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CQ Roll Call Daily Briefing: Photo Op

2012-02-17T08:53:00.000-08:00

Friday, February 17, 2012

Today In Washington

THE HOUSE: Convened at 9 and has just voted, 293-132, to endorse the final, $143 billion version of legislation extending the 2-percentage-point payroll tax cut for 160 million workers through the end of the year, continuing but limiting benefits to the long-time unemployed and forestalling a 27 percent cut in Medicare reimbursements to doctors. The package was opposed by 91 Republicans and 41 Democrats.

THE SENATE: Convened at 10 and will clear the payroll tax cut, jobless aid and “doc fix” package within a few minutes — and an atypically lengthy 12 days before all three were set to expire. The vote is the last piece of business before all of Congress goes on recess for the next week. Look for a much closer vote than in the House, with a handful of conservative Democrats as well as a solid majority of Republicans voting “no.”

Senators voted this morning against limiting debate on the two-year, $109 billion version of the highway, mass transit and freight rail policy rewrite that Reid is pushing, suggesting plenty of work ahead for senators interested in reviving the bill after the recess. The roll call was 54-42, but 60 votes were required. But senators brushed aside a handful of conservative GOP critics and confirmed Jesse Furman, a federal prosecutor and the younger brother of White House economics adviser Jason Furman, to be a federal judge in New York.

THE WHITE HOUSE: Obama takes off from San Francisco at noon (D.C. time) and heads to the mammoth Boeing Everett Factory north of Seattle, where 747s, 767s, 777s, and the new 787 Dreamliner are all built. It’s an obvious location for his 2:30 speech reiterating his views about the importance of manufacturing and exports to “an economy built to last,” which is the only non-fundraising stop of the day. Fresh off an announcement that he raised $29.1 million for his re-election campaign and for the Democratic Party in January, he’s got an event at 5 in the home of Susan and Jeff Brotman (a Costco co-founder) and another at 6:45 in the Westin Bellevue hotel. He’s due back in the family quarters at 1 tomorrow morning.

THE SUPREME COURT: The justices returned from a nearly monthlong recess and held a closed-door conference to deliberate several cases — the first such session since Breyer was robbed of $1,000 by a machete-wielding intruder at his Caribbean vacation home. (Oral arguments resume Tuesday.)

THE OTHER SIDE: When Barbara Boxer and Kirsten Gillibrand took to the Senate floor this morning, their rhetoric was a stark reminder that those who fail to appreciate history are doomed to repeat it. More than two decades after an all-male Senate Judiciary Committee decided it believed Clarence Thomas more than Anita Hill — and at a time when the number of women in Congress has plateaued at 17 percent — the two Democratic senators were able to have a political field day over Darrell Issa’s “just doesn’t get it” moment in the House yesterday.

The two needed to do nothing more than ask “Where are the women?” as they described the giant photo they had brought with them — of the five witnesses, all of them men, who testified as the first panel of experts on birth control before Issa’s House Oversight Committee yesterday. In so doing, the senators underscored how the culture wars can absolutely cut both ways — and are not always be won by the Republicans. The Thomas hearings were responsible for big gains by the Democrats, and especially their women candidates, in 1992 because voters tied antiquated chauvinism and the GOP together. The GOP’s efforts to make Terri Schiavo’s permanent vegetative state into a right-to-life caused totally backfired seven years ago — because the public thought the Republicans had gone way too far and had their eyes off the “real” issues. Those two lessons are on the minds of political operatives on both sides now, who wonder aloud whether the GOP is about to overplay its hand in the Obama birth control mandate, not only because women will rise up against them but also because voters of both genders think this year should be spent talking about the parties’ prescriptions for the economy and not about life in the bedroom.

EYEBALLING AN OVERHAUL: They may deride what they view as his occasionally flippant and all-too-frequent smirk, but House Budget Committee Republicans were delighted with one thing Geithner said yesterday: that the administration will soon offer a plan for a corporate tax overhaul. He said the president has not given up on those aspirations when the grand-bargain and supercommittee talks foundered last year. “We’ll have a chance to talk about this in the coming weeks,” the Treasury secretary said, and he promised a “broad framework” for ending “dozens and dozens of the special preferences in the corporate tax code today” while preserving “a much narrower, targeted set” of corporate tax provisions aimed at “encouraging investment in the United States.” It’s highly unlikely the administration’s corporate tax plan will resolve partisan differences over tax policy — and certainly not in an election year. But the paper will give both sides something to ponder in anticipation of a significant tax-code overhaul debate next year if the present is re-elected — and a document filled with evidence the Republicans can use to criticize the president during the campaign.

NOT A FACTOR: The cost of living rose less than forecast in January, supporting the view that inflation is among the least of the nation’s election year economic worries. The consumer price index increased 0.2 percent after no change in December, the Labor Department says this morning. The so-called core measure, which excludes more volatile food and energy costs, also increased 0.2 percent, following a 0.1 percent uptick the previous month. (The absence of inflation is one reason for the the Federal Reserve’s decision to keep interest rates low through at least 2014.)

WHERE HAVE ALL THE GOOD TIMES GONE: It looks like next Wednesday’s debate in Mesa, Ariz., could be the 20th and last of the 2012 Republican presidential campaign. That’s because the debate scheduled in Atlanta on March 1 was called off by CNN and the Georgia GOP yesterday when Mitt Romney said he wouldn’t be there — and Rick Santorum and Ron Paul quickly dropped out as well. The prospects for all four to show up at the PBS debate being planned for Portland, Ore., on March 19 look to be fading as well. The development could not come at a worse time for Newt Gingrich, consistently the best performer at such events in the past few months, who was hoping to revive his faltering candidacy with a strong showing in his hometown. (He’s spending five of the next 14 days in Georgia, his main Super Tuesday target. He has three campaign offices and a full-time staff of a dozen in the state — the biggest operation he’s set up since South Carolina, which is the one state he’s won so far.)

BIG LEAD: Scott Brown was solidly in front of Elizabeth Warren, 49 percent to 40 percent, in a survey taken this week and released last night by Suffolk University, the premier polling authority in Massachusetts. The margin of error in the poll of 600 voters was 4 points; only 9 percent were undecided. And among the all-important independents, who tend to decide such tossups, the incumbent Republican senator was way ahead, 60 percent to 28 percent. A poll out earlier this week had the race essentially tied — but it was focused on likely voters, while the new survey was of registered voters.

QUOTE OF NOTE: “I took a chance at the Apollo and I’m not going to take a chance again,” Obama said at his San Francisco fundraising dinner last night, where Al Green was the guest entertainer and there was enormous speculation the two might sing a duet. “Now, what is possible is, after reelection, I might go on tour with the good reverend. Be his opening act. But I don’t want to lose any further votes because of my singing voice.” (Still available from his campaign is a ring tone of the president crooning “I’m so in love with you” at the New York fundraiser.)

ANOTHER QUOTE OF NOTE: “I’m not responsible for every comment that a supporter of mine makes,” Rick Santorum said on CBS this morning about his super PAC’s biggest benefactor, Foster Friess, who yesterday touted an aspirin tablet (held by the knees) as a low-cost and effective birth control method. “It was a bad joke, it was a stupid joke, and it is not reflective of me or my record on this issue,” said the presidential aspirant, who does say states should be free to ban contraceptive sales.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: House Republicans Randy Forbes of Virginia (60) and Jim Jordan of Ohio (48).

PUBLISHING SCHEDULE: Because of the Presidents Day congressional recess, there will not be a Daily Briefing next week unless significant news demands it. Regular production will resume Monday, Feb. 27.

— David Hawkings, editor

Become a Facebook fan at facebook.com/DavidHawkingsDC. Or follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/davidhawkings.

House GOP Freshmen Shift Focus to Districts (CQ Today)

Tea party–inspired firebrands are now championing nitty-gritty constituent needs they once derided as congressional business as usual and as pork-barrel politics. » View full article

Stuart Rothenberg: Nevada, Massachusetts Key to Senate Control (Roll Call)

If the November elections take place during a relatively neutral partisan environment, the two states could play a big role. » View full article

China: Two Sides of the Coin (CQ Weekly)

Despite all the tough talk, the White House and Congress are taking a rather measured approach toward China. » View full article

'The Best Man' Gets a Campaign Season Revival (Roll Call)

A Washington-area theater is offering a rare opportunity to see the 1964 film, which isn't available anywhere for DVD rental or streaming. » View full article

Brown's Bill on Irish Work Permits Encounters Intraparty Resistance (CQ Today)

The Massachusetts senator last week thought he was close to a legislative breakthrough that would help him in his tough re-election campaign in Massachusetts. Then came the letdown. » View full article

Schock Looks to Build Political Profile (Roll Call)

"I'm a big believer if you want to change people's minds or get someone to vote for you, either a voter or a colleague, you've got to first get their attention," says the 30-year-old Illinois Republican. » View full article

Payroll Tax Deal Heads to Floors (CQ Today)

The House was to vote first, followed closely by the Senate. » View full article

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David Hawkings

dailybriefing@cqrollcall.com

CQ Roll Call Daily Briefing: None of the Usual

2012-02-16T08:34:00.000-08:00

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Today In Washington

THE HOUSE: Convened at 10, will start debating amendments after noon and by sunset will pass a bill designed to expand domestic energy production — with the expected lease revenue dedicated to public works spending. The measure would resurrect a Bush-era system for leasing public lands in the West for oil-shale extraction while preventing the Obama administration from altering it.

THE SENATE: Convened at 10 for a day of speechmaking and clock-watching on the highway bill, which appears stalled until the next procedural vote tomorrow. (The vote on whether to neutralize Obama’s contraception coverage mandate is off until after next week’s break.)

THE WHITE HOUSE: Obama’s first fundraiser of the day is a breakfast at 10 (California time) in the Corona Del Mar home of Jeff and Nancy Stack. The second is three hours later, at the San Francisco Intercontinental Hotel. The third is a cocktail party for two dozen at the Mark Hopkins. The most lavish is a $35,800-a-plate gourmet dinner for 70 guests at the Pacific Heights home of novelist Robert Mailer Anderson. The finale is a concert at the Nob Hill Masonic Center featuring Chris Cornell of Soundgarden and Audioslave fame.

HOW ABOUT THAT: The payroll tax package that negotiators and the leadership say they’re confident they finalized late last night will become that rarest of 2012 legislative creatures: an expensive, multifaceted money-policy bill that clears Congress with comfortable and bipartisan majorities. They should know that their optimism was merited by tomorrow evening.

Weary aides were still doing the final detail work this morning — but it was confined to only technical issues and the refining of legislative language. Both the top negotiators, Republican House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp and Democratic Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, said all the policy disagreements had been bridged and predicted the deal would win the signatures of a strong majority of the conference committee members by early afternoon. (Until then, no paperwork detailing the locked-down provisions will be available.) Reid said he expected the House would embrace the package sometime tomorrow — which would mean the GOP would have to work around its self-imposed rules about how long legislative language must sit in the sunshine before a vote. The majority leader said senators looked to be ready to clear the package almost as soon as it arrives. If opponents work to slow-walk the deal, though, he said the Senate would work into the weekend to get it done — suggesting at least the theoretical possibility of a delayed start to the weeklong Presidents Day break.

The biggest last-minute stumbling block was over how to make federal workers contribute $15 billion in the coming decade toward the cost of the deal. The two Maryland Democrats in the room, Sen. Ben Cardin and Rep. Chris Van Hollen, objected strenuously to the idea of requiring all government employees (thousands of whom are their constituents) to put an additional 1.5 percent of their pay toward their retirement accounts. Initially, they pushed instead to hold down the size of the civilian employee COLA for next year. Ultimately, they agreed to raise the money by requiring federal workers hired in the future to contribute more (2.3 percent) to the defined benefit pension plans, while holding existing workers harmless.

And so the main votes against the package will be cast by the same Republican conservatives who have fought against the payroll tax and jobless benefits extensions since the start of last fall — and are galled that their leadership has not stuck by its guns and insisted that the entire $150 billion cost be offset elsewhere in the budget. (Only one-third of it will — from the pension change, an equivalent $15 billion from auctioning to wireless companies a part of the airwaves now reserved for TV broadcasters, another $15 billion in cuts to hospitals that rely on Medicare to make up the difference when people don’t pay their bills, and $5 billion from a new preventative health care program.)

In return, the bill would add about $1,000 to the 2012 take-home paychecks of a person making $50,000 — by holding at 4.2 percent (down from 6.2 percent a year ago) the amount taken to support Social Security. It also would stave off, at least until the end of the year, a 27 percent drop in payments to doctors who service Medicare patients. It would continue 99 weeks of unemployment benefits through May for states hardest hit by joblessness. As many as 79 weeks would be provided through August and up to 73 weeks through December — but only in states where the jobless rate is above 9 percent. In the other three dozen states, the cap would be 63 weeks. States could (but wouldn’t have to) require drug screening of a limited group of people who get unemployment checks — mainly those who lost their last job because of drugs. There is language, pushed hard by GOP conservatives, to punish states that don’t prevent welfare recipients from using their benefit cards at liquor stores, casinos and strip clubs. And the deal may combine the spectrum sale language with a program to tie the nation’s public-safety radios together by allowing them to share one slice of radio frequency.

GUARANTEED SHOWDOWN: A Detroit News poll out today says Rick Santorum is leading Mitt Romney, 34 percent to 30 percent, among likely voters in the Michigan GOP primary — still a statistical tie, given the margin of error, but yet another indication that the Santorum surge is lasting, even in the state where the longtime front-runner was born. The voting is in 12 days. And the four years of tax returns the former Pennsylvania senator released last night should help in bolstering his image as the more lunchbucket of the two — at least in relative terms. While Romney’s returns were filled with eight-digit numbers, Santorum’s showed his income increasing steadily in the years after he lost his Senate seat and became a Washington advocate and consultant — from $660,000 in 2007 to $1.1 million in 2009, before slipping to $923,000 in 2010. He says he paid a combined tax rate of 28 percent over the four years. (Romney, remember, paid 14 percent because many of his earnings came from investments taxed at a lower capital gains rate.)

QUOTE OF NOTE: “My family has had the great privilege of serving Massachusetts before. They taught me that public service is an honor, given in trust, and that trust must be earned each and every day. That’s exactly what I intend to do,” 31-year-old state prosecutor Joe Kennedy III says in a video posted before his formal congressional candidacy announcement today. If he wins the seat from which Barney Frank is retiring, he’ll be the first person from the fifth generation in his family to hold federal office — starting when his great-great grandfather Honey Fitz Fitzgerald was elected to a Boston House seat 118 years ago.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: No current lawmakers, administration officials or other people prominent in Washington life. But Kim John Il would be turning 70 were he still alive, and Sonny Bono would be 77.

— David Hawkings, editor

Become a Facebook fan at facebook.com/DavidHawkingsDC. Or follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/davidhawkings.

Negotiators Overcome Snags, Announce Deal on Payroll Tax Break (CQ Today)

The deal came only after last-minute drama triggered by the reluctance of Senate Republicans and by Democratic opposition to a pension change that would be costly for federal workers. » View full article

Keystone Pipeline Finds New Opponents (Roll Call)

The latest obstacle to the project comes from tea partyers, much to the delight of environmentalists. » View full article

Fueling Innovation Without Getting Burned (CQ Weekly)

Lawmakers are grappling with serious policy questions raised by the Solyndra case, including the proper government role in energy markets and determining acceptable levels of risk when taxpayer dollars are at stake. » View full article

Boehner Struggles to Secure Support for Transportation Bill (Roll Call)

The Speaker's hand was forced by more than a desire for "full debate." » View full article

House Delays Plans to Vote on Highway Bill (CQ Today)

The postponement was prompted, in part, by a decision to spend one of the offsets — a requirement that federal employees pay a greater share of their pension contributions — on the payroll tax cut extension instead. » View full article

The Boy Mayor's Last Stand (Roll Call)

Dennis Kucinich is spending a lot more time in Toledo these days. » View full article

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David Hawkings

dailybriefing@cqrollcall.com

CQ Roll Call Daily Briefing: 'Hold on Tight a Little While Longer'

2012-02-15T08:42:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Today In Washington

THE HOUSE: Convened at 10 and this afternoon and will begin debating the energy provisions of the GOP highway bill. (The last amendment vote is promised before 7.) The package would expand offshore drilling for oil and gas, permit drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, approve the Keystone XL pipeline and create a shale-oil leasing program — with any resulting federal revenue dedicated to road and bridge projects.

Boehner appears to have the votes to pass this section of his overall package as a stand-alone bill, but he still faces significant opposition — from fellow Republicans and almost all Democrats — to the other two parts, one to limit federal pensions and the other to revamp highway, rail and mass transit policy for the next five years. As a consequence, he announced this morning that debate on those sections would be put off until after next week’s Presidents Day recess. “It’s more important that we do it right than that we do it fast,” he told a GOP caucus meeting, promising to allow lawmakers to air their grievances through a wide-open amendment process .

THE SENATE: Convened at 9:30, will vote at noon to promote of Adalberto Jordan from the federal trial bench in Miami to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, and will then spend the rest of the day on its version of the highway bill. But the first contentious amendment vote looks to have nothing to do with public works priorities; instead, it will be on Republican language that would allow any employer (not just religiously affiliated institutions) to opt out of Obama’s contraceptive coverage mandate. After that, attention may turn to proposals to either chide Egypt or cut off its U.S. aid because of its prosecution of Americans working to promote democracy.

THE WHITE HOUSE: Obama is flying to Milwaukee, where at 1:40 (D.C. time) he’ll urge corporate leaders to make more investments and hire more people in America — from the factory floor at Master Lock, a favorite example of the president’s because it brought 100 manufacturing jobs back from China in response to rising labor and logistical costs in Asia. (Obama carried Wisconsin by 14 points in 2008, but since then a big GOP surge in the state has made his chances this year a tossup.)

Air Force One takes off at 3 for Los Angeles, where tonight the president will appear at the first two events in an eight-fundraiser, three-city West Coast tour — a $250-a-head reception and Foo Fighters concert for 1,000 at the home of soap opera impresario Bradley Bell, followed by a $35,800-a-plate dinner in the mansion for 80 hosted by Bell and the actor Will Ferrell .

HOW IT CAME TO THIS: Negotiators continue to haggle today over the fine print of the legislative package extending the lower Social Security payroll tax through the end of the year, maintaining long-term unemployment insurance and paying doctors who care for Medicare patients at the current rate — but with spending cuts totaling no more than $60 billion and probably closer to $50 billion, which would be less than one-third the overall expense.

A deal was close enough, however, that House members were told to expect a vote on Friday. The last major political obstacle faded there this morning, when Boehner got solid if hardly unanimous support for his not-too-many-offsets capitulation from the most conservative members of his caucus. The Senate is also likely to clear the measure by the end of the week, even though McConnell has been publicly cool to the notion of extending the payroll tax cut without paying for it — and seemed to have been taken by surprise at the House GOP leadership’s about-face.

“We have a good framework, but there are still some important details yet to go,” Chris Van Hollen, one of the House Democratic negotiators, said at mid-morning. “It ain’t over till it’s over, so everyone needs to hold on tight a little while longer.” The conference committee has agreed to set 73 weeks as the maximum extension of jobless insurance in the 14 hardest-hit states (down from 99 weeks now) and 63 weeks in all the others (down from 93 weeks). The Republican efforts to require drug tests or a GED as a condition of getting a benefits check have been scuttled. The offsets would come from broadcast spectrum sales, some new fees on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, cutting Medicare payments to hospitals where too many patients skip out on their bills, trimming a fund to combat chronic diseases and setting some new federal pension limits — which, problematically, overlap with some pay-fors in the House highway bill.

