This Week on Capitol Hill

Congress is slated to clear two popular measures this week - on toy safety and mental health insurance - while possibly dragging back politically tricky bills on surveillance and ethics oversight.

The war on toys: After lead was found popping up on Dora the Explorers and Thomas the Tank Engines across the nation last summer, Congress went into action to give the Consumer Product Safety Commission more money and muscle to track and recall anti-tot toys. The House passed a toy safety bill last year, with the Senate expected to okay a slightly more stringent version this week.

• see the House and Senate bills
• read coverage from the Washington Post

Mind your health: The House is set to pass a health insurance "parity" bill this week - giving patients the same right to get mental health help as care for the rest of their bodies. A similar - though less far-reaching - bill passed in the Senate last year.

• see the House and Senate bills

Ethics & wiretaps: House members could also give a second go at okaying a quasi-independent ethics commission, which got pulled from the floor last week, as well as finalizing a surveillance bill that would let feds tap into foreign calls with a warrant. The wiretap bill was held up over a disagreement on whether to give telecoms immunity from lawsuits stemming from an earlier illegal spying program; immunity looks likely to win the day.

For more on what to expect in the year to come, see cJ's Ahead To '08 overview.

If you want to let your Congressfolk know where you stand on any of the issues above, you can email them through Congress.org, because...

Hey, it's your democracy too.

- teamJoe

Next update: March 10, 2008.