The top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee said Thursday that the Obama administration is fueling speculation about Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan’s impartiality because it won’t turn over documents detailing her role in crafting the legal strategy to defend the health care law while she was serving in the administration.

Rep. Lamar Smith, the committee chairman, told Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. that emails show Justice Kagan took an interest in the case in January 2010, when she was solicitor general, and he demanded to know what role she played between then and March 2010, when Mr. Obama tapped her to sit on the high court.

“The issue is, how involved was she in health care discussions between Jan. 8 and March 5? Just as President Nixon had an 18½-minute gap, does Ms. Kagan have a two-month gap?” Mr.

WASHINGTON – The Republican-run House on Thursday voted to give Congress greater power to approve or reject major federal rules that the GOP calls "job killers" -- regulations covering everything from health care to dangerous children's toys.

The 241-184 vote on Wednesday sent the bill to the Senate, where majority Democrats are unlikely to place it on the schedule.

The legislation would shift power from unelected agency regulators, many of them experts in their fields, to Congress to make decisions on proposals with a potential economic impact of more than $100 million.

Democrats contend Republicans would use the authority to jeopardize rules covering health care, workplace and food safety, and protection from defective consumer products -- and many more protections.

Republicans say the shift from unelected regulators to elected lawmakers is needed to kill the most costly regulations because they prevent companies from expanding and hiring new workers.

Conservatives are rallying in support of a balanced-budget amendment in the run-up to a Friday vote, warning fellow lawmakers that it's just about the only way to ensure Congress follows through on vows to cut spending.

The debate comes the same week the national debt crossed the $15 trillion mark. The milestone was a timely reminder of Washington's hard-to-break habit of spending way more than it takes in.

As a bipartisan committee remains stuck on how to cut $1.2 trillion from the 10-year deficit, lawmakers skeptical about the government's fiscal track record pushed Thursday for the amendment.

"We need a fiscal fix that will last for generations," Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, said. "If we want to make lasting cuts to federal spending, a constitutional amendment is the only solution.

(CNSNews.com) - In the same week that Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that her department was going to review the cases of 300,000 illegal aliens in deportation proceedings and allow “low priority” cases to stay in the country and receive work permits — a move House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith called a “back door amnesty” — President Barack Obama’s approval dropped to an all-time low of 44 percent among Hispanics, according to Gallup polling data released today.

That is a drop of 41 points from the spring of 2009, when Obama’s approval among Hispanic Americans peaked at 85 percent (in the weeks that ended April 26, 2009 and May 17, 2009)...

(CNSNews.com) - House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) is withholding judgment on whether Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan should recuse herself from judging lawsuits that were filed against the health-care law that President Barack Obama signed while Kagan was serving as the Obama administration's solicitor general and was charged with defending the administration’s position in federal court disputes.

Smith sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder on July 6 asking that Holder provide “relevant documents and witness interviews in order to properly understand U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan’s involvement in health care legislation or litigation while serving as United States Solicitor General.” The letter requested that Holder provide the materials and arrange the interviews by July 29.

At issue is 28 U.S.C. 455, the federal law that governs when a Supreme Court justice must recuse from a case.

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...

The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) has filed a motion to intervene in the federal Defense of Marriage Act lawsuit.

The group Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders filed the lawsuit when clients in Massachusetts were denied federal benefits for couples recognized as married under state law. The state also filed suit to dismantle the federal DOMA. Dale Schowengerdt, litigation attorney with ADF, tells OneNewsNow a federal judge struck down the DOMA law as unconstitutional in those two cases in July, but the rulings are on hold pending appeal.

"Since then, the Department of Justice has refused to say whether it's going to appeal the case," he reports. "And frankly, during the litigation of the case, it gave...basically a sham defense of the law in the first place. So we moved to intervene on behalf of Representative Lamar Smith (R), who is the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee"...

Two congressmen called on the Justice Department Monday to appeal a recent decision in federal district court that found the government's move to cut off funding to ACORN was unconstitutional.

In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, U.S. Reps. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, and Darrell Issa, R-Calif., described the Dec. 11 decision by Judge Nina Gershon as "preposterous."

"The district court's decision is troubling in many respects, but most significantly, if allowed to stand, it would effectively excise from the Constitution Congress' express Spending Clause power to refuse to appropriate federal funds to an organization that has shown itself likely to misuse those funds in the future," the letter reads. "Such a conclusion is nothing short of preposterous"...