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Byline: Carl Hulse The last five presidents have all had periods where both the House and the Senate were in friendly hands - but most lasted just two years before [...]

Byline: Karoun Demirjian, Carl Hulse and Maya C. Miller The president-elect's choice of combative loyalists who could have trouble being confirmed has raised constitutional questions about executive power and the [...]

Byline: Carl Hulse With a decisive margin in the Senate, Republicans, who have shown their willingness to accommodate the president-elect, will have the numbers to overcome divisions over his personnel [...]

Byline: Carl Hulse After picking up seats in West Virginia, Ohio and Montana and winning an unexpectedly close race in Nebraska, the G.O.P. sealed a majority. Tight races in swing [...]

Byline: Carl Hulse The former speaker has been marshaling her knowledge of the political map, polling data and fund-raising information to press her case with President Biden that his re-election [...]

Byline: Carl Hulse For Donald F. McGahn II, the former White House counsel, and Senator Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican, sweeping anti-regulatory rulings are the big payoff of their drive [...]

Byline: Carl Hulse Democrats saved the speaker but want to oust him at the ballot box in November, while his standing in his own party remains in serious question. The [...]

Byline: Carl Hulse Bipartisan spending legislation approved by Congress represented a major defeat for ultraconservatives, who immediately turned on Speaker Mike Johnson. As 2023 opened with Republicans newly in control [...]

Byline: Carl Hulse The forces of change in Republican politics caught up to the longtime Senate leader, but he won't be exiting the stage just yet. Mitch McConnell has confessed [...]

Byline: Carl Hulse The minority leader's handling of the border and foreign aid legislation drew scorching criticism from far-right Republicans, though he scored a legislative win on an issue he [...]

Byline: Carl Hulse In 2008, as the nation faced a catastrophic financial crisis, the House did what it sometimes does - veered off the rails. In a raucous and startling [...]

Byline: Carl Hulse Republicans have scuttled efforts to rewrite immigration laws repeatedly over the past two decades, despite powerful bipartisan coalitions behind the efforts. A bipartisan group of senators holds [...]

Byline: Carl Hulse Another Republican resignation and medical absences are cutting into the party's already shaky hold on the chamber. When Republicans assumed control of the House early last year [...]

Byline: Carl Hulse An ousted speaker, internal divisions and a race to the exits characterized the first year of the chaos-wracked Republican majority. The Republican-led House of Representatives concluded a [...]

Byline: Carl Hulse The minority leader, who many believe could step down next year, has found himself out of step with many fellow Senate Republicans on the question of keeping [...]

Byline: Carl Hulse Speaker Mike Johnson chose avoiding a shutdown over a fiscal confrontation that Representative Mike Johnson might have welcomed. Just weeks into his new job, Speaker Mike Johnson [...]

Byline: Carl Hulse The current chaos is not the first time Republicans have found themselves rocked by a vacancy at the top. The House speaker had been unceremoniously dumped by [...]

Byline: Carl Hulse and Luke Broadwater Representatives Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Jim Jordan of Ohio are both running to succeed Kevin McCarthy, who was ousted as speaker. The second-ranking [...]

Byline: Carl Hulse The glib Californian made many promises and paid a price when he was unable to fulfill them. But his demise also reflected the challenge of wielding a [...]

Byline: Carl Hulse and Luke Broadwater Party officials said that without promises to address their policy priorities, the speaker should not count on Democratic votes to save him. The hard-right [...]

Byline: Carl Hulse Right-wing Republicans who represent a minority in their party and in Congress have succeeded in sowing mass dysfunction, spoiling for a shutdown, an impeachment and a House [...]

Byline: Carl Hulse Bands of Republicans in the House and the Senate have brought the spending debate to a screeching halt with a shutdown just days away. Bringing some order [...]

Byline: Carl Hulse Speaker Kevin McCarthy squeezed a debt ceiling increase out of reluctant House Republicans, but he will be hard-pressed to do it again when it counts. WASHINGTON - [...]

Byline: Carl Hulse and Jeanna Smialek Some Democrats are urging their colleagues to lay the groundwork for using an arcane procedural process to bypass Republicans and stave off economic peril. [...]

Byline: Carl Hulse As the Treasury Department begins taking steps to avoid hitting the debt limit, Republicans and Democrats are positioning themselves politically for a drawn-out fight. WASHINGTON - Though [...]

