U.S. Senate News

This section focuses on the upper chamber of Congress, from major policy debates to confirmation hearings. The Daily Signal provides a conservative look at Senate priorities.
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  • news

    Biden Admin Using Same Authority to Build Border Wall GOP Senator Recommended 8 Months Ago

    The Biden administration is using the authority of a 1996 statute to build a section of border wall in South Texas less than a year after a Republican senator proposed a bill to resume wall construction using the same legal authority.   The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 gives the secretary…
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  • news

    Citing Congress’ ‘Complete Absence of Leadership, Vision, and Spine,’ Lawmaker Threatens to Quit

    “I’m sick and tired of the gamesmanship when we’re dealing with people’s lives,” a Republican congresswoman from Indiana says, threatening to quit over the GOP House leadership’s inaction on the national debt, the open southern U.S. border, and Ukraine war funding.  Rep. Victoria Spartz, in her second term representing Indiana’s 5th Congressional District, joined The…
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  • opinion

    Did This ‘Squad’ Member Really Think There Would Be No Consequences to Pulling an Alarm as Congress Voted?

    “You’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus—and you’ve got to make it stop,” activist Mario Savio said during the Berkeley, California, counterculture protests of the 1960s. On Saturday, Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., a socialist member of “the squad” in Congress, appeared to…
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  • opinion

    Why Conservatives in Congress Voted Against the Spending Bill

    The budget showdown on Capitol Hill has been put on pause. On Saturday, just hours before the government shutdown deadline, Congress by a bipartisan vote passed a continuing resolution. It passed by a tally of 335-91 in the House and 88-9 in the Senate. President Joe Biden signed the bill on Saturday night. The bill keeps agencies…
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  • news

    Senate Republican Leaders Silent as Democrats Undermine House Efforts to Fight Border Crisis Amid Shutdown Battle

    Senate Republican leaders have declined to comment on the bill that Senate Democrats introduced to fund the government through Nov. 17 that avoids a government shutdown but that also fails to address the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border. In introducing the bill, the Democrats undermine House Republican efforts to convince President Joe Biden to address…
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  • opinion

    NJ’s Menendez Rejects Calls to Quit Senate Amid Corruption Indictment

    The U.S. Justice Department on Friday released an indictment, which accuses New Jersey’s senior Democratic U.S. senator, Bob Menendez—along with his wife and several others—of engaging in a corrupt scheme to benefit himself, potentially at the expense of U.S. national security interests. Based on the serious allegations in the indictment, many in Menendez’s own party…
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  • news

    Democratic Senator Indicted on Bribery Offenses in Case Involving Gold Bars

    A federal grand jury returned an indictment against Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez and his wife, Nadine, Friday, charging him with bribery for taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in gold bars. Menendez denied the charges, saying he had been "falsely accused." The U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York announced that the charges…
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  • opinion

    Senators Seek to Secure Border and End Biden’s Arson of America

    Calls for Congress to defund the Biden administration’s open-border operations and to enact real border security measures gained steam this week. With a week of funding left in the federal fiscal year, the House is considering attaching most of the Secure the Border Act to a continuing resolution package to fund the government. After the bill…
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  • news

    CALLING HIS BLUFF: Tuberville Tests Schumer by Forcing Senate Vote on Military Officer

    Sen. Tommy Tuberville is planning to force his Senate colleagues to vote on Gen. Eric Smith’s promotion to U.S. Marine Corps commandant—a new tactic in the Alabama Republican’s monthslong dispute with the Defense Department over its taxpayer-funded abortion policy. At a meeting Tuesday with his Senate Republican colleagues, Tuberville secured the backing of at least…
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  • news

    Amid Surge in Illegal Alien Encounters, GOP Senators Push ‘Secure the Border’ Bill

    Illegal alien encounters on America’s southern border approached record highs between Friday and Monday.   In just four days, Customs and Border Protection has encountered more than 35,000 illegal aliens on the U.S. border with Mexico, according to Fox News reporter Bill Melugin.   When you do the math, “that’s almost 9,000 every single day,”…
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  • news

