Congressional & Capitol Hill News

The Daily Signal delivers comprehensive congressional news with reporting and conservative commentary on House and Senate activities, legislative priorities, committee investigations, leadership battles, and the fight for conservative policy in both chambers of Congress.
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    • News

    McConnell Retains GOP Senate Leadership, Defeating Rick Scott

    Mitch McConnell will retain the GOP Senate leadership, defeating Florida Republican Rick Scott in a Wednesday afternoon vote. The Kentucky Republican defeated Scott 37-10, with one person voting present, The New York Times reported. The offices of Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Republican Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, Republican Indiana Sen. Mike Braun, and Republican Missouri…
    Mary Margaret Olohan
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    • News

    Conservative Leaders Call for Delaying House and Senate Leadership Elections

    Top conservative leaders released a letter Monday calling on Republican members of the 118th Congress to delay House and Senate leadership elections. Letter signers include Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts, Club for Growth President David McIntosh, senior partner at the Conservative Partnership Institute Mark Meadows, Conservative Partnership Institute Chairman Jim DeMint, and more. (The Daily…
    Mary Margaret Olohan
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    • News

    Conservative Senators Defy McConnell, Want to Delay GOP Leadership Elections

    Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is facing a rebellion in his own conference just days after Republicans underperformed in key races across the country. A growing number of conservative senators want the GOP leadership elections postponed until after the December runoff in Georgia, where Republican Herschel Walker is facing Democrat Sen. Raphael Warnock after…
    Robert B. Bluey
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    • News

    7 Progressive Candidates Win Key Races for House, Senate

    At least seven progressive Democrats won races Tuesday for seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate. With 99% of the vote counted, Maxwell Alejandro Frost, a Democrat, beat Republican nominee Calvin Wimbish to win Florida’s 10th Congressional District seat, 59% to almost 40%, The Associated Press reported. Frost, 25, will become the…
    Gillian Richards
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    • News

    Ted Budd Wins North Carolina Senate Race

    Ted Budd, who has represented North Carolina in the U.S. House since 2017, will join the Senate to succeed Richard Burr, a fellow Republican who is retiring after three terms.   With 95% of the vote counted, Budd had 50.7% to Democrat Cheri Beasley’s 47.1%. A Trump-endorsed candidate, Budd, 51, has championed spending cuts as a member…
    Wallace White
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    • News

    ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ Author JD Vance Wins Ohio Senatorial Race

    Republican candidate JD Vance has defeated Democrat Tim Ryan in Ohio’s Senate race. Multiple outlets, including Decision Desk and NBC News, projected Tuesday evening that Vance had won the race. Vance campaigned on issues including curbing government spending, restoring America’s manufacturing base, solving the border crisis, putting America first, and ending abortion. He quickly earned…
    Mary Margaret Olohan
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    • Opinion

    How Congressional Continuing Resolutions Hurt Defense Industrial Base

    Inflation, Chinese encroachment, and Russian aggression loom large and dark on the horizon, and U.S. defense capabilities have scarcely looked less prepared. The latest congressional continuing resolution, though better than a total government shutdown or a bad appropriations bill, will make matters worse. With the president’s signature on Congress’ latest continuing resolution, the federal government…
    Caitlyn Wetzel
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    • News

    We ‘Cannot Afford Another Washington Feeding Frenzy,’ Republican Senators Say

    As midterms approach and a Republican victory in Congress hangs in the balance, Republican congressmen have pushed their colleagues to reject Democrats’ plans to increase government funding before the year is up. Forty-two Republicans in the House and 14 in the Senate have joined in opposing Democrats’ plans for a continuing resolution that would extend…
    Gillian Richards
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    • Opinion

    Senators Should Stop Playing Games With Religious Liberty and Marriage

    Fig leaf, smoke and mirrors, lip service, bait and switch. It’s hard to pick exactly the right way to describe the attempt by Sens. Mitt Romney, R-Utah; Susan Collins, R-Maine; and Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., to whitewash (there’s another!) the attacks on people of faith presented by the same-sex marriage bill being considered by the Senate….
    Roger Severino
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    • News

    Senate Pushes Vote on Same-Sex Marriage Bill Until After Midterms in Hopes of Gaining GOP Votes

