After suffering a stroke Saturday, Senator Mark Kirk ’81 (R-Ill.), was in intensive care at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, Ill., as of Monday night. 

Despite staunch opposition from Republicans, the U.S. Senate confirmed President Obama’s nomination of an openly gay Cornell alumna, Alison Nathan ’94, J.D. ’00, to become a federal judge last Thursday.

If Rep. Mark Kirk’s ’81 (R.-Ill.) six percent lead over Illinois State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias holds in the race for the Illinois Senate seat currently held by Sen. Roland W. Burris (D.-Ill.), Kirk will join a short list of Cornell graduates that have earned spots in the more selective branch of Congress.

Ronald Ehrenberg, the Irving M. Ives Professor of industrial and labor relations and economics and member of the Cornell Board of Trustees, was nominated in May by Gov. David Paterson to serve on the Board of Trustees for the State University of New York (SUNY) school system.

Ehrenberg, a long-time professor at Cornell and author of the book Tuition Rising, which discusses the rapidly increasing price of tuition at many of America’s colleges, was nominated for the position because of his expertise on “public higher education.” Additionally, “both my wife and I, and lots of my relatives, are graduates of SUNY so I have a concern for the institution which is very, very deep,” Ehrenberg said.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Veteran Republican Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania switched parties Tuesday with a suddenness that seemed to stun the Senate, a moderate's defection that pushed Democrats to within a vote of the 60 needed to overcome filibusters and enact President Barack Obama's top legislative priorities.

Specter, 79 and seeking a sixth term in 2010, conceded bluntly that his chances of winning a Pennsylvania Republican primary next year were bleak in a party grown increasingly conservative. But he cast his decision as one of principle, rather than fueled by political ambition as spurned GOP leaders alleged.

Before trying to enact some of her major policy agendas in the Senate chamber in Washington, D.C., Kirsten Gillibrand, the junior senator from New York, has to listen to her constituents in order to determine what exactly her agenda should be. After holding economic development roundtables in Cortland and Elmira yesterday, Gillibrand also participated in a roundtable discussion at Cornell’s College of Veterinary Medicine.

“I’m here to help,” Gillibrand told the panelists and audience members. Focusing on what Gillibrand could do for the people and the region she represents in Congress, the roundtable gravitated towards how Gillibrand could help alleviate the economic and agricultural issues facing upstate New York.

Today the Senate passed its version of the stimulus bill. The House version of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has a price tag of about $820 billion while the Senate version stands at a total of $838 billion. Now the two versions will have to be reconciled and signed by President Obama. The ultimate goal of the stimulus legislation is to restore demand by replacing private spending with public spending and using tax cuts to hopefully restore consumers’ income enough to spur consumption. It is widely accepted that a stimulus bill is the proper means by which to improve the economy – it is perhaps the best of some bad options.

Governor Paterson announced over the weekend the appointment of Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand to fill Hillary Clinton’s junior Senate seat. It is our hope that, upon taking office, Gillibrand brings increased transparency and accountability to her office, while keeping higher education and the needs of her constituents as top priorities.