Frank James

The Senate was due on Tuesday to take up legislation embodying the bipartisan compromise reached by two senators, West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin and Pennsylvania Republican Pat Toomey.

The effort to extend background checks to weapons purchases at gun shows and online received a boost over the weekend when an ...

So who exactly comprises Progress Kentucky, the superPAC linked to the surreptitious recording of a meeting at Sen. Mitch McConnell's campaign headquarters? In the recording, an aide is heard disparaging actress Ashley Judd, who was then considering a Senate run to challenge the Senate's top Republican.

...

The heat wasn't just due to the unseasonable 90-degree temperatures. There was political heat in the form of thousands rallying for an overhaul of the nation's immigration laws. And h...

The release of President Obama's proposed fiscal 2014 federal budget on Wednesday morning may seem a little anticlimactic. After all, we learned last week about its big news, the president's controversial idea of reducing Social Security payments to help reduce the deficit.

But even a budget that's going nowhere gives ...

On Election Day 2012, black voters waited on average nearly twice as long to vote as did white voters, while the wait time for Hispanic voters fell in between those two groups.

So say the available data, according to Massachusetts Institute of Technology political scientist Charles Stewart III. He ...

Few things indicate a president no longer needs to worry about re-election more than his willingness to ignite an intraparty firestorm.

President Obama's decision to include in the budget proposal he's scheduled to unveil Wednesday a less generous way to calculate Social Security cost-of-living increases may ...

Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, considered among the most vulnerable of the Senate's red-state Democrats facing 2014 re-election, now has at least one potential Republican opponent, Rep. Bill Cassidy, whose congressional district includes Baton Rouge.

Cassidy, who first won his House seat in 2008, on Wednesday announced his ...

The federal criminal complaint against New York politicians arrested after an FBI sting was a reminder of how often real-life political scandals can read like the imaginings of Hollywood screenwriters. (Think $90,000 in cash in a congressman's freezer.)

Tuesday's allegations from the ...

It's still far too early to know whether Congress will actually be able to achieve a comprehensive overhaul to the nation's immigration laws. All that's certain at this stage is that lawmakers on both sides of the partisan divide, and in both chambers, continue to act as though they think ...

NPR is covering the historic oral arguments before the Supreme Court in a number of ways, including on Twitter.

You can follow our Twitter coverage at @nprpolitics.

We've also compiled a collection of NPR same-sex marriage stories, including news, features, a timeline, ...

Anyone looking for a glimmer of bipartisanship in Washington might want to pay attention to the medical device tax that is part of Obamacare. It took a notable, if largely symbolic, hit this week from the left and the right.

The 2.3-percent excise tax on devices ranging from MRI machines ...

Sen. Rob Portman, an Ohio conservative Republican who recently said he now supports same-sex marriage because he has a gay son, evidently has plenty of company.

A new poll from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press suggests that many Americans have changed their minds ...

Vice President Joe Biden told All Things Considered co-host Melissa Block in an interview Wednesday that he and the Obama administration plan to continue to fight for a ban on assault weapons to be included in a larger bill in Congress.

That despite signs that such a ban doesn't have ...

One of the most interesting observations we've seen regarding the Republican National Committee's latest effort to win the hearts and minds of minorities, women and young voters was to be found on a blog that promotes a political science textbook written by professors Joseph ...

Updated at 3:40 p.m. ET

If Republicans hope to recapture the White House in the foreseeable future, they basically need to sound and campaign more like Democrats.

The report does not literally advise Republicans to mirror their opposition, but that's one way of looking at a Republican National ...

It was one of the most anticipated moments at this year's large gathering of conservative activists.

What would Mitt Romney say in his first major speech since he lost the presidential election and, even more importantly, how would the crowd treat him?

After all, many of the Republicans attending the ...

The next Republican presidential primary is so far off that some of those attending the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday could be spotted wearing stickers for two potential candidates: Rand Paul and Marco Rubio.

It's just too early to choose.

Mike Demkiw, a Syracuse University political science major and ...

Which way the Republican Party?

In the hope of getting answers to that and other questions, many activists, party big wigs and political journalists have descended on a hotel in a Washington suburb to attend the Conservative Political Action Conference, which started Thursday.

This annual CPAC gathering is the first ...

Like the famous cherry blossoms forecast to bloom in a few weeks, this time of year is also marked by the arrival of competing, partisan federal budget proposals that political foes immediately declare dead-on-arrival, though not so dead that they can't be used as campaign fodder.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) ...

Anyone still looking for Dr. Ben Carson to apologize for criticizing President Obama's policies to his face at the recent National Prayer Breakfast, won't hear one in his conversation with host Michel Martin's of NPR's Tell Me More.

Carson, the famous Johns Hopkins pediatric neurosurgeon, made a large splash ...