But if the measure goes to Obama by the weekend, it would bring to an end one of the most tortured and protracted fiscal policy standoffs in a year that has been replete with them — and just in time for lawmakers to boast back home (during next week’s recess) that they’d put aside their well-known reputations for bickering, brinkmanship and ideological high-handedness long enough to reach bipartisan consensus on a budget bill with tangible, real world implications — and with fully two weeks to spare. (The payroll tax break — which means $20 a week to someone making $50,000 a year — the jobless aid and the “doc fix” are all set to lapse on Feb. 29.) With polls still showing their collective approval rating flirting with single digits, and the election nine months away, members of Congress were under significant pressure to set aside their dysfunctional ways on the three-part extenders package — which in other years would be barely a footnote but which may stand as one of the year’s most high-profile legislative accomplishments. And Republicans, especially, can take some cold comfort in the notion that any anger from the base about their flip-flop on offsets won’t last as long as the anger they would have stirred up nationwide, had they held firm against a continued tax break for the middle class.

PLUM POSITION: Robert Zoellick told the World Bank’s board this morning that he would not seek a reappointment and would step down June 30, when his five-year term as president ends. (During his tenure the bank says it provided more than $247 billion to help developing countries boost their economic growth and combat poverty.) Zoellick, a former deputy secretary of State and U.S. trade representative, is only 58 and would be a top candidate for several Cabinet posts under any Republican who might win the White House this fall. In the interim, his departure will compel the Obama administration to decide whether the United States will insist on holding on to the job — which has been held by an American since the international lending organization was created 68 years ago. Water-cooler speculation in the global banking world has focused on Hillary Clinton and Larry Summers as the highest-profile Americans who might want the post.

NOW AND LATER: The latest good polling news for Rick Santorum comes from Ohio — which, like Michigan, is an industrial Midwest battleground not only in the Republican primaries but in the fall as well. A Quinnipiac Poll out today shows the ex-Pennsylvania senator ahead there by 7 percentage points — with 36 percent to 29 percent for Mitt Romney. (Newt Gingrich, who had identified Ohio as one of his better Super Tuesday opportunities, is at 20 percent, and Ron Paul is at 9 percent.) In a potential fall matchup, the Q poll shows Obama edging Romney in Ohio by 2 points, Santorum by 6 and Gingrich by 12 — even though his approval rating in the state remains a hair below his-new-national average 47 percent. (The Ohio vote is March 6, a week after Michiagn.)

The less-obvious good news for Santorum comes from Texas, where the Byzantine court battle over congressional redistricting has now forced another postponement of the GOP primary. It was supposed to be part of Super Tuesday. Then it was pushed to April 3. Yesterday that date was scratched as well, with the party instead asking judges in San Antonio to permit a May 22 date. But that, too, will become impractical if the redistricting fight drags on, and under some scenarios the vote could be as late as June 26. Almost certainly someone will have secured a majority of the delegates by then, but if not, the 155 coming from Texas would be an enormous prize. And the bulk of them almost surely go to the most conservative candidate left standing. For now, Gingrich seems to be counting on it — in part because he’s got promises of enthusiastic help from his former rival, Gov. Rick Perry. But if Gingrich is out of the race by late spring, Santorum could claim an enormous prize.

CITY HALL TO CONVENTION HALL: Antonio Villaraigosa was tapped today to be chairman of the Democratic convention starting in Charlotte the day after Labor Day. The position is akin to being master of ceremonies (assuming the convention remains a choreographed Obama love-fest and doesn’t degenerate into party infighting), and so it affords the two-term mayor of Los Angeles three evenings in prime time to raise his profile as a leading spokesman for the entire party, not just the Latino community. Beyond that, it underscores the party’s efforts to generate an especially heavy turnout for Obama among Hispanics in four of the swing states — Florida, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada. Usually the chairman’s job goes to a senior member of the congressional leadership, but DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the Obama campaign have made clear they want this convention to shake off some of its more old-fashioned traditions.

HASTINGS RULING: Winsome Packer may continue to pursue her sexual harassment suit against the Helsinki Commission, but a federal judge has ruled that Alcee Hastings and a former chief of staff, Fred Turner, may not be held personally liable in the case. Packer worked for the Europe-policy advisory commission in Vienna and claims the Florida Democrat made frequent unwanted sexual advances when he visited as a leader of the commission from 2007 until last year — and that Hastings and Turner retaliated against her after she complained. “This whole thing is ridiculous, bizarre, frivolous, and has wasted — and is still wasting — a whole lot of folks’ time and money,” the congressman said in a statement. “I am glad to see that these bogus allegations have finally been dismissed.” But that’s actually not true. Judge Barbara Rothstein’s ruling yesterday makes clear that Hastings may still be put under oath to describe his version of his encounters with Packer.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: No current lawmakers, but at least two former Cabinet members: James Schlesinger, Defense secretary for Nixon and Ford and then Carter’s first Energy secretary (83), and John Block, Reagan’s first Agriculture secretary (77). And former House GOP Conference Chairman John Anderson of Illinois, who won 5.7 million 1980 presidential votes (90).

— David Hawkings, editor

Become a Facebook fan at facebook.com/DavidHawkingsDC. Or follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/davidhawkings.

Senate Works to Strike Right Tone on Egypt (CQ Today)

Rand Paul is offering a get-tough measure, but others want to take a more diplomatic tack. » View full article

GOP Freshmen Find Cash Is Tough to Give Back (Roll Call)

In a way, the Class of 2010 is realizing its worst fears about the way Washington works. » View full article

Contraception and Constitutionality (CQ Weekly)

Basically, after adopting a position that — regardless of whether one liked it — must be called bold, the president then seemed to lose interest in defending it. » View full article

Speaker Refashions Transportation Bill (Roll Call)

Once again, it appears Boehner might have overestimated his conference's willingness to support one of his legislative packages. » View full article

Deal in Works on Payroll Tax Cut (CQ Today)

In political terms, a deal is likely to be seen as a victory for Obama. » View full article

Parties Near Deal on Payroll Tax Cut Extension (Roll Call)

It's a surprising turn for a Congress that has been marked by intransigence and last-minute betrayals. » View full article

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Contact the Editor

David Hawkings

dailybriefing@cqrollcall.com

CQ Roll Call Daily Briefing: More Than Meets the Eye

2012-02-14T08:44:00.000-08:00

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Today In Washington

THE WHITE HOUSE: “You're starting to hear voices talk about how we can go ahead and make this happen in a timely way on behalf of the American people,” Obama said this morning about the new Republican offer to support a payroll tax cut extension without offsets. “But in Washington, you can’t take anything for granted.”

The president has started a 90-minute meeting with Xi Jinping, who is China’s vice president now but is set next year to begin a decade as president — during which both the economic interconnectedness of and the military rivalry between their countries will intensify. While hoping to develop some personal chemistry with Xi, the president (with Biden at his side) is expected to press American concerns about China’s trade-rule violations, intellectual property theft, currency valuation, treatment of political dissidents and approaches to Tibet, North Korea, Iran and Syria.

Starting at 3, the president will tape interviews designed to promote his budget priorities with TV anchors in Las Vegas, Atlanta, Tampa and Charlotte. He’ll get an update on the military’s posture around the world from Panetta at 4:45.

THE SENATE: Convened at 10 and looks to be held hostage all day by Rand Paul, who is vowing to delay as long as possible both a non-controversial judicial confirmation (Adalberto Jordan for the 11th Circuit) and debate on the highway bill — unless he’s promised a vote on whether to suspend all aid to Egypt until the release of the nongovernmental Americans working there to promote democracy. If Reid does not relent, the Jordan vote could come after midnight.

THE HOUSE: Convenes at noon and starting at 2 will debate three post office naming bills, with votes put off until 6:30 to allow lawmakers a full day of travel.

GIVE AND TAKE: Top Democrats are reacting with skeptical optimism today to the House Republican leadership’s surprise new offer on the Social Security payroll tax.

On the one hand, they are thrilled in their view that Boehner & Co. have blinked, big time, in a debate that has bedeviled both parties since last fall. “This is a major step forward in these negotiations,” Schumer said this morning, just before Obama offered encouraging words of his own. But at the same time, the Democrats are plainly worried that — if they agree to extend the 2-percentage-point reduction in the payroll tax through the end of the year without offsetting the $100 billion cost — they will be seriously jeopardizing their leverage over the other two parts of the package stuck in conference negotiations: an extension of unemployment benefits and a continuation of the current Medicare doctor reimbursement rate. The president, notably, did not embrace the House GOP offer at the hastily arranged photo op a few minutes ago.

The president made clear that preventing a payroll tax increase for 160 million Americans on March 1 (meaning $40 weekly for the typical paycheck) was his top priority in the talks, with the jobless benefits second. (Extending those would cost $30 billion at least for the rest of the year.) But Democratic leaders in Congress are almost as interested in maintaining the current payment system for doctors, which could cost another $30 billion this year, and they worry that they could be stumbling into a negotiating trap on the jobless aid and the “doc fix” if they take “yes” for an answer too quickly on the payroll tax. On the one hand, they see the GOP move as an acknowledgment that it has lost the messaging war on the payroll question — and that GOP conservatives (who started endorsing the leadership’s proposal today) have concluded their political wellbeing on this one trumps their ideological desires. And so, if anything, the Democrats’ tendency will be to press the GOP to accept no additional offsets on the other two big tickets in the package, as well. But if the Republicans hold fast against that idea, and those two provisions expire in 15 days, that would amount to the Democrats snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Put another way, Republicans may have taken away the Democrats’ leverage by preemptively agreeing to the payroll tax, but in so doing it looks like they are taking the jobless money and the Medicare fix hostage.

MARCH OF THE AGENCY HEADS: Administration officials began their annual trek to Capitol Hill this morning to offer their obligatory spirited defenses of the Obama budget proposal — and rebut the Republicans who excoriated the document at almost every turn.

The $614 billion Pentagon plan, which would mean a 5 percent cut in defense spending, “will maintain our military’s decisive edge and help sustain America’s global leadership,” Joint Chiefs Chairman Martin Dempsey told Senate Armed Services. No, replied John McCain, the top panel Republican, it “continues the administration’s habit of putting short-term political considerations over our long-term national security interests.” Senators of both parties also complained that the administration has made no plans to deal with the additional defense cuts that will be mandated if sequestration takes effect next January. Panetta said he hoped that — now that the draconian nature of those across-the-board cuts is clear — Congress will make deep enough cuts on its own to avoid them.

Acting Budget Director Jeffrey Zients defended the president’s priorities and fiscal math at Senate Budget, where Republicans asserted the budget was using deceitful accounting methods to make its claim of $4 trillion in deficit reduction during the next decade. He said the budget was making good on the president’s efforts to cut the deceit in half during his term — but said it’s taking longer than promised because the economic situation is far worse than the administration had anticipated. (The budget calls for total spending next year of $3.8 trillion — just three-tenths of a percent more than this year.) Geithner went before Senate Finance to defend the president’s continued promotion of his tax agenda.

CLOSER THAN EVER: As of this morning there’s a third straight poll that puts Rick Santorum statistically tied with Mitt Romney among Republican voters nationwide. The newest one, from CBS and The New York Times, shows the spread between them is within the margin of sampling error: 30 percent for the surging former Pennsylvania senator and 27 percent for the stagnating former Massachusetts governor. (Ron Paul is at 12 percent and Newt Gingrich is at 10 percent.) The other two surveys taken since Santorum’s big night a week ago show him and Romney within a statistically insignificant 2 points of each other, with Gingrich trailing by either 11 points (Pew Research Center) or 14 (Gallup). But still, the trend is clear that Santorum has become the conservatives’ latest preferred alternative to Romney — his name joining a roster of four other rightward Republicans who have surged into the lead in such national polls: Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Herman Cain and Gingrich. All but the former Speaker are gone, of course, and he’s the only one who’s slipped off the top of the pedestal but later returned — a history of resurrection that means it’s still probably too soon to declare it a Romney-versus-Santorum race. (Gingrich himself said yesterday he doesn’t see it that way and scoffed at a National Review op-ed urging that he drop out.)

It’s also the case that only a modicum of good news tends to propel the fickle waves of not-Mitt momentum — and every time that’s happened so far, Romney has come back with some good news of his own. Which is why Michigan’s primary two weeks from today now looms as such an important contest. As of now, Santorum has a remarkably lopsided lead there, 39 percent to 25 percent, according to a poll out yesterday. If Romney can use his surprising underdog status in his own home state to his advantage in the coming days and leverage his financial and organizational superiority into a big win, then he could go a long way to restoring the narrative of himself as the good-enough conservative and inevitable nominee. If he falters to Santorum in Michigan, his path to Tampa will become downright troubled.

TRAIL TIPS: (1) Republicans in Alabama say the insider trading investigation of Financial Services Chairman Spencer Bachus by the Office of Congressional Ethics is seriously complicating his effort to win renomination for an 11th term. The quickly emerging consensus is that, unless Bachus can use his $1 million campaign bank account and his establishment organizational muscle to win an outright majority in the first-round of the GOP primary — four weeks from today — he is highly vulnerable to losing an April 24 runoff to the almost-certain runner up on March 13: Scott Beason, a state senator since 2007 (and a state representative for eight years before that) who has significant tea party support. “Going along and getting along has gotten us where we are, and I’m for turning the country around” is the challenger’s message — although he only declared his candidacy a month ago and so far he has raised so little money to broadcast his message that the FEC hasn’t asked for a report.

(2) The California Democratic Party has endorsed Janice Hahn in her campaign for a full term against ethically embattled Laura Richardson in a reconfigured House district south of Los Angeles. The endorsement — made because Hahn won 79 percent support among the district’s delegates to the state convention — will be listed on sample ballots sent to every registered Democrat in the he district before the June primary. (The party made no endorsement in the other California race featuring two Democratic incumbents, Howard Berman and Brad Sherman.) Richardson, who also came to Washington in a special election, back in 2007, has been under the Ethics Committee’s scrutiny almost ever since; questions about her real estate dealings were dropped, but the panel is now looking into a set of allegations that she compelled members of her congressional staff to do political work and personal tasks.

(3) The latest polling in Indiana suggests that Dick Lugar has shaken off the most serious challenge of his Senate career. The survey taken last week (by Lugar’s campaign) showed him ahead of state Treasurer Richard Mourdock 55 percent to 30 percent among likely voters in the May 8 primary. Mourdock began the campaign as one of the highest-profile tea-party-backed challengers to a GOP incumbent anywhere, but he’s never been able to raise the money to match the hype.

(4) The latest poll in Hawaii shows Mazie Hirono with 56 percent support to 36 percent for the man she succeeded in the House six years ago, Ed Case, in the race for the Democratic nomination for the open Senate seat. The primary is Aug. 11. The Honolulu Star-Advertiser survey showed both aspirants winning in the fall by 20 percentage points against Linda Lingle, who Republicans have touted as having a more than decent shot because she remained popular through two terms as governor.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: The only Valentine’s Day congressional birthday belongs to Richie Neal of Massachusetts, the No. 6 Democrat on House Ways and Means (63).

— David Hawkings, editor

Become a Facebook fan at facebook.com/DavidHawkingsDC. Or follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/davidhawkings.

Loopholes Allowed for Long Vegas Vacation (Roll Call)

About a dozen members and staffers (and family) were able to treat the Consumer Electronics Show as a four-day junket. » View full article

John Cranford's Political Economy: Shooting at CBO (CQ Weekly)

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. These are words that used to go together well. » View full article

Stuart Rothenberg: Just How Much Does Gingrich Hate Romney? (Roll Call)

Politics, for all of the focus on issues, symbols and ideology, is a deeply personal business. » View full article

House GOP Drops Offsets From Payroll Tax Talks (CQ Today)

It represents a major reversal for Republicans. » View full article

Republicans Shift Tactics on Payroll Tax Cut Extension (Roll Call)

The GOP says it would rather give in on a straight extension than fight on for spending cuts that Senate Democrats will not accept. » View full article

Postal Service Debate Centers on New Areas of Revenue (CQ Today)

Many of those ideas come from congressional Democrats and other allies of organized labor and federal workers. » View full article

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David Hawkings

dailybriefing@cqrollcall.com

Join us this Thursday: CQRC Forum on the Taxation

2012-02-14T07:10:00.001-08:00


	Panel moderated by: Sam Goldfarb, CQ Roll Call Interviews by: John Cranford, Managing Editor for Enterprise Reporting, CQ Roll Call Space is limited. Register now. 2012 appears to a banner year for tax policy. The second session of the 112th Congress begins with a renewed fight over the expiring payroll tax cut enacted in December 2010. Major portions of the individual tax code -- lower tax rates for all income classes and special lower rates for investment income -- will expire at the end of the year. The estate tax is scheduled to revert to pre-2001 law. And, as corporations clamor for a tax overhaul to make U.S. law competitive globally, even President Obama wants to change the way companies are taxed. There is much to talk about, even though conventional wisdom about the polarization on Capitol Hill implies that little will happen before the end of the session -- if then. Congress has a shelf full of tax ideas to consider and an overwhelming need to do so soon. Please join our discussion. Space is limited. Register now. Agenda: 8:00 am Breakfast reception 8:30 am Welcome Remarks Mike Mills, CQ Roll Call 8:35 am Sponsor Remarks 8:40 am Keynote Interview -Congressman Charles Boustany (R-La.) 9:15 am Keynote Interview --Senator Benjamin Cardin (D-Md.) 9:35 am Panel Discussion -John Buckley, Georgetown Law -Robert Carroll, Ernst & Young -Dr. Eugene Steuerle, Urban Institute 10:25 am Closing Remarks 10:30 am Adjourn Participating Sponsors: Altria UPS Space is limited. RSVPs will be given priority entrance. Register Today!






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CQ Roll Call Daily Briefing: On Layaway

2012-02-13T08:35:00.000-08:00

Monday, February 13, 2012

Today In Washington

THE WHITE HOUSE: “We must transform our budget from one focused on speculating, spending and borrowing to one constructed on the solid foundation of educating, innovating and building,” the presidential budget proposal formally sent to the Capitol this morning declares. Obama was making the same point in a speech at this hour at Northern Virginia Community College in Annandale.

The president will be in the East Room at 1:45 to preside over the annual National Medal of Arts and National Humanities Medal ceremonies. The eclectic group being honored includes actor Al Pacino, pianist André Watts, country musician Mel Tillis, painter Will Barnet, poet Rita Dove and the USO — for “lifting the spirits of America’s troops and their families through the arts.”

THE SENATE: Convenes at 2 and will vote at 5:30 to cut off debate and move toward confirming Adalberto Jordan, who’s been on the federal trial court in Miami for 12 years, as the first Cuban-born judge on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. Republicans don’t object to the promotion but are threatening to filibuster many Obama nominees to protest his recently assertive use of recess-appointment power.

Reid is working to smooth the prospects for passing the highway bill, although probably not until after the Presidents Day recess, and gauging whether conference negotiations are so stalled that he needs to try and move another short-term extension of the payroll tax break.

THE HOUSE: Convenes at 1 for a pro forma session.

SAVE IT FOR LATER: Nobody in the capital views the Obama budget as an agenda for congressional action this spring, summer and fall. Instead, it is much closer to a draft platform for the Democratic convention in September — and a briefing book for the lame-duck session in November and December, when almost all the year’s consequential fiscal policy decisions will be made in response to the outcome of the election. That is when the future of the about-to-expire Bush tax cuts will be settled, along with the fate of the across-the-board spending cuts that are about to take effect.

The president’s proposal — all the details of which were made available only at 11 — is in essence a restatement of the “grand bargain” he sought to sell Boehner last summer and the package he then sent to the deficit-reduction supercommittee. It calls for reducing deficits a combined $4 trillion over the next decade — with $1.5 trillion of the gap closed with new revenue and the rest with discretionary-spending restraint and trimming entitlements at the multibillion-dollar margins. The short-term bottom line would be a reduction in the annual deficit from $1.33 trillion this fiscal year (8.5 percent the size of the economy) to $901 billion (5.5 percent of GDP) in budget year 2013, which starts in October.

His revenue plan centers once again on ending the Bush tax cuts in December for families making more than $250,000 a year. It also would eliminate several tax deductions for the wealthy, require million-dollar-earners to pay at least 30 percent of their income in taxes (the so-called Buffett rule), impose $61 billion in new taxes on banks to recover costs from the financial bailout and reap $41 bllion from ending some oil, gas and coal company tax breaks.

