The Best Political Photos of 2011 -- PICTURES

President Obama and Vice President Biden, along with members of the national security team, receive an update on the mission against Osama bin Laden in the Situation Room of the White House, May 1, 2011. Bin Laden's death was one of Obama's biggest victories of the year, prompting spontaneous celebrations across the country. (PETE SOUZA/THE WHITE HOUSE)

Crowds gather outside the White House early Monday, May 2, 2011, to celebrate after President Barack Obama announced the death of Osama bin Laden. (MANUEL BALCE CENETA/AP)

Navy Capt. Mark Kelly and Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., who have been married for almost four years, embrace each other on Oct. 6 after Kelly recieves the Legion of Merit from Vice President Joe Biden. Giffords was shot in the head during an assassination attempt on Jan. 8, only to recover markedly through the year. (REP. GABRIELLE GIFFORDS/FACEBOOK)

House Speaker-to-be John Boehner, R-Ohio, cries as he waits to receive the gavel from outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., during the first session of the 112th Congress, on Capitol Hill, Jan. 5, 2011. (CHARLES DHARAPAK/AP)

Occupy Wall Street protesters march and hold signs in New York City on Sept. 17, 2011. Frustrated protesters had been speaking out against corporate greed and social inequality on and near Wall Street for the previous two weeks, further sparking a protest movement that spread around the world. (CARWIL BJORK-JAMES/FLICKR)

Neporsha Hamlin (center) of Madison, Wis, protests Gov. Scott Walker's budget bill at the State Capitol in Madison on Feb. 19, 2011. Walker, elected in November 2010's GOP wave that also gave control of the state Assembly and Senate to Republicans, set off the protests earlier that week by pushing ahead with a measure that would require government workers to contribute more to their health care and pension costs and largely eliminated their collective-bargaining rights. (ANDY MANIS/AP)

The U.S. Capitol in Washington is illuminated at night as Congress works late to avert a government shutdown in April 2011. Lawmakers narrowly avoided a shutdown with a compromise that kept the federal government funded through the end of the fiscal year. (ALEX BRANDON/AP, FILE)

The Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, also known as the super committee, holds its first organizational meeting after being created out of the bipartisan compromise on the debt-ceiling crisis in August, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Sept. 8, 2011. The committee failed to reach an agreement on how to cut $1.2 trillion from the federal budget by its Thanksgiving deadline, triggering automatic cuts feared by both Democrats and Republicans. (SUSAN WALSH/AP)

Republican presidential candidate Texas Gov. Rick Perry makes a campaign stop at the Iowa 80 Group in Walcott, Iowa, on Aug. 16, 2011. The GOP race has been filled with dramatic rises and falls like Perry's. With the Iowa caucus looming, Newt Gingrich is the latest to grab the front-runner's mantle. (CHARLES DHARAPAK/AP)

Then-Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., announces his resignation from Congress, in the Brooklyn borough of New York, June 16, 2011. Weiner resigned from Congress, saying he could not continue in office amid the intense controversy surrounding sexually explicit messages he sent online to several women. (RICHARD DREW/AP)

Rep. Chris Lee, R-N.Y., resigned on Feb. 9, 2011, following another scandal surrounding explicit photos that he sent to a woman he met on the website Craigslist. Here, Lee is shown with members of his family during a mock swearing-in ceremony in Washington on Jan. 5, 2011. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin (L) / Gawker (R))

Phyllis Siegel, 77, arms raised, and Connie Kopelov, 85, in wheelchair, both of New York, celebrate after becoming the first same-sex couple to get married at the Manhattan City Clerk's office, July 24, 2011, in New York. (JASON DECROW/AP)

An electronic board displays trading activity on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday, Aug. 4, 2011 in New York. The Dow plunged nearly 513 points that day, its biggest point decline since Oct. 22, 2008. (JIN LEE/AP)