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WESTON, Wis. (WAOW) -- Senator Tom Tiffany received an endorsement from Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner to fill the 7th Congressional District seat. Sensenbrenner is currently the Representative for the state's 5th Congressional District and is also the Dean of the Wisconsin Congressional Delegation. The endorsement comes a month shy of the special primary election. ***

Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) is retiring after more than 40 years in Congress. The 76-year-old Republican, who is the second-most senior member of the House, announced Wednesday that he will not be seeking reelection in 2020. He will serve out the rest of his 21st term in Congress, which ends in January 2021.

The nationally organized, local left-wing grassroots group known as Indivisible is getting pretty ticked off about being described as “scripted” — even though its members are raising their own concerns about Wisconsin Indivisible chapters working from scripts. The outrage – at least the latest outrage – follows an op/ed last week in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel by an Nicole Tieman, communications director for U.S. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Menomonee Falls. The piece, takes aim at the notion that the so-called Indivisible “uprisings” are part of an organic movement, instead of a scripted, well organized and, it appears, well financed national “resistance...

Democrats have rolled out a proposal that would restore a key provision of the Voting Rights Act that the Supreme Court struck down in 2013. The bill, introduced by Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Chris Coons (D-Del.), would establish a new formula to determine which state and local governments are required to get approval before changing their voting laws. Under the legislation, states that have a "record of racial discrimination" within the past 25 years would need federal approval to change their voting laws, according to a fact sheet from Leahy's office. The proposal would also allow...

Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, the main author of the original Patriot Act, wrote an op-ed in 2013 explaining the NSA bulk collection of data belonging to Americans is an abuse of the legislation. In particular, Sensenbrenner slammed the Obama administration for abusing the Patriot Act in order to collect phone call information of all Americans, despite any ties to terrorism. Last week, the Guardian reported that the Obama administration is collecting records of every call made to, from or within the US, as well as records of many digital communications. President Obama has tried to deflect criticism by claiming "every member...

The American people are supposed to trust Republicans appointed to investigate Benghazi but as it turns out, the Executive Director appointed to the House Select Committee on Benghazi – Philip Kiko – is a lobbyist for the Smith-Free Group, in which his clients include the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the radical environmentalist group the Sierra Club, Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), National Council of La Raza “the Race” (NCLR), and the National Organization for Women (NOW), NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (NLDEF) and...

Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner has introduced legislation which would have the effect of placing all of Virginia’s election laws under Justice Department oversight, and Virginia isn’t the only state that would fall into federal election receivership. Sensenbrenner’s bill, H.R. 885, is co-sponsored by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) and multiple members of the Congressional Black Caucus. It revives federal control through the Voting Rights Act over every state election law change. In 2013, the Supreme Court’s Shelby County vs. Holder decision struck down this power as an outdated and unconstitutional relic from a half-century ago. Texas would also fall under immediate federal...

On Passage of the Bill in the House (SNIP) No R Boehner, John OH 8th No D Kaptur, Marcy OH 9th No D Kucinich, Dennis OH 10th No D Jones, Stephanie OH 11th No R Tiberi, Pat OH 12th No D Brown, Sherrod OH 13th Aye R LaTourette, Steven OH 14th Aye R Pryce, Deborah OH 15th

A top Republican House member on Wednesday proposed eliminating the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, writing a bill that would freeze all hiring at the troubled agency and require the Justice Department to come up with a plan for transferring its duties to other agencies. Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., the Wisconsin Republican who wrote the bill, called it both a chance to streamline government and to clean up an agency that’s been criticized from the right and the left for botched gun-running operations.

<p>Citing ATF’s recent operational failures and its overlap with other federal law enforcement, Sensenbrenner is preparing a bill to dissolve the agency and have existing agencies in the U.S. Justice Department take on its duties.</p> <p>“By absorbing the ATF into existing law enforcement entities, we can preserve the areas where the ATF adds value for substantially less taxpayer money,” Sensenbrenner said. “While searching for its mission, the ATF has been plagued by decades of high-profile blunders. …We cannot afford to ignore clear changes that will greatly enhance the government’s efficiency.”</p>

WASHINGTON — A key GOP lawmakers said Thursday that he’s in no hurry to restore Justice Department scrutiny to Texas and other states under the Voting Rights Act. A year ago, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a key part of that landmark civil rights law — the formula that identified nine states and some smaller jurisdictions with such an egregious history of violating the rights of voters that they would have to get federal permission before moving a polling site, shifting district boundaries or making any other election-related change. “There is a great deal of dispute in many quarters...