His spending plan counts on $1 trillion in savings over a decade from abiding by the August debt limit deal’s discretionary spending caps — albeit with decent boosts for transportation infrastructure (high-speed rail, especially) and education, with proposals for modernizing 35,000 schools, hiring thousands of new teachers and creating a new $8 billion fund to help community colleges and businesses to train workers in fast-expanding industries. (Such plus-ups would be offset by on-paper savings from the wind-downs in Iraq and Afghanistan, from cutting big-ticket domestic agencies such as EPA and NASA and by freezing many programs at the NIH.) The budget would leave Social Security alone but derive $360 billion in savings from Medicare and Medicaid mainly through reduced payments to health care providers, and $278 billion more from trimming non-health entitlements — mainly farm subsidies and government retirement benefits.

THE UNAVOIDABLE TRUTH: Virtually everything in that summary has been proposed by the president before and stopped by congressional Republicans before. That dynamic won’t change before the election. The GOP majority will push through a budget resolution through the House this spring that will project more assertive deficit reduction mainly through something similar to the Medicare revamp Paul Ryan promoted a year ago. Of course, it will call for retaining the Bush tax rates. In the Senate, the Democratic majority won’t ever put a budget proposal on the floor — neither the president’s nor its own. But McConnell will be able to force a vote that symbolically rejects the president’s package (the result will be along the lines of last year’s 0-97 ballot).

That political positioning will keep Congress occupied into the spring, at which point attention will be focused almost entirely on appropriations — apportioning money to the programs that would feel almost all of the brunt of a sequester at the end of the year, which is emphatically on course so long as the president’s blueprint is stashed on a high shelf at the Capitol. (His budget would make the across-the-board cuts unnecessary, administration officials say.) While the sequester would dictate a $16 billion cut from Medicare starting in January, it would mandate $39 billion in cuts from non-defense appropriations and $55 billion from the military. There is almost no way, politically, for lawmakers to clear legislation before the election that would unshackle themselves from those strictures — and even if they did, Obama says he’d veto it. But there’s only a slightly better chance that before Nov. 6 lawmakers will be capable of agreeing on the tough choices that would take the place of the across-the-board cuts. That is why the seven weeks between Election Day and New Year’s Day look to be among the least pleasant in post-election congressional history.

THE VALUE OF SECRETS: Preliminary negotiations will get started this week on the piece of legislation that has captured the public’s attention so far this year — the so-called Stock Act. The main issue is not whether the final version will put a highlighter over the notion that members of Congress and their aides are subject to the same laws against insider trading as everyone else — meaning they can’t buy or sell securities based on information they learn from behind closed doors at legislative or political strategy meetings. The key question now is whether Congress will require political intelligence consultants to register the same as regular-old lobbyists — which is what a bipartisan majority of 60 senators wants but Cantor did not allow the House to vote on. The financial services industry, which counts on these consultants, is going to fight with all its might against the Senate language — and the outcome will offer a signal as to how well-toned that industry’s muscle has become in the years since the financial meltdown.

IT’S OH SO QUIET: Candidates looking to spin members of the national political press corps will be largely out of luck for the next 11 days; many of them will be taking some rare time off to do laundry, return personal e-mail and get some decent nights’ sleep during the current lull in the Republican presidential campaign — which began after Mitt Romney escaped the weekend with plurality wins in both the CPAC straw poll (38 percent to 31 percent for Rick Santorum) and the Maine Caucuses (by 194 votes over Ron Paul).

The next set piece in the campaign is a debate in Phoenix sponsored by CNN on Feb. 22; six days after that are the winner-take-all primary in Arizona, which Romney seems to have in the bag, and the delegates-awarded-proportionately contest in Michigan, where Santorum is pushing hard with the help of a $3 million fundraising boost since last week’s three-state sweep. “We think this is a two-person race right now,” Santorum asserted on CNN yesterday. And the most recent national tracking poll out from Gallup, on Saturday, showed the former Pennsylvania in solid second place among GOP voters, with 24 percent to 34 percent for Romney, while Newt Gingrich had slipped back to 17 percent. The former Speaker is counting on solid showings on Super Tuesday (March 6) in his home state of Georgia and Ohio.

TRAIL TIPS: (1) Don Payne is battling colon cancer but nonetheless plans on seeking a 13th term this fall, when he will be 78. The New Jersey Democrat, a former Congressional Black Caucus chairman and a senior member of the Foreign Affairs and Education committees, remains a safe bet for re-election; his Newark-centered district was minimally redrawn for the coming decade. The congressman’s namesake son, who’s president of the Newark City Council, says that his father’s prognosis for a full recovery is solid and that he announced his illness to raise public awareness about prevention and early detection.

(2) The game of political musical chairs started by Florida’s all-but-formally-signed congressional redistricting plan has taken an unusual turn: The state may be getting two additional House seats, but that’s not preventing at least one member-versus-member primary matchup. Transportation Committee Chairman John Mica made clear over the weekend that he would seek his 11th term in the same reconfigured district north of Orlando where fellow Republican Sandy Adams plans to run for her second term. The district is mashup of the two lawmakers’ current constituencies — with 51 percent of the people Adams now represents and 42 percent of Mica’s current district.

(3) John Conyers, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee and the House’s second-most-senior member, has been endorsed by Obama for a 25th term — which is unusual and noteworthy because Conyers is looking towards a potentially contentious primary, and presidents generally refrain from publicly picking sides in intraparty fights. The four other Democrats running for the Detroit seat are state Sen. Glenn Anderson, state Sen. Bert Johnson, state Rep Shanelle Jackson and lawyer Godfrey Dillard. The state’s redistricting process put the incumbent’s home outside the boundaries of the district where he’s running, though he’s been representing most of the people who live there.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Freshman Democratic Sen. Dick Blumenthal of Connecticut (66).

— David Hawkings, editor

Become a Facebook fan at facebook.com/DavidHawkingsDC. Or follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/davidhawkings.

Obama Uses Old Ideas for Sequester (CQ Today)

Lawmakers will be looking at the president's fiscal 2013 budget, released today, for ideas on how to avoid the $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts that will take effect next year. » View full article

End of Earmark Ban Is Unlikely (Roll Call)

Most Senate Republican leaders are hoping earmarks make a comeback, but after bowing to pressure from House Republicans and conservative elements in their Conference in 2010, some concede it might be difficult to roll back a self-imposed limit that remains politically popular with the GOP base. » View full article

Demand for Contraception Quickly Becomes a Front-Burner Issue (CQ HealthBeat)

As a matter of public health policy, birth control services weren't a prominent topic until a couple of weeks ago. » View full article

American Bridge 21st Century Super PAC Is a Hub of the Left (Roll Call)

The organization has been following Republican candidates on the trail, rooting around their closets for skeletons and furiously pumping out snarky Web videos. » View full article

Reid Looks to Resolve Insider-Trading Bill Differences With Conference (CQ Today)

The move sets up another round of negotiations between the two chambers and puts Reid on a collision course with Cantor. » View full article

Street Talk: Unlobbyists Give Real Lobbyists a Bad Name (Roll Call)

Who do Tom Daschle, Newt Gingrich and Ron Klein think they're fooling? » View full article

Shrinking a Base to Bolster an Alliance (CQ Weekly)

An announcement last week about the U.S. presence in Okinawa is the first time the two countries have shown a willingness to adjust a major element of a 2006 plan. » View full article

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» CQ Budget Tracker	» CQ House Action Reports	» See all CQ Roll Call products

Contact the Editor

David Hawkings

dailybriefing@cqrollcall.com

CQ Roll Call Daily Briefing: Being Careful

2012-02-10T08:36:00.000-08:00

Friday, February 10, 2012

Today In Washington

THE WHITE HOUSE: Obama is due in the press briefing room at 12:15 to personally announce the administration’s plan for accommodating religious employers outraged by a proposed requirement that all health plans provide free coverage of birth control.

With Gabby Giffords at his side, Obama is about to sign her bill closing a legal loophole that had aided Mexican drug smugglers equipped with ultralight aircraft. (Reporters will press her afterward about whether she’s endorsing her old Arizona district director, Ron Barber, as only a special election placeholder or also in the November election.) The president’s regular Friday afternoon hotel fundraiser is at 3:30 at the Jefferson.

THE HOUSE: Not in session

THE SENATE: Not in session.

COVERAGE, COVERED: The president’s not going to call it a cave-in or a flip-flop or even a reversal; those labels will be left for women’s groups to embrace, probably more silently than aloud. Instead, Obama will say he’s making an “accommodation” to religious organizations by embracing a new policy in which they will not have to cover the cost of birth control coverage for their employees — the insurance companies will be directly responsible instead.

Under the plan hashed out last night and designed to quell a culture war uproar, regulations carrying out the preventive care enhancements of the 2010 health care overhaul will still have to guarantee free contraception (no co-pays or premiums) to women no matter where they work. But if Roman Catholic and other religious universities and hospitals declare themselves conscientious objectors, the companies that provide their employees’ coverage will be compelled to pick up the tab. The president will assert that the middle ground protects both the rights of women to have comprehensive health coverage and the rights of the church to its religious liberties. Administration officials said that leaders on both sides of the passionate three-week debate had helped forge the new proposed regulation and that they were confident the president had the authority to order insurers to provide the free coverage. The altered rule will take effect a year later than originally planned, in August 2013.

That the president himself was appearing before the cameras to explain the decision is clear evidence that he sees the controversy as casting a potentially big cloud over his re-election campaign, in which he is counting on doing almost as well with Catholics as he did four years ago, when he took 54 percent of their vote. But it's not clear yet whether today’s move will tamp down the angry rhetoric among his Republican rivals.

ALL DAY LONG: Rick Santorum offered a full-throated version of his socially conservative vision to an enthusiastic Conservative Political Action Committee crowd this morning — thereby creating an even more awkward atmosphere for Mitt Romney’s 1 o’clock arrival. “Conservatives and tea party folks: We are not just wings of the Republican Party — we are the Republican Party,” Santorum said.

The day could not come at a better time for the former Pennsylvania senator, who has a genuine shot at pushing Newt Gingrich out of the way, consolidating the culturally and religiously motivated voters in the GOP and becoming the only viable alternative to Romney. And the day could not come at a more challenging time for the former Massachusetts governor, who runs a genuine risk that his businessman’s steady approach to advancing his candidacy — and explaining his virtues — could collapse unless he can market his conservative bona fides better; otherwise, the half-hearted enthusiasm that has sustained his “inevitability” campaign so far could readily devolve into mostly dissatisfaction. (One extra awkward omen for Romney today is that it was at the CPAC gathering four years ago, in the same Marriott Wardman Park ballroom, where he abandoned his first campaign for the presidency.)

“I won among conservatives in New Hampshire. I won solidly among conservatives in Florida, won among conservatives in Nevada, and have the most delegates in this race,” Romney said on Fox last night, “so I wouldn’t say that I haven’t been able to get good support from conservatives” He suggested however, that he could do a better job highlighting some of the more culturally conservative moves on his resume, noting that he “led the charge” to reverse the Massachusetts state Supreme Court’s decision allowing same-sex marriage.

Gingrich, meanwhile, will appear at 4:10 and plans to offer an idea-packed speech calling for revamping the EPA into “environmental solutions agency,” overhauling the regulatory regime at the FDA, replacing NASA’s bureaucracy, reining in the federal judiciary’s powers and imposing a flat 15 percent income tax while ending capital gains taxes.

The biggest news of the convention could come tomorrow at 4:30, however. Sarah Palin is sending signals that she’ll use her CPAC concluding speech to announce her endorsement. (The results of the weeklong Maine caucuses, where Ron Paul is predicting a solid showing and maybe a victory, will be announced at about 7:30 that night.)

TIMING IS EVERYTHING: Of course it would be a major story if the Office of Congressional Ethics openly alleges that Spencer Bachus violated federal insider trading laws. But the fact that the office is looking at the Alabama Republican shouldn’t be all that surprising. The office is all about proving its worth as an independent investigative agency, and the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee long ago revealed his “hobby” as a day trader on his annual financial disclosure reports — just the sort of activity that the OCE was created to take a look at proactively, without waiting to receive a complaint as the House Ethics process generally requires. Had the office not opened an investigation after the “60 Minutes” report on insider trading last fall, in which Bachus’ fondness for stock options was a central feature, that would have been at least as big a development for watchdogs to worry about.

Beyond all that, the story about Bachus at the top of the Washington Post’s front page is — ironically — evidence to support the views of the tiny minority of lawmakers willing to label the so-called Stock Act as nothing more than self-serving political silliness. They say the core provision of the legislation passed by both the House and Senate is unnecessary, because there’s already a solid system in place to ferret out self-dealing by senators and congressmen. And that’s sure the way it looks in the Bachus case. He’s filed annual reports for years detailing all his trades; would filing such reports more frequently have drawn him scrutiny earlier? The OCE is looking into the matter; would an underscoring of the law that prevents anyone from trading on privileged information have made the agency act faster? The congressman says he was basing his trades on a layman’s understanding of the news, not on super-secret insights from talking to Ben Bernanke or Hank Paulson; would the Stock Act provide methods for refuting him? The clear argument seems in favor of “no” to all three questions.

ANOTHER WEEK DOWN: The status of the one bill that both parties have labeled “must do” this winter will remain “not close to getting done” until at least next week, which will start 16 days before the current payroll tax, jobless benefit and Medicare doctor payment formulas expire. With both the House and Senate sent home for the weekend, there are no serious talks possible today. And the ill will and frustration around the negotiating table grew considerably yesterday, when a proposal highly touted by Democrats as a genuine offer to step toward the middle ground was met with little more than derisive laughter by Republicans. (The offer was to end unemployment benefits after 93 weeks, down from the 99 weeks currently available in states with the highest jobless rates; the GOP was hoping to hear a number much close to its 59-week negotiating position.) Each side walked away accusing the other of not being serious about getting to a deal — and only being serious about trying to make the other look like the guilty party.

QUOTE OF NOTE: “How come liberals never admit that they’re liberal?” Marco Rubio asked to rousing applause at the CPAC convention yesterday. “They’ve now come up with a new word called ‘progressive,’ which I thought was an insurance company but apparently it’s a label.”

ANOTHER QUOTE OF NOTE: “Stephen Colbert used to be my friend. I even signed the poor baby’s cast when he hurt his hand. But since the day he started his Super PAC, taking secret money from special interests, he’s been out of control, even using his Super PAC money to attack my friend, Newt Gingrich. And if that weren’t enough, I hear he doesn’t even like kittens,” Pelosi deadpans in a video released yesterday that designed as a campaign spot to promote Super PAC transparency legislation. “I support this ad because Americans deserve a better tomorrow today. Join me in stopping Colbert and creating a new politics free of special interests. The first step is passing the Disclose Act.”

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Today, Walter Jones of North Carolina (69); tomorrow, another occasionally iconoclastic House Republican, Rob Woodall of Georgia (42), and a Democrat, Tammy Baldwin, who’s giving up her House seat to run for the Senate in Wisconsin (50).

— David Hawkings, editor

Become a Facebook fan at facebook.com/DavidHawkingsDC. Or follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/davidhawkings.

Labor on the Line (CQ Weekly)

A "confluence of events," including Republican militance and budget austerity, is threatening America's unions. For labor, the 2012 elections may be the most important in decades. » View full article

At CPAC, a Serious, Heated Display of Conservatism (Roll Call)

At previous conventions, the youth contingent brought almost a party atmosphere, but most attendees this year are gravely serious. » View full article

Stuart Rothenberg: The Hoopla Surrounding Romney's Electability (Roll Call)

Some of the analysis this week was just plain silly. » View full article

GOP Rejects Democrats' Latest Offer on Payroll Tax Cut (Roll Call)

Boehner says Obama won't allow Senate Democrats to negotiate in good faith. » View full article

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» Sign up for free trials	» CQ HealthBeat	» CQ Today
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Contact the Editor

David Hawkings

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CQ Roll Call Daily Briefing: Not Every Rule Is Sacred

2012-02-09T08:36:00.000-08:00

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Today In Washington

THE WHITE HOUSE: Obama is getting ready to make remarks at 12:15 hailing the $25 billion foreclosure abuse settlement finalized overnight among the states, the Justice Department and five of the nation’s biggest mortgage lenders: Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Ally Financial. Under the deal, $17 billion will go toward reducing by $20,000 the principal that struggling homeowners owe on their notes, $5 billion will go to various state and federal housing programs and the rest will subsidize refinancing by underwater-but-up-to-date-on-their-payments homeowners.

The president will be in the East Room at 2 to announce his decision to free 10 states from many of their obligations under the No Child Left Behind education law. He will welcome Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti to the Oval at 2:45 for talks about the European financial morass, NATO policies and the complexities of the Middle East and North Africa. And he’s got a top-dollar fundraiser at 7 in an undisclosed Washington mansion.

THE HOUSE: Convened at 9 and has gone home for the weekend after voting 417-2 for legislation that would make it easier to expose and punish government officials who buy securities if they don’t stop trading on congressional knowledge — the phrase that forms the convenient acronym in Stock Act. The dissenters were Republicans John Campbell of California and Rob Woodall of Georgia. No proposed amendments were allowed, so the bill is narrower in scope than the package senators embraced last week. (The main difference is that only the Senate bill would require new financial disclosures and lobbyist-style registrations by the burgeoning number of businesses that offer “political intelligence consulting” to Wall Street firms.)

THE SENATE: Convened at 9:30 and at 2 will vote to brush aside dilatory moves and begin officially debating the $109 billion, two-year highway, rail and mass transit policy and projects bill — starting next week. (To get it passed before the Presidents Day recess, Reid will have to cut several preliminary deals with the three chairmen who share jurisdiction.)

PUSHED TO A RESPONSE: Obama is going to have to back down on his contraception coverage mandate well before Boehner and McConnell start forcing a reversal through legislation.

The president’s already going to be in the headlines twice today for politically popular moves, on education and mortgages, and may not want to muddy those messages. But it’s a safe bet that by sometime tomorrow he’ll announce some sort of modification of the new HHS rule. That’s because the politics of the imbroglio are rapidly spinning away from him, with Republicans quickly united and galvanized by what they see as a winning election-year return to the culture wars — and a growing number of centrist Democrats in politically perilous circumstances pressing the White House for a quick about-face on its decision.

The collective and quick calculation is that the government’s preservation of religious freedom is a much more popular idea than a government guarantee of access to free birth control — at least at the all-important center of the national political spectrum, where the independents who decide elections are. Those are the voters who will decide Virginia’s tossup open-seat Senate race — a statistical dead heat in five straight polls, including one this week — which is why former Democratic National Chairman Tim Kaine has come out against the new health care regulations. Same for Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, who don’t want their relatively clear shots at re-election sullied by the brouhaha and are urging the president to back down. The four other Catholic Democratic senators up this fall — Claie McCaskill, Maria Cantwell, Bob Menendez and Kirsten Gillibrand — are behind the White House so far but would be thrilled if the issue went away. And all of them are wondering why the president didn’t take the advice of the two most prominent Catholics in the administration at the time the decision was made — Biden and Bill Daley, who both warned emphatically of the political peril.

And yet the polling offers decent evidence that a softening of the HHS rule may be a snap decision that’s beyond what’s politically warranted. While Roman Catholic leaders are lambasting the regulations — which they see as an affront to their rights to run their hospitals, schools and other charities under their own moral rubric — there’s widely circulated polling that shows rank-and-file Catholic voters are solidly supportive of a birth control coverage requirement. And even if the Democrats slip below 50 percent in their support from Catholics at the polls, standing solidly behind the mandate should have no trouble boosting their support among women and younger voters.

DIFFERENT SCALES: Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oklahoma and Tennessee are the states being released from many of the No Child Left Behind law’s requirements because they’ve come up with viable alternatives for improving their educational systems and methods for evaluate student achievement. The announcement makes good on one of the first pieces of Obama’s “We can’t wait” agenda, in which he’s promising unilateral executive branch actions in the absence of congressional activity — and earning the enmity of many Republicans on the Hill who see him as over-reaching. (There’s almost no chance that Congress will rewrite the elementary and secondary education policy law this year; the Senate HELP panel approved a plan last fall that the White House didn’t like, and negotiations in the House Education and Labor Committee long ago devolved into partisan name-calling.)