Byline: Carl Hulse History suggests that the procedural plans of the new House Republican majority are likely to lead to more gridlock and legislative instability, not less. WASHINGTON - Smarting [...]

Byline: Carl Hulse The parallels between a drawn-out clash for speaker in 1923 and one in 2023 suggest that not much has changed in Congress over a century. WASHINGTON - [...]

Byline: Carl Hulse and Emily Cochrane At the heart of the speakership battle is a right-wing push for more influence. WASHINGTON - The rebellion against Representative Kevin McCarthy of California [...]

Byline: Carl Hulse In failing to coalesce around Kevin McCarthy for speaker, Republicans showcased divisions that portend real difficulties in governing. Follow for the latest on Kevin McCarthy's House speaker [...]

Byline: Carl Hulse The first woman to become speaker leaves a legacy that will be difficult for her successors to equal. WASHINGTON - With a popular Democratic president in the [...]

Byline: Carl Hulse Senator Raphael Warnock's victory provides a real working majority for Democrats after two years of a tenuous 50-50 split. Follow our latest updates on the Georgia Senate [...]

Byline: Carl Hulse A new group is planning a war room to focus on what it sees as the harms of Republican policies on Americans and to counter expected investigations [...]

Byline: Carl Hulse A thin margin, ideological differences and competing pressures could make managing the 'people's House' virtually impossible. But the G.O.P. majority, however slim, will still be a challenge [...]

Byline: Carl Hulse Even as the midterms rage, veteran lawmakers are throwing up their hands and throwing in the towel. WASHINGTON - The Senate isn't what it used to be. [...]

Byline: Stephanie Lai, Luke Broadwater and Carl Hulse Violent political speech has increasingly crossed into the realm of in-person confrontation for members of Congress in both parties, raising the prospect [...]

Byline: Carl Hulse Republican missteps have helped to spotlight the party's divisions on abortion and same-sex marriage, two issues on which their base is out of step with the general [...]

Byline: Carl Hulse The Senate majority leader managed to resurrect and pass a signature climate change and health care deal with help from Republican missteps. WASHINGTON - Senator Chuck Schumer [...]

Byline: Carl Hulse Lawmakers in both parties are eager to act after former President Donald J. Trump and his allies sought to exploit a 135-year-old law to overturn the 2020 [...]

Byline: Carl Hulse From her first days in Congress, the future speaker was willing to confront China's leaders. As she looked toward her legacy, the California Democrat was not about [...]

Byline: Carl Hulse A group of academics and lawmakers, citing a new study that found voters feel shut out of congressional deliberations, is pushing to engage citizens more directly in [...]

Byline: Carl Hulse Though the compromise does not go as far as many would have preferred, it is still seen as a serious step that could save lives. WASHINGTON - [...]

Byline: Carl Hulse Democrats aim to fill as many court vacancies as possible by the end of 2022, when Senate Republicans are in reach of winning control and slamming the [...]

Byline: Carl Hulse Republicans' hostile interrogation of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson and relentless re-litigating of past Supreme Court feuds marred a historic moment. WASHINGTON - The Republican manhandling of Judge [...]

Byline: Carl Hulse Republicans have vilified Biden's judicial nominees who have represented criminal suspects. Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, for the Supreme Court, is the most prominent. WASHINGTON - Senator Josh [...]

Byline: Carl Hulse Despite differences in ideology, Republicans recognize that an aggressive challenge comes with political peril. WASHINGTON - President Biden's pledge to name a Black woman to fill a [...]

Byline: Carl Hulse Prominent backers of stalled voting rights legislation plan a blitz emphasizing the urgent need to counter new state restrictions. WASHINGTON - Frustrated with President Biden and congressional [...]

Byline: Carl Hulse Fearing backlash from the right, most in the party dug in against a bipartisan deal needed to stave off a federal default. WASHINGTON - When 14 Senate [...]

Byline: Carl Hulse The party is stepping up its attacks on the safety net measure that Democrats are shaping entirely on their own. WASHINGTON - The biggest legislative negotiation in [...]

Byline: Carl Hulse Backers of the legislation said they were not giving up as they shifted focus to the need to 'restore' the Senate. WASHINGTON - Senate Democrats crashed once [...]

Byline: Carl Hulse The authors of the sprawling legislation believe that even if the new programs are temporary, their benefits will become so popular that Congress will keep them. History [...]