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Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) is throwing his support behind President Trump’s 2020 reelection bid, a move that could stir trouble for his own electoral prospects next year. Gardner, a onetime critic of Trump, told IJR that he was backing the president, because he believed Trump would do right by the people of Colorado. “Look, there are things here – look, I’ve made it very clear that where I agree with the president, we will agree or where I disagree, we will disagree,” Gardner said. “But I’m going to fight like hell for Colorado, and we’ve done some good things for...

A group of conservative Senators on Friday introduced legislation to permanently keep the federal government open and prevent future shutdowns. The End Government Shutdowns would automatically create continually resolutions, which continues funding agencies even when politicians are debating on the budget.The bill is sponsored by Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, who has introduced the legislation every year since he was elected to the Senate in 2010, Deseret News reported. Sens. Steve Daines (MT), Mike Lee (UT), Lisa Murkowski (AK), Chuck Grassley (IA), Johnny Isakson (GA), Mike Enzi (WY), John Barrasso (WY), and Jim Risch (ID) have all signed onto the bill. The reason...

Six GOP Senators briefed Jared Kushner and President Donald Trump’s top congressional aide about a plan to swap two amnesties in exchange for border-wall funding. The six GOP Senators included Graham, North Carolina’s Thom Tillis, Tennessee’s Lamar Alexander, Ohio’s Rob Portman, Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, and Maine’s Susan Collins. The Senators’ draft offer to the Democrats, however, also includes incentives sought by GOP-aligned business groups, such as an expansion of the H-2B blue collar visa-worker program. Few Democrats support the H-2B visa program but its inclusion could encourage GOP legislators to ignore protests from the GOP’s pro-American base. Several GOP Senators...

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Senate has adopted a resolution recognizing that Soviet dictator Josef Stalin committed genocide against the Ukrainian people in the early 1930s, when millions died in a horrific famine known as the Holodomor. The office of Republican Senator Rob Portman, who sponsored the bill, did not immediately get back to RFE/RL for comment. Asked for comment, the State Department referred to a 2017 statement that described the Holodomor as "one of the most atrocious acts of the 20th century. The "simple resolution" passed on October 3 commemorates the 85th anniversary of the famine of 1932-33. The Senate...

Thirteen Republican Senators Are Demanding President Trump Halt Immigration Enforcement At The United States-mexico Border Until They Can Pass Legislation Closing A Legal Loophole, Perhaps Leaving The Border Open For Years. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) Sen. John Boozman (R-AR) Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV) Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO) Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH)

The Obama administration secretly sought to give Iran access — albeit briefly — to the U.S. financial system by sidestepping sanctions kept in place after the 2015 nuclear deal, despite repeatedly telling Congress and the public it had no plans to do so. An investigation by Senate Republicans released Wednesday sheds light on the delicate balance the Obama administration sought to strike after the deal, as it worked to ensure Iran received its promised benefits without playing into the hands of the deal’s opponents. Amid a tense political climate, Iran hawks in the U.S., Israel and elsewhere argued that the...

A report by Cleveland.com reveals the GOP establishment’s efforts to pour money into Gonzalez’s campaign in order to stop State Rep. Christina Hagan (R-OH), the pro-Trump, 29-year-old millennial mother who has campaigned on supporting the populist “America First” agenda of economic nationalism, immigration reductions, and less foreign interventionism. Gonzalez, most recently, has received: $10,000 from a PAC associated with House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) $5,000 from a PAC associated with anti-Trump Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) Additionally, Gonzalez received support and funding from Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH), who has voted consistently in Congress since 2015 to import more cheap, foreign...

Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) on Sunday said he hopes politicians “won’t play those kind of games” on dueling appointments to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). “My hope is, you know, that we won’t play those kind of games," Portman told NBC’s “Meet the Press” when asked about dueling appointments by Cordray and President Trump for interim directors of the independent agency. Portman backed Trump's authority to decide who will lead the agency, which is now without a director. Portman also criticized exiting CFPB director Richard Cordray for trying to "circumvent" the president in appointing a new leader of...

Ohio Sen. Rob Portman became the latest Republican senator to call on Donald Trump to quit the race. “While I continue to respect those who still support Donald Trump, I can no longer support him,” Mr. Portman said in a statement. “I continue to believe our country cannot afford a Hillary Clinton presidency. I will be voting for Mike Pence for president.” Mr. Portman becomes the latest in a flood of Republicans to have abandoned the party’s presidential nominee Saturday, a day after a 2005 recording emerged of Mr. Trump making lewd and degrading comments about women.

August 30, 2016 - A leading Democratic political action committee is canceling ad buys in the Ohio Senate race. It's the second major group to do so as Democrats increasingly appear to be losing hope of winning back the key state. The Senate Majority PAC has already spent about $10 million in Ohio on behalf of former Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland, his single biggest source of outside support. Now the group is canceling large buys that were set to run the second week of September. That's according to an official with knowledge of the developments who requested anonymity because the...

