Norman Ornstein
| May 16, 2012, Midnight
First, a sad note. Peter David, the Lexington columnist for the Economist and one of the best journalists (and nicest human beings) I have ever met, died tragically in a car accident last week.
Norman Ornstein
| May 9, 2012, Midnight
First, a shoutout to a commendable example of bipartisan problem-solving, in which House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) brokered a deal to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank, extending it until September 2014 and increasing its loan limit from $100 billion to $140 billion.
Norman Ornstein
| April 25, 2012, Midnight
Leslie Moonves, the brilliant CEO of CBS, shed light on a dynamic that most broadcasters do not want to talk about — these guardians of the public interest over the public airwaves are perhaps the biggest beneficiaries of the post-Citizens United trash heap of vicious ads that will be the biggest phenomenon of the 2012 elections.
Norman Ornstein
| April 18, 2012, Midnight
We are in the midst of four Congressional hearings on the over-the-top General Services Administration conference in 2010 in Las Vegas. In the 112th Congress, four hearings on anything is something to note.
Norman Ornstein
| March 28, 2012, Midnight
Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget is a big story in Congress, even though it barely made it through the House Budget Committee, will take a battle to pass on the House floor and has zero chance of being embraced as is, or in any facsimile, in the Senate.
Norman Ornstein
| March 21, 2012, Midnight
With public contempt for Congress (and Washington, D.C., generally) at such highs, it is not surprising that groups that are trying to change things are gaining traction. One of them is No Labels, which hopes to change the culture from one dominated by shouting and incivility to something less contentious.
Norman Ornstein
| March 14, 2012, Midnight
Health care policy and health care reform are back in the news in a big way. The Supreme Court is poised to hear oral arguments on the constitutionality of the 2010 health care overhaul. The Obama administration has just released guidelines for the operation of the state-based insurance exchanges that are the backbone of the law.
Norman Ornstein
| March 7, 2012, Midnight
In the past couple of weeks, people who care about American politics and about Congress have lost two important figures. The first was Harry McPherson, who was a longtime aide to Lyndon Johnson and became a fixture in Washington, D.C. The second was James Q. Wilson, a political scientist whose interests and writing spanned a wide range of topics.
Norman Ornstein
| Feb. 29, 2012, Midnight
It is always possible that Congress will do many more productive things before November. God knows there are plenty of items on the agenda.
Norman Ornstein
| Feb. 15, 2012, Midnight
It is budget time, and that will be the core of this column. But first, I need to write a few words of disappointment over how the House handled the STOCK Act. That starts with the process — a violation of the House majority pledge to open up the House and allow amendments to significant bills.
Norman Ornstein
| Feb. 8, 2012, Midnight
As Arizona GOP Sen. John McCain is fond of saying, Congress, with an approval rating of 9 percent to 13 percent, is down to “blood relatives and paid staff.” It is no wonder that President Barack Obama is running against the “do-nothing” 112th Congress and that the pitch is resonating with lots of voters.
Norman Ornstein
| Feb. 1, 2012, Midnight
It is good that we will have some disclosure of the mega-donors to the spate of super PACs that have dominated presidential primaries and caucuses so far, but it is ridiculous that reporting requirements are so lame.
Norman Ornstein
| Jan. 25, 2012, Midnight
I write this column after the Senate has returned from its recess and before the president’s State of the Union message. The tension between Congress and the president is palpable, and nowhere is that more true than in the controversy over recess appointments.
Norman Ornstein
| Jan. 18, 2012, Midnight
Saturday is an auspicious day, for two reasons. It is the date of the South Carolina primary, and it is the second anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision.
Norman Ornstein
| Dec. 14, 2011, Midnight
The good news on Monday was that the Senate, in a show of broad bipartisan support, confirmed Norm Eisen to be the U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic. Eisen had been in the post for the past year on a recess appointment, and by all accounts, Czech and American, had been doing an exemplary job.
Norman Ornstein
| Dec. 7, 2011, Midnight
While the adjournment date and the Iowa caucuses date are both fast approaching (and the way things are going, might be very close to the same day), I thought I might step back and offer a few observations on the presidential nominating dynamic.
Norman Ornstein
| Nov. 30, 2011, Midnight
Rep. Barney Frank’s retirement from the House will cause mourning among all in the Congress-watcher and Congress-lover fraternity. The news about Frank took attention away for a bit from the failure of the Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction and the agenda ahead for the remainder of the year.
Norman Ornstein
| Nov. 16, 2011, Midnight
It is a true measure of the dysfunction in Congress and the political process that the super committee, with an unprecedented opportunity to shape a positive fiscal future and avoid a potential global depression in the coming year, is floundering as the endgame approaches.
Norman Ornstein
| Nov. 9, 2011, Midnight
For all the public wrangling we are seeing over the super committee — mostly centered on tax reform and revenues as a key component of a compromise — the big issue facing policymakers in the coming years is health care costs.
Norman Ornstein
| Nov. 2, 2011, Midnight
When Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) promised to reform the Congressional schedule and moved to cut out commemoratives, which are nice symbols but took up precious floor time, it was a hopeful set of signs. Now look what we have come to.