No Child requires all students to be proficient, for their grade levels, in reading and math by 2014. Critics say the goal is unrealistic, produces too much “teaching to the test” and means too many schools are punished as failures. The states given waivers will get a break on that mandate in return for providing detailed plans for preparing their children for college and careers, setting new targets for improving student achievement, rewarding high-performing schools and getting help to the under-performers. (New Mexico also asked for a waiver now but was told it had more work to do; 28 other states are also getting waiver applications ready — an obvious sign that dissatisfaction with the law is spreading far and wide.)

THE NEW LINE: Three of the top-ranking members of the Senate majority leadership — Harry Reid, Dick Durbin and Patty Murray — are all veteran appropriators who want to protect the congressional power over the purse from any further weakening in an era of shrinking discretionary budgets, earmark bans and looming sequestration. But they won’t be able to resist for very long the growing bipartisan pressure for the line-item veto proposal the House enthusiastically embraced yesterday. The enormousness of the deficits and the political mandate for lawmakers to look like they’re cutting wasteful spending have combined to push the appropriators off their long-running preeminence in the congressional power structure.

The leadership won’t be compelled to put the House bill on the floor for a clean up-or-down vote. Instead, they will probably acquiesce in the idea that the measure be attached as an amendment to some other likely-to-be-enacted bill. That’s what its two principal Senate sponsors, Tom Carper and John McCain, want to do — confident that they can grow their roster of supporters comfortably beyond the current list of 27 Republicans and 16 Democrats. (Rob Portman, the Ohio senator who ran the White House budget office five years ago, agrees that the handwriting’s on the wall that the line-item veto’s time has returned — after 14 years off the books, and after laborious negotiations to come up with a reliably constitutional procedure.)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Departing Democratic Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia (66); Democratic Rep. Jay Inslee of Washington (61); House GOP freshmen Renee Ellmers of North Carolina (48) and Todd Rokita of Indiana (42).

— David Hawkings, editor

Become a Facebook fan at facebook.com/DavidHawkingsDC. Or follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/davidhawkings.

New Chapter in Culture Wars (Roll Call)

GOP leaders launched a coordinated assault on the Obama administration's controversial birth control rule. » View full article

Republicans Plan Legislation Against Contraception Rule (CQ Today)

Boehner says they'll write write a bill to protect religious freedoms. » View full article

Alexander Spreads His Wings (Roll Call)

Two weeks removed from leadership, the Tennessee Republican has shifted 180 degrees from politics to policy — attempting to parlay his newfound freedom and influence as a respected, tenured Member into legislative action and a more bipartisan Senate. » View full article

After Expected House Passage, Future of Insider-Trading Bill Uncertain (CQ Today)

Reid, in particular, will have some decisions to make. » View full article

Military Plan Hits BRAC Wall (CQ Weekly)

The last round of base closures, in 2005, soured many lawmakers. » View full article

Senate 2014 Field Looks to Favor GOP (Roll Call)

In the next cycle, Republicans will defend 13 seats to Democrats' 20. » View full article

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Contact the Editor

David Hawkings

dailybriefing@cqrollcall.com

CQ Roll Call Daily Briefing: Can't Ignore 'im

2012-02-08T08:41:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Today In Washington

THE HOUSE: Convened at 10 and this afternoon will cast a rare lopsided and bipartisan vote in favor of a budget bill. The measure would give presidents a form of line-item veto power that its authors are convinced is constitutional — because it would subject his packages of proposed rescissions from appropriations laws to up-or-down congressional votes. (A 1996 line-item veto law was struck down by the Supreme Court two years later because it gave the president unilateral power to excise line items from statutes.) Obama has endorsed the House bill (which will be amended to shield Corps of Engineers projects from rescissions) and it’s got broad backing from senators, too — but not Reid, a former appropriator, who thinks the bill would yield too much legislative power over the purse and is likely to keep the measure off the floor.

THE SENATE: Not in session. Democrats are holding a daylong political and legislative strategy session at Nationals Park. Republicans are doing the same, but in the Capitol.

THE WHITE HOUSE: Obama is headed to the baseball stadium at 2, but his pep talk to the senators will be off camera. He’ll be back in the Oval at 4 to talk with Clinton about the world’s lengthening roster of diplomatic hot spots.

GUESS WHO’S BACK: Justifiably emboldened by last night’s extraordinary three-state sweep, Rick Santorum declared today that he would “plant the flag” in Mitt Romney’s ancestral backyard of Michigan and make an all-out bid to win the primary there three weeks from now. With the help of a post-upset fundraising burst (his campaign reported raising $250,000 in a few hours this morning) he said he was confident he would triumph by portraying himself as an outsider who was a more reliable advocate for blue-collar values of personal opportunity and moral conservatism — and Romney as “a well-oiled weather vane.”

The former Pennsylvania senator’s surge to solid victories in the Colorado caucuses (his biggest upset, by 5 percentage points over Romney) the Minnesota caucuses (by 18 points — over Ron Paul) and the Missouri beauty contest (by 30 points, and without Newt Gingrich on the ballot) was matched in remarkableness by the former Massachusetts governor’s swoon — and just when it seemed he was genuinely on the cusp of making good on his promise of inevitability. Romney had won both Colorado and Minnesota in 2008, and in those states as well as Missouri (which has a big asterisk because it’s non-binding this time), his vote totals were significant drop-offs from four years ago — 20,000 fewer in Colorado, 18,000 fewer in Minnesota and 109,000 fewer in Missouri. The unmistakable takeaway is that he’s less popular in all three than he used to be — especially when he doesn’t put his still-superior organizational operation and bank account to work for him.

Even if he doesn’t win in Michigan, Santorum should have no trouble getting some delegates there. (The other contest on March 28, in Arizona, is winner-take-all, and Romney has a solid organization in place.) And the timing for his burst of momentum is hard to beat, coming as it does just when Obama is being pressured to reconsider new rules on contraception coverage in the face of Roman Catholic objections, the Komen-Planned Parenthood flap has people thinking about abortion rights again, and the California gay marriage question is back on the front page. Santorum probably still won’t end up speaking on a Thursday night in August from the sports arena in Tampa, but he may well end up as the other person in the two-man race that slows Romney’s path to the nomination until Memorial Day.

CANTOR’S TAKE: The version of the Stock Act the House will debate tomorrow is significantly different from the government ethics package the Senate passed last week. The biggest difference is that the bill Cantor unveiled late last night has no provisions requiring the people in the “political intelligence consulting” industry to register like lobbyists. Senators added such language to their version last week, and since then the grumbling from K Street and financial services companies — which use such intelligence reports to shape their trading decisions — has grown intense, in part because the provision was written to define intelligence-gathering in a pretty vague and expansive way.

Unlike the Senate bill, Cantor’s measure would deny government pensions to lawmakers convicted of a felony. It would expand restrictions on how executive branch officials handle negotiations with prospective private-sector employers and make it a crime for those officials to retaliate against companies that don't hire them. It is more specific than the Senate’s about the new disclosures it would require of executive branch officials — and makes clear that it would apply to about 30,000 administration officials. And it essentially would prevent lawmakers from participating in initial public offerings — language clearly written to poke at Pelosi, whose husband bought stock in the 2008 Visa IPO while she was Speaker and the House was considering a bill to lower credit card fees. Both bills, however, are the same at the core: They would make clear that lawmakers and aides are subject to prosecution (or ethics committee punishment) if they trade securities based on information about legislative strategies or pending decisions that aren’t available to the public.

The bill is likely to sail through the House tomorrow — because members are eager to do something that sounds like they get the message about why the public holds Congress in such low regard — although Democrats will complain loudly that they were not consulted by Cantor even though the legislation's central piece really was their idea first.

STILL FIGHTING: The other collective mea culpa that Congress may yet turn into enactable legislation this year is a prohibition against earmarks. What “60 Minutes” did to spur on the insider-trading bill, The Washington Post is now doing to put the practice of pet projects back under the spotlight — with its series this week showing that some earmarks look to be for lawmakers’ personal benefit, not just for parochial political aggrandizement. The leaders of the Senate effort to enact a true earmark ban, Pat Toomey and Claire McCaskill, are increasingly confident the newspaper’s stories will pressure their colleagues into voting to add the legislation as an amendment to the highway bill. (They say the binding ban is needed because Senate appropriators’ self-imposed moratorium on earmarks for the coming year is readily circumvented). But even if that happens, the idea seems stuck for the foreseeable future in the House. The leader of the cause there, Jeff Flake, was rebuffed in his request to be allowed to offer an earmark ban as an amendment during tomorrow’s Stock Act debate.

THREE MORE WEEKS: The current payroll tax, jobless aid and Medicare doctor payment formulas all expire three weeks from today, when the fifth public negotiating session between Senate Democrats and House Republicans is planned on the bill that would extend all three through the end of the year. In public, there’s been very little evidence that the two sides are each making moves toward the middle on the fundamental question of how to offset the $160 billion expense — and plenty of evidence that each side is still blaming the other’s bullheadedness for the impasse. That could change a little once Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus unveils what he’s promising will be a genuine overture to Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp on long-term unemployment payments, which the GOP is pushing hard to rein in while setting school requirements for beneficiaries. If the House conferees take the offer, that would mean there’s a decent chance the talks could get off the dime and be done before the Presidents Day recess starts at the end of next week. If not, then Reid will be ready to put another short-term extension before the Senate when the recess is over.

STEVENS REPORT: Federal Judge Emmet Sullivan denied motions today from two unidentified people seeking to keep a permanent seal of secrecy on a 500-page report detailing widespread misconduct in the prosecution of Ted Stevens — who was convicted of corruption in 2008, lost his bid-for reelection as the longest-serving Republican in Senate history a few weeks later and then saw his conviction thrown out the next spring. Instead, the judge ordered the report’s release on March 15.

NOT WEDDED TO IT: It’s clear that the Supreme Court eventually will be asked to be the final arbiter of whether gays and lesbians can get married, at least in California. But it’s not clear the court will agree to settle the question, and it’s way up in the air what the justices would decide if they end up taking the case; they could rule only on narrow and somewhat technical grounds affecting only the reach of referendums in California, or they could issue a sweeping ruling that decides one of the defining civil rights debates of the age — whether same-sex couples may be constitutionally denied the same right to wed as opposite-sex couples. But, until the high court has had its say (or decided not to), the current prohibition will remain on gay marriage in the nation’s biggest state.

The next step is for the backers of Proposition 8 — approved with 52 percent just five months after the state Supreme Court legalized gay marriage — to decide whether to ask the full 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider yesterday’s 2-1 panel ruling against them, or whether to turn right away to the Supreme Court. The latter option would put the case in the calendar for the term starting in the fall, when there’s a high probability all nine of the current justices will still be sitting. Pursuing the interim step would run the risk that the ultimate appeal wouldn’t reach Washington for another year, by which time some retirements and the presidential election result could have tipped the court’s ideological balance to the left or the right.

WHO'S NEXT? Republicans are totally confident they will hold the newly redrawn congressional district that wraps around Charlotte even though Sue Myrick is leaving Congress this fall, when she will turn 71 and complete her ninth term. Myrick yesterday became the 20th House member (and the seventh Republican and the third North Carolinian) to announce a voluntary departure from politics in 2012. A senior member of both the Energy and Commerce and Intelligence panels, she was a reliable vote for the party leadership and a down-the-line conservative alumna of the “Contract With America” takeover class of 1994 — with one notable exception: After surviving breast cancer in the late 1990s, she began working regularly with Democrats to promote more federal spending on research.

Her departure creates an opening that will probably be fought over by a long roster of Republicans, although word is that Myrick is going to endorse Jim Pendergraph, a Mecklenburg County (Charlotte) commissioner. That could complicate the aspirations of state House Speaker Thom Tillis, state Rep. Ruth Samuelson, state Sen. Bob Rucho and Charlotte City Councilman Andy Dulin. So would a decision by former Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory to switch from a run for governor to a run for Congress.

DINNER TIME: The publishers of the Daily Briefing are buying the first round (or two or three) before tonight’s 68th Washington Press Club Foundation dinner — which once again kicks off the annual procession of self-congratulatory big ballroom awards banquets where lawmakers, lobbyists and reporters wash their surf and turf down with overly oaked chardonnay. The foundation’s Congressional Dinner is known for inviting a handful of lawmakers to bolster their reputations for being funny — confident that most of them will bomb instead. Taking their chances this year are Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Democratic Rep. Linda Sanchez of California and freshman GOP Rep. Billy Long of Missouri. The boss’ cocktail party at the Mandarin starts at 6:30.

CORRECTION: Yesterday’s edition got off on the wrong foot with the newest House member by misspelling her first name. It’s Suzanne Bonamici.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Republican Rep. Gus Bilirakis of Florida (49).

— David Hawkings, editor

Become a Facebook fan at facebook.com/DavidHawkingsDC. Or follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/davidhawkings.

Obama Gives In to Pragmatism (Roll Call)

His embrace of a super PAC is only the latest example of the president setting his ideals aside and resigning himself to political realities. » View full article

Squabbling Starts Over Payroll Tax (CQ Today)

Senate Democratic leaders have grown impatient and are threatening to move new legislation. » View full article

Backlash Against Birth Control Mandate Might Aid President (Roll Call)

Catholic groups weighed in, which prompted women's rights groups and their backers to be more involved. And that raised awareness could provide Obama with more votes and dollars for his re-election. » View full article

Rental Housing Trust Fund to Get New Push (CQ Today)

The president is renewing his effort to expand rental housing for low-income Americans, but Republican opposition and the government's fiscal straits may spoil his plans. » View full article

Stock Act Speeds Up, Despite Concerns (Roll Call)

The volatile public mood is greasing the skids. » View full article

New Bird Flu Fear: Worker Shortage (CQ Weekly)

There's more vaccine. But the country now lacks something it had a few years ago: enough people to administer the shots. » View full article

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Contact the Editor

David Hawkings

dailybriefing@cqrollcall.com

CQ Roll Call Daily Briefing: Money, Money, Money, Money!

2012-02-07T08:52:00.000-08:00

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Today In Washington

THE SENATE: Convened at 10 for opening speeches about a two-year, $109 billion update of highway, rail and transit programs — with a break for the weekly party caucus lunches. The central dispute is, as usual, how to offset the cost of the new spending — in this case, the $12 billion left uncovered by projected gas tax receipts. And the next chapter in that increasingly partisan dispute will play out at a Finance Committee meeting at 3, when Chairman Max Baucus will promote a plan he unveiled this morning in hopes of mollifying ranking Republican Orrin Hatch. How quickly the offset fight is resolved will determine when Reid moves to kick the floor debate into high gear.

THE HOUSE: Convened at 10 and by sundown will pass two Republican bills, one to speed up the process for selling unneeded federal real estate and the other to boost the value of government loans and loan guarantees on the federal balance sheet. Susan Bonamici will be sworn in at about 1 as the newest member of Congress, the 192nd House Democrat and the only woman in the Oregon delegation.

THE WHITE HOUSE: Obama is using the backdrop of his second State Dining Room science fair to announce that his budget will call for creating an $80 million Education Department grant program for colleges that provide innovative math and science teacher-training programs. He proposed something similar a year ago but it went nowhere in Congress; he hopes to spur lawmakers to give him what he wants by announcing $22 million in commitment from private companies willing to partly match the federal money.

The president’s other announced events are lunch with Biden and a 4:30 meeting with the vice president and Panetta.

NOT-SO-NEW PRIORITIES: Obama’s decision to countenance fundraising by a super PAC will subject him to intense criticism that he’s become just the sort of politician he’s always railed against — willing to allow electoral necessity to become the mother of blatant hypocrisy. But one of the most obvious flip-flops of his presidency will have a benefit that could readily outweigh the ridicule: His re-election campaign should be able to benefit (without any coordination, of course) from the $100 million or more that Priorities USA Action will have little trouble raising and then spending on the president's behalf.

Obama is clearly betting that he won’t be doing anything that ticks off the vast majority of voters, who are already disgusted about the dominant role of money in politics but have only the vaguest notion of how it all works. And there’s good evidence to support that view: Polls show that very few of the people who backed him four years ago are even aware that he decided to forgo public financing for the general election — and thereby single-handedly neutered one of the great post-Watergate “good government” efforts. He’s also concluding, presumably, that so long as he maintained his position of “unilateral disarmament” for himself as a way of protesting the Citizens United decision, his party’s congressional fundraising operations would continue to suffer as well. Now there are sure to be House and Senate Democratic super PACs aplenty. And Republican ones, too. Like the early days of the nuclear arms race, it will be years before the notion of mutually assured destruction takes hold and prompts both sides to back away from their commitments to having far more in their arsenal than they could ever hope to use.

MESSAGE CONTROL: David Axelrod, Obama’s top political adviser, made quick work of rationalizing the super PAC decision this morning before turning to a topic that he signaled could do more harm to the president’s second-term chances — the administration’s new regulation requiring church-affiliated employers to cover birth control for their workers within the next year. Roman Catholic leaders are pushing back especially hard, arguing that the rule is a clear-cut First Amendment violation that forces the church to choose between upholding its doctrine and carrying out its commitment to helping others at its schools and hospitals.

Although Axlerod now works for the campaign, he made clear that he’s pushing his colleagues still at the White House to move fast to back away from the absolutist-sounding position and come up with a middle ground. “We have great respect for the work that these institutions do, and we certainly don’t want to abridge anyone’s religious freedom,” and so the administration is at work finding a new stance that “guarantees women the preventive care they need” but also respects the prerogatives of religious institutions, he said on MSNBC. “This is an important issue. It’s important for millions of women around the country,” he said. “We want to resolve it in an appropriate way and we’re going to do that.”

SANTORUM’S LAST STAND: Under the admittedly convoluted and a bit arbitrary conventions of presidential campaign coverage, Rick Santorum has become the Republican to watch tonight — and he’s in the catbird seat for reasons not entirely of his own choosing. But, ready or not, this will be portrayed as either the day he revived his candidacy, or the day he slipped toward oblivion.

It’s true that he skipped Florida and Nevada in order to focus on these contests in three November bellwether states — caucuses awarding 36 delegates in Colorado and 40 more in Minnesota, plus a non-binding “beauty contest” primary in Missouri. And it’s also true that the decision has resulted in a boomlet of momentum aided by conservatives who are still determined to press for a nominee who’s not Mitt Romney (and who weren’t paid much mind by Newt Gingrich in these three states). But what’s really tuned the spotlight on the former Pennsylvania senator is the Romney campaign itself, which has rolled out a multifaceted set of criticisms of Santorum in recent days while working to prop up the front-runner’s own socially conservative bona fides. So, in order to “win the night,” Santorum is under pressure to actually score an upset victory in the two places he seems to have the best shot, Minnesota (where the first results from the caucuses will be posted at 9 D.C. time) and Missouri (where the polls close at 8 D.C. time). The results from Colorado, where Romney is spending the day, won’t start coming in before 10:30 Eastern.

KIRK MAKES PROGRESS: Mark Kirk’s condition has been upgraded from "fair" to "good," and the Illinois Republican’s doctors say he’s almost well enough to tolerate that next big step in his recovery — the reinstallation of the section of his skull removed after his stroke two weeks ago. His return to the Senate is still many weeks away — almost surely not before the April recess — but if the surgery goes well he will be able to begin the physical therapy that will determine how much of his mobility can be restored.

TRAIL TIPS: (1) Bob Kerrey announced this morning that he won’t run for his old Senate seat, essentially guaranteeing Republicans can count on Nebraska as one of the four seats they need to be assured of a Senate majority next year. “For many reasons I nearly said yes. In the end I choose to remain a private citizen,” said Kerrey, who had described himself as a decided underdog had he chosen to make the race. “To those who urged me to do so, I am sorry, very sorry to have disappointed you. I hope you understand that I have chosen what I believe is best for my family and me.” Kerrey retired in 2000 after two terms as a senator (he was governor before that), moved to New York to become president of the progressive New School and was succeeded by Ben Nelson, who’s now retiring rather than stage an uphill fight for a third term. The May 15 Republican primary field for the seat remains crowded: state Attorney General Jon Bruning, state Treasurer Don Stenberg, state Sen. Deb Fischer and investment adviser Pat Flynn. Gov. Dave Heineman has said no again and again to entreaties from D.C. Republican power players that he run — and he seems settled on not getting in, even with Kerrey out.

