Ornery first-term Republican senators and bomb-throwing conservative activist groups are locking horns again with the Republican establishment.

Vital Statistics on Congress, a joint research effort by the American Enterprise Institute and the Brookings Institution, tracks historical data about Congress and its members, including party polarization, election results, campaign finance spending, congressional committee and staffing, and legislative activity.

Much of the commentary on Washington lately has been about the contrast between the functional Senate and the hopeless House.

The immigration reform proposal wending its way through the Senate is tearing the Republican Party to pieces. Poor Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), once the golden boy of the tea parties and the conservative movement, is being treated like a guy who wants to leave a gang but must submit to a group beating first.

Over the last seven decades, 115 veterans of World War II have served in the United States Senate. This week the last of them, Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, died.

Reserve 501(c)(4) status for real social-welfare organizations, and require any group doing any electioneering to register as a political committee.

Senators are angry that tech giant Apple isn't paying its fair share. I'm not talking about taxes. This is about campaign contributions and lobbying fees.

Cantor has learned that the tea-party movement he helped foster won’t fall in line behind his efforts to push an alternative conservative agenda.

Congressional hearings held by members of one party to bash mercilessly an administration of the other party are nothing new.

Rude, entitled, arrogant and off- putting: That’s how the conventionally wise in Washington are characterizing Ted Cruz, the conservative new senator from Texas. It’s a better description of the critics themselves, who are inadvertently helping Cruz build his national fan base.