All Blog Posts from Political Hotsheet

Tension is palpable among Democrats and Republicans on the House Oversight Committee that is (sort of) investigating Countrywide Mortgage's sweetheart loans to VIPs.

The Democrat in charge of the Committee, Edolphus Towns of New York (left), has himself received loans from Countrywide and has for months refused Republican requests to subpoena records in the case. Today, as Committee Republicans — led by Rep. Darrell Issa — were poised to force an open vote on the subpoenas at a Committee business meeting, the meeting was abruptly cancelled. Only Republicans showed up and Democratic chairs remained empty.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) During The Committee Meeting

Republicans voiced suspicion that Chairman Towns cancelled the meeting to avoid the subpoena vote. Democrats countered by saying the meeting was cancelled due to "disagreement among Democratic members (on) whether to subpoena records on the mortgage industries' political contributions to Republicans."

A Republican staffer captured video of Democrats leaving their own separate meeting during the time the Committee business meeting was supposed to be convened.

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A powerful House Democrat who has rebuffed attempts to subpoena records of troubled mortgage lender Countrywide Financial Corp. himself received two loans from the company, the Wall Street Journal reports Friday.

Information in documents for the mortgage of Rep. Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., head of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, suggest he may have received favorable loans via Countrywide's "VIP" program — the same program in which Democratic Sens. Christopher Dodd and Kent Conrad obtained loans, along with some Republican lawmakers, reports the Journal.

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The new visitor center at the U.S. Capitol opened in December 2008, hundreds of millions of dollars over budget and years late. Some congressmen, however, think it's not quite finished.

Congress earlier this month passed legislation requiring the words "In God We Trust" as well as the Pledge of Allegiance to be etched into the walls of the cavernous complex, which sits underneath the Capitol building and greets thousands of tourists each day.

The Los Angeles Times, however, reports that the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a Wisconsin-based association of atheists and agnostics, has filed a federal lawsuit to stop the engraving.

The group argues the engraving would be unconstitutional because it would "give actual and apparent government endorsement and advancement of religion," while excluding nonreligious Americans.

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The Senate passed a resolution Friday that denounces the "ongoing violence" and other crackdowns against anti-government protestors in Iran, the Associated Press reports.

The Senate's resolution follows a similar measure in the House. Both houses condemned the use of violence against protesters and the obstruction of telephones and other communication methods in Iran following the disputed elections.

The Iranian government has previously shut down cell phone communication during the elections. It has recently moved to block Internet communications, including social networking sites such as Twitter.

This is the strongest measure Congress has taken in addressing the situation in Iran. Some view the resolution as a criticism of President Obama, who has been somewhat cautious in discussing the Iranian government's behavior post-elections, citing fears of being seen as “meddling.”

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Former first lady Nancy Reagan, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Reagan-era policy makers unveiled a seven-foot bronze statue of former president Ronald Reagan in the Capitol Rotunda on Wednesday.

"The statue is a wonderful likeness of Ronnie and he would have been so proud," Reagan said while tearing up, according to the Associated Press.

Pelosi, also speaking at the ceremony, applauded her fellow Californian's good humor as well as his willingness to reach across the aisle.

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Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor will meet with senators on Capitol Hill Tuesday, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said at his briefing today.

Gibbs said Sotomayor had meetings planned with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Judiciary Committee Chair Patrick Leahy, and Jeff Sessions, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee.

He also said there were efforts to set up a meeting with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and that "other visits can be scheduled for that Tuesday and throughout the remainder of the week."

CBS News Capitol Hill producer Jill Jackson reports that the meeting with Reid is presently scheduled for around 10:15 a.m. ET.

Most journalists who cover Capitol Hill probably woke up this morning thinking of all the questions they could ask Speaker Nancy Pelosi about her claim last week that CIA misled her on the use of enhanced interrogation techniques in a September 2002 briefing. I did.

