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
30% of Workers Need ‘the Government’s Permission to Work.’ 2 Senators Want to Change That.
With nearly one in three American workers needing to acquire an occupational license in order to work, two Republican senators are stepping in with an attempt to alleviate the overreach. Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Ben Sasse, R-Neb., introduced the the ALLOW Act earlier this month. This bill would specifically affect military members, District of Columbia…Faith Vander Voort -
- Opinion
GOP Leadership Claims the Senate Is Working. Here’s How the Numbers Really Add Up.
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., recently took to the Senate floor to boast that the institution was back to work. His proof: A Washington Times report noting that the Senate has so far this year approved 73 bills that became law, compared to only 27 during the same period last year, and 53 in 2014…James Wallner -
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Why This Senator From the Largest Coal-Producing State Opposes a Mine Worker Pension Bailout
Wyoming produces 40 percent of the nation’s coal. That’s more than the next five largest coal-producing states combined. Yet, in a speech on the Senate floor Tuesday, Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., laid out why he opposes bailing out the United Mine Workers of America pension fund, and why taxpayers should too. The issue at stake…Rachel Greszler -
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Senate Democrats Block ‘Sanctuary’ City Bill, but the Issue Isn’t Going Away
The Senate’s failure to advance legislation to punish “sanctuary” cities has put a spotlight on how local jurisdictions choose to interact with immigration-related requests from the federal government. Despite the Obama administration’s efforts to improve the cooperation between cities and counties, and federal immigration authorities, obstacles to bolstering those ties remain. The legislation that Democrats…Josh Siegel -
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Senate to Vote on Bill Punishing ‘Sanctuary’ Cities
The Senate will vote next week on legislation that would block congressional funding to cities and municipalities that don’t comply with immigration-related requests from the federal government. Since the killing in San Francisco last July of 32-year-old Kathryn Steinle and the arrest in her death of an illegal immigrant from Mexico with multiple deportations, Republicans…Josh Siegel -
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Lawmakers Move to Stop Government From Giving Taxpayer-Backed Financing to Iran
Rep. Peter Roskam, R-Ill., and other Republican lawmakers are working to ensure that taxpayers aren’t on the hook for financing that could end up benefiting Iran and its state-owned entities. Roskam introduced legislation Tuesday prohibiting the federal Export-Import Bank from providing assistance either directly or indirectly to Iran and associated entities, including its state-run airline,…Melissa Quinn -
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Armed Drones ‘Could Have Made a Difference’ at Benghazi, Lawmakers Conclude
The U.S. military response was perplexingly inadequate Sept. 11, 2012, the night Americans were attacked by Islamist terrorists in Benghazi, Libya. That’s one overarching conclusion reached by two leading Republicans on the House Select Committee on Benghazi after an investigation lasting a year and a half. Armed U.S. drones “could have made a difference,” they…Sharyl Attkisson -
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Boeing Sale to Iran ‘Puts Money Before American Lives,’ Lawmaker Warns
Rep. Peter Roskam today criticized Boeing for “putting their financial interest first and foremost before American security” after the company announced the sale of $25 billion worth of commercial aircraft to Iran. The Illinois Republican’s remarks in an interview with The Daily Signal followed news that the aerospace giant employed and didn’t disclose its relationship…Melissa Quinn -
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David Perdue, CEO Turned Senator, Warns of America’s Coming Debt Crisis
Before he made his first million, before he did business on six continents, and before he became a Fortune 500 CEO, David Perdue got his start picking peaches for about 40 cents an hour while growing up in Macon, Georgia. There his father taught him always “to add value,” Perdue says while recalling the stifling…Philip Wegmann -
- Opinion
Forfeiture Reform Advances in the Senate
On Thursday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and ranking member Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., introduced the “Deterring Undue Enforcement by Protecting Rights of Citizens from Excessive Searches and Seizures Act,” or DUE PROCESS Act. The reforms contained in Grassley’s bill would significantly alter the federal civil asset forfeiture landscape, dramatically improving the lot of innocent…Jason Snead -
