Stories

Instead of asking conservatives to call home-state senators with pleas for votes against health care reform, the Republican National Committee is asking its membership to contact the offices of two Democratic senators deemed “critically important” to squashing any up-or-down vote on the reform bill.

The Register’s Kathie Obradovich reports that U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin will not make it to the Iowa Democratic Party’s Jefferson-Jackson dinner in person tomorrow night because he’ll be busy trying to pass health care reform in Washington, D.C. In his absence, the party will play a video greeting from him during the event.
Perhaps more notably, [...]

Not only is U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin confident that the Senate Democratic Caucus will be able to block filibuster attempts on a health care reform bill, but he is looking forward to the jockeying that will come from both political parties once the bill is signed.

Harkin said he “can only hope” that Republicans who have opposed reform efforts will make the legislation a theme in their speeches on the campaign trail.

“I hope it is an issue next year,” he said.

Now that Democratic leaders in the Senate have unveiled their health care reform plan, Democrats have “rounded third [base] and we’re heading to home,” U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Cumming, said Wednesday night.
During an interview with MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, Harkin said no one in the Democratic caucus wants to be the person who derails health [...]

Critics of the massive immigration raid in Postville and the subsequent judicial fast-tracking of detained immigrants on criminal charges have been widely expressing their concerns about Stephanie Rose, the U.S. Attorney nominee for the Northern District of Iowa who took part in the legal proceedings. While U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin has already labeled such criticism [...]

Not only will the Senate be working weekends through December on health care reform legislation, but it could also spend the upcoming weekend in session, Sen. Tom Harkin told D.C.-based newspaper The Hill.

The push is on to dilute the climate change bills moving through Congress, and it’s not coming only from conservatives. Mother Jones’ Kate Sheppard reports today that 14 Senate Democrats, including U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, are urging their leadership to amend the proposal to grant more free polluting permits to the coal-burning utilities that emit [...]

U.S. Sens. Chuck Grassley and Tom Harkin bridged the great political divide today to issue similar statements praising and honoring America’s veterans.

Though it’s been little mentioned throughout the health reform debate, there’s a showdown brewing between House and Senate Democrats over the future of the popular Children’s Health Insurance Program, previously known as SCHIP.
House lawmakers have proposed to do away with the program at the end of 2013, transitioning millions of kids instead to private plans [...]

A last-minute amendment to the health care reform bill that passed the U.S. House on Saturday is disruptive to the current ban on federal funding for abortion services and could lead down a slippery slope that prevents women from accessing services with their own money as well, U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin said Tuesday.