the weaker party

Committee membership and constituency service still seems to matter, even in the age of the Tea Party. - Click here for the article . Rep...

Some studies suggest that politicians are more likely to respond to constituents that share their ethnicity than those that don't. This...

Here's another story that's commonly repeated : Freshman House Republicans who rode a wave of voter discontent into office last ye...

In 2302 we discussed how the Texas Speaker can use committee assignments to reward and punish legislators, here's proof, sort of, involv...

From the NYT : Gone for now are the likes of the taxpayer-financed teapot museum, or studies on the mating habits of crabs. But also shelv...

Paul Burka comments on the possibility he might make a run, and offers this ominous comment: The problem with having Ron Paul represent T...

From Ezra Klein via Andrew Sullivan.

Wendy Kaminer is not a fan of legislation introduced in the Senate that addresses bullyign on school campuses: There's no dearth of i...

So much for throwing the bums out . Although the figure is generally higher -- in the upper 90s -- a high percentage of members of the House...

So says the National Journal: Despite being fed a steady diet of political vitriol about the evils of earmarking, Americans are more like...

Something to chew on today. Congressional Quarterly provides daily updates on major activity in Congress. This gives us some context for cla...

This might not be the kindest obituary , but the recently deceased John Murtha is heralded as having been a master of pork-barrel politics ...

For discussion this week, an item from Rep. Al Green's website, his appropriations requests . A useful example of constituent service.

Here's a useful item from KPRC . It tells us how much each member of the local delegation has been allocated to spend on their office (a...

Congress or the Secretary of Defense ?

And members of Congress are not happy about it. He proposes terminating weapons systems he deems unnecessary . The problem is that some of t...

John Culberson , who represents U.S. House District 7, has harsh words for NASA : "We need revolutionary change, a complete restructuri...

The Sunday Chron ran an overview of our senators and House reps and the local funding they provide their constituents. Here's what the...