Paul Kane

Washington, D.C.

Senior congressional correspondent and columnist

Education: University of Delaware, BA

Paul Kane has covered Congress since 2000, when he started at Roll Call with a beat focused on the Senate. He started with The Washington Post in 2007, covering the 2008 financial crisis and the Obama-Republican fiscal wars. He began writing a regular column, @PKCapitol, on Congress and its interactions with the Trump administration in 2017. He's covered Washington's response to the global pandemic, the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, two impeachments and now writes about the Biden administration's legislative agenda on Capitol Hill.
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Latest from Paul Kane

Defending white nationalists, Tommy Tuberville fears a military that is ‘going wrong’

The first-term senator has stepped up his campaign against the U.S. military, saying, 'I look at a white nationalist as a Trump Republican.'

May 13, 2023

Debt ceiling meeting between Biden, congressional leaders postponed

Biden was expected to huddle with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.).

May 12, 2023

R-E-S-P-E-C-T, Kevin McCarthy finds out what it means to him

The House speaker has spent so much time in the debt-ceiling standoff just pleading to be treated as an official worthy of respect.

May 10, 2023

Lawmakers fear debt ceiling votes, but they don’t seem to matter to voters

For years, lawmakers have dreaded voting to lift the federal debt limit, believing they would face brutal attack ads in their next election. Yet incumbents rarely face such ads.

May 6, 2023

Defaulting on the national debt is much closer than anyone realizes

What's lost in the back-and-forth din of congressional shouting is that House Republicans and Senate Democrats do not even agree on whether an actual negotiation is happening.

April 29, 2023

With Tucker Carlson’s ouster, House GOP loses a key ally - and agitator

The influential Fox News host had possibly more power than any other conservative to sway the House Republican conference

April 26, 2023

So much for that promise: Debt bill talks again done in the backroom

Despite pledges of transparency, not a single committee held a hearing on a bill that would slash trillions of dollars from federal budgets as part of the GOP’s debt-ceiling proposal.

April 22, 2023

How judicial confirmation wars consumed the Senate

Once a nearly forgotten issue, federal court nominations now occupy a central focus for the Senate. So much so that Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s illness has turned into a referendum on winning the court battle.

April 19, 2023

George Mitchell’s secret to peace holds lessons — in N. Ireland and U.S.

In an interview, the former Senate majority leader says he believes that the keys to his success in brokering peace in Northern Ireland -- patience and listening -- are missing from today's U.S. politics.

April 15, 2023

New report outlines the deep political polarization’s slow and steady march

A new study by the Cook Political Report shows just how much America's views have shifted over the last two decades, as regions that were once critical swing districts now occupy the most far right or left on the political landscape.

April 8, 2023