In the News

The House Financial Services Committee continued to focus on workforce diversity.

That committee held a hearing entitled "Diversity in the Boardroom: Examining Proposals to Increase the Diversity of America's Boards."

This is the second hearing on diversity in this committee this session. The first in February was entitled "An Overview of Diversity Trends in the Financial Services Industry."

Later this month, the committee will hold another hearing on diversity entitled: "Diverse Asset Managers: Challenges, Solutions and Opportunities for Inclusion."

"Strong diversity in the boardroom is critical to continued US competitiveness," said committee chairwoman Maxine Waters, a Democrat from California. "Unfortunately, corporate and government boards are not living up to their responsibility to reflect America's diversity."

Hundreds of thousand of people descended upon downtown Houston on Saturday to celebrate annual Pride Festival and parade — a day to display acceptance of often marginalized groups.

The slogans displayed on posters and rainbow-themed attire reiterated those messages: "Love is love," one hat read. "This Isn't a Phase," read another.

The event, expected to draw some 700,00 people, was especially poignant this year, the 50th anniversary of the now-famous Stonewall Riots in New York City that were in many ways a catalyst for the modern gay rights movement.

But five decades later, there is still much progress to be made. Houston Congresswoman Sylvia Garcia said as much, telling the crowd: "We see you, we hear you and we love you."

Presidential contender Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) introduced legislation to block the Department of Housing and Urban Development from implementing a rule barring undocumented immigrants from subsidized housing.

"This proposed HUD rule is another example of the Trump administration's clear and relentless attacks against immigrant families across this country," Gillibrand said in a statement to POLITICO.

Last month, the Trump administration said it intends to recalculate how poverty is determined in America when estimating the size of the nation's population of poor people.

The change would better reflect how inflation affects peoples' lives and enable the Census Bureau to more accurately count how many families have incomes so low that they fall beneath official poverty measures, according to the White House Office of Management and Budget.

U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia, a first-term Democrat from Houston, believes that the rule, not yet completed, would have the damaging effect of reducing the number of low-income Americans eligible for government benefits.

WASHINGTON — The bill that permanently authorizes the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund passed out of the House Judiciary Committee unanimously on Wednesday.

The move comes a day after former "The Daily Show" host Jon Stewart shamed members of a Judiciary subcommittee, as only Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and four subcommittee members were present for testimony from 9/11 first responders.

They included Luis Alvarez, a retired NYPD detective who was about to begin his 69th round of chemotherapy for liver cancer. There are 14 members of the subcommittee.

WASHINGTON – ​Former "The Daily Show" host Jon Stewart shamed ​members of a House panel Tuesday when only five lawmakers were seated in the rostrum to hear survivors of the Sept. 11 terror attacks testify about the need to reauthorize the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund.

"As I sit here today, I can't help but think what an incredible metaphor this room is for the entire process that getting health care and benefits for 9/11 first responders has come to," Stewart began. "Behind me a filled room of 9/11 first responders and in front of me a nearly empty Congress."

Rep. Justin Amash broke ranks with fellow Republicans when he said special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's report shows that President Trump took actions that "meet the threshold for impeachment," arguing that the stark partisan divide over the findings was because "few members of Congress have read the report."

While it's common for politicians to draw very different conclusions from the same set of facts, the Michigan congressman's suggestion in several tweetstorms this past week is bolder — that most lawmakers simply ignored Mueller's report.