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Great news out of Louisiana tonight. With 80% of the vote in, John Kennedy (R) is blowing out Foster Campbell (D) by a 64-36% margin. Some insurance for the Republican majority and this virtually guarantees that President Elect Trump gets the Cabinet he wants.

I wouldn’t expect this one to zoom through Congress in the lame duck session, but the first tentative shot across the bow on amnesty has been fired. Raise your hands if you had “and the Republicans are behind it” on your bingo card. If so, collect your prize at the cashier’s window because some of the original sponsors of a new bill to extend the amnesty situation for so called “dreamers” are the usual suspects on the GOP side of Congress. (Politico) A bipartisan group of senators unveiled legislation Friday that would extend key legal protections and work permits...

Of all those whose predictions were dashed by this year’s presidential outcome (“Trump is headed toward a major loss” his Oct. 19 headline blared), few have been more exercised than the Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne (“white identity politics and male self-assertion triumphed” he railed the day after). Yesterday, in a piece titled “America will soon be ruled by a minority,” he joined the chorus now condemning the “undemocratic” Electoral College—in the name of the Founders, no less, the very men who created it. Ever the good progressive, he fails to appreciate the role states were meant to play in ordering...

WASHINGTON — Minority Leader Harry Reid bid farewell to the Senate Thursday after 30 years in the chamber and more than a decade as top Democrat, a remarkable run during which he shepherded key Obama administration legislation including the sweeping health care law. But Reid leaves with his Democrats stuck in the minority despite his best efforts, and Republicans and President-elect Donald Trump making plans to repeal President Barack Obama's signature law as their first order of business next year. In an uncharacteristically lengthy and personal farewell speech on the Senate floor, Reid warned of "a new gilded age" ahead...

From Facebook, from someone I trust: "Senator John Thune just confirmed on Fox News that Republicans will stick with the nuclear option, instituted by Reid and the Democrats to get their more controversial appointments through. In other words, there will be very little chance any of Trump's cabinet appointments can be stopped."

Sen. Barbara Boxer of California bid farewell to Congress on Wednesday after 33 years as a liberal champion, choking up as she read a letter from jazz great Sonny Rollins thanking her for "making life beautiful" for the people she's represented. "What he said is all I wanted to do, make life beautiful for people," Boxer said in her farewell speech on the Senate floor. "I didn't always succeed ... I can honestly say that I never stopped trying." Former House colleagues of Boxer including Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco came to the Senate to pay their...

Outgoing Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid has few regrets, but one is his injury-forced retirement from the Senate. "I love this institution," he said. "I wish I could be here forever." In a profile for GW, the George Washington University magazine, the school alum said an exercise accident that blinded his right eye two years ago has forced him to leave.

There is a reasonable chance that two more Democrat Senate seats could be lost to the GOP when the next Congress convenes.

WASHINGTON — The Senate voted on Thursday to extend American sanctions against Iran for a decade, sending to President Obama a measure that supporters said would help ensure that the United States could fully respond if Iran were to violate its obligations under the nuclear agreement. Iranian officials, rankled that the legislation to extend sanctions was being considered — the House overwhelmingly passed it last month — have threatened to respond if the United States goes through with the renewal. The 99-to-0 vote Thursday showed the desire of lawmakers to maintain a tough posture toward Iran amid uncertainty over the...

Senate Democrats are making it clear that Sen. Jeff Sessions will not have an easy time being confirmed as President-elect Donald J. Trump’s first attorney general. In a letter addressed to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Democrats on the committee pushed for extensive confirmation hearings, indicating that they plan resistance, despite the fact that they referred to him as “a colleague” with whom they “have a personal and cordial relationship.” The senators also requested that Grassley allow for outside witnesses to testify on Sessions’ track record on immigration, civil and voting rights, women’s rights, and government oversight due...

What a difference a few weeks makes. Right up until the morning of November 8th the two parties were lined up in the political equivalent of trenches on the western front in WW1. You’d have been hard pressed to find a Democrat anywhere in the nation who wasn’t ready to declare open rhetorical warfare on Donald Trump and anyone agreeing with a single policy he endorsed. But now, with the dust largely settled, there’s a particular group of Democrats in the Senate who suddenly are finding common ground to be a good thing and are ready to work across the...

