Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a non-partisan watchdog organization, announced today that it has asked the Department of Justice and the Senate to look into whether Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) violated federal bribery law when she earmarked $2 million for a reading program for D.C. public schools after receiving tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the executives of the company that designed the program. According to a release, Landrieu directed......

The Washington Post has a fantastic story on today's front page accusing Sen. Mary Landrieu (D.-La.), in her role as chairwoman of the Senate's D.C. appropriations subcommittee up until earlier this year, of forcing an unproven reading program on the District's kindergarten and first grade classrooms in exchange for $80,000 in donations from the company that designed it. It's a long story, but it's worth reading all the way through. On the surface, it tells......

Yesterday afternoon the Senate unanimously approved Mayor Adrian Fenty's school takeover legislation. The vote finally came after three separate holds were placed, and then quickly lifted, by Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), and at the very final hour, Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) placed the third Senate hold on the bill. Levin removed the hold after speaking with Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton. Now the bill only awaits approval from President Bush, who......

Well that was fast. After placing a second hold on legislation granting Mayor Adrian Fenty direct control over the District's public schools, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) this afternoon agreed to lift her hold and let the proposal move forward in the Senate. According to the Post, Landrieu did so after being assured that School Board President Robert Bobb (pictured right), who had asked for the hold, and Fenty had agreed to sit down and iron......

Two senators, two holds on District legislation -- sounds like business as usual up on Capitol Hill, doesn't it? The Post brings news that Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) became the second Democratic senator to put a hold on the legislation that would formalize Mayor Adrian Fenty's bid for increased control over the city's troubled public schools. Two weeks ago, Sen. Benjamin Cardin (D-Md.) used the same tactic to force the District to negotiate over the......