(2) Ron Barber, a Gabby Giffords aide injured in the January 2011 shooting rampage, is now almost ready to announce he’s running in the special election to succeed her but would not be a candidate in the redrawn Arizona district in November. The only thing he’s waiting for is Giffords’ up-front endorsement, which for the Democrats has been frustratingly slow in coming. Every day she waits, more momentum could build for Republican Jesse Kelly, the ex-Marine who came within 4,200 votes of defeating Giffords two years ago. The primaries are April 17, and the special election June 12.

(3) Another incumbent-versus-incumbent matchup was launched yesterday in Arizona: Ben Quayle will run for his second tern against fellow freshman Republican Dave Schweikert. Quayle made good on his threats because so much of his old Phoenix district was drawn into the same solidly Republican district that is home to Schweikert — although the former vice president’s son lives in an adjacent district that’s a political tossup. Quayle is viewed as the weaker candidate among establishment Republicans, who say he’s not done much to shed his reputation as a congressman who got to Washington on the family name and hasn’t done much with it since.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: One retiring Democratic senator, Herb Kohl of Wisconsin (77); one House committee chairman, Natural Resources’ Doc Hastings of Washington (71); three House GOP freshmen: Allen West of Florida (51), Michael Grimm of New York (42) and Steve Fincher of Tennessee (39). The first two are both facing tough re-election battles — West because of the state’s redistricting and Grimm because of reports of campaign fundraising improprieties.

— David Hawkings, editor

Become a Facebook fan at facebook.com/DavidHawkingsDC. Or follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/davidhawkings.

Senate Democrats Rally to Save Seats (Roll Call)

Al Franken is at the center of the effort. » View full article

Hatch Aims at Highway Bill Offsets (CQ Today)

The Utah Republican's amendments could complicate the Senate's plans to pass the legislation this week. » View full article

Colleagues Petition for Retirees' Funds (Roll Call)

After a House Member announces retirement, there's often one lingering question from their colleagues: What's going to happen to the rest of their campaign cash? » View full article

John Cranford's Political Economy: The Job Isn't Done (CQ Weekly)

The economy is changing, and the labor force is going to have to change with it. » View full article

Stuart Rothenberg: Anger, Confusion, Musical Chairs (Roll Call)

Welcome to the soap opera that is Southeast Florida. » View full article

House GOP Considers Rolling Back Some Provisions in Insider-Trading Bill (CQ Today)

John Carter of Texas said parts of the Senate-passed bill "walk over people's rights." » View full article

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» CQ Budget Tracker	» CQ House Action Reports	» See all CQ Roll Call products

Contact the Editor

David Hawkings

dailybriefing@cqrollcall.com

CQ Roll Call Daily Briefing

2012-02-06T08:36:00.000-08:00

Monday, February 6, 2012

Today In Washington

THE WHITE HOUSE: Obama says he has a “very good estimate” of when Iran would have its nuclear bomb ready to go — but little clarity about who in Tehran would have a finger on the button. “Knowing who is making decisions at any given time inside of Iran is tough,” he said in an interview broadcast on NBC’s “Today.” The president said that although he believes diplomacy can still get Iran to suspend its nuclear program, the administration is planning a range of alternative options. He unveiled some later this morning — new U.S. sanctions on the government of Iran, including its Central Bank.

Obama will get the latest from Iran, Syria, Egypt and the rest of the word during his daily intelligence briefing at noon. (He’ll hear an insider report about how the U.S. Embassy in Damascus was closed today, with its last 18 diplomats being brought back to Washington.) He has nothing else on his public schedule beyond a 2:30 meeting with senior advisors.

THE SENATE: Convenes at 2 and will vote at about 5:30 to clear legislation updating the government’s aviation policies and programs and authorizing $15.9 billion in spending during each of the next four years. The vote comes 50 weeks after senators passed their initial version of the bill, and 52 months after the last comprehensive FAA authorization law expired. Obama’s signature is not in doubt.

THE HOUSE: Convenes at noon and starting at 2 will debate three non-controversial measures, one of which would allow a new natural gas pipeline to cross some federal parkland in Brooklyn. If roll calls are required for passage, they’ll be delayed until 6:30.

MORE THAN A FEELING: Mitt Romney cracked an important symbolic ceiling this morning, when Republican officials in Nevada declared he’d won the caucuses with 51.1 percent of the vote — his first outright majority in the first five contests of the 2012 campaign, and his second straight decisive victory. Newt Gingrich survived a balky tally of Saturday’s caucus ballots in the precincts along the Las Vegas Strip to finish second, with 21 percent — but with only 779 more votes than Ron Paul. (Turnout was only 75 percent what it was four years ago, continuing an overall trend in the early GOP contests.)

The final result shows how the alternative story line about Romney — that he has a political glass jaw that would eventually be broken by an energized wave of the most socially and fiscally conservative voters — is starting to be refuted. The GOP electorate appears to be coming around to settling for perceived electability over ideological purity — the prevailing prediction all along.

Previously dubbed the “25 percent man,” Romney will now seek to cement his inevitability by claiming an outright majority in both of the delegate-awarding primaries in decent-sized states (Michigan and Arizona) three weeks from tomorrow. But he won’t do all that decisively well this week. He may top 50 percent in only one contest — in Colorado. But in tomorrow's other caucus, in Minnesota, he and Rick Santorum are statistically tied in recent polling, with Gingrich and Paul each not far behind. Santorum also has a shot in Missouri, but it’s a “beauty contest” primary that awards no delegates, and Romney hasn’t tried too hard there. In Maine, where the caucuses end Saturday, Paul’s organizational effort could push him to a victory. Gingrich made clear yesterday that his latest “back to the future” move will be a return to that old Republican chestnut, the Southern Strategy, which means his next target of opportunity is his home state of Georgia on March 6.

The obvious looming problem for the GOP, then, is that the longer the also-rans keep running, the more potential their attacks have to wound their likely nominee in ways that last until the fall. Signs of that coming true are in the Washington Post-ABC News poll out today: 55 percent of those surveyed who say they’re closely following the campaign disapprove of what the GOP candidates are saying — and more than two-thirds say they like Romney less the more the learn about him. In part as a result, the poll shows Obama winning a head-to-head matchup against the former Massachusetts governor, 51 percent to 45 percent. (To be sure, the poll also suggests Romney is still looking more viable in the fall than Gingrich; the polls says the ex-Speaker would lose by 11 points to the president.)

LEDGER TROUBLE: The worst news of the day for the Republican field, though, is confronting the Paul campaign. The Texas congressman’s reputation as a vigorous advocate for fiscal prudence and hard-edged accounting for every federal dollar spent is being challenged by a evidence that he’s done some double-dipping on his expenses. The top story in Roll Call this morning is that Paul looks to have been paid twice — by the taxpayers and by his network of libertarian political and nonprofit groups — for at least eight flights in the past dozen years, and perhaps for a dozens more where the available records aren’t quite so clear. Paul’s congressional office denies any impropriety but says it’s possible Paul received double reimbursements by accident once in a while.

FORGET ABOUT IT: It’s been known for a couple of weeks that the president’s budget proposal for fiscal 2013 (which starts Oct. 1) would not be sent to Congress today, as the law requires. (It’s promised next Monday.) Now comes word that the federal budgeting timetable — which has notably broken down in so many other ways in recent years — has now been pro-actively tossed out the window by the Democrats who run the Senate. Rather than continue quietly enduring the taunts from the GOP about his caucus’ inability to produce a document in either of the last two years detailing its spending and revenue priorities, Reid went an offensive (of sorts) on Friday afternoon. He promised that the full Senate won’t ever debate a budget resolution this year, either — not before the April 15 statutory deadline, and not afterwards. He asserted such a document was not necessary in light of the top-line spending numbers agreed to in last summer’s default-avoiding debt limit deal. The decision is a slap not only at the regular order but also at Budget Chairman Kent Conrad, who’s retiring this fall after 26 years of trying to pull the country back from the long-term budgetary brink.

GOING SLOWLY, HOWEVER NICELY: The public negotiating resumes tomorrow on the payroll tax, unemployment and “doc fix” package — but there’s still no sign that the return to an emphasis on complying with the civics textbooks and the manners manuals is producing anything resembling a deal. The current extension of the Social Security tax break, jobless benefits and Medicare reimbursement rates lapses in 23 days — and Congress will be in recess for five of them (Presidents Day week). If the leadership is going to rely on a conference committee to get the final deal, they will soon be pressed to unveil their Plan B (yet another short-term extension) for when the talking drags on until the final hour. Reid has already ordered up the drafting of such a bill — its length remains under wraps — because he’s grown impatient that his main agent in the talks, Finance Chairman Max Baucus, doesn’t seem to be getting anywhere close to cutting a deal that the leadership would bless. Republican leaders meanwhile, are benefiting from all the longwindedness in the conference — because it buys them time to bolster the forced unity they’ve imposed on the rank and file to stick with an extension of a tax break and a social program that many of them don’t like.

NOT BACKING DOWN: A coalition of Detroit’s African-American preachers called today for Pete Hoekstra to apologize for his Super Bowl campaign ad in which a young Asian woman uses stereotypical broken English to describe Debbie Stabenow’s economic views. But the Republican former congressman went on the radio this morning and called his ad a “home run” that is only “insensitive” to the spending philosophy of his Senate opponent and Obama. “Clearly China is one of many countries benefiting from our irresponsible spending. To highlight that is absolutely appropriate,” he said. The 30-second ad debuted across Michigan during last night’s game and is scheduled to run statewide for the next two weeks on cable TV shows aimed at GOP voters. “Debbie spends so much American money. You borrow more and more from us. Your economy get very weak. Ours get very good. We take your jobs. Thank you, Debbie Spenditnow,” says the actor , who’s posed on a bicycle amid rice paddies. The ad concludes with Hoekstra on camera saying, “this race is between Debbie Spenditnow and Pete Spenditnot.”

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: No current lawmakers share a birthday with Ronald Reagan (Feb. 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004).

— David Hawkings, editor

Become a Facebook fan at facebook.com/DavidHawkingsDC. Or follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/davidhawkings.

Records Show Ron Paul Trips Paid Twice (Roll Call)

The Republican presidential candidate appears to have been reimbursed twice for flights between Washington, D.C., and his congressional district, receiving reimbursement from taxpayers and also from a network of political and nonprofit organizations he controlled, according to public records and documents obtained by Roll Call. » View full article

GOP Takes On Insider-Trading Bill (CQ Today)

There are reservations among the Republican majority about the far-reaching measure. » View full article

The Combative Caucus Thins Ranks in House (Roll Call)

The string of retirements has moderates wondering who the next leadership agitator will be, while liberals await the next Barney Frank-like figure for their causes. » View full article

Payroll Tax Conferees Emphasize Fresh Start (CQ Today)

The approach may not prove to be enough to avoid another ticking-clock crisis, however. » View full article

Baucus Takes Lead on Payroll Talks (Roll Call)

With little guidance from Democratic leaders, the senator is trying on his own to come up with bipartisan agreements on the controversial Keystone XL pipeline and an extension of unemployment benefits. » View full article

Crashing the Egyptian Parties (CQ Weekly)

The raid late last month on the Cairo offices of the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute made headlines, but while the response was unusually heavy-handed, the tenor of the complaints is not particularly new. » View full article

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dailybriefing@cqrollcall.com

CQ Roll Call Daily Briefing: News Obama Can Use

2012-02-03T08:44:00.000-08:00

Friday, February 3, 2012

Today In Washington

THE HOUSE: Convened at 9 and has just finished for the week, after voting 248-169 for the final compromise on a long-overdue update of aviation programs. (The Senate will send Obama the bill next week.) The measure, authorizing $63.4 billion for the Federal Aviation Administration in the next four years, would slightly ease the path to unionization of airline and railroad workers, allow 16 more long-distance flights every day at Reagan National, accelerate implementation of the high-tech revamp of the air traffic control system known as NextGen and prohibit new subsidies on unprofitable routes. The FAA has existed on a series of stopgap measures since September 2007.

The House also voted 235-177 to prevent the Congressional Budget Office from incorporating inflation increases into its projected spending baselines. Republicans say their bill would curb a pro-spending bias in the congressional cost-accounting system; Democrats say it would freeze too many programs, which is why the Senate won’t ever take up the idea.

THE SENATE: Not in session

THE WHITE HOUSE: Obama is at the green, women-firefighter-friendly and otherwise state-of-the-art Fire Station No. 5 in Arlington, where he’s detailing his proposal for a new conservation program in which veterans would be hired to rebuild trails, roads and levees on public lands. He's also making clear his budget will seek more federal grant money for cities to hire police and firefighters.

The president’s other announced event is at 2:45 at the Jefferson Hotel, which has become his go-to downtown spot for re-election fundraisers. (The administration announced that British Prime Minister David Cameron and his wife, Samantha, would be in town for an official visit and state dinner March 13-14.)

BACK-TO-BACK DOUBLES: The White House must think it has a rally going on the jobs front. The election year started with a bang: a net increase of 243,000 payroll positions last month and a drop in the jobless rate to 8.3 percent, the lowest in almost three years. The January payroll increase was the second straight monthly gain in excess of 200,000. That puts the economy in the ballpark — if that pace can be sustained — of generating a sufficient number of jobs to bring unemployment down to a less politically challenging level.

The boost in payrolls the government reported this morning greatly exceeded economist expectations and resulted in a net gain of almost 2 million jobs since January of last year — and a net of 2.2 million jobs created by private employers. (The difference between those numbers is a loss of 276,000 government payroll positions over the past 12 months.) Still, Obama is not out of the deep woods, economically speaking. People are getting hired — factories added 50,000 jobs last month, for instance — but 12.8 million people remain officially unemployed. And almost 12 million more are willing to work (but aren’t actively looking) or are working part time because they can’t find full-time employment.

Moreover, although the economy boasts more than 132.4 million payroll positions in January, that number really just brings us back to the employment peak before the 2001 recession — more than a decade ago — when 132.5 million workers were on the rolls. It’s still a long way to the more recent payroll peak, 138 million in January 2008. And that will give the president’s critics plenty to complain about. Boehner did just that this morning, saying Democrats won’t follow the lead of Republicans and take steps to promote growth. “There’s welcome news in this latest jobs report as more Americans found work last month, but the fact is our unemployment rate is still far too high,” the Speaker said. “Our economy still isn’t creating jobs the way it should be and that’s why we need a new approach.”

The liberal Economic Policy Institute shares Boehner’s concerns, if not his prescription for a fix. “It’s important to keep this growth in context, however — the jobs deficit is so large that even at January’s growth rate, it would still take until 2019 to get back to full employment,” said EPI economist Heidi Shierholz.

KOMEN CHANGES ITS MIND: The Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation reversed course this morning and said it would continue to help finance Planned Parenthood breast cancer screenings. Nancy Brinker, the founder and CEO of Komen, said the foundation would alter its new grant-making rules so that only organizations found guilty in a criminal investigation would become ineligible for funding. Earlier in the week, Komen said money would no longer go to organizations facing any government inquiry. (Planned Parenthood is being investigated by House Energy and Commerce for allegedly commingling money for abortions and for other services.) Komen’s move caused an intense national outpouring of criticism — including from 26 senators, who wrote yesterday to urge the group to reconsider.

CAPITOL HILL ROMANCE: A small and private summer wedding (no date yet) is in the works for Susan Collins. Maine’s 59-year-old Republican junior senator became engaged last weekend to Tom Daffron, who’s now the chief operating officer (but not a lobbyist, per se) at the Jefferson Consulting Group. The two have been dating for two years and bought a townhouse to share at 14th and East Capitol a year ago — but they’ve known each other since the 1970s, when both worked for Bill Cohen when he was a Maine House member. Daffron, 63, was chief of staff to Cohen when he was a senator and to two other GOP senators, Fred Thompson and Lisa Murkowski. After the wedding there will be only four never-married sitting senators: Barbara Mikulski, Maria Cantwell, Lindsey Graham and Herb Kohl.

IT’S NOT USUALLY LIKE THIS: A five-year, $260 billion public works and surface transportation policy package will be on the House floor in two weeks, having survived an exceptionally heated and extraordinarily long (almost 18 hours) debate in committee. The vote as 29-24 along party lines at about 2:45 this morning. Democrats called the measure the worst highway bill ever and proposed almost 90 changes, almost all of which were rebuffed. The most important amendment that was adopted (by a vote of 33-32) dropped a provision that would have allowed states to increase their interstate truck weight and size limits and instead conduct a three-year study on the effects of heavier and longer rigs. The vote was a big win for safety groups and a big setback for the trucking companies.

A THINNER PACK: Heath Shuler’s decision to leave Congress after only three terms, and right as he’s turning 41, can hardly be called a “retirement.” (The former Redskins quarterback says he’s giving up politics for good and wants to make some serious money.) But his departure can be seen as the capstone of a decade in which the Democrats reclaimed the House majority with the help of fiscal and cultural conservatives such as Shuler, and have been put solidly back in the minority because so many of those Blue Dogs either couldn’t hold their seats — or didn’t really want to, given the polarized nature of the House and its now solidly liberal Democratic leadership. In Shuler’s case, the Republican-run remapping of North Carolina had made it highly unlikely he would be back in the House next year — and even if he was, he’d become something of a pariah in the caucus since his quixotic run against Pelosi for minority leader after the midterm.

Six other Blue Dogs who started the 112th Congress are now departing or already have departed the House: Mike Ross, Dan Boren, Dennis Cardoza, Joe Donnelly, Gabby Giffords and Jane Harman. But now the relative handful of Blue Dogs remaining are working, however haltingly, to rebuild their ranks through some careful recruiting and strategic fundraising. Utah’s Jim Matheson is running the nascent operation and has persuaded his colleagues to endorse five candidates: state Rep. Leonard Bembry in Florida, state Rep. Ted Vick in South Carolina, state Rep. Clark Hall in Arkansas, Iraq War veteran Brendan Mullen in Indiana and Assistant U.S. Attorney Rob Wallace in Oklahoma. The group is promising more on the way — one of whom presumably would be Hayden Rogers, Shuler’s longtime chief of staff, who is likely to get in to the open-seat race. The two top Republicans already announced are Jeff Hunt, a local prosecutor, and Mark Meadows, a real estate investor.

GET ON WITH YOUR WEEKEND: There’s not much reason to stay up late Saturday night to await the results of the fifth Republican nominating contest. Not only do the Nevada caucuses end really late — 11 (D.C. time) in most of the state and more than three hours later in Las Vegas — but there’s also hardly any suspense about the outcome. Mitt Romney’s got all the organizational muscle and is going to brush past his rhetorically challenged post-Florida reputation at least long enough to prevail by about 20 percentage points. Look for Newt Gingrich to get about 25 percent support, if the final round of polling is to be believed. Rick Santorum, despite the endorsement of Sharron Angle, and Ron Paul, despite the endorsement of the working girls at the Bunny Ranch, will draw about 10 percent each. The state’s 28 delegates will be awarded proportionally.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Two back-bench House Republicans, second-termer Tom Graves of Georgia (42) and third-termer Rob Wittman of Virginia (53).

— David Hawkings, editor

Become a Facebook fan at facebook.com/DavidHawkingsDC. Or follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/davidhawkings.

Highway Bill Sparks Unusual Partisan Divide (CQ Today)

At the very least, the partisan tone in committee suggested Republicans would not be able to count on any Democratic support of the five-year, $260 billion bill. » View full article

Heath Shuler Latest in Long Line of Blue Dog Losses (Roll Call)

The North Carolina Democrat insisted the Blue Dogs would always have a place in the House. » View full article

The Testing Trap: Health Care Panel Is Now Under the Microscope (CQ Weekly)

An advisory panel designed to guide health care providers and their patients is now itself under the microscope as the 2010 health care law links its recommendations to coverage. » View full article

Stuart Rothenberg: Don't Bet on Gingrich Showing Up in Tampa (Roll Call)

Will he really fight all the way until June? And even beyond? » View full article

Oregon Escapes Notice in Voter Photo ID Battle (Roll Call)

More than 200,000 people voted in this week's special election in Oregon's 1st district, and none of them had to show photo identification before they cast their ballot. » View full article

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Contact the Editor

David Hawkings

dailybriefing@cqrollcall.com

CQ Roll Call Daily Briefing: Progress? For Real?

