Lamar Alexander

Obama: Senate gun vote marks 'shameful day in Washington'

WASHINGTON -- President Obama declared it a “shameful day for Washington” on Wednesday after the Senate defeated an effort to expand background checks for people trying to purchase guns. Standing in the White House's Rose Garden with...

Tags: Personal Weapon Control, Barack Obama, Politics, Crime, Law and Justice, U.S. Senate

Labor secretary nominee unscathed after hearing

WASHINGTON — President Obama's pick for Labor secretary, Thomas E. Perez, emerged unscathed Thursday from a Senate confirmation hearing that was more perfunctory than contentious. Conservatives have been critical of Perez, the administration's top...

Tags: Barack Obama, Laws, Dominican Republic, Politics, Thomas Edward Perez

Labor nominee Perez faces sharp questions from GOP senators

Thomas E. Perez, the former Maryland labor secretary nominated to lead the U.S. Department of Labor, faced pointed questions at his Senate confirmation hearing Thursday about whether politics influenced his decisions as the top civil rights attorney in...

Tags: Republican Party, Laws, Politics, The New York Times, Montgomery County (Maryland)

Rubio has dinner at the White House

Obama and GOP senators discuss issues over dinner

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama hosted Republican senators at the White House Wednesday evening, with dinner conversation including the deficit, gun control and immigration. A White House official characterized their discussion over steak...

Tags: Republican Party, Personal Weapon Control, Barack Obama, Politics, Mike Crapo

Rubio dines with political adversary Obama

  U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, one of President Obama’s most persistent critics, joined him for dinner at the White House on Wednesday night to talk immigration, the budget and a wide range of other topics.  Not big breakthroughs emerged from the...

Tags: Republican Party, Personal Weapon Control, Barack Obama, Politics, Mike Crapo

Obama courts GOP senators, Part II

WASHINGTON – President Obama is proving to be a popular dinner host. Republican senators who dined Wednesday at the White House, the second time Obama has extended an invitation to his sometime adversaries, offered mostly positive reviews,...

Tags: Republican Party, Barack Obama, Politics, Budgets and Budgeting, Mike Crapo

Senate OKs Sally Jewell as new Interior secretary

WASHINGTON - The Senate approved REI Chief Executive Sally Jewell Wednesday as the new secretary of the Interior by a vote of 87 to 11.   Jewell, 58, had faced tough questioning by some Senate Republicans during her confirmation hearing in early March....

Tags: Politics, Upstream Oil and Gas Activities, Petroleum Industry, Ron Wyden, Ken Salazar

Obama nominates top civil rights lawyer to lead Labor Department

WASHINGTON -- President Obama has nominated civil rights lawyer Thomas E. Perez to lead the Department of Labor, calling the former state labor official a defender of middle class workers and a consensus builder. Announcing his choice in the East Room on...

Tags: Media Industry, Barack Obama, Laws, Politics, Immigration

Hagel nomination for Defense secretary hits more roadblocks

WASHINGTON – Efforts to confirm Chuck Hagel as the nation’s new secretary of Defense hit another roadblock Thursday, with Senate leaders saying a vote to move forward with his nomination could be delayed in the face of a “full-scale...

Tags: Republican Party, Leon Panetta, Politics, Hillary Clinton, Wars and Interventions

The challenging math of passing immigration reform

WASHINGTON – Senators from both parties are expressing enthusiasm for pushing a comprehensive overhaul of the nation’s immigration system. But while immigration politics appears to have changed in the wake of sweeping Republican rejection...

Tags: John Cornyn, Politics, George W. Bush, David Vitter, John Kerry

Quotes on Inauguration Day

Tags: Barack Obama, Politics, Mitt Romney, Hartford (Hartford, Connecticut), Civil Rights