Eric Swalwell

When a mother with babies or preschoolers runs for office, the question inevitably arises: Who will take care of her kids while she is on the campaign trail?

But in a year when 23 Democrats are vying for their party’s presidential nomination, it’s the men who have children ages 5 or younger — enough to fill a small day care center. They are rarely asked about parenting, however, a review of their television interviews found.

Early in a House Judiciary Committee hearing Monday about the special counsel investigation, the former White House counsel to President Richard Nixon defended why the members should hear testimony from four witnesses not involved in the probe.

The committee hearing is adding something that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III could not in his report, “and that’s public education,” John Dean said in response to a comment from the panel’s ranking Republican, Doug Collins of Georgia.

Updated 2:21 p.m. | “The case is closed!” President Donald Trump declared minutes after special counsel Robert S. Mueller III formally concluded his investigation — even though the former FBI director fired a shot directly across the president’s bow.

Mueller on Wednesday delivered his first spoken public words in two years, saying his investigation was never going to end with indicting the 45th president because such a move would be “unconstitutional” due to Justice Department guidelines that prohibit it. What’s more, Mueller repeated what his 448-page report did: That he and his team did not conclude that Trump committed no crimes — a potential signal to House Democrats that he favors impeachment proceedings.

More than half of the Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee say their panel may eventually need to open an impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump if his administration’s efforts to stonewall congressional investigations continue.

CQ Roll Call talked to all but one of the 24 Democrats on the panel over the past two weeks about their views on impeachment in light of Trump, his administration and his allies deciding not to cooperate with their investigation into potential obstruction of justice, corruption and abuses of power. The Democrat not reached directly, California’s Eric Swalwell, a presidential candidate, weighed in on Twitter.

Eight House Republicans voted Friday with their Democratic counterparts for the Equality Act, which would broaden the definition of protected classes to include sexual orientation and gender identity.

The bill, a Democratic priority, passed 236-173 amid passionate speeches from both Republicans and Democrats. Debate over the bill was partisan, and at times, tense. 

OPINION — In the 1960 Democratic presidential race, there were a handful of contenders, including Sens. John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts, Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas, Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota and Stuart Symington of Missouri. Others, including Florida Sen. George Smathers and California Gov. Pat Brown, ran as “favorite sons.”

The 1968 Republican presidential field included former Vice President Richard Nixon, and Govs. George Romney of Michigan, Ronald Reagan of California and Nelson Rockefeller of New York. The GOP contest also featured favorite sons, including Govs. Jim Rhodes of Ohio and John Volpe of Massachusetts.

The House passed a $19.1 billion disaster aid package to help victims of recent storms and flooding rebuild, with the price tag growing by about $1.8 billion on the floor through amendments to add funds for repairing damaged military facilities, highways, levees, dams and more.

The vote was 257-150, with 34 Republicans crossing the aisle to support the bill drafted by the Democratic majority. President Donald Trump and GOP leaders tried to tamp down defections on the bill, which they oppose because it would pump more money into Puerto Rico, which hasn’t yet been able to spend much of the $20 billion previously appropriated after 2017′s Hurricane Maria.

A group of two dozen Democratic members of Congress foreshadowed in a court case how they might fight back if President Donald Trump pardons someone for a criminal contempt of Congress charge — just as the two political branches ramp up the battle over congressional oversight.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., and Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., a member of the House leadership, were among the lawmakers who filed a brief last week to urge a federal appeals court in California to invalidate one of President Donald Trump’s most controversial pardons.

OPINION — CHARLOTTE, N.C. — “Now we’re one of those schools.” That’s what a  University of North Carolina student, in more sadness than anger, told a local radio station after a gunman killed two and wounded four others on her campus on Tuesday. And now Charlotte, a city already experiencing a spike in homicides, is “one of those cities.”

In the city and state, there is shock, plus questions. A suspect is in custody, but that doesn’t provide answers about why it happened and what can be done to keep it from happening again.