WASHINGTON — Soon after lawmakers finished work on the nation’s new financial regulatory law, a team of JPMorgan Chase lobbyists descended on Washington. Their goal was to obtain special breaks that would allow banks to make big bets in their portfolios, including some of the types of trading that led to the $2 billion loss now rocking the bank.

Several visits over months by the bank’s well-connected chief executive, Jamie Dimon, and his top aides were aimed at persuading regulators to create a loophole in the law, known as the Volcker Rule. The rule was designed by Congress to limit the very kind of proprietary trading that JPMorgan was seeking.

Even after the official draft of the Volcker Rule regulations was released last October, JPMorgan and other banks continued their full-court press to avoid limits.

JPMorgan’s blunder amplifies calls for tighter regulation

WASHINGTON — When Representative Ed Pastor was first elected to Congress two decades ago, he was comfortably ensconced in the middle class. Mr. Pastor, a Democrat from Arizona, held $100,000 or so in savings accounts in the mid-1990s and had a retirement pension, but like many Americans, he also owed the banks nearly as much in loans.

Today, Mr. Pastor, a miner’s son and a former high school teacher, is a member of a not-so-exclusive club: Capitol Hill millionaires. That group has grown in recent years to include nearly half of all members of Congress — 250 in all — and the wealth gap between lawmakers and their constituents appears to be growing quickly, even as Congress debates unemployment benefits, possible cuts in food stamps and a “millionaire’s tax.”

Washington (CNN) — When Tip O’Neill retired in 1987, he was asked how the quality of people elected to Congress had changed in his 30-plus years of service. The former Speaker of the House answered: “The quality is clearly better, much better.” But, he added, “The results are definitely worse.”

He meant: as compared to the Congresses of the 1950s, the Congresses of the 1980s contained fewer drunks and fewer crooks. Members were better educated and harder working. Yet the Congresses of the 1950s managed to balance the budget, confirm presidential nominees in reasonable time and enact programs, like the one that created the interstate highway system. The Congresses of the 1980s could do none of those things.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House and congressional leaders worked Monday to align lawmakers from both parties behind their formula for averting a financial meltdown and halting the government’s prolific spending habits. Despite resistance from both liberals and conservatives, momentum appeared to be building in support of the compromise deficit-reduction plan.

In an apparent show of confidence, leaders in the House said they planned to bring the plan to the floor for a vote Monday afternoon. Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier, R-Calif., said there would be an hour of debate before moving to a vote.

DES MOINES, Iowa — An eight-term congressman from Iowa helped fight off an armed man who invaded his farm house in Decatur County and attacked his daughter on Saturday night, according to a statement from his office. The attack occurred around 10:45 p.m. on Saturday at a farm in Lamoni,
where Rep. Leonard Boswell, a 77-year-old Democrat who represents Iowa’s
third congressional district, was spending the weekend with his wife,
daughter and grandson.

HOUSTON — U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords reached a major milestone in her recovery Wednesday when she was discharged from a Houston hospital where she has spent the past five months recovering from a gunshot wound to the head.

Doctors treating the Arizona congresswoman at TIRR Memorial Hermann said her cognitive abilities and physical strength have improved to the point where she no longer needs to remain a patient in the hospital.

Washington (CNN) — A budget deal reached last week to avert a government shutdown won approval Thursday from both the House and Senate, sending it to President Barack Obama for his signature.

The measure cuts $38.5 billion in spending while funding the government for the rest of the current fiscal year, which ends September 30. With its passage, the White House and Congress will now focus on what are expected to be more rancorous battles over a budget for fiscal year 2012 and the upcoming need to raise the federal debt limit.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — If lawmakers can’t agree on a spending bill before the clock strikes midnight, a couple million federal workers won’t be getting paychecks on time. Troops fighting in Afghanistan won’t be paid on time either.

Some 800,000 workers likely to be furloughed aren’t guaranteed back pay. You know who will get paid? Members of Congress and President Obama. And their checks will arrive right on time.

BOSTON – Geraldine Ferraro was a relatively obscure congresswoman from the New York City borough of Queens in 1984 when she was tapped by Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale to join his ticket.

Her vice presidential bid, the first for a woman on a major party ticket, emboldened women across the country to seek public office and helped lay the groundwork for Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential candidacy in 2008 and John McCain’s choice of his running mate, Sarah Palin, that year.

WASHINGTON – The Senate on Sunday passed a sweeping bill to make food safer, sending it to the House in the waning days of Congress.

It was the second time the Senate passed the bill, which would give the government broad new powers to increase inspections of food processing facilities and force companies to recall tainted food. The chamber passed the bill for the first time three weeks ago, but it was caught in a constitutional snag when senators mistakenly included tax provisions that are by law supposed to originate in the House.

The version of the legislation passed by the Senate on Sunday is amended to avoid another such mishap.