Congress
The estimated $740 billion package is full of party priorities. Those include capping prescription drug costs at $2,000 out of pocket for seniors, helping Americans pay for private health insurance and what Democrats are calling the most substantial investment in history to fight climate change, some $375 billion over the decade.
The estimated $740 billion package heads next to the House, where lawmakers are poised to deliver on Biden’s priorities, a stunning turnaround of what had seemed a lost and doomed effort that suddenly roared back to political life. Democrats held united, 51-50, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tie-breaking vote.
Police have changed their description of the crash that killed Indiana Republican U.S. Rep. Jackie Walorski, saying Thursday that it was the SUV in which she was a passenger that crossed a state highway’s centerline and caused the head-on collision.
Republican U.S. Rep. Jackie Walorski was killed Wednesday in a car accident in her northern Indiana District, according to her office.
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi arrived in Taiwan on Tuesday night despite threats from Beijing of serious consequences, becoming the highest-ranking American official in 25 years to visit the self-ruled island claimed by China.
The Senate approved the bill by a vote of 86-11. It now goes to President Joe Biden’s desk to be signed into law. Biden described the legislation as the biggest expansion of benefits for service-connected health issues in 30 years and the largest single bill ever to address exposure to burn pits.
The decline that the Commerce Department reported Thursday in the gross domestic product — the broadest gauge of the economy — followed a 1.6% annual drop from January through March. Consecutive quarters of falling GDP constitute one informal, though not definitive, indicator of a recession.
The profits have come as the weapons have been used in mass shootings that have horrified the nation, including one that left 10 people dead at a grocery store in Buffalo and another where 19 children were shot to death in Uvalde, Texas.
The House’s 228-195 roll call was largely along party lines and sent the measure to the Senate, where it seemed doomed. Democrats said that with the high court recently overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade decision from 1973, the justices and GOP lawmakers are on track to go even further than banning abortions.
Democrats hope that the 100-page bill moving through the Judiciary Committee will pass the House before the August break. But that is far from assured.
Tuesday’s election-year roll call, 267-157, was partly political strategy, forcing all House members, Republicans and Democrats, to go on the record with their views. It also reflected the legislative branch pushing back against an aggressive court.
Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle spoke to WTTW News following Biden’s White House celebration of the passage of a federal gun safety law that was attended by elected officials, gun control advocates, gun violence survivors and the families of victims.
CNN is projecting former public defender Kathy Salvi to defeat Casey Chlebek, Peggy Hubbard, Robert Piton, Jimmy Lee Tillman II, Anthony Williams and Matthew Dubiel in Tuesday’s Republican primary.
Both candidates are current U.S. Representatives — Casten in the 6th District, Newman in the 3rd District — and are facing off in the 6th District, which includes many of Chicago’s western suburbs.
U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis conceded to first-term Republican Mary Miller in the hotly contested GOP race in the 15th Congressional district, saying it’s been “the honor of a lifetime to serve the people of Illinois.”
U.S. Rep. Danny Davis was first elected to represent the district in 1996 and recently secured the endorsement of President Joe Biden. He’s highlighted the work he’s done in Congress to bring home resources for his constituents, but faced criticism by Kina Collins and some of her backers for missed votes and a lengthy tenure.