Don Wolfensberger
| May 8, 2012, Midnight
It’s not often that Speaker John Boehner and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi are on the same page. But, turn to page H1663 of the March 28 Congressional Record, and there they are, under the heading, “On the Retirement of House Parliamentarian John V. Sullivan.” It was Sullivan’s last day as parliamentarian after serving eight years in that post and 25 years as a House staffer.
Don Wolfensberger
| April 17, 2012, Midnight
This is the week the Budget Act requires Congress to complete action on its budget resolution. However, there is no penalty in law for not doing so (more on that later), and most years Congress has honored the non-enforceable April 15 deadline in its breach.
Don Wolfensberger
| March 20, 2012, Midnight
I am often asked about the differences between the House and Senate. Sometimes I jokingly respond, “Do you have another hour?” However, some political scientists make the case that the two bodies have become more alike.
Don Wolfensberger
| March 6, 2012, Midnight
Every president wants to leave a distinctive mark on government, and President Barack Obama is no exception. In his 2011 State of the Union address, he promised to “develop a proposal to merge, consolidate and reorganize the federal government in a way that best serves the goal of a more competitive America” and submit it to Congress for a vote.
Don Wolfensberger
| Feb. 21, 2012, Midnight
On Jan. 4, President Barack Obama shouted “recess,” ran to the empty playground and jumped on the teeter-totter. Not surprisingly, it instantly tilted his way at the presidential end of the board.
Don Wolfensberger
| Feb. 7, 2012, Midnight
The perfect storm of fiscal fixes was precipitated by press releases from Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) commemorating the thousandth day since the Senate last adopted a Congressional budget resolution back on April 29, 2009.
Don Wolfensberger
| Jan. 24, 2012, Midnight
The pre-Christmas crush of business in Congress at the end of a session is often hurried, harried and harrowing. This time was different. Both chambers completed action on one of the year’s most important bills Dec. 23 with most Members not even in town.
Don Wolfensberger
| Dec. 13, 2011, Midnight
It is easy to blame Congress for the failure of the Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction to produce at least $1.2 trillion in debt reductions mandated by the Budget Control Act. But, to paraphrase Cassius from Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar,” “The fault, dear Brutus, is not just in Congress, but in ourselves.”
Don Wolfensberger
| Nov. 29, 2011, Midnight
Watching the procedural peregrinations of the balanced budget constitutional amendment in the House was enough to make anyone a bit dizzy and wobbly.
Don Wolfensberger
| Nov. 8, 2011, Midnight
I have lamented the decline of committees in Congress over the years but was jolted into a new awareness of it recently while perusing Roll Call’s “Fabulous 50” list of “Capitol Hill’s leading Democratic and Republican staffers.”
Don Wolfensberger
| Oct. 25, 2011, Midnight
The news headline flashed across the Internet around 7 p.m. Oct. 6 that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) had triggered the “nuclear option” during debate on the Chinese currency bill.
Don Wolfensberger
| Oct. 11, 2011, Midnight
Hopeful budget watchers predicted that Congress would have fairly smooth fiscal sailing now that statutory spending caps are in place. That obviously underestimates the ability of Members to whip up their own squalls.
Don Wolfensberger
| Sept. 20, 2011, Midnight
Congress will not celebrate fiscal new year’s eve Sept. 30. That’s because: (a) it will not be in town; and (b) it will have nothing to celebrate.
Don Wolfensberger
| Sept. 6, 2011, Midnight
If a camel is a horse designed by a committee, is a duck-billed platypus a duck conceived by a bipartisan, joint committee of Congress? We may soon know.
Don Wolfensberger
| Aug. 2, 2011, Midnight
If you got the impression during the debt limit imbroglio that our leaders were creatively trying to extricate themselves from a box of their own making, you’ve been cribbing from Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s manual: Crises (fabricated or not) can advance worthy goals — even restoring fiscal sanity. It’s getting there that sometimes seems insane.
Don Wolfensberger
| July 19, 2011, Midnight
When Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was told June 22 that House Republicans were scheduling two votes on Libya later that week, she reportedly asked, “Whose side are they on?” If that sounds vaguely reminiscent of an immediate past president telling other nations, “You’re either with us or against us,” welcome to the world of war rhetoric.
Don Wolfensberger
| July 5, 2011, Midnight
As we celebrate the 235th anniversary of our country's independence, it is instructive to consider just how the delegates to the Second Continental Congress arrived at that historic moment of declaring: "As Representatives of the United States of America," that "these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states."
Don Wolfensberger
| June 21, 2011, Midnight
As Congress approaches the floating deadline for a final debt limit deal, it has engaged in curious sideshows that leave people wondering just how serious it is about the country’s fiscal plight.
Don Wolfensberger
| June 7, 2011, Midnight
Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) was not happy with the Obama administration’s cursory treatment of Congress before going to war in Libya on March 19. So, on April 7, he introduced two resolutions of inquiry directing the secretaries of State and Defense to provide the House with all documents in their possession relating to administration consultation with Congress on the decision to commit troops.
Don Wolfensberger
| May 24, 2011, Midnight
On Feb. 23, President Barack Obama officially divorced himself from the Defense of Marriage Act by directing the Justice Department to stop defending its constitutionality in the courts. That action in turn prompted a partisan split in the House Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group on March 9 over whether the House should step in and defend the act. The 3-2 vote to do so also included authority to hire outside counsel.
