The Department of Veterans Affairs is relearning a truism about Congress the hard way: Nothing gets a lawmaker riled up faster than a plan to shut something down.
Ideally, Boyack would like to get a conservative lawmaker who otherwise supports the drug war to sponsor the bill.
Is it much different than committing to limiting citrus imports to get a Florida lawmaker's vote for a trade deal?" Well, it is a lifetime appointment to the most powerful court in the country.
To get a deal, lawmakers on both sides are going to have to bend considerably and back unpopular positions.
If he hopes to get a deal, lawmakers say, the additional revenue will have to come down and the health care savings may have to go up.
Mr. Whitmire has been hailed for his ambitious work in overhauling the criminal justice system, but over the years his personal business dealings have demonstrated just how blurry the lines can get between a lawmaker's public duties and private interests.
Look, here's how this works: anytime you get a bunch of lawmakers vaguely pledging to "reform the system," you'll get a few in the mix who promise to leave office after a few terms.
She had promised that lawmakers would get a vote eventually, but the lawmakers effectively refused to take her word for it, insisting by a formal vote — 309 to 305 — on their explicit right to approve any final deal.
Lawmakers are required to file personal financial disclosure forms listing their assets within broad ranges (such as $5 million to $25 million), making it difficult to get a precise sense of a lawmaker's wealth.
But for a non-donor to get a meeting with the lawmaker or top staffer is pretty unlikely, the two political science professors found.
