President Obama signed a $1.1 trillion spending bill this week that will fund the government through fiscal year 2015, averting a government shutdown. The chief architect of the spending plan is Maryland’s senior Senator Barbara Mikulski, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, the first woman to hold that chair. She joins Sheilah now on the line from her Senate office in Washington to talk about it.
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Barbara Mikulski on whether the spending bill, which included provisions that eased banking regulations and allowed larger political contributions, was a challenging vote for her.