The head of an Ohio-based political action committee is relieved that one Republican will no longer represent his state as the 112th Congress convenes.

Among the new senators sworn in this week will be Ohio Republican Rob Portman, who could be one of the most conservative members of that chamber in the coming years. According to Phil Burress, chairman of the Citizens for Community Values (CCV), Portman is pro-life and pro-business.

"Senator Portman is not only a conservative, but he is also a friend of mine, and I've known him before he even ran for Congress in the first place. So we're going to have a tremendous pro-life, pro-family senator who will be representing us," he reports...

A Christian attorney and constitutional law expert says the new Congress must derail the implementation of the law recently passed by the lame-duck Congress that is set to lift the ban on homosexuals serving openly in the military.

Mat Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel, decides that opportunistic senators put the agenda of political interest groups above their support for the American men and women in uniform. So his organization is planning to team up with the 40-million-member Freedom Federation to push for the new Congress to overturn the actions of the president and the radical Congress that was rejected by the people in November's midterm elections...

WASHINGTON - Despite warnings from military leaders and from pro-family and conservative groups, the U.S. House voted Wednesday to repeal the "don't ask, don't tell" policy that for 17 years has banned homosexuals from serving openly in the military.

The 250-175 vote propels the issue to the Senate for what could be the last chance for now to end the 1993 law that forbids recruiters from asking about sexual orientation while prohibiting soldiers from acknowledging that they are gay.

It's "the only law in the country that requires people to be dishonest or be fired if they choose to be honest," said Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo...

WASHINGTON -- A growing chorus of conservative criticism is prompting some House members to rethink the $850 billion package of tax cuts and extended jobless benefits that President Barack Obama negotiated with top Republicans in Congress.

The attacks are unlikely to derail the measure, which gets a final vote Wednesday in the Senate, to be followed by a debate and vote in the House. But they underscore the difficulty of building centrist coalitions after an election in which tea party conservatives ousted many Democrats and some veteran Republicans who were seen as too willing to compromise with opponents.

Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh, GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney and the Tea Party Patriots have denounced the tax plan, which previously was criticized mainly by liberals as a giveaway to the wealthy.

A conservative senator thinks it is a certainty that Republicans will take over the Senate in 2012.

Senator Jim Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) has no doubts the GOP will take control of the Senate in the next election. "All [the GOP needs] is three, and I could read a list of 11 [Democratic senators] that are really going to be having a hard time [running in 2012]," he notes.

The Oklahoma Republican says President Obama and the Democratic-led Congress have pushed their liberal agenda too hard and too fast. But they have apparently not learned their lesson because the party continues to maintain its status quo during the lame-duck session...

A Washington-based organization is threatening to sue metro Atlanta school boards for using church facilities to host their graduation ceremonies, but one conservative group maintains the schools are not in violation of the Constitution.

In response to the threatening letters Americans United for Separation of Church and State has sent to Atlanta-area school boards, Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel decides the organization is misrepresenting the Constitution. He points out that schools do have the right to choose graduation venues, even if they include religious facilities.

"There is no constitutional problem with regards to having a public school graduation at a church facility, as long as it pays just like anybody else," he explains. "Obviously, [a school] can get better facilities at a lower cost if it does so"...

Though Republicans won control of the House in this year's midterm elections, one congressman says that wasn't the party's only victory.

Thirty-eight (38) percent of Hispanic voters cast ballots for House Republican candidates in November 2010, according to exit polls reported by CNN. That is more than House Republican candidates received in 2008 or 2006, which, in Representative Lamar Smith's (R-Texas) opinion, is proof that the GOP's conservative values are universal.

"The idea that we need to listen to our liberal Democratic friends who say you have to be for amnesty if you want to get Hispanic votes, we've disproved that this year -- and I hope we've laid that to rest," he adds...

Rep. Michele Bachmann has become a prominent national conservative figure as an articulate female spokeswoman for issues like abortion and her latest call demonstrates why.

Bachmann says she will press for the new Republican-controlled House of Representatives to pass a bill sponsored by fellow conservative luminary Mike Pence, an Indiana congressman, to de-fund Planned Parenthood when it convenes in January.

“Well, I think one thing that we can do, quite simply, is to withhold funding from Planned Parenthood,” Bachmann said when asked by CNS News about what Congress can do to protect unborn children...

Compromise is a dirty word in Washington. And with an epic "deal" on the table to extend existing tax rates while granting a host of Republican and Democratic holiday wishes, it is pretty much guaranteed nobody's happy in the rank-and-file.

"A moral outrage," is how Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, described the trade-off, griping that tax cuts for the rich would be extended for two years while long-term unemployment aid would be extended for one year.

"Grossly unfair," declared Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt.

While the liberal wing of President Obama's party was howling over his decision to negotiate with Republicans -- likened to "terrorists" by one Democratic senator last week -- conservatives also were grumbling that the president won concessions for Democrats in the process...

Two top Republicans on the president's high-profile deficit reduction commission — Sens. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Michael D. Crapo of Idaho — said Thursday they will support the blueprint rolled out this week by the panel's co-chairmen — edging the plan closer to garnering the support it needs to be forwarded to Congress.

"Our debt crisis is a threat to not just our way of life, but our national survival," the conservative lawmakers said in a joint statement a day ahead of the showdown vote on the plan's fate.

The announcement came about an hour after Rep. Paul D. Ryan, Wisconsin Republican and also a commission member, said he would oppose the plan because it falls far short of properly tackling health care costs and the problems he said were posed by President Obama's new health care overhaul plan...