congress

January 4, 2017 - Republican Rep. Bob Goodlatte led an unsuccessful effort this week to roll back the powers of the Office of Congressional Ethics. The move came as the nation is about to have a GOP president with numerous potential conflicts of interest, but Goodlatte was also recently accused of his own financial conflicts regarding a natural gas pipeline planned for his state.

December 16, 2016 - Opponents of opening the Atlantic coast to oil and gas drilling are pressing President Obama to enact a permanent ban. We look at the legal framework for such an action, and how durable it would be under a Trump administration.

November 11, 2016 - Because of district lines drawn by Republicans, Democrats continue to be underrepresented in relation to their votes in Southern states' congressional delegations.

September 7, 2016 - Kelcy Warren chairs Energy Transfer Equity, the Dallas company behind the petro pipeline being fought by Indian tribes who say it's desecrating sacred land in North Dakota and putting water supplies at risk. Warren is a major contributor to Republican political causes, but will his influence help his project succeed?

August 25, 2016 - The North Carolina utility giant and other fossil-fuel interests are contributing to a national super PAC that's using divisive social issues like abortion and religion to boost the election chances of U.S. Senate candidates who reject the science of human-caused global warming.

August 12, 2016 - With recent court rulings finding that voter discrimination is a real and present danger, voting rights advocates are pressing the case for hearings on legislation to restore the preclearance provision of the Voting Rights Act.

July 29, 2016 - This week 69 state lawmakers from the Carolinas and Georgia, both Democrats and Republicans, sent a letter asking the Obama administration to block seismic testing permits for oil and gas deposits off the East Coast. They joined hundreds of other local communities, elected officials, business groups and scientists opposed to offshore exploration and drilling.

July 27, 2016 - This is the first time in 40 years the Democratic and Republican presidential nominating conventions will not receive public financing, the culmination of an long trend of growing private funding of the gatherings.

July 8, 2016 - Since the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013, states have made a slew of changes to election laws. A new report documents how these changes could impede Latino voters' access to the polls in a critical presidential election year.

June 17, 2016 - After the June 12 massacre at an Orlando nightclub, some politicians refused to even acknowledge the targets were LGBT people. Could it be because of their own animus toward LGBT people, which has found expression in a record number of anti-LGBT bills introduced in recent years?