Democrats have insisted that they will push to win the only outstanding Senate race in the country — a Dec. 10 runoff election in Louisiana — but it appears to be trending toward the Republican candidate, which would give the party an effective 52-48 majority next year. State Treasurer John N. Kennedy won the most votes on Nov. 8, but in a crowded field he fell far short of the 50 percent threshold needed to win outright.

NBC/Survey Monkey. As of October 23, 2016. It is no surprise that Democrats in the U.S. Congress will oppose Donald Trump but the most important resistance to fulfilling the president-elect's agenda is beginning to emerge from Republicans on Capitol Hill. The party held onto control of the Senate at the Nov. 8 election but by only a thin margin, putting powerful swing votes in just a few hands.

Republicans are vowing that President Trump’s appointment of a Supreme Court Justice to replace the late Justice Scalia will be confirmed no matter what Democrats do. Politico reports the unspoken threat underlying the GOP’s confidence is that, if necessary, they can end the Senate filibuster for confirmation: Republicans won’t come out and say it, but there’s an implicit threat in their confidence: If Democrats play things the wrong way, they might find themselves on the wrong end of a legacy-defining change to Senate rules that scraps the chamber’s 60-vote threshold to confirm Supreme Court nominees. “We’re going to confirm the...

"...If Sessions heads to the Trump administration, he would leave behind a coveted seat in the United States Senate. Governor Bentley would appoint Sessions's replacement in the short-term and set a date for a statewide election to fill the seat. Given the importance of the seat, we certainly shouldn't rush this. Bentley ought to appoint someone with an eye toward an election being held during the 2018 midterms. Special elections are expensive and often feature low turnout. With most of us experiencing campaign exhaustion, it's prudent to set the election during a normal cycle. So whom might Bentley appoint if...

The following piece was posted on the Washington Post site on 11/14/16. by Jonathan H. Adler Once he assumes office, President Donald Trump is expected to promptly nominate someone to replace Justice Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court. This, along with subsequent nominations to the Supreme Court and lower courts, will be among his most consequential decisions. During the campaign, Trump initially identified two appellate court judges — Diane Sykes of the 7th Circuit and William Pryor of the 11th Circuit — as the sort of individuals he would name to the high court to replace Scalia. Later during the...

The Senate has waived its constitutional right to advise and consent; Obama should exercise his independent constitutional right to appoint. The Supreme Court vacancy opened during Obama's administration, it is Obama's responsibility and right to nominate and appoint a replacement. The Senate has a concurrent right to advise and consent, but its complete failure to schedule an up-or-down vote means it has waived that right. Obama can and should act now.

They’re prepping the congressional battlefield for the two toughest fights the Dems will have in 2017: the repeal of Obamacare and the confirmation of Trump’s nomination of a conservative to replace the late Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court. Those are the two most important campaign promises Trump made that have to be accomplished in the coming year if they’re going to be accomplished at all. The Dems will mount their first round filibusters when the confirmation process begins. They will filibuster some of the cabinet and subcabinet folks as a warm-up so that they and their media allies can...

Democrats may be in for long drought, facing slew of 2018 contests in deep Red states. There are 34 seats to be decided in the 2018 midterms. Twenty-six are held by Democrats — and one by Bernie Sanders, the socialist independent from Vermont. Republicans have to defend just eight. Only two of those races will occur in states that had relatively close margins for Trump: Nevada, which Trump lost, and Arizona, which Trump won. The Republicans in those states, Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona and Sen. Dean Heller of Nevada, will likely be targeted. Democrats are up for re-election in...

As Democrats strategize on how to stop conservative legislation from making its way to Donald Trump’s desk in the White House, Republicans have a little-known rule in their toolbox that would allow them to pass legislation, including a repeal of Obamacare, with a simple majority. Democrats were able to keep 48 seats in the Senate after Tuesday’s election, giving the party the power to filibuster legislation and effectively prevent conservative policies from being enacted. But Republicans can turn to a seldom-used Senate rule that would allow them to pass legislation by a simple majority vote—legislation that has a greater chance...