Benjamin Weiss Journalist Profile

Articles

Supreme Court melts down opposition to Texas nuclear waste storage site

1 week ago | courthousenews.com | Benjamin Weiss |Kelsey Reichmann

WASHINGTON (CN) — The Supreme Court upheld a private-sector solution to nuclear waste storage on Wednesday, ruling that the state of Texas and a minerals holding company were not entitled to sue over an independent regulatory board’s move to license such a facility in the Lone Star State.
4 years after Capitol riot, Congress certifies Trump reelection in quiet affair

Jan 7, 2025 | tucsonsentinel.com | Benjamin Weiss |Kelsey Reichmann

Courthouse News Service It was eerily silent on a snow-capped Capitol Hill Monday morning as lawmakers convened to certify President-elect Donald Trump’s victory in November.
Johnson clinches House speakership after nail-biting ballot

Jan 3, 2025 | tucsonsentinel.com | Benjamin Weiss

Courthouse News Service House Speaker Mike Johnson narrowly survived a drawn-out leadership battle on the House floor Friday afternoon, as he secured enough Republican support to remain the lower chamber’s top lawmaker. It was a close call for Johnson, though.
Trump endorses Johnson as speaker amid doubts over U.S. House leadership

Dec 31, 2024 | tucsonsentinel.com | Benjamin Weiss

Courthouse News Service President-elect Donald Trump on Monday rejected calls within his own party to replace House Speaker Mike Johnson and urged Republicans not to squander their governing trifecta in Congress with partisan infighting.
House Ethics Cmte finds ‘substantial’ evidence Matt Gaetz had sex with minor, used illicit drugs

Dec 23, 2024 | tucsonsentinel.com | Benjamin Weiss

Courthouse News Service A yearslong investigation into former Florida Representative Matt Gaetz uncovered “substantial evidence” to corroborate allegations that the Republican lawmaker had sex with a minor, used illicit drugs and paid women for sex, according to a House Ethics Committee report.
Senate committee SCOTUS ethics report highlights key findings — but few results

Dec 23, 2024 | tucsonsentinel.com | Benjamin Weiss

Courthouse News Service Senate Democrats on Saturday published a new report rolling up more than a year of investigation into the Supreme Court, detailing what lawmakers said were a “consistent stream of ethical lapses” by the justices and the repeated failure of court leadership to address them. But despite the report’s findings — and the 20 months of congressional probing which contributed to them — Democrats are set to give up their majority in the upper chamber without passing any major...
Congress sidesteps shutdown with 11-hour budget patch

Dec 21, 2024 | tucsonsentinel.com | Benjamin Weiss

Courthouse News Service Congress survived yet another fiscal near miss Friday night, as lawmakers in both chambers agreed to advance a stopgap budget that extends funding for federal programs through the spring and averted a government shutdown just days before the Christmas holiday.
Government shutdown still on the table as House stalls on budget patch

Dec 20, 2024 | tucsonsentinel.com | Benjamin Weiss

Courthouse News Service A costly government shutdown appeared closer than ever Thursday as the House failed to advance a Republican-led stopgap budget bill that Democrats — and even some in the GOP — said was a political nonstarter.
Speaker Johnson defends short-term spending patch as clock ticks toward shutdown

Dec 18, 2024 | tucsonsentinel.com | Benjamin Weiss

Courthouse News Service With just days to go until a federal funding deadline, House Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday rebuked criticism from some of his Republican colleagues that a forthcoming short-term budget patch was a “Christmas tree” of unnecessary government spending.
As GOP lawmakers single out new trans member of Congress, Speaker Johnson offers tepid response

Nov 20, 2024 | tucsonsentinel.com | Benjamin Weiss

Courthouse News Service House Speaker Mike Johnson did little to temper rhetoric coming from Republican lawmakers on Tuesday as he addressed a GOP resolution aimed at keeping an incoming Democrat — the legislature’s first openly trans member — from using a restroom conforming to her identity.