House Democratic Priorities

Credit Companies Luring Customers To Debt?
Trish Regan reports that consumer credit card debt averages $7,000 per household, and credit laws aren't helping.

House Dems revamp panel name to highlight tech focus
The upbeat new Democratic majority in the U.S. House of Representatives may be focusing more on minimum wage and prescription drug plans during its first one hundred hours at ...

The Democratic Agenda
House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers is calling for an "aggressive" investigation into Bush's use of signing statements -- and yesterday "vowed to find out whether the administration has followed each law it challenged,” the Boston Globe says.

Riptide of Investigations
For the first time since the McCarthy hearings, staffers have the blanket right to depose witnesses behind closed doors. How will Waxman use this power?

Democrats Push Pro-Labor Measure
Organized labor and business leaders face their first major clash in a Democratic-held Congress over a bill that would make it easier for workers to form labor unions. Two Democrats, Rep. George Miller, Calif., and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Mass., plan to reintroduce the Employee Free Choice Act on Tuesday.

Frank Offers 'Grand Bargain'
ABC News' Teddy Davis Reports: One day before assuming the chairmanship of the House Financial Services Committee, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) called for a "grand bargain" between business and workers in a speech to the National Press Club.

The newly empowered Massachusetts lawmaker said that he will urge businesses to accept a single-payer health-care system, higher wages at home, labor and environmental standards abroad, limitations on executive pay, and a law to simplify union organizing in exchange for pro-business policies on trade, immigration, and foreign direct investment.

In a reference to the dictum that a "rising tide lifts all boats," Frank said, "The 'rising tide' is a good idea if you have a boat. But if you are standing on your tiptoes and the tide rises, it's in your nose."

Frank Dismisses 'Radical Homosexual Agenda' Charge
ABC News' Teddy Davis Reports: An openly gay Democratic member of Congress addressed allegations today that he and incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) will use the Democrats’ newfound House majority to impose a "radical homosexual agenda" on the country.

"I'm still looking for a way to satisfy that demand," quipped Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) in reference to a 2006 radio ad by recently defeated Rep. John Hostettler (R-Ind.) which warned that a vote for his Democratic opponent would allow San Francisco's Pelosi to "put in motion her radical plan to advance the homosexual agenda, led by Barney Frank."

Frank, who was reprimanded by the House in 1990 for a relationship with a male prostitute, said today that the only items on his gay-rights agenda are laws that would make it possible for gays and lesbians to join the military, get married, and hold down a job.

"It's not the stuff of radicals," said Frank prior to laying out his economic priorities as the incoming chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.

Meehan Seeks To Overturn 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'
Rep. Marty Meehan, D-Mass., is planning to introduce a bill soon to repeal the Pentagon's controversial "don't ask, don't tell" policy.


One of the first orders of business on the House International [Relations] Committee may be to investigate whether federal money being allocated for faith based initiatives is in fact being "used to reward Bush's Christian conservative supporters and whether the faith-based groups are using the funds to help gain converts" (Boston Globe, via First Read).