2012-02-02T08:37:00.000-08:00

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Today In Washington

THE SENATE: Convened at 9 for another day debating legislation to prevent lawmakers from trading stocks based on insights they glean behind closed doors at the Capitol. There’s still no deal to rein in the welter of potentially poisonous amendments and keep the measure on track toward passing — before too many senators get buyer’s remorse about the additional ethical strictures they’d be imposing on themselves.

At a minimum, the bill will be expanded to require top executive branch officials to quickly disclose all their stock trades. But there’s no future for proposals to endorse congressional term limits, force senators to divest all their holdings, require lawmakers to disclose their mortgage terms, bar former lawmakers from moving to K Street or impose a binding and indefinite ban on earmarks.

THE HOUSE: Convened at 10 and this afternoon will begin debating the first two pieces of the 10-part Republican budget-process overhaul package. After rebuffing eight Democratic amendments, lawmakers will vote along party lines to compel the Congressional Budget Office to factor economic growth into its budgetary scorekeeping calculations on major legislation. Debate will then get started on a bill that would bar the CBO from incorporating inflation increases in its projected spending baselines. (Neither measure is going anywhere in the Senate.) The last vote of the day will be before 7.

THE WHITE HOUSE: “When I talk about our financial institutions playing by the same rules as folks on Main Street, when I talk about making sure insurance companies aren’t discriminating against those who are already sick, or making sure that unscrupulous lenders aren’t taking advantage of the most vulnerable among us, I do so because I genuinely believe it will make the economy stronger for everybody. But I also do it because I know that far too many neighbors in our country have been hurt and treated unfairly over the last few years, and I believe in God’s command to love thy neighbor as thyself,” Obama said this morning at the National Prayer Breakfast. “For me as a Christian, it also coincides with Jesus’s teaching that ‘for unto whom much is given, much shall be required.’ ”

The breakfast is an annual rite of winter hosted since the 1950s by members of Congress who meet to pray at the Capitol. (Mark Pryor and Jeff Sessions were the senatorial chairmen of this year’s event in the Washington Hilton.) The date was set long ago — but coincidentally afforded the president a high-profile opening to contrast his outlook to yesterday’s Mitt Romney sound bite: “I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I’ll fix it.”

The rest of the president’s day will be spent in meetings back in the Oval: a senior staff gathering at noon, lunch with Biden and separate sessions with Clinton and Geithner.

GETTING TO THE HARD STUFF: Negotiators this morning went back at work — out in the open, and for a second straight day — on legislation to extend the payroll tax cut, jobless benefits and the Medicare doctor payment system, all of which will otherwise expire in 27 days. Even before a word was spoken, the calling of the meeting was a sign that lawmakers in both parties are driving for a deal, and want to make quick work of harvesting all the easy-to-get compromises with time to spare for the hard bargaining on how to finance the $160 billion, 10-year cost. They did agree yesterday to continue the Social Security payroll tax break through December — assuring $1,000 in cash for the typical taxpayer and formally putting to an end the bilious impasse that had delayed the Christmas congressional holiday.

The headline out of today’s session looks to be an agreement by Democrats to accept some of the Republican ideas for improving the federal unemployment benefits system and reducing fraud. But a partisan impasse remains on whether the maximum jobless benefit should stay at 99 weeks in states with super-high unemployment and 79 weeks elsewhere. Democrats say yes; Republicans want to make 59 weeks the universal maximum benefit

ROAD HAZARDS: John Mica’s expansive public works package — which already has been poked at by fellow Republicans who think it looks too much like an economic stimulus bill — ran into a wall of Democratic resistance this morning just minutes after the House Transportation Committee markup of the legislation convened. After the Democrats were rebuffed in their effort to postpone the highway bill debate for a week, on the grounds they’ve had only a couple of days to see it, they announced that they would seek to offer almost 100 amendments — many designed to compel the panel’s Republicans to take politically uncomfortable votes on topics hardly related to roads, bridges and rail lines — employment benefits for veterans, for example.

HOT DOCS: Darrell Issa and Eric Holder talked to a standoff at this morning’s latest congressional hearing on the Justice Department’s maybe-if-the-bad-guys-have-our-guns-we-can-catch-them-easier operation known as Fast and Furious. The Oversight and Government Reform chairman lambasted the attorney general for not turning over more of the records the panel has demanded for its investigation of the operation — and he and other Republicans threatened to begin contempt of Congress proceedings if the papers weren’t delivered soon. But Holder said his department’s lawyers are still preparing their response to the subpoena and couldn’t be rushed any faster — but in no way are engaging in a cover-up.

SOME GAVE ALL: Worker efficiency slowed at the end of last year — not good news for corporate bottom lines, but good news for the jobless if businesses determine they’ve gotten all they can out of their workers and have to hire some more. Productivity (output for every hour of work) rose 0.7 percent in October, November and December, down from 1.9 percent in the third quarter, the Labor Department announced this morning. It said labor costs rose 1.2 percent in the fourth quarter, because compensation grew at a faster pace than productivity. Still, inflation-adjusted wages fell 1.2 percent for all of last year — the steepest annual drop since 1989 — even as total hours worked went up for the first time since 2007.

BIG BUCKS: The final 2011 fundraising numbers filed in recent days by all the major senatorial candidates make clear that the battle for partisan control of the Senate between now and November will be extremely expensive and probably incredibly close. Even the Democratic incumbents who don’t face big challenges are raking in the cash like lawmakers in too-close-call races. And the cash-on-hand numbers in the genuine tossups are astounding. Among them: Elizabeth Warren with $6.1 million in the bank and GOP incumbent Scott Brown with a whopping $12.9 million in Massachusetts. Incumbent Jon Tester with $3.8 million and Denny Rehberg with $2.1 million in Montana. Tim Kaine with $3.3 million and George Allen with $2 million in open-seat Virginia. Shelley Berkley with $3.7 million and appointee Dean Heller with $3.6 million in Nevada.

SHOWTIME: There are 180-degree conflicting reports this morning about what Donald Trump will say when he makes his “major political announcement” this afternoon in Las Vegas. Some insiders say they’re confident the real estate mogul and reality show star will endorse Newt Gingrich. Others say they are just as sure he will endorse Mitt Romney. (The betting line seemed to be tilting more in favor of the Romney nod late this morning.) There’s consensus, though, that he’ll back one of the Republican presidential candidates — meaning he’s putting an end, once and for all, to talk that he might run as a Perot-style, self-financed independent in November. The former Speaker has done much more to court The Donald than has the former governor — so a snub at this point would do far more harm to Gingrich than an endorsement would do him good.

QUOTE OF NOTE: “Even as fiscal policymakers address the urgent issue of fiscal sustainability, they should take care not to unnecessarily impede the current economic recovery,” Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke warned the House Budget Committee this morning. “Fortunately, the two goals ... are fully compatible,” he told the lawmakers — who have been at a partisan impasse for the past year on how to reduce red ink without returning to recession.

GROUNDHOG DAY: Punxsutawney Phil emerged from his lair northeast of Pittsburgh this morning, saw his shadow and thereby predicted six more weeks of winter — which has hardly gotten started yet across much of the Northeast.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: John Cornyn of Texas, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (60).

— David Hawkings, editor

Become a Facebook fan at facebook.com/DavidHawkingsDC. Or follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/davidhawkings.

Payroll Tax Cut Conferees Avoiding Sticky Issues (Roll Call)

The 20 negotiators agreed Wednesday only on general goals. » View full article

Negotiators Look at Unemployment Benefits (CQ Today)

A senior Senate Democrat said Wednesday that his party is interested in some Republican ideas about how to improve the program. » View full article

Control of Senate May Rest on Money (Roll Call)

Both parties have solid arguments for why they'll finish on top, and the latest fundraising figures only solidify them. » View full article

Boehner Downplays 'Stimulus' of Highway Bill (CQ Today)

House Republican leaders worked Wednesday to sell their five-year, $260 billion highway bill to a caucus wary of anything that smacks of big-spending economic "stimulus" legislation. » View full article

STOCK Act Makes for Difficult Debate (Roll Call)

It has become a magnet for amendments that propose far-reaching ethics reforms. » View full article

Getting Out the Vote — on the Weekend (CQ Weekly)

Saturday election dates bring a small bump in turnout, but is it worth the extra cost? » View full article

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Contact the Editor

David Hawkings

dailybriefing@cqrollcall.com

CQ Roll Call Daily Briefing: The Importance of 46

2012-02-01T08:31:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Today In Washington

THE SENATE: Convened at 9:30 and will spend the day on the congressional insider-trading bill. A vote is expected on a Republican proposal to apply the legislation’s new restrictions and disclosure requirements to executive branch officials — which would be in line with what House GOP leaders want.

But Reid says he’s already lost patience with all the tangential and totally unrelated proposed amendments — term limits for members of Congress, no bonuses for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac executives, no government pensions for lawmakers-turned-lobbyists etc. — that he in effect invited by promising a wide open debate. He may try to get 60 votes for cutting off the debate within the next two days.

THE HOUSE: Convened at 10 and at noon will begin debating as many as five different measures, with all the roll calls clustered between 5 and 7.

Because Republicans have set up a two-thirds-vote-required process for a pair of budget-cutting bills, one is likely to be defeated: It would freeze pay for all civilian federal workers for a third straight year. Many Democrats think the half-a-point COLA proposed by Obama for 2013 is appropriate; the question is whether, for political reasons, they will vote for the measure anyway — because it would also apply the freeze to the lawmakers themselves (and their aides). Lawmakers will vote overwhelmingly, though, for another 5 percent cut in their committee overhead. (Science will take an 11 percent hit and Agriculture’s budget will be trimmed 9 percent in order to provide a 20 percent hike to the Ethics panel.)

The House also will vote to cut welfare grants to states that fail to prevent beneficiaries from spending the money in liquor stores, strip clubs or casinos. And it will take up a bill to repeal a sliver of the 2010 health law called the Class Program, which provides $2 million annually in subsidies for some long-term-care services.

THE WHITE HOUSE: Obama is at the James Lee Community Center in Falls Church to tout his proposal for helping people who are current on their payments refinance their mortgages even when they owe more than their homes are worth. “This housing crisis struck right at the heart of what it means to be middle class in America — our homes,” he said. “We need to do everything in our power to repair the damage and make responsible families whole.” The administration estimates that 3.5 million underwater borrowers could benefit from an expansion of the Home Affordable Refinance Program and would save an average of $3,000 a year because of lower interest rates. But Congress is destined to spurn the idea because of the $5 billion or more cost, which the president would cover with a new fee on large banks.

The president is due back in the Oval at noon for a senior staff meeting, the only other event on his public schedule.

STATEMENT, MADE: It’s tough to find dark spots on the silver cloud that carried Mitt Romney out of Florida — the state that’s as good a microcosm as any of the national GOP electorate and also by far the biggest of the November swing-state prizes.

He cleared his own 12-percentage-point threshold of expectations — defeating Newt Gingrich by 14 points. He got 46 percent overall — tantalizingly close to the absolute majority number that will make his “weak front-runner” yoke fall away. He became the first Republican to win Florida after losing South Carolina. Exit polls show he won among men and women, and that he dominated the Hispanic vote. He carried every age group. He won the three-fifths of the electorate who say the economy is the top issue and the one-quarter who think it’s the deficit. He even won among the 36 percent who described themselves as “somewhat conservative.” And he was ahead by 25 points among those for whom electability is the No. 1 quality Republicans want in their nominee — which may be most important of all, because that group was 45 percent of Florida’s voters. (The sense of inevitability surrounding Romney grew this morning, when the Secret Service agreed to his request for regular protection — not because of any special threat but because his crowds are getting pretty big.)

But there are just enough blemishes on the Romney juggernaut to give Gingrich a decent rationale for his vow to stick around until the end. (If he does, though, he might want to remember his principal opponent’s name, which he wasn’t able to bring to his lips in his hardly-a-concession-speech last night.) He ran 11 points ahead among the one-third of Floridians who label themselves “very conservative,” a clear sign that the tea party crowd is still in his corner. He edged Romney by 5 points among the one-fifth who said having “the right experience” is the most important quality in a nominee — meaning the establishment favorite is not getting away with labeling himself the outsider and the ex-Speaker as the real insider. Gingrich also had the edge (albeit by just 2 points) among evangelicals. And he prevailed by 6-to-1 among the two-fifths of voters who don’t view Romney as conservative enough.

But where does Gingrich go to try to stage his third big comeback of the campaign, with 46 states to go? Not the Nevada caucuses on Saturday, which Romney has in hand thanks to the organizational help of fellow Mormons. Not Tuesday’s caucuses in Colorado and Minnesota, where he’s done minimal work. Not Missouri’s non-binding primary, where Rick Santorum is making a significant push. Not Maine, where Ron Paul has reason to hope for an actual caucus win. Not the primaries four Tuesdays from now in Arizona (where John McCain has Romney’s back) or Michigan (where Romney is still a favorite son). It won't be Virginia, where he's not even the ballot. The best answer is probably Texas — assuming Rick Perry follows through with his promise to do whatever he can to help Gingrich reap as many of the 155 delegates as possible. But that’s not until April 3.

THAT'S CONSTRUCTIVE: Two more reports out this morning bolster the view of a strong economic start to the year. Boosted by a rise in new orders, factory output grew in January at the fastest pace in seven months (and for the 29th straight month), according to the Institute for Supply Management, a trade group of purchasing executives. Separately, the Commerce Department said spending on construction projects rose 1.5 percent in December, the fifth straight monthly gain. That pushed spending to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $816.4 billion, the highest level in 20 months. (Still, for all of last year construction spending dropped 2 percent from all of 2010.)

STILL IN THEIR HANDS: The headlines out of the year-opening forecast from the Congressional Budget Office are somewhat obscuring the bottom line in the report — which is that Congress is right back to where it’s been since the Great Deficit Debate was rejoined a year ago: It can make the politically tough choice to allow taxes to rise at the end of this year — and watch the ocean of red ink start to recede while the economy seizes up. Or it can do the politically expedient thing by allowing the Bush-era tax cuts to keep going and loosening its self-imposed spending restrictions — and watch the red tide spread while the economy continues to recover. The top line from the CBO is that the deficit is going to top $1 trillion for the fourth consecutive fiscal year — although it will be down for the year ending in Septemeber by about $200 billion from the year before.

STILL BOOKING A FLIGHT: Suzanne Bonamici will probably wait until next week to fly from Oregon to Washington and formally take her spot as the newest member of Congress. With almost all the votes counted totally-by-mail special election, the Democratic state senator is ahead by 29,000 votes — a 14-percentage-point margin of victory that’s about in line with recent past results in the district. (Republican businessman Rob Cornilles was at 40 percent, and he took 42 percent when he lost in 2010 to David Wu, who resigned last August once allegations of sexual misconduct were added to an expanding pattern of just plain weird behavior.) Bonamici, who told supporters last night she was “humbled by this awesome responsibility” and would do whatever she could “to put people back to work,” will be assigned to a committee or two once she arrives at the Capitol. She should have no trouble continuing her new career come November, because the district — which stretches from Portland to the rural Pacific coast — was not markedly altered in the remapping for the new decade.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Mike Enzi, the top Republican on the Senate HELP Committee (68).

— David Hawkings, editor

Become a Facebook fan at facebook.com/DavidHawkingsDC. Or follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/davidhawkings.

Florida Primary Shows Rubio's Influence (Roll Call)

One Republican insider with Florida ties referred to Jeb Bush as the state GOP's "chairman of the board" and the freshman senator as "president and CEO." » View full article

Senators Work to Expand Insider Trading Ban to Cover Executive Branch (CQ Today)

Susan Collins is leading the effort. » View full article

Traditional PACs Not Hurting for Cash (Roll Call)

Super PACs may be sexy, but they are not about to put their tamer predecessors out of business. » View full article

CBO Report Offers Two Tax Options (CQ Today)

Congress is unlikely to follow either fiscal path precisely. » View full article

Democrats Face Political Risk on Pay Freeze Proposal (Roll Call)

There's debate about tacking a third year onto an already existing two-year freeze on the pay of civilian federal employees, whose unions are key supporters of the Democratic Party. » View full article

Pat-Down Payoff (CQ Weekly)

In the Rand Paul incident, two things were unusual: The TSA's almost immediate response and its approach to telling its side of the story. » View full article

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David Hawkings

dailybriefing@cqrollcall.com

CQ Roll Call Daily Briefing: Burton Is Drawn Away

2012-01-31T08:43:00.000-08:00

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Today In Washington

THE SENATE: Convened at 10 and (just before the weekly party caucus lunches) will cast a vote that sets up a wide-open debate on the bill to tighten rules against lawmaker insider trading. Reid’s decision to allow unrelated amendment proposals amounts to offering senators a choice: Move to pass the bill quickly in hopes of plumping up the congressional approval rating, or give in to the temptation to offer all manner of poison pills and political posturing proposals. Expect the Senate to choose the latter, at least for the next week.

THE HOUSE: Convenes at noon and will vote at 6:30 to formally open negotiations with the Senate on long-term legislation to update aviation programs. The roll call will come 10 months after each chamber passed its initial version of such a bill — and two hours after the conference committee’s first formal meeting. (A deal on the bill is largely done, now that a compromise has been reached making it a little easier for rail and airline workers to unionize.)

THE WHITE HOUSE: Obama is conducting his first formal Cabinet meeting since October. Panetta will return at 4:30 for an Oval Office one-on-one. The only other lines on the president’s announced schedule are a pair of evening fundraisers — a cocktail party at the downtown St. Regis at 7:15 and a dinner at 9 in a mansion (address kept under wraps) elsewhere in the city.

Administration officials are previewing at 2 some of the economy-boosting ideas in Obama’s budget proposal, which won’t be made totally public for two weeks: A one-year capital gains tax holiday for investments in small businesses, a one-year extension of the immediate-depreciation deduction for equipment and software purchases, a new 10 percent tax credit for small business that add jobs or increase wages, and easier rules for small startups that want to go public.

EXIT STAGE RIGHT: Dan Burton will announce his retirement today. He faced an increasingly tough road to winning the Republican nomination in a largely suburban Indianapolis district that’s not all that familiar with him — and not all that fond of his combative style of conservatism, which long ago put him outside the House GOP power structure. (Two years ago he garnered just 30 percent of the vote to win a seven-way primary.) Burton will become the seventh Republican House member to announce his departure from public life — and the second-longest-serving to do so. He is in his 30th year in Washington, is past chairman of the Oversight Committee and is also among the longest-serving Republicans on the Foreign Affairs panel.

Among the Republicans already lined up for the May 8 primary are David McIntosh, a conservative darling who gave up an adjacent House seat after three terms to run unsuccessfully for governor in 2000; former U.S. attorney Susan Brooks, former Marion County Coroner John McGoff and attorney Jack Lugar. Democrats are enthusiastic about the candidacy of state Rep. Scott Reske, but without Burton as his opponent he’s expected to quickly fade into obscurity.

IN THE AIR TONIGHT: Mitt Romney is so confident of victory tonight that he’s doing more than offering a so-so rendition of “America the Beautiful” on camera; he’s setting a 12-percentage-point margin of victory as his definition of a successful outing in Florida. And a broad array of polls show that such a lopsided win is within reach.

His newly bold self-confidence remained little match for his main rival, though. Newt Gingrich told reporters outside an Orlando polling place this morning that the race for the Republican presidential nomination would not be over for at least another five months — “unless Romney drops out earlier.” Behind the scenes, however, he and his aides were reportedly making some strategic decisions designed to keep his candidacy viable at least through Super Tuesday in five weeks, including essentially bypassing the contests in Mormon-heavy Nevada and Romney’s native Michigan. Instead, Gingrich will make forays into Minnesota and Colorado, where the voting is in a week, and Arizona, which votes on Feb. 28, a week after the next debate.

