Congress

On Monday, Rep. Keith Ellison read a statement condemning the actions of four Republican House members who are calling for an investigation of Muslim interns in Congress. The statement was written by Ellison and supported by the Tri-Caucus, a group composed of the Congressional Black Caucus, the Asian Caucus and the Hispanic Caucus.

Congressional Quarterly has compiled their annual Vote Study for congressional votes leading up to the July 4 break. Each year, CQ compiles records based on party unity, support for the president and percentage of votes missed during the session. Here’s how the Minnesota delegation stacked up.

Michele Bachmann might not return to Congress, if one of the scenarios at Swing State Project for redistricting Minnesota after the 2010 U.S. Census comes to pass.

You could read about how Republican U.S. Rep. Erik Paulsen tried to help Liberians and Republicans last week. You could hear about Paulsen’s opposition to the federal stimulus package in a radio ad by Americans United for Change (the ad that mistakenly urged outraged listeners to call Rep. Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania). But if you [...]

When Peanut Corp. of America CEO Stewart Parnell took the Fifth on Wednesday instead of telling the House Committee on Energy and Commerce why he let salmonella-tainted peanut butter kill eight people (so far) and sicken thousands, the setting was ironic. Because it was before another House committee (Ways and Means) in 1921 that the willing, winning, inventive testimony by the peanut’s greatest promoter, George Washington Carver, propelled the lowly product of the South to world prominence.

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.

Minnesota’s U.S. Representative-elect for the Third District, Republican Erik Paulsen, ran one of the best five House campaigns in the country, according to the Washington Post blog The Fix. Paulsen “beat back the anti-Republican trend,” writes Chris Cillizza, “by focusing on his own accomplishments in the state legislature.” The Fix tracked the Third District contest closely throughout the campaign season as one of the nation’s most competitive congressional contests. But in several ways Cillizza’s summary this morning doesn’t exactly square with how home-state observers might recall the race.

Politico shares highlights from its phone interview today with U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann in which she said she’s “extremely grateful that we have an African-American who has won this year.” Surprisingly, that’s in reference to President-elect Barack Obama, a man to whom three weeks ago she appended a different descriptor: Anti-American. She continued:
“In my district, I don’t [...]

A new Survey USA poll shows for the first time a spread between the two leading candidates in Minnesota’s 3rd Congressional District that’s greater than the margin of error. It’s a sudden swing that Survey USA suggests might be due to a TV ad that darkens Democrat Ashwin Madia’s skin. But if so, the effect would seem to arise more from recent news reports about the ad than from the ad itself, which came out a full week before the first of Survey USA’s latest pair of back-to-back polls. Another way Republican Erik Paulsen’s ahead: KSTP gave Paulsen’s campaign an early preview of the poll results, according to Joe Bodell. And David Dillon’s camp says the poll is a re-do because the Survey USA left the Independence Party candidate’s name off last time.

The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza places Minnesota’s two hottest congressional contests back to back in his list of the 26th–50th U.S. House seats most likely to swap parties — a category consisting of 24 seats currently occupied by Republicans and exactly one held by a Democrat. The Top 25 he released last week had only [...]