ABC News | Democrats have for months fired up supporters with the promise that control of the House of Representatives would finally allow them to seize copies of President Donald Trump's tax returns. They have argued the filings could produce a road map for investigations into Trump’s tangle of global businesses and provide a cure for anxiety caused by his refusal to share details about his wealth, debt, charitable giving, and potential conflicts of interests. At one point during the campaign, ... Read more

The Hill | A small, bipartisan group of House members on Tuesday introduced a bill that would allow federal workers affected by the partial government shutdown to withdraw funds from their retirement accounts without penalty. If passed, the bill would allow workers to draw down funds from retirement accounts without having to pay the usual 10 percent fee. “Families of federal employees should not become casualties of partisan politics in Washington,” said Rep. Pete Olson (R-Texas), one of the bi... Read more

Federal News Network | As furloughed and excepted federal employees working without pay are set to miss their first scheduled paycheck of 2019 this Friday, hundreds showed up on a cold and windy Thursday to demand an end to the partial government shutdown. The impact of the government shutdown, now closing in on 20-days long, is setting in for furloughed and excepted employees, some of whom traveled to Washington, D.C. to rally outside the AFL-CIO headquarters to make their frustrations known. “... Read more

New York Daily News | The government can’t reopen itself — but it can apparently accommodate deep-pocketed lobbyists. The Treasury Department reinstated an Internal Revenue Service program essential to the mortgage industry this week after the powerful lending block launched a lobbying effort amid an ongoing government shutdown set to become the longest in history. Even though 800,000 federal employees are going without paychecks due the shutdown induced by President Trump’s border wall obsessio... Read more

The Hill | Democratic Rep. Don Beyer (Va.) is throwing his support behind the progressive climate change vision known as the Green New Deal, and he thinks a carbon tax should be its driving policy. “A Green New Deal would use major infrastructure investments and policy changes to rapidly shift the U.S. economy towards clean energy solutions and away from greenhouse gas emissions in a way that grows employment in the green economy. This is an idea whose time has come, and I fully support it,” Bey... Read more

The Hill | Some House Democrats are endorsing the idea of President Trumpdeclaring a national emergency at the southern border to dissolve a partisan standoff about funding his border wall and end a weeks-long government shutdown. The supportive Democrats are quick to emphasize they don’t believe the president has the legal authority to declare such an emergency, predicting the maneuver would quickly lead to lawsuits that they themselves would support. But with both Trump and Democratic leaders ... Read more

Washington Post | Eight House Democrats who represent the capital region, home to the biggest concentration of federal workers, denounced the shutdown on Wednesday and slammed President Trump. During a news conference outside the Capitol, several members said their offices are being flooded with calls, emails and letters from constituents panicking about how they will pay their bills. Rep. Jennifer Wexton (Va.) said one furloughed worker told her they had to return Christmas presents they could ... Read more

Washington Post | While many federal workers go without pay and the government is partially shut down, hundreds of senior Trump political appointees are poised to receive annual raises of about $10,000 a year. The pay raises for cabinet secretaries, deputy secretaries, top administrators and even Vice President Mike Pence are scheduled to go into effect beginning Jan. 5 without legislation to stop them, according to documents issued by the Office of Personnel Management and experts in federal pa... Read more

Rolling Stone | The resolution passed by Democrats on Thursday would not only have re-opened the government, it would have renewed the pay freeze that would prevent the raises from taking effect. Randy Erwin, president of the National Federation of Federal Employees, told the Post that McConnell’s refusal to bring the resolution to a vote “certainly smells fishy, just as the federal workforce is being furloughed.” Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) told the paper that “it looks like Trump has protected his o... Read more

The Hill | Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) on Wednesday vowed to renew his push in the new Congress for legislation to track and prevent hate crimes. "A major challenge of our time is the rise of white nationalism, racism and hate. I reject hate groups, and recognize racism as a threat to our communities, and our democracy. I will back those words with action: a renewed push to pass the NO HATE Act in this session of Congress," Beyer wrote in a tweet. The pledge comes after Beyer in November called on th... Read more