It's been over one week since reporters had a chance to question the speaker, but today reporters could finally find out if Pelosi regretted her wording, or if she'd received word from CIA Director Leon Panetta recently about declassifying the interrogation briefing memos so she could back up her accusations.

Instead, Pelosi turned her weekly press conference today into an opportunity to tout all that House Democrats have accomplished in the first 5 months of the 111th Congress. Flanked by members of House Democratic leadership, the speaker was eager to discuss energy and health care legislation, but shot down reporters who wanted to talk about anything related to torture.

When I asked her to comment on the political storm her accusation sparked last week, Pelosi said she stands by her comments and that she "won’t have anything more to say about it."

Many reporters were shouting questions to follow up, but she managed to find completely unrelated questions and successfully change the subject.

House Republicans have done everything this past week to keep the story in the headlines. They've said the speaker should apologize to the intelligence community and even offered a resolution on the House floor yesterday to create a bipartisan committee investigate Pelosi's claims.

Congress officially started the Memorial Day recess today and won't return until the first week of June. That means Republicans won't have as many opportunities to keep the 'what Pelosi knew and when she knew it' question alive.

As for the speaker, Pelosi is getting far away from Washington and all the questions by traveling to China to talk with leaders there about climate change. A subject the speaker is more than willing to discuss extensively these days.

Jill Jackson is CBS News’ Capitol Hill producer.

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It's been one week since the dramatic press conference when Speaker Nancy Pelosi told Capitol Hill reporters that the CIA misled her about interrogation methods in 2002. Pelosi has not answered questions from the press since.

Democrats may hope that the story will pass, but with appearances on the Sunday talk shows and a constant spamming of reporter's inboxes with press releases highlighting negative coverage of the speaker, Republicans aren't letting that happen.

House Republicans will offer a resolution on the floor this afternoon to investigate Pelosi's claims that the CIA lied. A senior Republican aide tells CBS News that "the speaker has had a full week now to either produce the evidence or retract and apologize, and she's done neither. There is no choice now. A bipartisan investigation is needed to get to the facts."

Once the resolution is offered, it will be read on the House floor. Democrats must then choose either to hold it over or vote to dispose of the resolution. Democrats have the numbers to kill it easily, but Republicans still win by keeping Pelosi's feet to the fire, and name in the headlines, for another day.

UPDATED at 12:35pm ET: The House voted to table the motion to investigate Pelosi's claims. Every Democrat voting and two Republicans stood by the speaker in the 252 to 172 vote.

Jill Jackson is a CBS News Capitol Hill producer.

Republicans in the House have already drawn up more than 400 amendments to try to stymie a massive climate change and energy bill currently under consideration, but it seems as if the Democrats may now be catching on to their tricks.

Democrats in the House Energy and Commerce Committee have hired a speed reader, the Wall Street Journal reported, in case Republicans request for the more than 900 page bill to be read aloud.

Invoking their procedural right to have the bill read aloud could advance the Republican's plan to stall a vote on the bill. Committee Chairman Henry Waxman wants the bill voted out of the committee before Congress breaks for its Memorial Day recess next week.

The speed reader could read one page of the bill every 34 seconds, according the Journal -- meaning it would still take around nine hours to read the entire thing.

The bill causing all the fuss -- the American Clean Energy and Security Act -- seeks to reduce greenhouse gas emissions via a renewable electricity standard and a "cap-and-trade" system, which would enable polluting industries to buy and trade permits that allow them to emit certain levels of carbon.

Democrats are getting support for the climate change measure from more than just a speed reader, though. Former vice president and environmental activist Al Gore has been personally lobbying Democratic members of the committee for their support of the legislation, Politico reports.

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A bill that would give District of Columbia voters their own representative in the House will be delayed on the House floor for at least a week while House Democrats decide what to do about a change in language in the Senate version of the bill.

The Senate provision added to the bill would repeal gun-control regulations for D.C. residents, which the National Rifle Association has been lobbying for.

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