Legislative Hearings

U.S. Rep. Hilda L. Solis, President Obama's choice for Labor secretary, faced new obstacles after lawmakers who were expected to vote on her confirmation Thursday abruptly canceled the hearing amid reports of back taxes owed by her husband. Solis, a Democrat from El Monte, is at least the fourth Obama nominee whose confirmation has been complicated by tax troubles.

A woman held a BlackBerry over the crowd surrounding Linda Ronstadt to get a shot of the onetime queen of country rock. Someone else thrust an album insert and pen at Josh Groban. "Just one more photo, please," followed jazz musician Wynton Marsalis out of the room. The three musicians were among a group who appeared Tuesday on Capitol Hill to speak in favor of increasing funding for the National Endowment for the Arts to $200 million in the 2010 budget.

The state Senate will hold hearings later this month to determine if legislators need to change a California law governing the use of student test scores in order to qualify for competitive federal education reform dollars. At issue is a 2006 law that bars the state from using student test score data for measuring teacher performance.

Current and former chief executives of three major U.S. financial institutions hit by sub-prime mortgage fallout were asked Monday by a congressional committee to testify at a hearing next month on their pay and severance packages. A House panel invited Countrywide Financial Corp. CEO Angelo Mozilo, former Citigroup Inc. chief Charles Prince and Stanley O'Neal, former head of Merrill Lynch & Co., to appear Feb. 7.

On the eve of testifying before Congress about baseball's steroid era and subsequent reforms, Commissioner Bud Selig said Monday he would not pledge to outsource baseball's drug-testing program to the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency or any other third party. "I'm satisfied with the way it is now," Selig said. Selig said he remains committed to implementing all the reforms recommended in last month's report by former Sen.

At first look, all is good in our world of sports. Super Sunday was pretty much that. It was a shockingly competitive game that canonized another Manning brother, correctly so, and saved us from Boston winning everything in pro sports this season, after all. Beware of omens, Celtics. The Lakers have a new player and new hope. The Clippers have internal turmoil and we're used to that. College basketball is now officially in its long run to the Final Four.

In recent days, Atty. Gen. Michael B. Mukasey has voiced opposition to the early release of hundreds of federal inmates convicted of dealing crack cocaine, saying the move would unleash a potential crime wave in communities across the country. He reiterated his concern Thursday at a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee. But some U.S. attorney offices around the country may not be getting the message.

As a star-studded, nationally televised show on the eve of spring training, Wednesday's steroid hearing by a House committee is surely not the kind of curtain-raiser on the 2008 season that Major League Baseball officials would prefer.

WASHINGTON -- Barry Bonds will not appear before Congress on Wednesday. Roger Clemens will be the star baseball player under oath, and he has vowed to testify he never used steroids. But as Bonds awaits trial on charges that he lied under oath when he told a federal grand jury he had never knowingly used steroids, the credibility of those charges could be enhanced or weakened by how Clemens emerges from his testimony, according to one House member who will hear him Wednesday.

It took four hours and 41 minutes -- about as long as the average Yankees-Red Sox game -- for an overriding truth to emerge from Wednesday's hearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The investigation into steroid use in baseball should not have come to this, a made-for-TV tragicomedy of sometimes fumbling questions and evasive answers timed by an impatient gavel.