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"The seat that is sitting empty is being stolen. It's being stolen from the Obama administration and the construct of our Constitution and it's being delivered to an administration that has no right to fill it," Merkley said. . . . When pressed on his answer further, Merkley said he thought any nominee put forward by the president-elect in the next administration would be "illegitimate."

In a speech he said he was giving “to recognize the importance of the signing” of the Paris climate agreement, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D.-Ore.) declared on the Senate floor last week that “global warming is…the more challenge of our generation.” […] “We know what the stakes are,” the senator said. “We don’t need computer models to look 50 years into the future because the impacts are here today. We see it in our own communities. We see it in our own States. We see it through the impact of droughts, the impact of wildfires, the impact of heat waves, the...

Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley, who led the fight in the last Senate for a ban on job discrimination against gays, has said for months that he's shifting to a more expansive approach. On Thursday, Merkley and his allies introduced their new bill, and it is indeed far more sweeping than anything the Oregon Democrat has proposed on gay rights in the past.

Popular Sen. Elizabeth Warren, still being urged to run for president, is calling Republican White House hopefuls Sen. Ted Cruz and front-runner Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker "scary," two potential presidents that could undo a decade of Democratic policies. "Just the thought of a possible President Ted Cruz or President Scott Walker is scary," she warned in an email to supporters. "But here's something even scarier: A President Ted Cruz or President Scott Walker with a Republican-controlled Senate – confirming extremist judges, repealing health care and financial reform, and rigging the system even further for the rich and the powerful," she...

Twenty-seven senators want President Obama to block federal agencies and contractors from asking job applicants about prior criminal convictions. The senators, including 26 Democrats and presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), want Obama to take executive action to "ban the box," referring to a question on job applications that asks if an applicant has any convictions. "We ask you to require federal contractors and agencies to refrain from asking job applicants about prior convictions until later in the hiring process," they said in a letter to Obama on Monday. "This policy would eliminate unnecessary barriers to employment for all job...

Washington (CNN)Senators worked till midnight on Thursday moving through a series of amendments to a bill that would green-light construction of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, but Senate Democrats wanted to stay longer. At least, they were frustrated with what they said was a double standard from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who moved to end debate on the bill and set up a final vote next week after tabling a number of Democratic amendments. The Senate had already voted on 15 amendments, 10 of which were offered by Democrats and another five from Republicans. But Democrats cried foul at...

Sen. Jeff Merkley, speaking to reporters Wednesday after his big re-election victory, blamed heavy Democratic losses in U.S. Senate races on the flood of big outside spending on campaigns unleashed by the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision. "I think we should be deeply troubled by the results of last night, where an agenda by and for billionaires -- campaigns funded by out-of-state billionaires -- had victories across our country," Merkley said in a press conference at the Portland Hilton Hotel.

As a U.S. senator, Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., makes $174,000 a year. So imagine his surprise a few months ago, when he learned the Cover Oregon health insurance exchange had enrolled him in the Oregon Health Plan, which covers only the poorest of the poor. Chalk up another embarrassing glitch for Cover Oregon, which remains a troubled work-in-progress after months of triage and more than $300 million in taxpayer money. A few months ago, Merkley opened the mail at his east Portland home to find he’d been enrolled in the Medicaid-funded Oregon Health Plan. The Oregon Democrat already had signed up...

A mini-bombshell from the Daily Caller. The only poll of the race taken before this came at the start of April and had Monica Wehby trailing Jeff Merkley by 12 points. A month later, the Caller finds her up 40/39 among “active voters,” i.e. newly registered voters plus longtime registered voters who voted in one of the last two elections. What’s changed? Maybe nothing; with so few polls to go by, it could be that one of these is an outlier. Or, it could be that Wehby’s much-praised “Trust” ad that made the rounds a few weeks ago raised her...

Oregon Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley is running neck-and-neck with Republican challenger Monica Wehby, according to a new Daily Caller/Vox Populi Polling survey of registered voters in the state. Wehby, a Portland-based pediatric neurosurgeon, received the support of 40 percent of respondents, while an additional five percent say they are leaning towards supporting the first-time candidate. Merkley, who was elected to the Senate in 2008, garners the support of just 39 percent of respondents, with two percent saying they lean towards supporting him. Fourteen percent of voters said they do not know whom they would support. According to Vox Populi’s Brent...

It's not often that a candidate for U.S. Senate takes the stage after performing brain surgery. So it wasn't surprising that pediatric neurosurgeon Monica Wehby was greeted with awe at a recent GOP campaign event in King City. "Dr. Wehby did two cranials this morning," says moderator Billie Reynolds, beaming at the candidate running for the seat held by Democrat Jeff Merkley. "We're fortunate to have someone with her gifts willing to put herself on the line for politics." Wehby is used to such welcomes from Republicans in Oregon as well as Washington, D.C., who think she just might have...

