Minnesota’s congressional delegation spent a lot of time discussing health care this week, but there were other issues to deal with. Railroads, grasslands, student loans and peace in the Middle East all garnered attention from Minnesota’s members of Congress.
Healthcare reform and the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor dominated headlines this week, but many of Minnesota’s congressional representatives have been busy working on a slew of issues from food-borne illness andhydrocephalus to highway funding and aid to Liberia.
Minnesota’s lone U.S. senator, Amy Klobuchar, continues to hold down the fort, while Rep. Michele Bachmann “metaphorically” wants to storm the gates. Rep. James Oberstar tackles Big Transportation, and Rep. Keith Ellison talks labor and racial wealth disparities.
As Rep. Keith Ellison makes the first trip by a U.S. legislator to Gaza in eight years, his congressional colleague Rep. Michele Bachmann continues to get fact-checked — this time for her claim that the economic recovery package is a Democratic conspiracy to “direct” funding to Democratic districts. This and more inside.
Minnesota’s congressional delegation is keeping busy on Capitol Hill this week as most find ways to put their stamp on a historic economic recovery strategy working its way through Congress.
An array of odds and ends about Minnesota-centric action in the early days of the 111th Congress: How our delegates voted on the House stimulus package, prospects for a veto-proof majority for Democrats in the Senate, Rep. Keith Ellison’s “mandate,” and the two congressmen who signed on for pay freezes.
With the 111th Congress getting under way, here’s a catchall of news on Minnesota’s House and Senate delegations — from committee appointments to Collin Peterson’s new computers, Ellison on Islam to Norm Coleman’s bubblewrap.
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