Jeff Sessions news stories on Newser

Judges' $1M Maui Trip Turns Heads in Congress

Neal Colgrass — Mon, 21 May 2012 15:30:05 CDT

US senators are scrutinizing a planned Maui getaway for circuit court judges that could cost more than $1 million in taxpayer dollars, Fox News reports. Scheduled for August, the Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference would allow judges, attorneys, staff, and "special guests" to stay at a Hyatt Regency resort spa with...

GOP Balks at Renewing Violence Against Women Act

Kevin Spak — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 10:04:42 CDT

Conservative senators are coming out against renewing the Violence Against Women Act, which provides federal funding for domestic violence programs and passed with broad bipartisan support in 1994. Democratic women plan to march to the Senate floor today and demand a quick vote to extend the bill, the New York...

Next Dogfight for Congress: Payroll Taxes

Kevin Spak — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 07:17:54 CST

Now that the super committee lies in ruins, Congress has another scramble on its hands—what to do about the current payroll tax holiday, which is up Dec. 31, and unemployment benefits, which expire for 2 million people soon after. Failing to extend either could put a serious dent in...

Cantor: We Dragged Obama 'Kicking and Screaming'

Evann Gastaldo — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 12:17:05 CDT

According to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, President Obama had to be dragged “kicking and screaming to the table to cut spending,” he said on Fox News Sunday . Cantor says White House senior adviser David Plouffe is being dishonest in his claim that Obama was the one leading that discussion,...

Kagan Hearings? Let's Doodle Instead

John Johnson — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 16:49:26 CDT

Elena Kagan had a testy exchange in the morning with Jeff Sessions over her role in military recruiting at Harvard, but day 2 of her Supreme Court nomination hearings has been "rather unilluminating," writes Newsweek . (Though a photo of Al Franken sketching Sessions during the hearings was kind of interesting....

Kagan Refuses to Discuss Her Legal Views

Kevin Spak — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 10:27:13 CDT

Elena Kagan began today’s round of confirmation questioning by declaring that it would be inappropriate for her to discuss how she might rule on future Supreme Court cases. That's ironic, the New York Times notes, because Kagan once wrote that confirmation hearings had taken on “an air of vacuity and...

Republicans Bash Thurgood Marshall

Kevin Spak — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 06:08:00 CDT

Republicans played the guilt-by-association game at Elena Kagan’s confirmation hearing yesterday, slamming the Supreme Court nominee for her ties to… Thurgood Marshall? The revered justice’s name came up 35 times during the first day of the hearing, compared to just 14 for President Obama, the Huffington Post reports, and often,...

GOP Struggling for Traction on Kagan as Hearings Begin

Kevin Spak — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 07:50:00 CDT

Elena Kagan is in for something of a cakewalk in confirmation hearings that begin today. Republicans still haven’t been able to dig up any real dirt on Obama’s second Supreme Court nominee, the Washington Post reports. Their latest straw grasp: Robert Bork coming out of the woodwork to complain that...

GOPers Smell Impeachment in Sestak Job Offer

Kevin Spak — Thu, 27 May 2010 07:32:44 CDT

Republicans are calling for the attorney general to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Joe Sestak's claims that someone in the Obama administration offered him a high-ranking job to drop out of the Pennsylvania primary race against Arlen Specter. And they've already used the “I” word. “It's very clear that...