Politics

The Week In Review

By Sunlight Foundation & Participatory Politics Foundation

After a week of debate and weeks of worrying, the Senate passed the unemployment benefits extension bill (H.R.4851) last night, which has since been passed again by the House and signed into law by President Obama. Unemployment insurance benefits, COBRA health insurance coverage, funding authorization for flood insurance and more were temporarily extend until June 2, when we’ll have to go through all this again. Benefits were also retroactively extended to when they expired in March. Like Seongress, we’ve also been fairly busy at OpenCongress. Here’s what we’ve been up to this week:

• Harry Reid: Filibuster Killer.
• Relive the long and exciting saga of the unemployment benefits debate from this week.
• Glossed over by many is the provision in the unemployment benefits extension bill dealing with federal flood insurance.
• Democrats are now gearing up for next week’s fight over financial regulation.
• The wording of the Affordable Care Act is creating confusion over when members of Congress must drop their current federal insurance plans.
• And if you’re interested, be sure to apply to intern at OpenCongress. It’s an amazing opportunity that you definitely won’t regret.

Thanks again for the great participation on the site this week and for all your great comments. Remember to become a fan of OpenCongress on Facebook and to follow us on Twitter at @OpenCongress and on Google Buzz.

Full post as published by Open Congress on April 17, 2010 (boomark / email).