New Congress

Considering the billions we are spending on peacetime defense, foreign aid, and pork-barrel projects, we don't need new taxes. We need a new Congress. DANIEL T. STREIB San Diego

WASHINGTON - Republican John A. Boehner narrowly won reelection as House speaker Thursday, but not without a very public display of dissent from within his ranks that launched what promises to be a turbulent 113th Congress in a divided Washington. The edgy vote for the speaker's job punctuated an otherwise picture-pretty day at the Capitol, as newly elected lawmakers arrived with fresh suits and haircuts, many with families in tow. After the recent marathon of brutal budget battles, opening day offered a reprieve.

Peru's newly elected Democratic Constituent Congress holds its first full session today, nine months after President Alberto Fujimori dissolved the old Congress in a military-backed coup. Some opposition members in the 80-seat assembly have proposed that the Congress fully reinstate the 1979 constitution--which Fujimori suspended--before taking on the job of amending or rewriting it. Fujimori's supporters won an assembly majority in Nov. 22 elections held under international pressure.

WASHINGTON - House Speaker John A. Boehner on Wednesday set a Jan. 15 vote on a Superstorm Sandy relief bill after enraged Northeast politicians - including Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, a fellow Republican - blasted the speaker for skipping action on disaster aid in the final hours of the current Congress. Boehner scheduled the vote after a parade of officials from storm-ravaged New York, New Jersey and Connecticut criticized the Ohio Republican for refusing to allow a vote on a $60-billion aid package before the end of this congressional session.

Anticipated new part divisions in Congress: Senate (Pre-election division) Democrats: 47 Republicans: 53 * (Post-election division) Democrats: 45 Republicans: 54 * Republicans: 54 Democrats: 45 House (Pre-election division) Democrats: 197 Republicans: 235 Independent: 1 Vacancies: 2 * (Post-election division) Democrats: 204 3 races too close to call, 3 headed for runoffs Republicans: 223 GOP won: 225 Dem. won: 205 Source: World Almanac, Associated Press

The eight-member Supreme Electoral Tribunal unanimously rejected as unconstitutional President Jorge Serrano's request to call elections for a new Congress to replace the 116-member body he dissolved when he declared a state of emergency Tuesday. Tribunal President Arturo Herbruger said the tribunal cannot legally schedule such an election because of Serrano's suspension of 46 articles of the constitution.

Police anti-terrorist squads were mobilized throughout this capital Saturday as legislators prepared to usher in a new era of democracy in the Philippines with the convening Monday of the nation's first independent Congress in 15 years. In the face of intelligence reports that radical leftists and ultra-rightists plan bombings and other violence to try to disrupt Monday's installation ceremony, Gen. Fidel V.

Mikhail S. Gorbachev, general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party, was elected overwhelmingly Thursday at the first meeting of the Soviet Union's new congress to fill the country's strengthened executive presidency. Gorbachev immediately pledged to use his increased powers to accelerate the pace of his political and economic reforms and to broaden their scope. His election by the first democratically elected Soviet legislature in 70 years gives Gorbachev, 58, broad executive authority to shape the nation's foreign and domestic policies and makes him the leader of the new congress as well.

Vladimir Kryuchkov, the head of the KGB, said Thursday that the Soviet security and intelligence apparatus is "interested in" and "absolutely" supportive of a commission of the new Congress of People's Deputies that would oversee his secret police agency. And he said that under Mikhail S. Gorbachev's program of perestroika , "a great deal of noble aspects of KGB activities" will become more apparent, such as "our struggle against terrorism." In that effort, he added, the KGB had had "certain contacts" with the United States.

In a manifesto for further reform, the new Soviet national assembly on Saturday outlined a legislative program aimed at accelerating the pace of the Soviet Union's political, economic and social changes and broadening their scope. The Congress of People's Deputies, summing up its first session, called for the drafting of a new constitution, incorporating the dramatic political reforms of the past two years and providing greater protection of individual rights and clearer limits on the authority of the government and the ruling Communist Party.

On his first visit to the U.S. Capitol since Republicans took control of the House, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa sought this week to extend support for his 30/10 proposal, which would tap federal resources to speed construction of local transportation projects. But the key officials he spoke with offered a mix of views. The so-called 30/10 plan to build a dozen projects in a decade instead of three has generated enthusiasm from the Obama administration and Sen. Barbara Boxer, a fellow California Democrat who chairs the Senate environment and public works committee.

Venezuela's National Assembly on Friday overwhelmingly approved a law giving President Hugo Chavez broad discretionary powers for 18 months, a measure that opponents claim is meant to undercut their strength in the upcoming assembly session starting next month. The law gives Chavez power to govern by decree for the fourth time since he took office in 1999 and is necessary, he said, to deal with flooding that has left 40 people dead and 133,000 homeless. During the final debate, the bill was modified to give Chavez more than the 12 months of special powers he had initially requested.

Three weeks ago, resurgent Republicans won control of one house of Congress, beginning ? officially, at least ? in January. But last week in Washington, it felt as if they had already taken control of all of Capitol Hill. They pushed the White House and fragmented Senate Democrats toward a "compromise" on extending high-income tax cuts that looks an awful lot like a Republican victory, extending for at least a couple of years low tax rates for the embattled class that earns more than $250,000 a year.

The implications of the midterm Republican wave that may add as many as 65 new GOP members to the House have yet to be sorted out, but the fate of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's 30/10 transit plan is one that ought to be of vital concern not only to this city but to the country as a whole. The mayor's proposal, which is supported by nearly every other elected official in Los Angeles County as well as the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the Obama administration, builds on Measure R, which was approved by two-thirds of the voters and assigns three decades of revenues from an incremental sales tax increase to fund a specified list of projects that would dramatically expand public transit.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will run   to lead the chamber's Democratic minority in the new Congress, she announced Friday. Pelosi announced her decision first on Twitter, and the report was quickly confirmed by her office. In a statement, she said she was “driven by the urgency of creating jobs and protecting” healthcare and Wall Street reforms, Social Security and Medicare. "As a result of Tuesday's election, the role of Democrats in the 112 th Congress will change, but our commitment to serving the American people will not,” she said in the statement.

The Mexican government on Tuesday proclaimed that it was making progress in its war against drug traffickers, in a state of the nation report delivered to a new Congress expected to challenge President Felipe Calderon during his remaining three years in office. The Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which ruled the country for seven decades until 2000, is back in control of the Chamber of Deputies, which plays a key role in budget decisions that will be high on the agenda in coming months.

As President Bush prepares a major new initiative for Iraq, he confronts a wary and distrustful new Congress eager for solutions but unconvinced the administration can chart a successful exit from the war. The new Democratic majorities in the House and Senate are reluctant to assume responsibility for the war, leaving unclear Congress' willingness to block any troop escalation or to compel Bush to change strategy.

CONGRESS LIMPED out of town last month without having done much about the "culture of corruption" that alternately sustains or torments members of Congress, depending on whether they're in the majority. When Congress returns this week, say Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi and incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, that culture will change. Which is exactly what you'd expect them to say.