President Obama's new national monument in New Mexico, which he announced Wednesday, thrilled environmentalists, who said it preserves nearly 500,000 acres of spectacular and pristine lands, but it could also doom his hopes of getting Congress to pass an immigration bill this year.
Senate Democrats cleared the path Wednesday to confirm the so-called "drone judge," the lawyer who wrote memos justifying the government's ability to target and kill an American citizen overseas without his first having been convicted by a criminal court.
The House voted Wednesday to prod Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki to begin firing or demoting senior-level executives within his department who were responsible for long wait lists and poor medical care.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid raised the possibility Tuesday of another rules change to curtail filibusters, saying he is increasingly frustrated that Republicans are sticking to the letter of the rules and delaying action on dozens of President Obama's nominations.
The Defense Department said Monday it is looking at expanding its application pool by letting some young illegal immigrants join the military, in what could be another tool for an Obama administration seeking unilateral steps to take on immigration reform.
Saying the foundations of representative government are at stake, Senate Republicans on Thursday filibustered a tax cuts package to protest Democrats' denial of a chance to offer amendments.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid took former New York Times Executive Editor Jill Abramson's case to the Senate floor Thursday, saying her firing is a reason why Congress should pass Democrats' Paycheck Fairness Act, which would give people more avenues to sue over perceived pay discrimination.
Hundreds of thousands of divorced Americans lie to the IRS every year about their alimony payments, according to a new audit released Thursday that said the falsehood costs the government hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
A year after a scorching audit revealed that the Internal Revenue Service targeted tea party groups for intrusive scrutiny, and despite an effort to clean house at the agency, many of those groups are still awaiting approval for tax-exempt status.
One of the original organizers of the tea party movement said Wednesday that the time has come for conservatives to agree to tackle the immigration issue, adding fuel to the push for Republicans to agree to a bill this year.
Ben Sasse won the Republican nomination for Nebraska's open Senate seat Tuesday, besting a crowded, competitive field, leaving him well-positioned to win in November and delivering a win to insurgent conservative groups who said it served as a rebuke to GOP power brokers in Washington.
The White House is facing another tough battle over one of its judicial nominees — only this time President Obama faces opposition from his own party, with his former Senate colleagues accusing one of his picks for a federal judgeship in Georgia of turning a blind eye to racism in a debate over the Confederate symbol on the state's former flag.
The IRS is still paying more than $10 billion a year in bogus payments to the poor under the Earned Income Tax Credit, the agency's auditor said in a new report released Tuesday that says about a quarter of all payments are improper.
Fed up with what they see as dictatorial behavior by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Republicans on Monday filibustered to block an energy efficiency bill, dooming it to defeat for a second time in less than a year and signaling just how bad relations have gotten in the upper chamber.
House Speaker John A. Boehner said he expects to be speaker again next year, but declined Monday to say he would definitely serve out another full term in Congress.
House Speaker John A. Boehner has flatly ruled out a return to earmarks on Capitol Hill, putting himself squarely in the way of a growing number of his colleagues who say they want to reopen the debate over pork-barrel spending.
Immigration officials knowingly released dozens of murderers and thousands of drunken drivers back into the U.S. in 2013, according to Obama administration statistics that could undercut the president's argument that he is trying to focus on the most serious criminals in his immigration enforcement.
Bristling at what they saw as the nanny state run awry, the House Armed Services Committee voted overwhelmingly this week to ensure that American troops serving overseas still can buy tobacco from base exchanges.
A conservative legal group asked a federal appeals court Thursday to break new legal ground and overturn Obamacare by declaring it a tax bill that originated in the Senate — a violation of the Constitution's demand that the House have exclusive right to initiate all revenue measures.
Despite assurances to the contrary, the IRS didn't destroy all of the donor lists scooped up in its tea party targeting — and a check of those lists reveals that the tax agency audited 10 percent of those donors, much higher than the audit rate for average Americans, House Republicans revealed Wednesday.