Republican incumbent senators have solid leads over Democratic challengers in the key swing states of Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, according to a Quinnipiac University Swing State Poll released today. Noteworthy is Ohio where former Gov. Ted Strickland, who had an early lead but now trails Sen. Rob Portman by 7 percentage points, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University Poll finds. The Swing State Poll focuses on Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania because since 1960 no candidate has won the presidential race without taking at least two of these three states. The U.S. Senate matchups show: Florida - Sen. Marco Rubio over U.S....

I seldom watch network or cable TV so I rarely see political commercials. I was over at a relatives house yesterday and they had the TV on. I was shocked by the ads for Senator Rob Portman -R vs. Ted Strickland - D (in Ohio). The ads seemed to be each candidate trying to out-Trump the other one. Portman's ad talked about the Chinese devaluing their currency, dumping steel on the U.S. and how Portman would fight them. Strickland's ad talked about how he was against unfair trade deals that hurt the middle class and export jobs. These candidates might...

"Billionaires, tech CEOs and top members of the Republican establishment flew to a private island resort off the coast of Georgia this weekend for the American Enterprise Institute's annual World Forum, according to sources familiar with the secretive gathering. The main topic at the closed-to-the-press confab? How to stop Republican front-runner Donald Trump. Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google co-founder Larry Page, Napster creator and Facebook investor Sean Parker, and Tesla Motors and SpaceX honcho Elon Musk all attended. So did Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), political guru Karl Rove, House Speaker Paul Ryan, GOP Sens. Tom Cotton (Ark.), Cory...

They’re coming for your home. Right now. I suggest you save it. I can guide you, but you must do exactly as I say. Except, this isn’t The Matrix. You’re no actor, like Keanu Reeves, playing a distraught programmer-hacker named “Neo.” Nor am I an actor, like Laurence Fishburne, playing your guide “Morpheus.” This is real life, baby. Your home or apartment—and the neighborhood in which you live—is under siege. “Agents”—sans black glasses and black business suits—who work for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) have written a new regulation called “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing” (AFFH) that...

COLUMBUS, Ohio—U.S. Sen. Rob Portman on Monday criticized North Carolina's restrictions on public bathroom access for transgender people and took issue with Donald Trump's proposal to cut the national debt by giving creditors less than full payment. The Ohio Republican, speaking with reporters at a warehouse in Columbus, said North Carolina's new limits on protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are "a bad law." "You need to not discriminate against people and be sure that we are respecting religious liberties," Portman said. "That can be done, and I do not believe that the North Carolina law accomplishes that."...

But many senators left wiggle room to back away from Trump if necessary; Sen. Rob Portman (Ohio), who is in a tough reelection battle back home, said he intends to support the nominee "unless something crazy happens." And according to our March survey, at least 22 Republicans aren't sure or wouldn't say. Newly minted Indiana GOP nominee Todd Young hasn’t said anything we could find about whether he'd support Trump. Only one Republican senator — Sen. Ben Sasse (Neb.) — has said clearly that he won't be on Team Trump.

Two US senators are proposing legislation to counter, what they consider to be “disinformation” spread by certain foreign media. What better way to kick-start their campaign than by basing their bill on spurious nonsense? Republican Senator Rob Portman and his Democratic colleague Chris Murphy are deeply concerned about foreign “propaganda.” They demand that Uncle Sam throws even more money at the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which is already given around $768 million annually. Not content with the EU’s Stratcom East and NATO’s Riga-based communications centre, Portman and Murphy want a new center for Information Analysis and Response to analyze...

An effort by liberal groups to pressure Republicans to allow Senate consideration of President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee got off to a modest start Monday as small groups of demonstraters rallied outside lawmakers’ offices around the country. A bigger election-year battle ramped up as both sides brought their viewpoints to television, social media and supporters’ email inboxes. Five days after Obama tabbed federal appeals court Judge Merrick Garland for the vacant seat, about 25 people appeared outside the Columbus, Ohio, office of GOP Sen. Rob Portman, who is backing Republican leaders’ insistence on awaiting the pick of whoever is...

"It is not necessarily that he will get the majority of the delegates — though anything is possible in this race, everything has been unpredictable so far — but he certainly would go into the convention with a lot of leverage," Mr. Portman said. "I think that is good for Ohio." Political analysts say Mr. Kasich is angling to be a kingmaker at a contested convention and is eyeing the No. 2 slot on the GOP ticket.

With Donald Trump continuing to dominate the Republican presidential primary field, many of the GOP's senior leaders are beginning to contemplate the down-ballot consequences of having the controversial outsider atop the ticket. Typically, control of the Senate and House are heavily influenced by the outcome of the presidential contest, and a bruising general election contest between Trump and Democratic frontrunner Hillary Rodham Clinton almost certainly would affect the outcome of some of the congressional races.