The campaign’s clear hope is that, so long as the former Massachusetts governor’s percentages in the coming contests stay in the 40s, the former Speaker can vault in front if he can remain in the race long enough to consolidate the conservative, anybody-but-Romney vote. And that, in simplest terms, means raising enough money to outlast Rick Santorum — who reiterated yesterday that he has no intention of yielding the field anytime soon. (He and Ron Paul have conceded Florida and are campaigning elsewhere today.)

Most polls in Florida close at 7 (D.C. time), but the panhandle counties are in the Central time zone and close an hour later. State GOP officials are expecting turnout to exceed 2 million, which would break the record 1.9 million who voted in the GOP contests four years ago (when John McCain bested Romney by 5 points). Fifty delegates will be awarded to the winner, none to anyone else. Romney and the super PACs backing him have spent more than $12 million on ads in Florida — about six times what Gingrich and his backers have spent.

SHOVEL-READY: House Republicans are unveiling their election-year ideas for remaking surface transportation policy today — knowing full well that the chance of a new highway bill getting done this year (and creating thousands of jobs) is very small, because there’s no consensus on how to pay for it all.

The bill that Transportation Chairman John Mica will unveil at 3 (and which his committee will approve in two days) would spend $260 billion by 2017, which would be about the current pace of spending even though gasoline and diesel fuel tax revenue is not keeping up — meaning the bill won’t come before the full House unless Ways and Means comes up with a way to fill that revenue gap. (Republicans are talking about getting the money from new natural gas and oil drilling leases — including in the ANWR — which Democrats will resist.) The measure also would shift much of the authority over how road and bridge money gets spent to the states and away from the Department of Transportation — including reducing Washington’s power to stop projects because of environmental concerns, which also will raise Democratic hackles. So will the bill’s call for significantly increasing the maximum weight of trucks, which the industry wants but safety advocates are fighting. The legislation would allow states to set up more toll booths on their interstates if the money collected was dedicated to infrastructure.

Even if a version of such an ambitious plan gets through the House, it’s likely to be reduced in scope by the Senate, where the Democratic majority is unifying behind only a two-year, $109 billion package — on the grounds that the current budget can only afford that much.

WHERE’S THE FLOOR? Home prices fell for a third straight month in almost every one of the cities that account for half the nation’s housing — and the overall sales figures are 33 percent below the peak of the housing bubble three years ago, essentially back to 2003 levels. Prices dropped between October and November in 19 of the 20 cities surveyed for the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller home-price index, the survey’s organizers said today. Phoenix was the exception. The biggest declines were in Atlanta, Chicago and Detroit. Only Washington and Detroit posted year-over-year increases. Prices in Atlanta, Las Vegas, Seattle and Tampa fell in November to their lowest points since the housing crisis began.

PORTLAND TRAIL: Suzanne Bonamici will comfortably hold for the Democrats the Portland-area House seat that the disgraced David Wu vacated last summer. The Oregon state senator should be able to declare victory right after 11 tonight (D.C. time), which is the deadline for getting mail-in ballots to the local county courthouses. (By yesterday, registered Democrats had returned more than 67,000 ballots, 50,000 had been delivered by Republicans and about 25,000 from non-affiliated and minor-party registrants.) Those numbers are a reminder that the district is reliably Democratic; the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spent $1.3 million there, anyway, determined to prevent a repeat of last fall’s huge upset loss of the New York City district that Anthony Weiner had to quit because of his own sex scandal. Republican businessman Rob Cornilles, who campaigned as a centrist who could create jobs, got minimal logistical or financial support from the National Republican Congressional Committee.

TRAIL TIPS: (1) The NRCC made more clear today where it does plan on putting its resources, announcing that it had tapped 10 more incumbents for its “Patriot Program,” which provides a special measure of fundraising and organizational support to particularly embattled House Republicans — so long as those members first prove their own mettle at raising money and setting up a viable re-election campaign. Added to the roster were Dan Lungren, Gary Miller and Brian Bilbray in California, Scott Tipton and Mike Coffman in Colorado, Joe Walsh and Tim Johnson in Illinois, Rick Crawford in Arkansas, Roscoe Bartlett in Maryland and Dan Benishek in Michigan. Twenty other incumbents from 13 states had previously been chosen.

(2) Republicans are thrilled with a new poll showing Montana’s at-large House member, Denny Rehberg, with a 53 percent to 42 percent lead in his Senate race against Democratic incumbent Jon Tester. That a sitting senator would be so far below 50 percent support 10 months from the election — and 11 points behind his challenger — is grim news for the Democrats, because getting Tester a second term is central to their algorithm of maintaining Senate control this fall. But Tester’s campaign downplayed the poll, which was paid for by the conservative group American Crossroads — the sister of Crossroads GPS, which already has spent heavily on pro-Rehberg TV ads. The survey of 400 likely voters was taken Jan. 9-10 and has a 4.9-point margin of error.

(3) State Treasurer Richard Mourdock has doubled, to $200,000, the amount of his own money he’s dedicated to his highly touted but financially struggling conservative challenge to Dick Lugar — who will be assured of a seventh term as an Indiana senator if he wins the May 8 Republican primary. Last week Mourdock reported raising only $386,000 in the final three months of last year and staring January with essentially that amount in the bank. Lugar raised $750,000 in the fourth quarter and kicked off the election year with $4 million in cash on hand.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: House Democrats Dutch Ruppersberger of Maryland (66) and Larry Kissell of North Carolina (61); House Republican Bill Huizenga of Michigan (43).

— David Hawkings, editor

Become a Facebook fan at facebook.com/DavidHawkingsDC. Or follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/davidhawkings.

Rust Belt Democrats Trying to Manufacture a Win (Roll Call)

It's no coincidence that the White House has pushed hard on the issue. » View full article

Senate Starts Potentially Lengthy Insider-Trading Debate (CQ Today)

Getting to a vote on passage may take weeks. » View full article

Super PACs Supporting Gingrich Find Their Influence Has Limits (Roll Call)

The former Speaker needs help with organization and infrastructure, and super PACs can't really provide it. » View full article

White House Aims for Flexibility in War Budget (CQ Today)

President Obama's request assumes the military would have about 68,000 troops still in Afghanistan throughout fiscal 2013, which is more than are expected to be there under current plans. » View full article

Stuart Rothenberg: In Presidential Polling, Context Always Matters (Roll Call)

When looking at Obama's numbers and Congress' numbers, remember that the only politics that Americans have seen recently is weeks of Republicans beating each other up in the presidential race. » View full article

John Cranford's Political Economy: Facing Facts (CQ Weekly)

The economy remains less robust than anyone would like, and government is one reason — because it's pulling back. » View full article

Democratic Victory Expected in Oregon Special (Roll Call)

The party spent big to hold the Portland-area seat. » View full article

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Contact the Editor

David Hawkings

dailybriefing@cqrollcall.com

CQ Roll Call Daily Briefing: Reid's Big Subroutine

2012-01-30T08:40:00.000-08:00

Monday, January 30, 2012

Today In Washington

THE SENATE: Convenes at 2 and will vote resoundingly at 5:30 to take up legislation designed to aid prosecution (or at least ethics committee investigations) of lawmakers who make stock trades based on information only a member of Congress might know. Reid is working to limit amendments in hope of passing the bill this week.

THE HOUSE: Not in session.

THE WHITE HOUSE: Obama is conducting his first senior staff meeting since Jack Lew became his top West Wing aide on Friday. At 2:15 he’ll welcome Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili to the Oval Office and reconfirm U.S. support for the country’s territorial integrity. (Georgia went to war with Russia four years ago over two separatist provinces.) After dropping by the annual East Room reception for the diplomatic corps, the president will go back to the West Wing at 5:30 to answer questions about his agenda for the year in an interview live-streamed through Google+ with questions submitted via YouTube.

CYBER SUCCESS: Odds are getting better by the day that multifaceted legislation to bolster the nation’s cyber defenses will become one of the few can-do, big-ticket items of this Congress.

A bipartisan Senate deal looks to be only a day or two away and could be ready for a floor debate within a couple of weeks, with aides negotiating some final details but almost all of the most contentious issues resolved. The issue has become enormously important to Reid, who has put in considerable behind-the-scenes time brokering agreements on provisions that have been stuck for years — largely because of turf battles between several federal agencies, especially between the White House and the Department of Homeland Security. He’s also got a deal on an update of the law that governs protection of federal computer systems. To get this close to an accord, though, the majority leader has won a tentative agreement that the Senate won’t try to legislate the most controversial cybersecurity policy question now before Congress: What if any power should the president have to dictate business practices in order to prevent or minimize a data breach that could cripple the economy — by shutting down utilities, for example, or causing the nation’s electronic banking system to seize up. (Language that would allow business and the government to share information about cyberthreats is still being refined.)

Of course, some of the deals that have propelled the debate to this point might be undone by amendments once the measure is debated by the full Senate. And the White House has not given its blessing to the package. Neither has the Republican leadership in the House, which for now is pursuing a piecemeal approach of advancing narrowly crafted and minimally controversial cybersecurity changes.

INCOMES UP; SPENDING, NOT SO MUCH: Another morning of mixed messages from the government’s economic record keepers. The good news was that personal income rose 0.5 percent last month, the biggest increase since an identical jump nine months before. But a not-so-hopeful report, also from the Commerce Department, was that consumer spending was unchanged in December, following weak gains of 0.1 percent in both the previous two months. Consumer spending is closely watched because it accounts for 70 percent of the nation’s total economic activity — and when people don’t spend, it means growth slows and fewer jobs get filled. But unless income grows more rapidly, consumers will be forced to cut back further on spending.

NO MORE DRAMA? It’s one month before the latest deadline for extending the payroll tax holiday, continuing jobless benefits and preserving the current Medicare payment rates for doctors. That’s not much time in current congressional terms — especially because Congress will be in recess the last full week before the current extensions run out — but Boehner declared yesterday that he’s not worried. “I’m confident that we’ll be able to resolve this fairly quickly,” he said on ABC’s “This Week."

On the surface, though, there’s only mixed evidence to buttress that sanguine view — and it will be on display the day after tomorrow, when the conferees hold their second public meeting on the bill. On the one hand, Republicans set aside their ideological and strategic reservations before Christmas and have agreed with Democrats that the Social Security payroll tax rate for workers should stay at 4.2 percent through the end of the year, that some benefits for the long-term jobless should be kept and that another “doc fix” is unavoidable. On the other hand, there’s really no public consensus at all how to come up with the $160 billion over 10 years required to do those things. Yes, it’s true that Democrats have set aside their call for a "millionaires’ tax" to provide the offset — because they’ve decided it makes more political sense to argue in favor of using that money to pay for other aspects of Obama’s election-year agenda. And it’s also true that McConnell, on CNN yesterday, didn’t totally rule out some sort of revenue raisers to end up in the legislative mix. But so far there’s no offset on which everyone’s agreed. Even the least controversial — raising about 10 percent of the cost from auctioning more of the broadcast spectrum to wireless companies — is becoming bogged down in a dispute over FCC regulatory powers.

FLORIDA MATH: The polls show Mitt Romney cruising toward victory in Florida tomorrow — probably by more than 10 percentage points.

Half a million have already voted, and in the NBC News-Marist poll out this morning, Romney is ahead of Newt Gingrich by a whopping 22 points (49 percent to 27 percent) among the early balloters. (He’s leading overall by 15 points in that poll.) Although most of the headlines from Gingrich over the weekend were about how he’ll take his campaign to the GOP convention in Tampa this summer, no matter what the outcome this week, He conceded yesterday that he’d have a tough time raising sufficient money for that quest without a strong showing in the Florida primary. (He calculated that, to win, he’d have to get 52 percent of the votes cast on Tuesday.) His best shot would appear to be that he holds Romney’s victory margin to single digits — then tries to raise money off that exceeds-expectations showing, along with the formal endorsement from Herman Cain this weekend and the still-not-quite-an endorsement words of encouragement from Sarah Palin.

Florida became a true two-man contest today. Rick Santorum announced that his 3-year-old daughter Bella was in a “miraculous” recovery from double pneumonia and so he was ready to get back to campaigning — but that he was not returning to the Sunshine State. Instead he’s headed to Minnesota, Missouri, Colorado and Nevada, all of which have caucuses that might award him delegates with a relatively small investment of time and resources.

TRAIL TIPS: (1) The big political shakeup in North Carolina is starting to shake out. Bob Etheridge, who lost one of the biggest House upsets of 2010 to Republican Renee Ellmers, is sending clear signals he wants to make a comeback bid by running to succeed fellow Democrat Bev Perdue in the newly open governor’s race. (He was an elected statewide official, state schools superintendent, for eight years before coming to Congress in 1997.) Etheridge’s candidacy would likely box out another Democrat, Brad Miller, who was forced by redistricting to call an end to his congressional career last week. But the new congressional map is so favorable to Republicans that 80-year-old Howard Coble announced over the weekend that (despite being hospitalized for respiratory problems just a month ago) he was committed to seeking a 15th term in territory that’s substantially different from what he’s represented for the past decade.

(2) Suburban Philadelphia businessman Steve Welch was the solid favorite among Republican insiders at the state party convention over the weekend to be Bob Casey’s challenger this fall. But his path to the Senate nomination is not quite clear, because at least four more conservative aspirants are vowing to press ahead toward the April primary with the help of tea party activists — all of them complaining that Welch’s No. 1 patron, Gov. Tom Corbett, is overplaying his hand as party kingmaker. (The group includes lawyer Marc Scaringi, former state Rep. Sam Rohrer, entrepreneur Tim Burns and former coal industry executive Tom Smith.) No matter who ends up as the GOP nomination, however, Casey is a lopsided favorite to hold the seat for the Democrats for a second term.

(3) Four Democrats are now seeking to challenge Olympia Snowe’s bid for a fourth Senate term in Maine. In recent days State Sen. Cynthia Dill and home builder Benjamin Pollard doubled the size of the field, which had previously been confined to state Rep. Jon Hinck and former Secretary of State Matt Dunlap. Whoever wins the nomination — probably at the state party convention June 12 — will be a decided underdog against Snow, who is expected to breeze past the two far-more-conservative Republicans challenging her renomination, Scott D’Amboise and Andrew Ian Dodge.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Today, Frank Wolf of Virginia (73). Three other House Republicans yesterday: Budget Chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin (42), Lee Terry of Nebraska (50) and Chip Cravaack of Minnesota (53).

— David Hawkings, editor

Become a Facebook fan at facebook.com/DavidHawkingsDC. Or follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/davidhawkings.

Election Year Politics a Challenge for Leaders (CQ Today)

Boehner and Reid have similar problems. » View full article

Appropriators Seeking Order (Roll Call)

House Republican appropriators plan to urge their rank and file to withhold divisive or duplicative amendments that could derail their bills this year. » View full article

Cyber Bill Progress: Reid Is Fundamental (CQ Weekly)

It's unusual for a Senate majority leader to become personally invested in a major legislative effort on a complex and technical topic with no obvious political payoff, but that's what Reid is doing. » View full article

Members Push Alternate Online Piracy Bills (Roll Call)

Darrell Issa and Maria Cantwell are among the lawmakers working on viable successors to SOPA and PIPA. » View full article

Children's Hospital Training Bill Held Up in Senate as Two Seek Changes (CQ Today)

Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse and Republican Rand Paul have different concerns with the legislation. » View full article

DSCC, NRSC Staff Up (Roll Call)

Senate campaign committees tapped two familiar hands to lead their independent expenditures this cycle — a high-stakes gig that controls tens of millions of dollars in spending. » View full article

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Contact the Editor

David Hawkings

dailybriefing@cqrollcall.com

CQ Roll Call Daily Briefing: The Importance of 3

2012-01-27T08:43:00.000-08:00

Friday, January 27, 2012

Today In Washington

THE WHITE HOUSE: “We are putting colleges on notice: You can’t assume that you’ll just jack up tuition every single year. If you can’t stop tuition from going up, then the funding you get from taxpayers each year will go down,” Obama said this morning at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, the final speech in his State of the Union highlights tour of five swing states. (The proposals he sketched out Tuesday night for overhauling the higher education financial aid system nonetheless face long odds in Congress.)

Air Force One is due at Andrews within the hour, when Obama will hop aboard Marine One for a quick trip to Cambridge, on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. His speech to the House Democrats at their annual planning and bonding retreat is at 1:20. After a quick stop in the West Wing — where it’s Bill Daley’s final day on the job as chief of staff — the president’s final public event is a 4:30 fundraiser in the Mandarin Oriental on the Southwest waterfront.

THE HOUSE: Not in session.

THE SENATE: Not in session.

FASTER BUT NOT FAST ENOUGH: The news was good and not so good for the U.S. economy this morning.

The gross domestic product — the government’s measure of total economic output — accelerated in the final three months of last year to a 2.8 percent annual rate. That’s the strongest pace of quarterly growth since the second quarter of 2010, and it’s within striking distance of the 3-percent-plus rate that most economists say will need to be sustained to pull the current 8.5 percent jobless rate back down to a more acceptable level. Still, the Commerce Department said, growth for all of 2011 was much slower, at 1.7 percent, than the 3 percent recorded in 2010, and most projections show the economy expanding at roughly 2.5 percent for all of 2012. The Federal Reserve’s most recent forecast, released Wednesday, doesn’t expect a sustained 3 percent growth rate until 2013.

Investors were a tad disappointed this morning because expectations — or maybe they were hopes — were for fourth quarter growth to actually touch 3 percent. So U.S. stocks fell a bit in early trading. The most recent statistics contain a number of guesstimates, though, and the fourth quarter and full-year figures will be revised in coming months. If net exports or some other unclear data come in stronger than Commerce currently estimates, then the GDP figures might prove to be higher. The reverse, of course, is also possible.

Republicans, meanwhile, focused on the not-so-good half of the report and blamed Obama for making it so. “The economy simply isn’t expanding fast enough to generate a sufficient number of jobs to bring down the unemployment rate rapidly,” said Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas, the top Republican on the Joint Economic Committee.“It’s time this president understood that his economic policies are making the situation worse, not better. Instead of dividing Americans over their share of economic pie, the president should focus on making the pie bigger.”

STOCK ACT, COOKING: Momentum is gaining fast for the idea of cracking down on insider trading by members of Congress — so fast, it seems, that the only legislation won't pass the Senate next week is if it’s derailed by too many lawmakers clamoring to hitch extraneous proposals to the bill.

The measure has more than enough bipartisan support to survive its first test, on Monday night, when Reid has arranged for a 60-senator-majority-required vote to begin formal debate. Between now and then, he will be working to limit the temptation, in both caucuses, to propose amendments that have nothing to do with congressional ethics and could poison the well for one of the few moderately important legislative initiatives that has a chance of becoming law this year. (It also remains the only part of Obama’s finger-wagging package of State of the Union proposals for Congress to “reform” itself that has any hope of consideration.)

The measure, by Republican Scott Brown and Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand, would allow both the Hill ethics committees and (much less likely) the Justice department to look at allegations that lawmakers bought or sold securities based on information they got in the cloakrooms about legislative or political maneuverings — in other words, tips not available to other traders about how congressional actions might boost or cripple a business. Senators and congressmen would already appear to be subject to the same SEC insider trading restrictions that apply to everyone, which are written with the use of non-public corporate information by people on Wall Street in mind. And some senators — Republican Tom Coburn most prominently — see the bill as unnecessary feel-good window dressing, because Senate rules already prohibit the use of public office for private gain. (The bill would, though, strengthen disclosure rules by requiring the publication of all lawmaker transactions within 30 days — not just once a year.

If the bill gets through the Senate, the House Republican majority’s leaders would seem to have little choice, politically, but to go along. Cantor tried to slow-walk a markup last fall but says he was doing so only because the bill wasn’t ready for prime time. Now he says he’s ready to move — and 240 lawmakers have signed on as cosponsors.

MUCH IS THEORETICAL: The top brass of the Air Force and Army will explain more of the details (and offer full-throated endorsements) of the Pentagon’s budget highlights this afternoon — although the actual numbers remain under wraps for the next two weeks.

