'Your papers, please' must never be heard in America
A hearing this week in federal court in Washington involving former Sen. Larry Craig, whose political career crashed after his 2007 arrest for soliciting sex in a bathroom at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport, could have far-reaching ramifications on the future use by lawmakers of campaign cash to pay legal bills.
President Obama campaigned on a pledge to close the revolving door between special interests and government in Washington, but the career trajectory of the man he has picked to fill the top legal job at the Department of Health and Human Services shows the door hasn't completely stopped spinning.
The Federal Election Commission wasn't always so dysfunctional.
President Obama and Mitt Romney agree on at least one way to reduce federal spending: Both candidates have decided to forgo public funds to finance their campaigns.
For lobbyists, unions and corporations with business before Congress, political conventions are the ultimate target-rich environment.
D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton told a local radio station recently that city contractor Jeffrey E. Thompson, the central figure in a deepening campaign scandal involving D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray, didn't bundle any campaign cash for her.
The House Ethics Committee's decision to investigate Rep. Shelley Berkley of Nevada comes as a worst-case scenario for Democrats in the state's crucial U.S. Senate race, which could go either way.
The director of a newly created city agency with control over the District's 30-million-square-foot real estate portfolio met privately last week with politically connected lawyers, lobbyists and developers despite D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray's open-government policies and an ethics pledge he imposed on city officials to ensure transparency.
The director of a newly created city agency with control over the District's 30 million-square-foot real estate portfolio met privately Thursday with politically-connected lawyers, lobbyists and developers in apparent violation of longstanding open government policies proposed by D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray.
D.C. Council member Kenyan McDuffie won office last month on a platform of restoring ethics to city government, swearing off so-called "bundled contributions" and eliminating pay-to-play politics.
RapidTrans Inc., a medical transportation company that gave up its license to drive passengers in 2008 and later lost its incorporation status, continues to deliver one thing: campaign cash to D.C. politicians.
President Obama's nominee to run the nation's Medicare and Medicaid agency can count on receiving more than $160,000 a year in retirement pay for the rest of her life from the country's largest private hospital chain, records show.
As a multimillion dollar barrage of negative attack ads hits South Carolina Republican primary voters — bloodying GOP candidates in the process — a coalition of watchdog groups has launched a petition to try to re-energize the agency charged with policing campaigns.
Washington trade groups say a proposed new Obama administration rule sharply curbing the ability of federal employees to attend industry shows or interact with those they regulate goes too far.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's husband, a real estate developer and investment banker, stands to make millions of dollars in a previously undisclosed residential real estate project in California as a partner with the father of a woman Mrs. Pelosi helped become ambassador to Hungary, records show.
“Legal defense funds are another way for special interests to throw money to their friends to influence laws,” said Craig Holman, legislative representative for the Washington-based watchdog group Public Citizen.
He has denied any wrongdoing in his use of campaign cash for his legal fees.
