Bob Edgar

Elected officials typically go out of their way to avoid alienating voters, particularly large and growing groups of voters. Most are deferential, some even pander.

But Florida Gov. Rick Scott has hit on a different approach to the Sunshine State's politically potent minority vote. Rather than wooing African-American and Hispanic...

If the U.S. Senate adopted rules allowing its female members to vote only on even-numbered days, or requiring male senators to stand on their heads when voting, constitutional law experts would rightfully race to the courthouse to file suits challenging it.

So why are some of those experts racing to...

I spent 12 of the most interesting years of my life in Congress and I grew to love the place. I was fortunate to work with people of good will and good ideas in both political parties; service was particularly satisfying when we were able to cross Washington's partisan divide...

Once upon a time, an American business that was part of a scheme to systematically and secretly lobby state legislators to win passage of laws tailored to fattening its profits at the expense of the public good would have been shunned by customers and marginalized in the marketplace.

Today,...

Did you know that some of the biggest, baddest names in American business have funnybones?

Walmart, ExxonMobil, Pfizer, even the Koch brothers -- plus hundreds of others, actually -- are cut-ups. Who'd have guessed?

But it's true. Last week, as tens thousands of Americans voiced our collective outrage at the...

I'm not a lawyer but I've spent the better part of my adult life working with and often admiring lawyers. There are some bad ones of course, but I've always been impressed by the devotion almost all lawyers share to the law and our system of justice.

So...

As Justice Clarence Thomas and his Supreme Court colleagues prepare for three days of hearings on a landmark health care reform law, it's time for the Internal Revenue Service to investigate the tax status of a nonprofit group Thomas' wife founded in 2009 to campaign against members of Congress who...

The true test of a man's character is what he does when no one is watching. -- Coach John Wooden

Few of us outside his home state of Montana had heard of federal Judge Richard Cebull until he spectacularly failed the legendary Coach Wooden's test this week.

I've spent much of my adult life working on behalf of laws that would attack and attempt to rein in the corrupting influence of corporate and other special interest spending on our elections and the work of government.

And like many, many others who've labored for those causes...

The election is still more than nine months away, but it's already clear that in the race for the White House, "we the people" are running far behind "we the one percent."

Financial reports filed and released late Tuesday by the Federal Election Commission indicate that America's next president...

The populist tone of President Obama's State of the Union speech was no surprise; since he went to Kansas last month to link his presidency to the "new nationalism" of Theodore Roosevelt, it has been clear that the president will seek reelection by casting himself as a champion of economic...

With an African-American in the White House, it's easy to forget -- particularly if you're under 40 -- that just a few decades ago our laws kept hundreds of thousands of citizens of color from even exercising their right to vote.

And stunningly, history is repeating itself. In...

"I should have known better," former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich told the federal judge who today sent him to prison for 14 years.

Indeed he should have. The prosecutors who called Gov. Blagojevich "incredibly manipulative" in his attempt to sell the Senate seat vacated by Barack...

His career has periodically mixed politics with academics, so it's no surprise that Newt Gingrich is now giving official Washington a lesson on the absurd weakness of our lobbying laws.

A report in Wednesday's editions of the New York Times details how the former House speaker has earned...

No one who has watched official Washington's march toward complete dysfunction can be surprised by Monday's announcement that the Congressional "Super Committee" is shutting down without agreeing on a plan to begin putting the nation's finances in order.

The 12-member panel was doomed from the start, stocked with...

Suppose you were party to a lawsuit and you learned that the judge handling your case was hobnobbing with lawyers on the other side and helping to raise money for a group dedicated to defeating you in court? You'd be pretty uneasy about your prospects for an impartial hearing, wouldn't...

By Aaron Dorfman and Bob Edgar.

This week, a few hundred people who lead foundations will gather in Scottsdale, Arizona., for the annual meeting of Philanthropy Roundtable, an organization that promotes independent giving to solve America's challenges while encouraging laws and regulations that make it easy for wealthy people to...

Citizens United, the hurt that keeps on hurting, has struck again.

Emboldened by the now-infamous Supreme Court decision and a dysfunctional Federal Election Commission, Democratic leaders in Washington, D.C. and Nebraska have joined forces with Sen. Ben Nelson to produce and air a series of television and radio...

Two years ago, when farmers and plumbers and nurses and small business owners started showing up at Congressional town hall meetings to rant about bank bailouts and Obamacare, a lot of folks dismissed it. "Tea Party nuts," they said, "sore losers from the last election."

But those "nuts" were onto...

As the Supreme Court begins hearing cases for its 2011-12 term this week, two of its members will cross the street for a different sort of hearing -- in a Senate office building -- that could rekindle a much-needed debate over the court's ethical standards and their enforcement.

Associate Justices...