In the News

The House voted on Thursday to approve a pair of measures intended to rein in President Donald Trump's ability to take military action against Iran, the latest effort by Democrats to reassert congressional authority amid simmering tensions with the country in the wake of a US strike that killed a top Iranian general.

The assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani put the United States dangerously close to all-out war with Iran. The U.S. and Iran avoided this outcome, for now, due in part to anti-war activism within the United States — like the religious leaders who called on Americans to pray for peace.

House members introduced bipartisan legislation on Thursday to improve the procurement process for federally funded construction projects.

A new legislative proposal, crafted amid a brutal housing crisis in the Bay Area and beyond, would help ward off sales and replacements of mobile home parks that are being eyed as redevelopment sites.

Congressional Democrats filed a bill on Tuesday to study the safety of sex workers — an attempt to figure out if Congress's own crackdown on sex trafficking websites has caused dangerous ramifications.

"As lawmakers, we are responsible for examining unintended consequences of all legislation," Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a sponsor of the bill, said in a statement on Tuesday.

To combat the ills of the internet, federal lawmakers have increasingly focused on a decades-old law that shields tech companies like Facebook and YouTube from liability for content posted by their users.

Congress rarely passes major legislation with a bipartisan vote, but last year both parties agreed that sex work should no longer be promoted online. Experts and sex workers themselves warned that punishing sites that host prostitution ads would force the industry into dangerous shadows, but Congress ignored them.

When Congress passed sweeping legislation aimed at curbing sex trafficking in 2018, one group was largely excluded from the debate: sex workers themselves.