    Lawmakers have decided to push a vote on same-sex marriage legislation until after the midterm elections, senators announced Thursday.  Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, one of the top Republican supporters of the so-called Respect for Marriage Act, said Thursday that the Senate will wait until after the midterms before it attempts to codify the legislation, Fox…
    Mary Margaret Olohan
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    • News

    Cruz Slams Senate Democrat for Blocking School Safety Bills 

    Sen. Ted Cruz on Wednesday called out a Senate Democrat for blocking passage of a pair of bills intended to provide schools with additional funding for safety and mental health services.  The Texas Republican, in a statement, questioned how Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., could oppose the Securing Our Schools Act and the Protect Our Children’s Schools…
    Wallace White
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    • Opinion

    Twitter Whistleblower Reveals No Other Choice: Congress Must Act to Protect Data Privacy

    Hacker and network security specialist Peiter “Mudge” Zatko testified Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee about allegations in his whistleblower report last month. The Senate hearing arose from intense concerns that Twitter executives have failed in their responsibility to protect user data. In his whistleblower report, Zatko detailed a systemic lack of institutional concern for…
    Will Thibeau
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    • News

    Senator on Democrats’ Same-Sex Marriage Bill: ‘We Have to Fight Back on This’

    Passing a bill enshrining same-sex marriage in national law would put the existence of religious nonprofit ministries at risk and send “a pretty strong message that religious beliefs don’t matter,” a Republican senator has said. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., vowed Wednesday to bring a bill decreeing that all 50 states must recognize same-sex marriages to…
    Ben Johnson
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    • News

    Lost House Seats and Electoral Votes Could Result From Census Undercounts in Red States

    A senior adviser to the U.S. Census Bureau recalls sounding the alarm about the agency’s population count in 2020. “Me and a couple of other people at the Census Bureau were pounding the table saying there are going to be problems,” Adam Korzeniewski told The Daily Signal. “The sad thing is that no one cared,”…
    Fred Lucas
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    • Opinion

    Guns of Washington: 5 Agencies With Gun Stockpiles

    “A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty.”—James Madison Conspiracy theories sometimes have at least a thread of truth in them, which is what makes them valid to some on the far right. One of those theories is that the federal government is not on their side….
    Cal Thomas
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    • News

    House Passes Huge Spending and Tax Bill Expanding Size of IRS and Green Energy Handouts 

    On a party-line vote, the House narrowly passed a $737 billion measure Friday to dramatically expand green energy subsidies and health care programs while nearly doubling the size of the Internal Revenue Service. As Republicans decried the inclusion of about $740 billion in new tax revenues, the bill that Democrats dub the Inflation Reduction Act cleared…
    Fred Lucas
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    • News

    After Marathon ‘Vote-a-Rama,’ Senate Democrats Ram Through ‘Inflation Reduction Act’ Tax and Spending Bill

    Pulling an all-night “vote-a-rama” Saturday that extended through the middle of the afternoon on Sunday, Senate Democrats defeated a slew of Republican amendments en route to passing a massive spending and taxing bill. In her role as president of the Senate, Vice President Kamala Harris cast the tie-breaking vote on the bill, dubbed the Inflation…
    Fred Lucas
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    • Opinion

    Washington Knows Best What Car You Should Drive: Electric Vehicles. Seriously?

    “When politicians are out there saying, ‘Let’s get rid of all cars using gasoline,’ do they understand this?” Toyota President Akio Toyoda asked in 2020, referring to the profound consequences of politicians forcing a transition away from conventional vehicles. It’s a good question, and a proposal in the so-called Inflation Reduction Act being pushed through Congress…
    Katie Tubb
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    • Opinion

    Senate Hearing on Diversity in Diplomacy Fails to Get to Real Questions

    A Senate hearing on “diversity and equity” in American diplomacy proved to be a wasted opportunity to tackle a core question in our politics: Do we want equality or “equity”? Instead, the hearing kicked off with mostly old white men bemoaning that the senior ranks of the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International…
    Simon Hankinson
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    • News

    Conservative Leaders Urge GOP Senators to Reject House-Passed Same-Sex Marriage Bill

    Conservative leaders are calling on senators to reject the House-passed Respect for Marriage Act, which aims to codify into federal law the Supreme Court’s 2015 legalization of same-sex marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges.  “The Act, which was suddenly rushed through the House without any public hearings or input, is an attack on millions of Americans, particularly…
    Gillian Richards
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