So Majority Leader Eric Cantor has lost to a Tea Party candidate. Correction, Majority Leader Eric Cantor was crushed by a Tea Party candidate. In some ways, Cantor’s exit is a political tragedy. It shows that flirting with the existential enemies of the Constitution, of liberty, and of core Republican principles can bear a very heavy price. I’m convinced that had Cantor resisted the siren calls of the left on two key issues — immigration and giving Eric Holder renewed power over state elections — he would have won tonight.

Republican leaders could name the chair of a select committee tasked with investigating the 2012 Benghazi attacks as early as Monday, Fox News has learned. A senior House source with direct knowledge of the development of the committee indicated that Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., is likely to be named chairman of the panel. Gowdy's name was floated heavily late last week. Other names mentioned for the job by Capitol Hill insiders include Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas; Rep. Mike Turner R-Ohio; Rep. John Mica R-Fla.; Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis.; and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla.

Wisconsin Republican seeks to restore racial categories, empower Holder DOJ Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R., Wisc.) told constituents at Wisconsin town halls that voting-rights legislation he is sponsoring does not exclude white voters from the protection of the Voting Rights Act. Sensenbrenner also says he is proud to work with the ACLU and far-left groups to pass the legislation that would resurrect Attorney General Eric Holder’s powers to block state election laws such as voter ID or citizenship verification. In a video from Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe, Sensenbrenner also accused Texas and Georgia Republicans of trying to stop minorities from...

Key lawmakers announced a rewrite of the Voting Rights Act on Thursday, creating a test to judge which states are still so discriminatory that they need federal scrutiny of their voting decisions — moving to revive the iconic law just months after the Supreme Court declared part of it unconstitutional. In their June decision, the justices said Congress couldn’t use discrimination from four decades ago to single out states for special federal scrutiny, so the proposal would update the test to look at recent federal court rulings that found a state or municipality violated voting laws. ~snip~ Hans A. von...

Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) plans to file a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin against the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). The purpose of the suit is to end the employer contribution authorized for Members of Congress and their staffs who have entered the District of Colombia healthcare exchange as mandated by the Affordable Care Act. Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner: "Senator Johnson’s lawsuit is an unfortunate political stunt. I am committed to repealing Obamacare, but the employer contribution he’s attacking is nothing more than a standard benefit that most private and all federal employees receive...

PJ Media has engaged in a long-running series of articles regarding Republicans who are trying to re-impose the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which was partially struck down by the US Supreme Court this summer. We reported that staff within the Republican National Committee are working to re-impose it, outside the public eye. The RNC officially and vehemently denied. But. We’ve also tracked the statements of elected Republicans including Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, and the activities of their lobbyists and staffs. Sensenbrenner is under the influence of a long-time former staffer who is currently lobbying for the far-left ACLU. Juan Williams, Democrat...

Earlier today, J. Christian Adams reported comments made by Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) regarding the Voting Rights Act. Sharing the podium with Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, Sensenbrenner told a Washington audience Monday that he wants to “fix” the part of the law that the Supreme Court recently struck down. Sensenbrenner said he wants to fix the law so that it is immune to court challenges. “The first thing we have to do is take the monkey wrench that the court threw in it, out of the Voting Rights Act, and then use that monkey wrench to be able...

A leading House Republican is calling on Congress to update the Voting Rights Act just a day after the Supreme Court neutered its central provision. Warning that "the threat of discrimination still exists," Rep. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) is urging lawmakers from both parties to cast aside partisanship and restore the law for the sake of protecting voters' rights. "The Voting Rights Act is vital to America’s commitment to never again permit racial prejudices in the electoral process," Sensenbrenner, the second-ranked Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, said Wednesday in a statement. "This is going to take time and will...

Regarding the Patriot Act’s Section 215, Rep. Sensenbrenner says that it “was originally drafted to prevent data mining,” not protect it. In a recent op-ed railing against Obama’s Big Brother tactics, the Wisconsin Representative writes: “[B]ased on the scope of the released order, both the administration and the Fisa court are relying on an unbounded interpretation of the act that Congress never intended. The released Fisa order requires daily productions of the details of every call that every American makes, as well as calls made by foreigners to or from the United States. Congress intended to allow the intelligence communities...