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Senate approval of Obama's Cabinet won't be slam-dunk

WASHINGTON — President-Elect Barack Obama's Cabinet nominees march to Capitol Hill for Senate confirmation hearings where — minus a few bumps — they're expected to breeze through with little opposition and few surprises.

Or will they?

Recent history has shown that the confirmation process is an imperfect science in which even the most-qualified, most-well-known, most-vetted nominee can get tripped up and fail — sometimes even before a hearing's opening gavel strikes.

Senate Democrats muster all 60 votes one last time

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama called for more civility and bipartisanship at a prayer breakfast on Thursday, but Congress kept to its old ways with a party-line Senate vote on a long-stalled administration nominee and partisan barbs after another stalled nominee was overwhelmingly approved.

Speaking at the annual National Prayer Breakfast, Obama renewed the plea for common ground between the White House and congressional Democrats and Republicans that he made at a retreat of House Republicans last week.

"At times, it seems like we're unable to listen to one another; to have at once a serious and civil debate," Obama said. "It leaves each side little room to negotiate with the other. It makes politics an all-or nothing sport, where one side is either always right or always wrong, when, in reality, neither side has a monopoly on the truth."

Sen. Mel Martinez's exit will limit Florida's political clout

U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez's early retirement will leave the nation's fourth-largest state with a temp in a chamber that rewards seniority with power.

Martinez had planned to step down at the end of his term next year but said Aug. 7 that he'll leave office as soon as Gov. Charlie Crist appoints a replacement. Since Crist is running for the seat himself, he's expected to choose a stand-in entrusted to keep the seat warm until the November 2010 election.

In the meantime, key votes on healthcare reform, climate change and possibly immigration reform will be bearing down on Congress.

Democrats hoping to take control of health-care debate

WASHINGTON — Congress will return Tuesday from a hot August recess to a politically steamy September, when lawmakers will resume grappling with crafting a comprehensive health care bill as Democrats try to mend rifts within their ranks over its scope and cost.

After enduring a month of often-confrontational questions at town hall meetings in their districts and fearful of suffering loses in next year's midterm elections, Democrats in the House of Representatives and the Senate are hoping that returning to work will help them regain control of the health care debate.

"Having gone through the aborted 1994 health care campaign, I fully expected what happened to us in August happening," Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., said of the testy town hall sessions. "Now we have to go on the offensive."

Senate Democrats muster all 60 votes one last time

President Barack Obama called for more civility and bipartisanship at a prayer breakfast on Thursday, but Congress kept to its old ways with a party-line Senate vote on a long-stalled administration nominee and partisan barbs after another stalled nominee was overwhelmingly approved.

Speaking at the annual National Prayer Breakfast, Obama renewed the plea for common ground between the White House and congressional Democrats and Republicans that he made at a retreat of House Republicans last week.

"At times, it seems like we're unable to listen to one another; to have at once a serious and civil debate," Obama said. "It leaves each side little room to negotiate with the other. It makes politics an all-or-nothing sport, where one side is either always right or always wrong, when, in reality, neither side has a monopoly on the truth."