee has convened more hearings on the subject of football head injuries than hearings on the subject of the Patriot Act.

“Please don’t tell me I’m a Republican tool.” So said Tea Party Express head Mark Williams last week as he announced his organization’s list of “Tea Party Heroes” and “Tea Party Targets” for the congressional races of 2010. Every single one of the 11 Tea Party Express targets for 2010 is a congressional Democrat. Not [...]

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 [...]

A check of the Statistical Abstract of the United States reveals the unenviable state of the state of Mississippi. Mississippi has the worst infant mortality rate in the country and ranks 48th out of 50 in the number of doctors per 100,000 people. Of the 50 states, Mississippi has the third highest rate of fatalities [...]

Yesterday we released our new report, “Call and Response,” which covers the extent of reciprocation in the House of Representatives in 2009. To measure reciprocation, we tabulated patterns of sponsorship and cosponsorship for the 4,412 substantive “H.R.” bills introduced to the House that year. A bill’s sponsor is the legislator whose office authors a bill [...]

Today That’s My Congress publishes “Call and Response,” a new report regarding the give and take of legislating in the U.S. Congress in 2009. For the report’s analysis, we tabulated patterns of sponsorship and cosponsorship for the 4,412 substantive “H.R.” bills introduced to the House that year. For each of the 435 Representatives in the [...]