President Joe Biden with first lady Jill Biden, speaking before signing into law the gun safety bill on June 25, 2022.
AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais
Two scholars of Congress and public opinion dissect the reasons gun control finally passed and was signed into law, after decades of inability to enact such legislation.
Smokestacks at the coal-fired Mountaineer power plant in New Haven, West Virginia.
Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
In a 6-3 ruling, the Supreme Court held that an Obama administration plan to regulate carbon emissions from power plants exceeded the power that Congress gave to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Former Vice President Mike Pence is seen presiding over the counting of the votes on Jan. 6, 2021, during a hearing of the House January 6 committee in Washington, D.C., on June 16, 2022.
Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)
The attempt by Donald Trump’s supporters to reverse the 2020 presidential election results shows the need to update the nation’s landmark law for counting presidential votes.
Members of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack listen during the fourth hearing on June 21, 2022, in Washington, D.C.
Mandel Ngan/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
Congress has pushed through its first gun control legislation in 30 years. Included in the legislation is a provision to expand a firearm ban to dating partners accused of domestic violence.
Two political conservatives, Greg Jacob, former counsel to Vice President Mike Pence, and Michael Luttig, a retired judge who was an adviser to Pence, testified to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack .
AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
Coverage of the House Jan. 6 hearings focuses on what went wrong that led up to Trump supporters’ laying siege to the US Capitol. A government scholar looks at what went right, both then and now.
Greg Jacob, who was counsel to former Vice President Mike Pence, and Michael Luttig, a retired federal judge, testified about the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Michael Reynolds/Pool Photo via AP
Today’s media landscape is a far cry from the days of Watergate. A media scholar looks at the challenge the Jan. 6 committee faces in getting the hearings to break through in the age of TikTok.
Ohio GOP Senate candidate J.D. Vance won his primary after Trump endorsed him.
AP Photo/Joe Maiorana
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol held its first hearing to present what it has learned during its almost year-long probe. Three scholars analyze the event.
Ade Osadolor-Hernandez of Students Demand Action speaks at a rally outside the U.S. Capitol in May 2022.
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
Robert Spitzer, State University of New York College at Cortland
Congress tends to be most likely to act after an assassination or assassination attempt of historic proportions or mass shootings. But sometimes lawmakers do nothing beyond debate new measures.
Nine of the 48 candidates for Alaska’s lone seat in the U.S. House of Representatives participate in a debate on May 12, 2022, at the Dena'ina Civic and Convention Center in Anchorage.
Loren Holmes / ADN
The number of candidates running in party primaries has ballooned since 2010. That may result in extreme, inexperienced or controversial nominees who do not represent a majority of voters.
Chairman of the Senate Watergate Committee Sam Ervin sits with Chief Counsel Sam Dash, Sen. Howard Baker, staffer Rufus Edmiston and others as they listen to a witness during the Watergate hearings.
Wally McNamee/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images
The public hearings of the House Jan. 6 investigative committee will deal with unprecedented events in American history, but the very investigation of these events has strong precedent.
Mississippi state legislators review an option for redrawing the state’s voting districts at the state Capitol in Jackson on March 29, 2022.
AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis
A ruling by the US Supreme Court to allow unlawful maps to be used in the midterm elections will affect who gets elected to the House of Representatives and may determine control of Congress.
Abortion rights activists demonstrate outside Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s home in Maryland on May 18, 2022.
Bonnie Cash/Getty Images
Americans have long said they generally support abortion rights, but understanding specific breakdowns of opinion across demographics, and the history of abortion beliefs, is also important.
The front page of the local newspaper in Uvalde, Texas, on May 26, 2022.
Allison Dinner/AFP via Getty Images)
The nature of elected office combines with the lasting priorities of public opinion to put gun control on the back burner, even in times when it does get massive public attention.
A girl cries outside the Willie de Leon Civic Center in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24, 2022.
Allison Dinner/AFP via Getty Images
After mass shootings, politicians in Washington have failed to pass new gun control legislation, despite public pressure. But laws are being passed at the state level, largely to loosen restrictions.
Friends and families gather outside the civic center after the mass school shooting on May 24, 2022, in Uvalde, Texas.
Allison Dinner/AFP via Getty Images
A school shooting in a small Texas town was almost as deadly as the worst such event in US history. Such shootings have increased in frequency over the last few years.
Will House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy attempt to defy subpoena?
Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Framers of the Constitution put in a clause giving lawmakers immunity from liability for any ‘speech or debate.’ Interpreting it may be key in the battle to get some Republicans to testify.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer speaks to reporters ahead of a vote on abortion rights.
AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
President Joe Biden has urged lawmakers to act over abortion rights following the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. But is there a route to legislation?