Politics

Congress Links

By Sunlight Foundation & Participatory Politics Foundation

It’s financial reform week and things are looking mighty similar to the health care debate. After weeks of fruitless negotiations, Senate Republicans are poised to put up a unanimous opposition to not only the bill, but also to allowing the bill to even come up for debate while Democrats are going it alone. The difference is that Democrats now lack the 60 votes to overcome a Republican filibuster. For more on this and other issues, take a look at today’s edition of Congress links:

• Politico profiles the retiring Sen. Chris Dodd [D, CT] as he takes the lead on financial reform is an attempt to make the issue his legacy. (Politico)
• Sen. Chuck Schumer [D, NY] is known as a defender of Wall Street but in his quest to become the new Senate majority leader should Sen. Harry Reid [D, NV] lose in November, the senior senator from New York has turned against his former friends. (The New York Post)
• House Democrats wants to change a law passed to deal with lead contamination found in toys imported from China. (The Hill)
• Is the Senate broken and can it be fixed? CQ tried to answer both question with slick videos, interactive graphs, and slideshows. (Congressional Quarterly)
• What are the ten most hopeless bill in Congress right now? They range from marijuana legalization to congressional term limits to Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s [D, OH-10] Department of Peace. (Congress.org)

Full post as published by Open Congress on April 20, 2010 (boomark / email).