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Senate Democrats Attempt to Force Vote on Export-Import Bank Nominee
In what amounts to little more than a political stunt, Senate Democrats attempted to circumvent the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday and bring a nominee to the Export-Import Bank’s board of directors directly to the floor. However, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, a Republican from Alabama, objected, killing the effort but triggering a debate…Melissa Quinn -
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To Keep Guantanamo Open, Conservative Senators Push to Declassify Detainee Records
President Barack Obama is running out of time to fulfill his campaign promise to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay and bring some detainees to the United States. As the last months of Obama’s term approach, a new Republican measure could now make that a political impossibility. An amendment to the National Defense Authorization…Philip Wegmann -
- Opinion
The House Is Improving Medicare, and the Senate Can Make It Even Better
The House of Representatives has passed a short, but significant, 31-page Medicare bill, Helping Hospitals Improve Patient Care Act (H.R. 5273). The House measure would improve traditional Medicare in a number of ways, though most of these would be technical changes to current law. Because the bill was largely noncontroversial and thus enacted under a special…Robert Moffit -
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Conservative Senator Is Trying to Keep Women Out of the Draft
To Sen. Mike Lee, the battle over whether women should have to register for a draft that does not exist is more consequential than it sounds. Though the U.S. has had an all-volunteer force since 1973, some Republicans are using this year’s defense policy bill to try to require women to sign up for the…Josh Siegel -
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What’s Good (and What’s Horrible) in the Senate Defense Bill
The Senate will soon start debating the annual defense policy bill. This bill is particularly critical now when threats are rising, from state-sponsored cyberattacks to Russian aggression, to terrorism at home and abroad. At the same time, our military is getting smaller and weaker. Unfortunately, the Senate bill is a mix of good and bad policies,…Justin Johnson -
- Opinion
Senate Votes to End a Textbook Crony Program
On Wednesday, the Senate passed a joint resolution that will effectively put an end to one of the most egregious programs that exists today: the U.S. Department of Agriculture catfish inspection program. It’s actually disappointing that the vote was as close as it was—55-43. It may sound a bit silly, admittedly, but this program created…Daren Bakst -
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Exclusive: Lawmakers Move to Make It Harder for IRS to Seize Money From Innocent People
On the heels of the House Judiciary Committee’s legislation reforming federal civil forfeiture laws, House Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Peter Roskam, R-Ill., and Rep. Joseph Crowley, D-N.Y., are introducing a bill further protecting people from having money wrongfully seized by the government, The Daily Signal has learned. Roskam and Crowley’s bill, called the…Melissa Quinn -
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‘An Abuse of Power:’ IRS to Face Lawmakers After Thousands Seized From Small Business Owners
For more than four years, Maryland dairy farmer Randy Sowers has been fighting the federal government, asking it to right what many say was a wrong. In Feb. 2012, two federal agents told Sowers, who owns South Mountain Creamery in Frederick, Md. that the Internal Revenue Service was seizing more than $60,000 from his farm’s…Melissa Quinn -
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Lawmakers Introduce Bill Making It Harder for Police to Take Innocent Americans’ Property
For the last few years, opponents of civil forfeiture have been calling on Congress to make it more difficult for law enforcement to take property, cash, and vehicles from innocent Americans through a process known as civil asset forfeiture. Now, a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers on Capitol Hill is taking action. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis.,…Melissa Quinn -
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NC Lawmaker Blames Media, Activists Groups for Bathroom Bill ‘Falsehoods’
RALEIGH, N.C.—Republicans are falsely being accused of instigating the transgender bathroom debate, state Rep. Dan Bishop from Charlotte, North Carolina, told The Daily Signal. “This controversy nationwide has been a media-driven, ideological carpet bombing,” he said. “And I think a very dishonest one across the board. Everything that we’ve done has been distorted—so many falsehoods,…Kelsey Bolar