Politics

Congress Links

By Sunlight Foundation & Participatory Politics Foundation

A major piece of legislation, the DISCLOSE Act, has become stalled in Congress again, Congress has passed new funding for the war in Afghanistan, and Congress may be taking steps to increase oil companies’ liability for the damage their spills cause. 

• In the recently passed financial services reform bill, Congress gives the Federal government the power to terminate contracts of financial firms that do not hire women and minorities. (Pictured at right are Senator Chris Dodd [D-CT] and Rep. Barney Frank [D-MA-4], sponsors of the finreg bill.) (Politico)
• With the WikiLeaks scandal still on the front page, the House passed a stripped-down funding bill for the war in Afghanistan. (Washington Independent)
• President Obama urges the Senate to pass a small business bill that he argues will generate jobs. (Reuters)
• Rep. Charles Rangel’s [D-NY-15] legal team confirms that they are talking to the House ethics committee in order to avoid a public hearing on ethics allegations. (CNN)
• Senate Democrats were unable to break a Republican filibuster of the DISCLOSE Act, meaning that the bill will likely not become law until after the mid-term elections, if at all. The bill would force special interest groups to disclose their donors when they buy political ads. (LA Times)
• A new energy bill introduced by Democrats would eliminate the cap on damage claims that oil companies pay for spills. (Wall Street Journal)
• The United States Conference of Mayors released a survey yesterday showing that without $75 billion in aid to poor areas, as many as 500,000 municipal and county employees will lose their jobs.   (Christian Science Monitor)
• Despite strong interest from President Obama, large scale education reform remains stalled in Congress, leaving individual States to set education policies as they see fit.  (Washington Post)

OpenCongress’s Congress Links posts are compiled by OC Research Assistants Moshe Bildner, Jason Rhee, and Hilary Worden.  If you liked the post, or have questions about it, either post comments below or write to us at writeus at opencongress d0t org.

Full post as published by Open Congress on July 29, 2010 (boomark / email).