All posts tagged "Jeff Merkley"

A Democratic lawmaker fired back at a Trump nominee after he refused to respond to questions during a confirmation hearing on Tuesday.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) had a direct response to Deputy White House budget director nominee Hal Duncan during his testimony before the Senate Budget Committee. Sen. Jeff Merkley had asked a pointed question of Duncan, which the nominee tried to dodge.

"Do you believe the 2020 election was rigged?" Merkley asked....

U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon had to face heated questions about her cuts and changes to programs in her department.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) grilled McMahon for plans to shift programs for special education and disabled students to other agencies, like the Department of Labor and Health and Human Services. Murray told McMahon that the move has left parents "spitting mad, because they want to ensure their child with a disability has an education," according to a report by WJCT News.

"Moving [special education] out of the department is not only undermining that," Murray said, "but it's a direct message to them that their health is more important than their education."...

CNN's Dana Bash panned Senate Democrats for trying and failing to "hash out" a clear message on whether to allow a government shutdown, or give Donald Trump and Elon Musk exactly what they want in the latest spending bill.

Bash appeared on CNN News Central Friday where she condemned the Democrats' ambiguity on the outcome they want to see when the Senate votes whether to pass the bill or prepare for a government shutdown.

"I've been hearing privately from Senate Democrats since the discussions began — and certainly this week, as they have been heating up about what to do — and that is the lack of clarity," Bash said. "The fact that the Senate Democrats met privately not once, not twice, but three times in rooms trying to hash this out with no sense from their leadership until late yesterday of where they wanted to go." ...

Members of Congress are on a summer stock shopping spree — and still violating a financial disclosure law — amid a reinvigorated movement to ban congressional stock trading.

Three members of the House of Representatives appear to have violated the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act this week by filing required reports late — some as much as two years past a federally mandated deadline.

From Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), more than a dozen other members of Congress continue trading stocks and securities, even in the immediate two weeks after the Ending Trading and Holdings in Congressional Stocks (ETHICS) Act passed out of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security. ...

But what about Donald Trump’s Truth Social stock?

The former president’s massive financial assets were a primary concern of Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) during a Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs debate Wednesday over whether Congress should ban federal lawmakers — and presidents — from owning and trading stocks and other investments.

“We don't want people in Congress trading stocks, playing the stock market. That's, if you will, the sheep's clothing over this wolf piece of legislation,” Romney said at the meeting. “What you're not talking about is that this has been drafted in a way that is really quite thoughtless, which is it requires divestiture for people who want to become a congressperson or president or vice president.”...

For 12 years, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) has pushed for a ban on congressional stock trading, calling the practice “corrupt,” “unacceptable” and “wrong.”

The first time he and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) presented an amendment in 2012 that would prohibit members of Congress from playing the stock market, they only got 26 votes in support.

Now, Merkley is confident an amended version of the Ending Trading and Holdings in Congressional Stocks (ETHICS) Act has enough bipartisan support that it will come out of a markup meeting with the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on Wednesday with the votes necessary to present the amendment for a vote....