Tom Coburn

Since 2010, Republicans in more than a dozen states, including Texas, have enacted laws either making voting harder, especially for minorities, or locking in GOP election gains with gerrymandered congressional and legislative redistricting. That makes...

President Obama pleaded with Congress last week to remember the victims of December's schoolhouse shootings in Connecticut and tighten the nation's gun laws. "Shame on us if we've forgotten," he said. "Don't get squishy." But four months after the...

In my Wednesday column, I reported on the gathering signs that President Obama's push for significant new gun control legislation is dead in the water -- mostly because the National Rifle Assn. has mounted opposition more intense than the support for...

WASHINGTON -- Earlier this month, I wrote that the Senate was making quiet progress toward passing a gun control bill that would make background checks mandatory on buyers in almost all gun purchases, including most sales between individuals. And that,...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate approved legislation Wednesday to lock in $85 billion in widely decried spending cuts aimed at restraining soaring federal deficits — and to avoid a government shutdown just a week away. President Barack Obama's...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats are taking an aggressive stance in their drive to curb firearms, announcing that the gun control legislation the Senate debates next month will include expanded federal background checks for gun purchasers. Senate...

While hundreds of thousands of federal workers brace for unpaid furloughs starting next month, Uncle Sam is still looking to hire. In one week alone this month, nearly 2,200 job listings available to the public were posted on USAJobs.gov, the federal...

WASHINGTON – Step aside, stately Senate. Say hello to vote-a-rama. On Friday, the usually lonely floor of the U.S. Senate was thrown open for that most rare of occurrences – a free-for-all frenzy of amendment-making, which is required for...

WASHINGTON – A Republican-led attempt to reopen the White House to tours was defeated largely along party lines Wednesday in the Senate. Senators voted 45 to 54 on the measure from Republican Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, who was seeking to...

WASHINGTON — All but ensuring there will be no federal shutdown, the Senate on Wednesday approved a measure to keep the government running — but not before tweaking the automatic budget cuts that threaten some of the lawmakers’...

WASHINGTON — It was bound to happen: As the sequester budget cuts are felt around the country, lawmakers are having second thoughts — and trying to tinker with them in a way that could lead to a full-scale government shutdown. Senators...

President Obama took a posse of Republican senators to dinner last week, and this week he's giving Congress the unusual courtesy of no fewer than four presidential visits to Capitol Hill. Can a flurry of presidential schmoozing change Washington from...