Portland pediatric neurosurgeon Monica Wehby, continuing to separate herself from the four other Republican Senate candidates on the abortion issue, told a GOP forum in Baker City that she was personally pro-life but did not want the government involved in a woman's decision on whether to have one.“I believe this is a personal decision between a women and her family, not a woman and the federal government,” said Wehby, according to the Baker City Herald. Wehby and the four other Republican candidates -- state Rep. Jason Conger of Bend, Portland attorney Tim Crawley, former Linn County Chair Jo Rae Perkins...

In an aggressive move, the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) issued a memorandum highlighting the GOP's widening 2014 Senate battle map into blue state stronghold Oregon. The memo cited new polling that reveals first term Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley is "incredibly vulnerable, far more so than most suspected." The poll, conducted by Harper Polling, found that Merkley's favorables are just 39% and under 50% on the ballot. Oregon has not elected a Republican to statewide office in over a decade. Republicans, however, believe the GOP primary will produce a candidate who can beat Merkley in a state whose disastrous Obamacare...

LAKE OSWEGO, Ore. (AP) — The GOP is making a bold play for a U.S. Senate seat in reliably Democratic Oregon, where a Republican hasn't been elected to a statewide office in more than a decade. Republicans back in Washington think they've found the right candidate in Monica Wehby, a children's brain surgeon who's raised more than $1 million and put her early opposition to President Barack Obama's health care law at the center of her campaign. The race is shaping up to be a strong test of the GOP strategy of relentlessly using the health law against Democrats in...

The GOP is making a bold play for a U.S. Senate seat in reliably Democratic Oregon, where a Republican hasn’t been elected to a statewide office in more than a decade. Republicans back in Washington think they’ve found the right candidate in Monica Wehby, a children’s brain surgeon who’s raised more than $1 million and put her early opposition to President Barack Obama’s health care law at the center of her campaign. […] Wehby faces four other Republicans, most notably state Rep. Jason Conger of Bend, a lawyer who’s promoting his conservative credentials and his experience representing a district that,...

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how the Beltway GOP Establishment has been pushing a liberal, pro-abortion candidate in the U.S. Senate Primary here in Oregon. I talked about how the tired narrative that somehow we have to be more liberal to win elections remains alive and well in DC circles and how the “experts” – including Karl Rove, Saxby Chambliss, Susan Collins, and Richard Burr — do not believe that a conservative pro-life candidate can win in Oregon. They think they know better than those of us fighting here in the trenches. Well, a new Harper poll just...

The Republican National Committee began running ads in 40 media markets Tuesday mostly targeting incumbent senators who supported President Barack Obama’s health care program. Billionaire former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, meanwhile, gave $2.5 million to help Democrats defend their majority in the Senate. The early action suggests Republicans see the president’s signature domestic achievement as their way to keep control of the House and perhaps win the Senate. With more than 300 days remaining before Election Day, both sides are looking to set the agenda before voters start paying attention. “Obamacare is going to be the issue in 2014,”...

Eighty-five of 100 U.S. senators voted to renew the president’s power to indefinitely detain Americans, denying them of their fundamental right to due process.On December 19, by a vote of 84-15 (Senator Bill Nelson, Democrat of Florida, did not vote), the Senate sent the Fiscal Year 2014 version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to President Obama’s desk. Although an overwhelming majority of Republicans and Democrats signed off on the evisceration of the Bill of Rights, a small coalition of Independents, Republicans, and Democrats refused to accede to such a devastation deprivation of rights. A list of the lawmakers...

It’s not just red-state Democrats who are panicking. Then again, Merkley’s not a typical blue-state Democrat. He won his Senate race in Oregon by fewer than four points in 2008, a year in which Hopenchange fever boosted Dems nationally. Not only won’t he have that working for him next year, he’ll have the albatross of Obama’s biggest “achievement” hanging around his neck. Time for him to do what little he can to shed it by joining Landrieu’s bill.Last night a source told Greg Sargent that House Democrats were being whipped by the leadership to oppose Fred Upton’s bill, replete with...

Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander (R) Montana Senator Max Baucus (D) Alaska Senator Mark Begich (D) Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss (R) Mississippi Senator Thad Cochran (R) Maine Senator Susan Collins (R) Texas Senator John Cornyn (R) Massachusetts Senator William "Mo" Cowan (D) Illinois Senator Dick Durbin (D) Wyoming Senator Mike Enzi (R) Minnesota Senator Al Franken (DFL) South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham (R) North Carolina Senator Kay Hagan (D) Iowa Senator Tom Harkin (D) Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe (R) Nebraska Senator Mike Johanns (R) South Dakota Senator Tim Johnson (D) Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu (D) Michigan Senator Carl Levin (D) Kentucky...