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Past efforts to shrink the federal bureaucracy, including basic things like selling off unused government buildings, have come up short. Republicans are set to try again. When the Newt Gingrich-led [...]

With the vote, the Senate approved its 235th lifetime judge of President Biden’s tenure, besting his predecessor by a single judgeship. The Senate confirmed on Friday the 235th lifetime federal [...]

The Senate was preparing to vote late Friday on legislation to avert a federal government shutdown that was just hours away. Earlier Friday, House lawmakers approved the measure, which would [...]

The president-elect weighed in against the huge spending package after Elon Musk had spent the day warning Republicans not to support it. The blowup left the compromise on life support. [...]

President Biden and House Democrats objected to the bipartisan measure that would immediately give President-elect Donald J. Trump about two dozen new judicial seats to fill. The House on Thursday [...]

The legislation would create more than 60 new federal court seats over the next decade, giving the Trump White House a first shot at filling dozens of new vacancies. White [...]

In a letter, the Democratic leader said members of his party would work with Republicans to consider the president-elect's nominees -- but asserted they should undergo traditional Senate vetting. The […]

President-elect Donald J. Trump is threatening to challenge the institution's historic role, and the Constitution, with his prospective nominees and threats to push the boundaries of executive authority. President-elect Donald [...]

The president-elect's choice of combative loyalists who could have trouble being confirmed has raised constitutional questions about executive power and the Senate's prerogatives. President-elect Donald J. Trump's bid to stock [...]

Both Republicans and Democrats opposed the stopgap funding bill, which was tied to new rules requiring proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote. The House on Wednesday defeated a [...]

The House speaker faces a choice of cutting a deal with Democrats or bowing to conservatives and Donald Trump and shutting down the government just before the election. With a […]

The speaker's first effort to avert a government shutdown ran into a buzz saw of opposition from both far-right and mainstream Republicans. Speaker Mike Johnson's initial plan to avert a [...]

Clashes over both the duration of a stopgap bill and whether it should include a noncitizen voting measure demanded by the G.O.P. could force a government shutdown at the end [...]

Democrats sought to quickly reinstate a ban on gun bump stocks after a Supreme Court ruling. It was the latest Senate floor fight to end in a predictable stalemate. In [...]

Democrats failed in their effort to override last week's Supreme Court ruling with legislation, but saw some political benefits to the clash. Senate Democrats failed on Tuesday to overcome Republican [...]

Members of the upper chamber are regularly holding votes on amendments that, by design, have no chance whatsoever of passage. Senator Eric Schmitt, a freshman Republican from Missouri, is new [...]

The House Democratic leader has suggested his members would protect Speaker Mike Johnson if right-wing Republicans tried to oust him over Ukraine aid, strengthening the speaker's hand. When Representative Hakeem [...]

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 [...]

Despite making a deal, lawmakers face several hurdles to beating a deadline to keep the government funded after Friday. On Capitol Hill, the only rules that really matter are the [...]

Lawmakers have found a messy bipartisan way to pass spending bills, though the final test later this month promises to be much more challenging. The congressional theater around federal spending [...]

Party leaders, national security institutionalists and centrists make up the 17 Republicans who joined Democrats in breaking a filibuster against the military aid, defying former President Donald J. Trump. Seventeen [...]

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 floor vote, lawmakers [...]

The G.O.P. abandoned a bipartisan border security bill that also aided Ukraine after Democrats called their bluff on immigration, agreeing to tough measures Republicans demanded. Congressional Republicans thought they had [...]

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 weeks of closed-door [...]

The House could take up the proposal as early as Tuesday. With growing opposition from House Republicans, it will need Democrats' backing. Speaker Mike Johnson's proposal to avert a government [...]

In a stunning reversal, Speaker Kevin McCarthy pushed through a bill with Democratic votes to temporarily keep the government open. President Biden signed it late Saturday. Congress narrowly averted a [...]

In a stunning reversal, Speaker Kevin McCarthy pushed through a bill with Democratic votes to temporarily keep the government open. President Biden signed it late Saturday. Congress narrowly averted a [...]

Republican leaders were hoping to pass the combination of spending cuts and border controls to show they were working to forestall a shutdown and pressure the Senate, but the bill's [...]

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 to Capitol Hill [...]

The House speaker abandoned efforts to move forward on a normally bipartisan military spending bill as far-right Republicans balked at the funding level, after pleading with his party to avert [...]

Republicans accused Democrats of trying to undermine the court with the measure and vowed to block it from advancing in the Senate, making it highly unlikely to become law. The [...]

The Senate Judiciary Committee is slated to approve new disclosure requirements, although the legislation is unlikely to advance. Senate Democrats plan to push ahead this week with legislation imposing new [...]

G.O.P. leaders are tailoring their government funding legislation to far-right lawmakers who are insisting on deep cuts, but who hardly ever vote for spending bills. That's raising the chances of [...]

House Republicans are pushing to pass measures with spending levels below those agreed to in the debt limit compromise, infuriating Democrats and raising the prospect of a shutdown this fall. [...]

Lawmakers in both parties fear that the rebellion by the extreme right could endanger spending bills and other big legislative initiatives if it persists, shaping the speakership in the most [...]

The final vote on Thursday night came after leaders put down a revolt by some senators who raised concerns that the debt-limit package would under-fund the Pentagon. After weeks of [...]

Despite growing Republican opposition, a key committee voted to move the bill forward to the House floor. A bipartisan deal to suspend the government debt ceiling and set federal funding [...]

With a potential default just over a week away, a resolution remained elusive and Republican leaders told lawmakers they could return home for the holiday break. With a potential federal [...]

The initiation of a discharge petition is seen as a last resort for averting default if negotiations over raising the debt ceiling collapse, and a way to pressure Republicans to [...]

House Republicans pushed through a bill last month that would slash spending and unravel major elements of President Biden’s domestic agenda in exchange for raising the borrowing cap — a [...]

The decision to delay Friday's expected meeting to next week was cast as a positive development, one that could allow officials to find agreement before the United States defaults on [...]

House Democratic leaders who have been quietly planning a strategy to force a debt ceiling increase to avert default began taking steps on Tuesday to deploy their secret weapon. The [...]

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 -- House Republicans on [...]

House Republicans narrowly passed a bill to raise the debt ceiling while cutting spending by nearly 14 percent over a decade. President Biden has vowed to veto the measure. WASHINGTON [...]

The House on Wednesday narrowly passed Republicans’ bill to raise the debt ceiling while cutting spending and unraveling major elements of President Biden’s domestic agenda, in a G.O.P. bid to [...]

House Republicans narrowly passed a bill to raise the debt ceiling while cutting spending by nearly 14 percent over a decade. President Biden has vowed to veto the measure. WASHINGTON [...]

The president has promised a veto, but Republicans scored another win in their campaign to put Congress on record against White House policies. WASHINGTON -- The Senate on Wednesday approved [...]

Republicans and Democrats disagree over how recent bank closures should impact the debt limit stalemate, and have taken divergent lessons from past economic crises. WASHINGTON -- In 2008, an imminent [...]

Thirty-one Democrats joined Republicans in voting to rescind a local law, in a demonstration of the political power of crime as an issue. The president, who had opposed the measure, [...]