Democrats Senator Charles Schumer and Senator Dianne Feinstein joined nine Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee and approved the nomination of Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey to go to the full Senate. The vote was 11-8, the eight opposing votes from the remaining Democrats on the committee. His confirmation is expected next week. Mukasey - and his supporters - has faced criticism after not declaring waterboarding illegal. Schumer has an op-ed in today's NY Times... more ›

Though canvassing is still being done in Virginia in the Senate race between Republican incumbent George Allen and Democrat challenger Jim Webb, the AP and other news organizations named Webb the winner, with his narrow margin of 7,000 votes over Allen. And the Democrats seized that news excitedly. The NY Times reports Senator Charles Schumer, who headed the Democratic campaign to take back Senate seats, as saying,"It is virtually 100 percent that Webb is going to win the race. I think you can say without any hesitancy or doubt that Democrats are going to be the majority party in the Senate." more ›

Since many of New York State's elections were runaways, the real election action was seeing how the House and Senate would turn - with the Democrats taking control of the house, which makes Nancy Pelosi possibly the first female Speaker of the House. The control of the Senate is still in question - votes are being counted and re-counted in the Virginia and Montana races (Democratic challenger John Tester has a narrow lead over incumbent Conrad Burns in Montana; Senator George Allen trails Democrat Jim Webb by just 6,000 votes). In one of last night's too-close-too-call elections, with incumbent Jim Talent conceding to Democrat Claire McCaskill. more ›