CQ Roll Call Policy and Politics

CQ senior writer Kate Ackley says Democrats agree on a few policy bills, from a lobbying and campaign finance overhaul to an increase in the minimum wage, but will likely have internal disagreements about whether to pursue more far-reaching goals, like Medicare for all, or restrictions on gun ownership.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Senators are considering several options to punish Saudi Arabia over the suspected murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, says CQ foreign policy reporter Rachel Oswald. She adds that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have grown frustrated with Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman. He was once seen as a reformer but his crackdown on dissent has tarred his image. Learn more about your ad cho...

Shawn Zeller recaps the results of CQ's Capitol Insiders Survey, a poll of congressional staffers about the midterms and other topics, with expert analysis from two former aides to top congressional leaders, Lisa Camooso Miller, who was a spokeswoman for Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, and Brendan Daly, a onetime spokesman for Nancy Pelosi when she was Speaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit m...

CQ Health reporter Sandhya Raman explains what's in the sweeping opioids bill that Congress cleared on Oct. 3 – just in time for lawmakers to campaign on the issue before the November midterm elections. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Legal analyst Stuart Taylor Jr., a well known critic of the fairness of rape investigations, to men, says Christine Blasey Ford was credible enough, and Brett Kavanaugh evasive enough, to give senators reason to vote against Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

While Washington is obsessed with the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, voters — Republicans and Democrats— are more concerned about the economy, says Democratic pollster Brad Bannon, who adds that the positive top-line numbers cloak Americans' continuing economic fears. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In an administration proud of its deregulatory approach, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb has defied the trend. He's proposed to mandate lower nicotine levels in cigarettes and suggested a willingness to crack down on electronic cigarette products popular with kids. Matthew L. Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, and CQ health reporter Andrew Siddons assess the proposals and the...

Democrats "definitely have a chance to win the Senate,'' election analyst Nathan Gonzales tells CQ on Congress. He maps out where Democrats can pick up Senate seats in the midterm elections as well as which races they are most likely to lose.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Twitter, Facebook and possibly Google executives are preparing to testify before Senate and House committees next week over concerns that foreign governments could use their platforms to interfere in the upcoming midterm elections. CQ cybersecurity reporter Gopal Ratnam gives us a primer on what to expect. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Democrats are pushing for a delay in upcoming confirmation hearings for Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, arguing that Kavanaugh could ultimately sit in judgment of the president if Trump's legal problems reach the court. CQ legal affairs writer Todd Ruger says Republicans are likely to ignore their calls. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Congressional Budget Office recently revised its earlier, already dire warning that the national debt will be 150% larger than the entire U.S. economy within 30 years — proposed GOP budget and tax legislation could make a bad situation much worse. CQ News editors Patrick B. Pexton and Pete Cohn discuss the political landscape of debt and deficits heading into what could be a fateful midterm el...

CQ editor Patrick B. Pexton talks with writer Andrew Clevinger about all the steps needed to create the Space Force. The biggest challenge? A two-year NDAA, waiting on the president's desk to sign when he returns from his golf vacation, has no extra funds for such an ambitious enterprise that critics say isn't even necessary to protect the United States from space-based threats. Learn more about y...

There have been 11 special elections for the U.S. Congress in the last two years, and they all have one thing in common: Democrats have performed better than the partisan breakdown would suggest. Political Theater host Jason Dick breaks it all down with senior political writer Simone Pathé and elections analyst Nathan L. Gonzales. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lawmakers seem to be finally feeling their checks-and-balances oats, as members of both the House and Senate, from both parties, begin passing some legislation that could curb the foreign policy impulses of this impulsive president.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The House is officially on recess and Roll Call leadership reporter Lindsey McPherson unpacks all the legislation lawmakers will need to tackle when they return in September and before the midterm elections campaigning heats up. She also provides a rundown of lawmakers jockeying to replace Paul Ryan as Speaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

July 24, 1998 changed everything on Capitol Hill. The shooting and ensuing deaths of two Capitol police officers left a scar on the close-knit community and began a ramping up of hardened security around the legislative branch that continues today. Roll Call Senior Editor David Hawkings covered the event, and Roll Call multimedia reporter Thomas McKinless produced a documentary about the episode w...

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have denounced President Donald Trump's accommodation of Russia's Vladimir Putin, but as CQ foreign policy reporter Rachel Oswald explains, Congress is still wrangling with how to stop Russia from tampering in another U.S. election. And Cesar Vargas of the Dream Action Coalition makes the case for abolishing ICE, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency...

 "I'm all for principles, but I'm not an ideologue," says Senate Agriculture Chairman Pat Roberts of Kansas in explaining why he wrote a farm bill that doesn't add new work requirements to the food stamps program. He and the Agriculture panel's ranking Democrat, Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, explain their bipartisan approach as they prepare for a fight with the House conservatives pushing the food...

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine is in charge of realizing President Trump's plan to put an astronaut on Mars by 2033. He says it's doable, albeit visionary. He talks to CQ's Shawn Zeller about why the mission is important, how it can lead to technological advances and why private investments are necessary. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Two political strategists, Democrat Ryan Clancy and Republican Rory Cooper, question whether progressives' anger will help Democrats at the polls, while also predicting it bodes ill for lawmaking in Congress. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, says tough border policies are crucial to helping low-skilled workers in America. And CQ immigration reporter Dean DeChiaro breaks down the immigration enforcement bill that failed in the House on June 21, and Speaker Paul Ryan's compromise measure, still pending in the House, which would give so-called Dreamers a path to citi...

Voters in some GOP-leaning states will get a chance to adopt the 2010 health care law's Medicaid expansion by ballot initiative this November while others may elect governors who support it, says CQ health care reporter Misty Williams. It's an indication that even some conservative states are coming to accept the Affordable Care Act as the law of the land. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit m...

CQ Supreme Court Reporter Todd Ruger and University of Colorado Law Professor Craig Konnoth say that the Supreme Court victory of a Colorado baker, who refused to bake a cake for a gay couple, could be short-lived, given the court's narrow decision in his favor.   "Indeed, if the couple...go back to that same baker tomorrow and suffered discrimination...they could file another suit and that might...

President Donald Trump's move to criminally prosecute migrants crossing the border illegally, and to separate them from their children, aims to end the longstanding practice of releasing immigrants into the country, pending deportation, says CQ immigration reporter Dean DeChiaro. Trump's also boosting enforcement inside the country, but sanctuary city policies are impeding his efforts, explains Ar...

President Donald Trump's decision to cancel his planned summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un marks a failure of communications and messaging by both sides says Jenny Town, managing editor of the think tank 38 North, a website that tracks developments in North Korea for the Stimson Center, a Washington think tank. Town explains what needs to be done for the two sides to negotiate in good fai...