Lest anyone think former Rep. Curt Weldon might be staging a political comeback anytime soon, the Pennsylvania Republican last week shut down his re-election campaign committee. Weldon lost a hard-fought 2006 race to now-Rep. Joe Sestak (D) as he tried to fend off questions about a federal investigation into his official work for his daughter’s lobbying business.

Republicans nationwide are expecting Arizona Sen. John McCain to save their party and bring hope to the entire ballot this fall. But he hardly lifted a finger in three recent special elections where his party lost seats.

When it comes to coattails, it’s uncertain whether Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty as the GOP vice presidential nominee would boost his fellow Gopher State Republicans in their Senate and House races.

With the nominations fight between Senate leaders and the White House growing more tense by the day, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) by summer’s end may find an unlikely guard standing between him and the vault holding his presidential campaign money: Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).

As their House counterparts publicly struggle with a path forward, Senate Republican leaders have modified their own election-year road map with plans to keep their heads down, soften their partisan attacks and promote ideas-based initiatives they hope will avert a wipeout in November.

Former Rep. Bob Schaffer (R-Colo.) has been named as a possible witness by prosecutors in the sentencing phase of a federal tax evasion and embezzlement case involving a former business associate who was found guilty of illegally using funds from a 2002 Congressional earmark.

While new House rules last year tried to widen the distance between Capitol Hill and K Street, many of the resulting safeguards are still concealed from public view, prompting a call from several outside groups to tighten the regulations.

If they’re not a couple, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) and Huma Abedin, a top aide to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), certainly aren’t doing much to convince us of it. The pair, rumored to be dating, were spotted in the Capitol on Thursday.

The drip, drip, drip of higher gas prices has ratcheted up rhetoric on both sides of the aisle as Democratic and Republican lawmakers face the voters over the Memorial Day break, but don’t expect much significant legislation when they get back.

The Library of Congress is frustrating efforts to give its own Law Library more fiscal independence, putting Congress in the middle of the dispute.