    ‘FBI Does Not Exist to Harass Law-Abiding Americans,’ 8 Senators Remind Wray

    U.S. senators on the Intelligence Committee are demanding the nation’s top law enforcement agency explain why it was targeting Catholics. Eight members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence published a letter last week to FBI Director Christopher Wray, giving him until Sept. 29 to explain how the Richmond, Virginia, field office crafted a memo detailing plans…
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  • opinion

    Dressing Down an Unserious Senate

    Axios reported Sunday that “Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., quietly has directed the Senate’s Sergeant at Arms to no longer enforce the chamber’s informal dress code for its members.” “Senators are able to choose what they wear on the Senate floor. I will continue to wear a suit,” Schumer said. The reporting frames the…
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  • news

    X-RATED: At Hearing, Senator Reads Pornographic Excerpts From LGBT Books Targeted at Kids

    Editor's note: This article includes quotes from books with graphic sexual descriptions. Sen. John Neely Kennedy read from pornographic books at a Senate hearing on Tuesday amid a heated exchange about school boards removing such books from libraries. Kennedy, R-La., read from two books—“All Boys Aren’t Blue” and “Gender Queer: A Memoir”—both of which have…
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  • news

    EXCLUSIVE: Abortion Lawyer Accused of Perjuring Herself Before Congress

    FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL: Republican Congressmen Chip Roy of Texas and Mike Johnson of Louisiana are calling on a controversial abortion lawyer to explain whether she "violated the law by providing misleading information to Congress." Talcott Camp is the chief legal and strategy officer at the National Abortion Federation, where she oversees the organization's…
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  • opinion

    BOONDOGGLES: 7 Examples of Wasteful, Outrageous Earmarks in Senate Spending Package

    This week, the Senate will be debating—and will likely vote on—a package of spending bills that covers the departments of Agriculture, Veterans Affairs, Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development. While some of the funding is necessary, far too much is devoted to bureaucracies and programs that directly benefit, or have been captured by, the Left….
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  • opinion

    Senator Admits Democrats Don’t Want to End Tuberville’s Blockade of Military Promotions

    Sen. Jack Reed showed up for a floor speech Wednesday with a poster depicting eight framed photos of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Three of the frames were empty, a consequence of the ongoing dispute between Sen. Tommy Tuberville and the Defense Department over its decision to implement a taxpayer-funded abortion policy.  “If the senator…
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  • opinion

    Committees and Hearings: Behind the Scenes of How Congress Really Works

    Committees and hearings play a critical role in the operations of Congress. But how are members assigned to committees? And do congressional hearings actually advance legislation and investigations? Kyle Brosnan, chief counsel for The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, goes beneath the surface in today’s edition of “The Daily Signal Podcast” to explain how Congress really…
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  • opinion

    Violent Criminals Continue to Pose as Migrant Children to Enter US; Congress Must Act Now

    Despite all the “victory laps” Biden administration officials have taken as they brag that their unlawful policies and processing programs have reduced illegal immigration, recent border data shows the opposite. On top of that, there is an undeniable link between the increase in illegal entrants being welcomed into the country and an increase in violent…
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  • opinion

    Thousands of Bills, Back Rooms, Spending Debates: How Congress Really Works

    Many Americans have seen a “Schoolhouse Rock” video explaining how Congress operates, or they may have taken political science classes in school. But neither paints the full picture of how Congress “actually works,” Clint Brown says. Take the introduction of bills in Congress as an example, says Brown, vice president of government relations at The…
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  • news

    ‘Golfing on the Taxpayer’s Dime’: GOP Senator Calls on Federal Employees to Return to Office

    Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa questioned the Biden administration over its telework policy, citing instances where employees working from home took bubble baths and played golf while on the clock. In a letter sent to all government agencies, Ernst cited a media account of a Department of Veterans Affairs employee who attended a staff meeting while…
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