How can Brandon English deplore John Boehner for his opposition to same-sex marriage, when Barack Obama shares that position?

Corporations aren’t on strike. They’re holding a lock out. Americans want to work. Corporations have enough money to hire every single American looking for work, but they’re refusing to allow Americans to walk in the door.

Anti-environment riders in the budget deal agreed to by Obama are not substantially about deficit reduction, because the programs and positions they create are related to only a very small expense. Republicans oppose them because of their contribution to environmental protections, not because of spending issues.

In the unexpectedly drawn-out reauthorization of the Patriot Act in February of 2011 there is an unusual opportunity to study the dynamics of legislative decision-making across time, not just one cross-sectional snapshot. On February 8, House Speaker John Boehner wrangled a vote on H.R. 514 to reauthorize the Patriot Act, suspending the normal House rules [...]

Article I, Section 5 of the U.S. Constitution says of Congress that “Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings.” But from time to time, leaders of the House of Representatives have expedited proceedings by suspending the Rules of the House and bringing bills up for quick consideration without amendment or debate. When he [...]

“This lack of transparency speaks to a larger problem where the Speaker’s office has the capacity to unilaterally draft a bill and send it straight through to the Rules Committee. Woodrow Wilson once said that ‘Congress in session is Congress on public exhibition, while Congress in its committee rooms is Congress at work.’ If Wilson [...]

“We will govern differently than past Congresses of both parties. We will require that every bill contain a citation of Constitutional authority. We will give all Representatives and citizens at least three days to read the bill before a vote.” — GOP Pledge to America, September 22 2010 “We’ve developed a 2010 plan, things we [...]

These politicians have not been elected to Congress to complain about Washington. They’ve been elected to Congress to be part of Washington, and make it better.

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 [...]

The same inconsistency is there when it comes to the relative power between federal and local governments. Right wing activists say that local governments should have power above the federal government’s power, when local governments want to deny people rights. When local governments seek to protect constitutional rights, however, the same right wing activists show no respect for local decisions.

It is in this spirit that yesterday, the following 39 Republican members of Congress signed their name to a legal brief urging a court to block D.C.’s legalization of same-sex marriage.