Congress

A conservative military watchdog expects a tough fight in Congress if Democratic leaders move forward with a plan to try ending the ban on homosexuals serving in the U.S. military by attaching an amendment to next year's defense authorization bill.

On Wednesday an aide to Congressman Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts) told The Hill that both the White House and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) back the strategy of using the defense bill to attempt to change the 1993 law which strictly forbids homosexuals from serving in the military. That law has often been confused with Bill Clinton's "don't ask, don't tell" directive, which was never approved by Congress...

(CNSNews.com) – A Republican senator has introduced a constitutional amendment that would apply term limits to all members of Congress. U.S. Representatives would serve a maximum of three two-year terms, and U.S. senators would serve a maximum of two six-year terms.

"Americans know real change in Washington will never happen until we end the era of permanent politicians," said Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina, who sponsored the amendment. Co-sponsors include Sens. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), and Sam Brownback (R-Kan.).

Constitutional amendments require a two-thirds majority vote approval in the House and Senate and must be ratified by three-fourths of the states...

After years of trailing far behind Democrats, Republicans have now surpassed Democrats as the public's choice in the 2010 congressional elections. In response to the latest so-called "generic ballot" question from the Gallup organization -- "If elections for Congress were being held today, which party's candidate would you vote for in your congressional district?" -- the new results are 48 percent for Republicans versus 44 percent for Democrats among registered voters, and 46 percent for Republicans versus 44 percent for Democrats among adults nationwide.

It's an extraordinary turnaround for the GOP. Last July, Democrats held a six-point lead. Last December, Democrats held a 15-point lead. At one point in 2007, Democrats held a 23-point lead, and for all of that year, 2007, Democrats held a double-digit lead.

The new Republican lead is the result of a dramatic move of independents toward the Republican party...

Election Day losses in Virginia and New Jersey have congressional Democrats focused like never before on jobs — their own.

While the White House and party leaders are urging calm, Democratic incumbents from red states and Republican-leaning districts are anything but; Tuesday's statehouse defeats have left them acutely aware that their votes on health care reform and other major Obama initiatives could be career-enders in 2010 or beyond.

“I should be nervous,” said Rep. Parker Griffith, a freshman Democrat from Huntsville, Ala...

Republican Rep. Joe Wilson proposed an amendment Wednesday that would force all members of Congress to receive health insurance coverage through the government-run plan proposed in the House's reform bill.

Though Republicans oppose the so-called "public option," the South Carolina gadfly -- who gained notoriety for shouting "you lie" at President Obama during his address to Congress two months ago -- is proposing the requirement to draw attention to what he sees as the plan's flaws.

"They know the government-run option will not be in the interest of the American people, either individually or for the American citizens at large," Wilson said Wednesday, arguing that's the reason Congress does not require its members to sign up...

(CNSNews.com) – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said she was not aware of a previously reported plan by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to attach a final Senate health care bill to an already-passed House bill in order to push the measure through Congress. Pelosi, in fact, said reporters knew more about the idea apparently than she does.

Under the plan, as previously reported by CNSNews.com, Reid would attach a final Senate health reform plan to H.R. 1586, a bill that currently taxes bonuses paid to bailed-out bank executives. If the effort survived a filibuster, Reid would then send it to the House, which could vote on it directly and then send to President Obama, bypassing the conference-negotiating process and the public scrutiny that comes with it...

The Heritage Foundation is questioning the latest Congressional Budget Office estimates concerning the Senate version of healthcare reform, labeling the report "a devastating revelation."

According to latest estimates, the Senate version -- authored by Max Baucus (D-Montana) -- will cost a little over $800 billion over a ten-year period and even shave a little off the federal deficit. But policy analyst Dennis Smith with The Heritage Foundation is skeptical of the claims.

"They don't count Medicare spending," Smith points out. "Everyone in Washington, including the chairman, has said he wants to fix the Medicare physician fee schedule -- that is not done. So that would have cost $200 billion -- that was put off.

"They have not counted additional spending under the State Children Health Insurance Program [S-CHIP], so they haven't funded that"...

(CNSNews.com) – GOP congressmen accuse House Democrats of “using” the military and an otherwise bipartisan defense-funding bill as a means to ram through a key piece of legislation on the homosexual activist agenda – expanding the definition of hate crimes to include sexual orientation.

The House voted of 281 to 146 Thursday afternoon to make it a federal hate crime to attack homosexuals and others because of sexual orientation. The legislation also creates a brand new category of hate crime: attacking U.S. military personnel because they serve in the military.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said the move amounted to creating a “thought crimes” statute...

Senate Democratic leaders had hoped to begin debating a health care reform bill by next week, but that may slip to the following week because one version of the bill is still stuck in the Finance Committee. The panel had planned to vote on a bill by Tuesday, but it is awaiting cost estimates for the legislation from the Congressional Budget Office.

Some Democrats on the committee say their vote may depend on the final cost of the bill, which had earlier been estimated at about $850 billion by Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is already working behind the scenes with the White House on merging the Finance Committee bill, which calls for the creation of an insurance co-operative, with a more liberal bill that creates a government health insurance plan.

Reid canceled the week-long Columbus Day recess in order to begin debating the bill on the Senate floor, which is expected to take weeks...

(CNN) -- As lawmakers huddled this summer to put together the framework for health care legislation, it quickly became evident that the battle over President Obama's top priority would be neither quick nor easy.

After months of debate and missed deadlines, the public option has emerged as the main sticking point.

From the beginning, some Democrats said they wouldn't pass a bill without a government-sponsored, public option, while other Democrats and most Republicans said they'd say no to any plan that included one.

Republicans say a public option would drive private insurers from the market and eventually bring a government takeover of the health care system....