In the News
President Donald Trump's second impeachment trial is set to start next week and two Colorado lawmakers will lead the prosecution. The nine impeachment managers, who will make the case against Trump, include Representatives Diana DeGette and Joe Neguse.
For DeGette, it's her second key role in the impeachment of Trump. She presided over debate in the house during his first impeachment.
At first, U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette didn't know what Speaker Nancy Pelosi was asking of her during a hectic week in the House of Representatives.
When Speaker Nancy Pelosi was looking for someone to preside over the historic debate over impeaching President Trump at the end of 2019, she chose a veteran Democrat who had impressed her with a tough, skillful parliamentary hand: Representative Diana DeGette of Colorado.
"Sitting here in the speaker's chair, all I can think is how serious this debate is for the future of our republic," she wrote on Twitter at the time. "The fact that I've been asked to preside over the House for this important moment in our nation's history is truly an honor."
President-elect Joe Biden's shepherding of a landmark biomedical innovation law bodes well for a second effort to improve access to digital health and reform the Medicare agency.
Reps. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) and Fred Upton (R-Mich.) said a draft version of Cures 2.0, the followup to the 21st Century Cures law, will come out early next year, with the aim of passing it next year. Biden, whose cancer moonshot initiative was part of the 2016 law (Pub. L. 114-255), presided over the Senate when it passed that chamber.
Livestream
Higher education groups are warning lawmakers that serious federal aid is needed for colleges to bolster scientific work scuttled by the coronavirus, or the U.S. could fall behind international competitors and lose younger talent just beginning careers in research.
"We are in danger of losing a part of a generation of scientists," said Stephanie Page, an endocrinologist and associate professor at the University of Washington in Seattle, citing new uncertainty in academic research.
Congress passed a bill Thursday that aims to protect Olympic athletes from abuse.
The Empowering Olympic, Paralympic, and Amateur Athletes Act of 2020 gives Congress the power to decertify both the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee and the governing bodies for individual sports. It calls for more funding for the U.S. Center for SafeSport, the nonprofit that polices sexual abuse in Olympic Sports; confidentiality for whistleblowers that come forward to report abuse; and for more athletes on governing bodies.
The House of Representatives on Thursday passed sweeping legislation that is poised to alter the sprawling landscape of Olympic sports, including giving more power to athletes and forcing more oversight of the coaches and executives who have traditionally controlled the sports.
The U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday passed a bill to reauthorize and fund the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, the organization that provides drug testing and education for the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee and other sporting organizations.
