At least 34 members of Congress “took steps to recast their financial portfolios during the financial crisis” after phone calls or meetings with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson; his successor, Timothy Geithner; or Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, the Washington Post reports.

“The lawmakers, many of whom held leadership positions and committee chairmanships in the House and Senate, changed portions of their portfolios a total of 166 times within two business days of speaking or meeting with the administration officials. The party affiliation of the lawmakers was about evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, 19 to 15.”

“One-hundred-thirty members of Congress or their families have traded stocks collectively worth hundreds of millions of dollars in companies lobbying on bills that came before their committees, a practice that is permitted under current ethics rules,” a Washington Post analysis has found.

“Almost one in every eight trades — 5,531 — intersected with legislation. The 130 lawmakers traded stocks or bonds in companies as bills passed through their committees or while Congress was still considering the legislation. The party affiliation of the lawmakers was almost evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, 68 to 62.”

Bloomberg Businessweek invited four retiring members of Congress, including Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY), to speak candidly about what being a member of a highly partisan Congress is really like.

Said Ackerman: “Society has changed. The public is to blame as well. I think the people have gotten dumber. I don’t know that I would’ve said that out loud pre-my announcement that I was going to be leaving. [Laughter] But I think that’s true.”

A new Sunlight Foundation analysis finds the U.S. Congress speaks at nearly a full grade level lower than it did seven years ago.

“Today’s Congress speaks at about a 10.6 grade level, down from a high of 11.5 in 2005. By comparison, the U.S. Constitution is written at a 17.8 grade level, the Federalist Papers at a 17.1 grade level and the Declaration of Independence at a 15.1 grade level. The Flesch-Kincaid test was used to conduct the analysis, which equates higher-grade levels with longer words and longer sentences.”

Also interesting: “Prior to 2005, Republicans on average spoke at a slightly higher grade
level than Democrats. Since then, Democrats have spoken on average at a
slightly higher grade level than Republicans.”

“The president is getting…some bad advice. Somebody needed to help him out, so I thought I would.

— House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), in an interview on CNN, explaining his “amped-up rhetoric” toward President Obama in recent days.

Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein: “We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional. In our past writings, we have criticized both parties when we believed it was warranted. Today, however, we have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the Republican Party.”

“The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.”

“When one party moves this far from the mainstream, it makes it nearly impossible for the political system to deal constructively with the country’s challenges.”

At a debate last weekend, Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) equated federal student loan programs with stage three cancer.

Said Aikin: “America has got the equivalent of the stage three cancer of socialism because the federal government is tampering in all kinds of stuff it has no business tampering in. So first, to answer your question precisely, what the Democrats did to the private student loans and take it all over by the government was wrong, it was a lousy bill, and that’s why I voted no. The government needs to get its nose out of the education business.”

[Read more…]

Another tidbit from Do Not Ask What Good We Do by Robert Draper, courtesy of the Huffington Post:

“As President Barack Obama was celebrating his inauguration at various balls, top Republican lawmakers and strategists were conjuring up ways to submarine his presidency at a private dinner in Washington, D.C… For several hours in the Caucus Room (a high-end D.C. establishment), the book says they plotted out ways to not just win back political power, but to also put the brakes on Obama’s legislative platform.”

“The dinner lasted nearly four hours. They parted company almost giddily.”

Jon Karl reviews Do Not Ask What Good We Do by Robert Draper.

“Mr. Draper embedded himself in the House in 2011, getting to know the key players — newcomers and old-timers alike. In his group portrait, he doesn’t make any sweeping judgments about who is to blame for the failure of this Congress to address the country’s long-term problems. But his refreshingly balanced account captures the drama of one of Congress’s most combative and maddeningly frustrating years in memory.”

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) was asked about whether there is anti-Semitism in the House GOP caucus — the “darker side,” Cantor called it — and his silence when pressed is deafening.

[Read more…]

Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) said that he’s settled his child-support dispute with his ex-wife and cleared up “mistakes in private,” the Chicago Sun Times reports.

“The issue was embarrassing for Walsh, who’s campaigned on fiscal responsibility and blasted President Barack Obama on his financial stewardship of the nation.”

Gallup: “Americans still hold Congress in low regard, but its 17% job approval rating is the highest since last July. Congress’ approval had dipped to a record-low 10% in February.”

Two months after stepping down from Congress, former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) “appears to be holding on to much of the nearly $1 million left in her campaign account, in order to leave the door open for a potential run for the House or the Senate in the next campaign cycle,” the New York Times reports.

“Ms. Giffords is still going through intensive rehabilitation in Houston, and her supporters say they are careful not to set expectations too high. Still, they openly speak of the possibility of her running for the Senate seat now held by John McCain or perhaps running for the House again.”

Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL) spoke on the House floor wearing a hooded sweatshirt — to protest the killing of Florida teen Trayvon Martin — and the presiding Republican ordered him removed from the chamber, reminding members they are not allowed to wear hats.

Said Rush: “Racial profiling has to stop. Just because someone wears a hoodie does not make them a hoodlum.”

[Read more…]

“We got 435 members. It’s just a slice of America, it really is. We got
some of the smartest people in the country who serve here, and some of
the dumbest. We got some of the best people you’d ever meet, and some of
the raunchiest. We’ve got ’em all.”

— House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), in an interview with Peggy Noonan, on his House colleagues.

The latest National Journal congressional voting ratings finds polarization “remains endemic. Lawmakers march in lockstep with their party. Heretics are purged.”

“For the second year in a row but only the third time in the 30 years that National Journal has published these ratings, no Senate Democrat compiled a voting record to the right of any Senate Republican, and no Republican came down on the left of any Senate Democrat. (The first time this happened was 1999.)”

“The 435 members of the House are as polarized as their Senate colleagues. Only six Republicans — Chris Smith of New Jersey, Tim Johnson of Illinois, Justin Amash of Michigan, Ron Paul of Texas, Steven LaTourette of Ohio, and Walter Jones of North Carolina — compiled a slightly more “liberal” voting record than the most conservative Democrat, Rep. Dan Boren of Oklahoma.”

“You know but other than me going over there with a gun and holding it to their head and maybe killing a couple of them, I don’t think they’re going to listen unless they get beat.”

— Rep. John Sullivan (R-OK), quoted by TPM, telling constituents that he’d have to personally shoot members of the U.S. Senate to get a budget passed through the chamber.

The Hill
provides a behind-the-scenes look at how House Majority Leader Eric
Cantor (R-VA) successfully navigated the STOCK Act, the bill that would
apply insider trading laws to members of Congress, through the House
with bipartisan support.

“Cantor…wanted to study, expand and build
support for an insider-trading bill that would garner support from a
large majority of House GOP legislators. In doing so, the majority
leader read Throw Them All Out, the book by Peter Schweizer that served
as the basis for the ’60 Minutes’ report… As the House deliberated,
the Democrat-led Senate pounced. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid
(D-Nev.) bypassed committee action and quickly passed the chamber’s
version of the STOCK Act. “

“Cantor, who is not shy in mixing it
up with Democrats, refrained from responding to the attacks and worked
to win over skeptical House Republicans. From late December until its
passage in February, Cantor met with scores of members, talked with the
counsels on six of the committees with jurisdiction and briefed the
conservative Republican Study Committee (RSC) and the entire House GOP
conference… In an unanticipated twist as the measure neared
consideration on the House floor, Cantor praised Walz and Slaughter in a
press release. He also called Walz for help to pass the insider-trading
bill.”