After several months of debating a supplemental spending bill which would fund U.S. military operations in Iraq through fiscal year 2007 (September of this year), it now appears as though the Democratic-led Congress and President Bush are nearing an agreement. Both Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) have agreed to pursue legislation which would provide funds for the war and omit any deadlines or recommendations for troop withdrawal.

Crossposted on Congresspedia

The campaigns of House Reps. Robert Brady (D-Pa.) and Chaka Fattah (D-Pa.) to become Philadelphia's next mayor ended yesterday when each was defeated in the city's Democratic primary election. Former City Councilman Michael Nutter won a decisive victory in the five-way race, collecting approximately 37% of the vote (watch acceptance speech).

While Congress has been busy dealing with issues such as the Iraq War, the U.S. attorney firings controversy, and the federal minimum wage this year, some members have had their attention diverted by legal problems. By our count, eleven members of Congress (and ten former members who departed with the 109th Congress) are currently the subject of an ongoing criminal investigation. Over the past few weeks, new details have emerged in several of these cases. Here's a quick rundown of the latest info (with the appropriate background):

Guest blogger: Congresspedia intern Joshua Lanzet

Along with the Iraq War, the broadening investigation into the Bush administration U.S. attorney firings controversy continues to dominate the headlines coming out of Congress.

A bill calling for the 2008 withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq is now one step closer to reaching President Bush's desk.

With the Iraq War now in its fifth year, both the House and Senate are (for the first time) poised to consider supplemental appropriations bills which would call on President Bush to remove U.S. combat troops from the country by 2008. In the House, a vote is expected soon on a $124 billion spending bill which includes a binding provision demanding withdraw by September 2008. Additionally, the bill would:

The nation's capital has been in an uproar this week over the U.S. attorney firings controversy. Both the House and Senate Judiciary Committees held hearings Tuesday on the matter, where six of eight former U.S. attorneys (all fired in late 2006) testified that they had been the target of complaints, telephone calls and threats from either a high-ranking Justice Department official or members of Congress in the days and weeks preceding their abrupt dismissals. The replacements for the attorneys are rumored to be political appointees with little prosecutorial experience.

The Sunlight Foundation has taken yet another big step in making government information more accessible to the public. This week, Sunlight launched OpenCongress, an exciting sister project of Congresspedia aimed at providing citizens with a user-friendly avenue to follow the nitty-gritty details of Congress. OpenCongress will track legislation, committees, member fundraising, and what the mainstream media and bloggers are saying about Congress. We believe the project is a great complement to our own project, as providing this wealth of data will help the citizen journalists on Congresspedia do more effective reporting. Together the narrative, citizen-generated content and the hard data combine to give the fullest picture of what Congress is up to.