A day after Panetta rolled out the headlines, the reaction has been muted (meaning mostly acquiescent) from the bipartisan cluster of defense hawks who dominate the military spending debate at the Capitol. Most of the lawmaker resistance has been focused, predictably, on the idea of another round of base closings before the 2014 election. But that’s about the biggest potential parochial political pain in the budget so far — because so much of the savings called for in the coming year would be achieved on paper, by postponing (rather than ending) the purchases of such big-ticket weapons as the F-35 and a new submarine. The most readily-understood dramatic cut — saying goodbye to 100,000 ground troops — has been looming for years, and if it happens the total roster of soldiers and Marines will still be higher than on Sept. 11.

The big numbers are $525 billion for the regular defense budget (which is only about 1 percent less than is being spent this year) and $88.4 billion for Afghanistan and other “overseas contingency operations,” which is a considerable drop. The Pentagon says its long-term plan, meanwhile, is to keep increases in spending slow enough that they would amount to a slight decline once inflation is factored in — and it’s in those “out years” that the Pentagon will surely face even more emphatic calls for reduction, whether across-the-board sequestration reductions happen or not. Another war would change the picture, however.

FIRED UP: An assertive, on-his-toes but not petulant-sounding Mitt Romney so totally dominated an almost-addled Newt Gingrich in last night’s debate that he put himself in solid position to win the Florida primary in four days. And if that happens, the ex-governor once again will be hailed as the clear and almost-unstoppable frontrunner. Even before the debate, the tide in the state seemed to be turning in Romney’s favor; the daily Quinnipiac tracking poll for Thursday showed him with 38 percent support among likely GOP primary voters, to 29 percent for the ex-Speaker. (The day before, the two were in a statistical tie.) Ron Paul was at 14 percent and Rick Santorum at 12 percent in the Thursday survey.

The best news for Gingrich was that 32 percent say they might change their mind by Tuesday — although there won’t be any statewide stage between now and then where Gingrich might take another shot at countering Romney’s new tone, which seemed to ring truest last night when he talked about their differences on immigration (“Repulsive,” Romney called Gingrich’s anti-immigrant attacks) and on space (“You’re fired,” Romney says he’d tell Gingrich if they were in a business meeting on the subject). The next debate is not for four weeks — hosted again by jeering-and-cheering-encouraged CNN on Feb. 22, six days before the Arizona primary.

Rick Santorum, meanwhile, said this morning that he was getting off the stump for a couple of days and wouldn’t do any more campaigning in Florida before Sunday – an acknowledgement that, despite a widely hailed debate performance last night, he has no chance of winning the state’s winner-take-all contest and would by getting some rest and raising some money to keep his candidacy afloat in some less-costly states. Weekend fundraisers are planned in both his native Pennsylvania and Northern Virginia, where he lives with his wife and seven kids. Santorum says he plans to try to complete his own taxes this weekend, too.

THE ONE THAT THEY WANT: One of the longest-lasting conventional wisdoms of the topsy-turvy campaign — that Marco Rubio is almost assured of the Republican vice-presidential nomination, no matter who’s at the top of the ticket — gained ample on-camera support last night. Both Romney and Gingrich made clear the 40-year-old freshman Florida senator was at the top of their running mate short lists. And they said so despite a Reuters report, earlier in the day, that Rubio was “upside down” on his Miami home — owing more on his mortgage than the property’s worth. (That news, however, was largely overshadowed by the fact that the wire service has already issued five corrections of other portions of the profile.)

Rubio will get the chance to raise his profile a notch more tomorrow, when he’ll provide the official Republican response to the president’s weekly radio address — meaning he’ll get to reprise his excoriations of the State of the Union (and test out some rhetoric he might use on the stump this fall if he’s playing the traditional veep-candidate “attack dog” role) before a national audience. That McConnell tapped him for the task right before Rubio’s home-state primary is a clear sign the GOP establishment wants to do what it can to keep him happy and in the limelight. Rubio hasn’t endorsed anybody but has said several things critical of Gingrich this week.

QUOTE OF NOTE: “It is now time to take a stand before it is too late. If Gingrich is the nominee it will have an adverse impact on Republican candidates running for county, state, and federal offices. Hardly anyone who served with Newt in Congress has endorsed him and that fact speaks for itself. He was a one-man-band who rarely took advice. It was his way or the highway,” Bob Dole says in a statement posted on the National Review’s website last night. “In my run for the presidency in 1996 the Democrats greeted me with a number of negative TV ads and in every one of them Newt was in the ad. He was very unpopular and I am not only certain that this did not help me, but that it also cost House seats that year. Newt would show up at the campaign headquarters with an empty bucket in his hand — that was a symbol of some sort for him — and I never did know what he was doing or why he was doing it, and I’m not certain he knew either.”

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Chief Justice John Roberts (57); Republican John Mica of Florida, the House Transportation chairman (69).

— David Hawkings, editor

Become a Facebook fan at facebook.com/DavidHawkingsDC. Or follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/davidhawkings.

Pentagon Budget Changes Include Retiring Planes, Canceling Programs (CQ Today)

"This is going to be tough," Panetta said when asked how he expects the budget cuts to be received on Capitol Hill. » View full article

Stuart Rothenberg: What Are the Chances of a Republican White Knight? (Roll Call)

The idea probably is somewhere between nutty and delusional, but given the weird ups and downs this cycle, nutty isn't impossible. » View full article

Obama Shares Details of Higher Education Funding Plan (CQ Today)

He underscored that rising tuition is a severe barrier and that colleges and universities should be held accountable. » View full article

Adding Sparkle to Museums Plan (CQ Weekly)

John Mica wants to combine his bill with another favored by Meryl Streep. » View full article

A Cut That Some Republicans Can't Accept (CQ Weekly)

Three GOP senators are having second thoughts about a nearly 50 percent reduction in the budget for the inspector general at the Corporation for National and Community Service, which supports initiatives such as AmeriCorps and Senior Corps. » View full article

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David Hawkings

dailybriefing@cqrollcall.com

CQ Roll Call Daily Briefing: Pentagon Pruning

2012-01-26T08:31:00.000-08:00

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Today In Washington

THE WHITE HOUSE: Obama spent the night in Las Vegas, where at 1 (D.C. time) he’ll give a State of the Union encore at the local UPS complex focused on his “all of the above” ideas for expanding domestic energy production. His staff is promising a different-sounding energy policy speech at 5:30, after he arrives at Buckley Air Force Base outside Denver. Air Force One is wheels up for Detroit at 6:15.

THE SENATE: Convened at 9:30 and at noon will rebuff the move by Republican conservatives to block the latest increase in the Treasury’s borrowing limit. (The vote was arranged under the deal that ended last summer’s budget standoff just before a default.) Absent a congressional vote of disapproval, the national debt ceiling will be raised by 9 percent tomorrow, to $15.2 trillion.

THE HOUSE: Not in session. (Democrats are at their annual strategy and planning retreat, at the Hyatt Regency Chesapeake Bay Golf Resort, Spa & Marina on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.)

THE SQUEEZE: Panetta will unveil the highlights of his has-to-be-tight Pentagon budget proposal this afternoon: Base closing and realignment rounds next year and in 2015, the elimination of as many as 13 of the Army’s combat brigades (meaning 80,000 fewer soldiers), a 30 percent boost in the number of drones, a 10 percent increase in the number of commandos, a delay in production of dozens of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, scrapping the next-generation Air Force surveillance plane, and slow-walking the modernization of the Humvee fleet and the construction of some warships.

The top lawmakers on the two Armed Services and Appropriations committees were given advance word of the most controversial proposals over dinner at the Pentagon last night, and so they’ll be ready with their reactions as soon as Panetta and Joint Chiefs Chairman Martin Dempsey step off the stage. Republicans will lament that the proposals would stretch the military too thin to take on potential problems in all the world’s trouble spots simultaneously. Democrats will say that, especially with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan winding down, it’s time for the Pentagon to make a bigger contribution to fiscal discipline.

The comprehensive, line-by-line numbers won’t come out until the rest of Obama’s fiscal 2013 budget submission to Congress, now postponed until Feb. 13. The top line for national defense (not including war spending, but including Energy Department spending on nuclear weapons) cannot be more than $546 billion, as deemed by last summer’s federal-default-avoidance deal. Look for Panetta to announce that he’s calling for $5 billion to $10 billion less than that limit.

TURNING SOME CORNERS? Two reports out this morning suggest the economy was gaining momentum at the start of the year. Orders for durable goods — products expected to last three years or longer — rose 3 percent last month, the Commerce Department said. (Orders for so-called core capital goods, which are viewed as a good measure of business investment, rose 2.9 percent in December, to a record month of $68.9 billion.) And the Conference Board said its index of leading economic indicators rose 0.4 percent last month following a revised 0.2 percent increase in November and a revised 0.6 percent gain in October. (Seven of the 10 indicators that go into the report made positive contributions last month.)

The steady if modest flow of decent economic news appears to be translating into a better mood among the voters, according to parts of the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released this morning: 37 percent now predict the economy will improve in the next year, not get worse — a 16-percentage-point move toward optimism in three months (17 percent say they expect a downturn; the rest say the economy will stay about the same). Only 30 percent see the country as on the right track (versus 61 percent seeing it headed in the wrong direction), but that number is up 8 points from a month ago.

The trends are clearly good news for Obama: The poll shows him with a 48 percent approval rating, the highest since June. (On the other hand, the president seems to be steadily losing his State of the Union audience. Only 37.8 million Americans tuned in this time, Nielsen reported today, down from 42.8 million last year, 48 million in 2010 and 52.3 million for his address to Congress a month after taking office.)

WOLF'S PACK: Debate No. 19 is in Jacksonville from 8 to 10 tonight. Newt Gingrich is once again hoping his rhetorical skill will boost a late pre-primary surge. A pair of polls out yesterday both show him in a statistical dead heat against Mitt Romney. The voting’s over Tuesday, and thousand of ballots have been cast early, but if the exit polling in the previous primaries is any guide, then almost half the Republicans who will go to the polls still haven’t firmly made up their minds.

If the former Speaker is looking to use the CNN moderator as his foil, he may be disappointed; the network has tapped Wolf Blitzer for the assignment instead of John King, who got so badly bashed by Gingrich a week ago. (CNN will also allow clapping, hooting and hollering — unlike the NBC command for quiet on Monday — which should work to Gingrich’s advantage.) Either way, look for Romney to poke at Gingrich about his billionaire Super PAC backers (Sheldon and Miriam Adelson), his moon-shot aspirations, his tumultuous Speakership and the details of his sure-looks-like-lobbying work for Freddie Mac. Look for Gingrich to poke at Romney about his Swiss bank accounts, his Cayman Island investments and his shifting they-can-deport-themselves attitudes toward illegal immigration. And look for both Rick Santorum and Ron Paul, who have essentially bypassed Florida, to cede the stage to the guys at the center podiums.

TRAIL TIPS: (1) Bev Perdue won’t run this fall for a second term as governor of North Carolina. Fellow Democrats say she will make the announcement in Raleigh this afternoon — bad news for the Obama re-election campaign, which was hoping for her help in the state this fall. (Perdue will now be nothing more than a lame-duck host at the Democratic convention in Charlotte in September.) In 2008 she became the first woman elected governor in the state’s history, but her poll numbers have been in a steady decline in the past year and she was facing increasingly bleak prospects of winning again — especially if she was in a rematch against Pat McCrory, a Republican former mayor of Charlotte. When Perdue won the last time — by 3 percentage points, the state’s closest gubernatorial outcome in 36 years — it was largely on the coattails of Obama’s sustained efforts to defy the odds and carry the state, which he did by three-tenths of a point.

(2) Brad Miller of Raleigh announced this morning that he would retire this fall rather than wage an uphill fight against fellow Democrat David Price of Chapel Hill in the May 8 North Carolina primary. The two were forced into the same territory under the state’s redistricting map, written by the Republican legislature to turn the comfortably Democratic territory Miller had represented for a decade into a GOP redoubt. The map is also designed to make re-election difficult for incumbent Democrats Larry Kissell, Heath Shuler and Mike McIntyre — but Price, the 71-year-old top Democrat on the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, is now essentially assured of a 13th term. “I do not have an agreement with David to step aside now and run in two years when he retires, as has been widely rumored, nor have I tried to strike any deal,” Miller wrote to supporters. “In two years, maybe it should be someone else’s turn.”

(3) Michele Bachmann’s announcement yesterday that she’ll run for a fourth House term — rather than challenge Amy Klobuchar for the Senate or leave the Capitol to leverage her conservative celebrity into a media career — by no means assures she will still be in Congress a year from now. The northern Twin Cities suburbs she represents are growing fast enough that her district will need to be reconfigured. The tentative map would protect her GOP base, but it’s facing a court challenge. If it’s tossed out then, Democrats will work to draw her into the same district as 12-year Democratic veteran Betty McCollum. Whoever she runs against will have some tangible evidence — only 64 percent attendance at House votes last year, and hardly at all after September — for the argument that Bachmann has lost touch with the home folks and their concerns. And it’s likely she burned through almost all her congressional campaign fund reserve during her White House run.

(4) In his final media play before the totally by mail Oregon special election ends Tuesday, long-shot Republican businessman Rob Cornilles is trying to make the main issue the disgraced lawmaker who vacated the seat last fall. “The same people who covered up for David Wu are now deceiving you about Rob Cornilles,” the announcer says, “because Suzanne Bonamici is wrong on the issues.” Bonamici, a five-year veteran of the state legislature, remains the heavy favorite in the Portland-based district, which has been held by Democrats for four decades. But, just to make sure, a pair of national party committees have poured $1.6 million into the race. National Republicans haven’t helped nearly as much.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: House members Albio Sires of New Jersey (61), his fellow Democrat Xavier Becerra (54) and Becerra’s California colleague Kevin McCarthy, the Republican majority whip (47).

— David Hawkings, editor

Become a Facebook fan at facebook.com/DavidHawkingsDC. Or follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/davidhawkings.

Obama to Push Corporate Tax Plan (CQ Today)

The framework will be released next month, White House officials say. The emphasis will be on simplifying the tax code, limiting special breaks and "broadening the base." » View full article

Giffords Closes Year of Transformation (Roll Call)

Everyone felt connected to her. A key part of that connection is the fear every member must feel: It could have been me. » View full article

Export Agency's Lending Back in Spotlight (CQ Today)

Manufacturing advocates and the White House want lawmakers to revive a stalled effort to expand lending authority at the Export-Import Bank, a tiny agency that represents big money for major U.S. manufacturers. » View full article

Days After SOTU Are Full of Lobbyist Feedback (Roll Call)

Trade associations, unions, activist groups and other organizations are sizing up what Obama had to say. » View full article

SOPA and the Gun Owners of America (CQ Weekly)

The organization's leaders worry that the anti-piracy bill, if it became law, might be used against them by gun control groups. » View full article

New Lines Leave Kissell With Few Paths to 113th (Roll Call)

The North Carolina Democrat has his work cut out for him. » View full article

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David Hawkings

dailybriefing@cqrollcall.com

CQ Roll Call Daily Briefing: SOTU Coda: SEAL Edition

2012-01-25T08:27:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Today In Washington

THE WHITE HOUSE: Obama is off on the traditional presidential post-State-of-the-Union trip far outside the Beltway to sell the public on the proposals touted in the speech. He’ll spend the next three days in five battleground states: Michigan (16 electoral votes), Arizona (11), Colorado (9), Iowa and Nevada (6 each).

Today he will underscore his ideas for promoting both old-line and high-tech manufacturing. Within the hour Air Force One will land in Cedar Rapids, where Obama will tour Conveyor Engineering & Manufacturing, which makes screw-type conveyors for moving feed, grain and chemicals. Six hours later he will be at an Intel chip-making plant that employs 9,700 people in the Phoenix suburb of Chandler.

THE HOUSE: Convened at 9 and is done for the week, having voted 408-0 for legislation that would apply anti-smuggling laws to the ultralight aircraft that have become the mule of choice for moving drugs from Mexico into the Southwest.

The bill was a longtime priority of Gabby Giffords, who cast her final vote in favor of her measure — just after handing in her letter of resignation during an extraordinarily emotional half an hour of tributes on the floor. “I will recover and will return and we will work together again,” the Arizona Democrat declared in her letter, which was read by her friend Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Giffords did not come to the microphone, but walked haltingly to the top of the rostrum to hand her resignation paperwork to Boehner, who was far from alone in openly sobbing at the sight.

THE SENATE: Not in session.

HOLLYWOOD ON THE POTOMAC: In the latest case of life imitating “The West Wing,” the country learned this morning what Obama seemed so pleased about when he arrived at the Capitol — “Good job tonight!” he shouted out to Panetta as he came down the House chamber’s center aisle — but never even hinted at, despite all his praise for the military in his State of the Union speech: A daring Navy hostage rescue operation in Somalia had climaxed just minutes before the president headed to the Hill.

The official reason the president didn’t mention it is that he hadn’t had a chance to inform the families of the rescue. But, as a matter of presidential politics and stagecraft, the rationale is pretty obvious: Unveiling the dramatic tale of the commando raid on prime-time TV would have squandered the headlines generated by the promises and proposals in his speech. (And the Pentagon said this morning that the operation had not fully concluded — with everyone back on safe ground — until after the address was finished.)

Two crews from SEAL Team 6, the same outfit that killed Osama bin Laden last spring (but not the same people), had used helicopters to swoop into another fortified compound and rescue a pair of humanitarian relief workers, 32-yar-old American Jessica Buchanan and 60-year-old Dane Poul Hagen Thisted. They had been kidnapped at gunpoint by ransom-demanding Somali militants in October. Obama had approved the mission on Monday after intelligence reports came in that Buchanan’s health was declining.

“The United States will not tolerate the abduction of our people, and will spare no effort to secure the safety of our citizens and to bring their captors to justice,” the president said in a predawn statement “This is yet another message to the world that the United States of America will stand strongly against any threats to our people.” Panetta said the hostages were unharmed and that no SEALs were killed or injured. (But nine Somali kidnappers were killed.) “It takes your breath away, their capacity and their bravery,” Biden said of the special forces on ABC. “These guys and women are amazing.”

KNOWING THE AUDIENCE: Obama didn’t just offer a blueprint for “an economy built to last” in the State of the Union; he made clear he was talking to a Congress he was eager to blast.

Republicans and Democrats alike went into the House chamber last night preparing to be chided for the institution’s calcifying partisanship and corrosive legislative dysfunction — and they heard what they were prepared for. What they were not expecting was to be hectored by the president for their own internal ethical and procedural laxities. And soon after the speech was over it became clear that among the presidential proposals that were likely to be shelved almost immediately were three aimed straight at Congress. He called for legislation that would bar “any elected official from owning stock in industries they impact” — which sounds like a comprehensive ban on lawmakers owning any securities at all, even Treasury bills. He asked his old Senate colleagues for a rules change that would lead to a simple-majority vote within three months on every judicial and executive branch nomination — which sounds like his price for giving up on his newly assertive use of the presidential recess appointment power. And he demanded that so-called campaign bundlers (the people who collect a bunch of smaller donations and direct them to House and Senate campaign coffers) be prohibited from lobbying Congress — which would mean either getting rid of campaign money or getting rid of lobbyists, neither of which is going to happen.

There is one idea the president embraced, however, that still has a chance for enactment this year as the one bit of good-government, self-policing legislation that could become law as an effort to shield some members from anti-incumbent anger this fall: The so-called Stock Act, which would bar members from trading stocks based on the insider-type information they receive because they’re in Congress.

STRICTLY FOR WISHING: It’s not a simplistic overstatement to say that Obama’s speech was about launching his re-election campaign, not about launching a legislative program. Almost nothing on his laundry list is going to get done in 2012.

Enacting the “Buffett rule” is not going to happen, because no Republicans are going to vote to essentially set a new alternative minimum tax for millionaires such as Mitt Romney, who would see his effective tax rate double to at least 30 percent. The president's corporate tax overhaul, including a minimum tax on income earned abroad, isn’t going to happen without a more sweeping overhaul of the code — and that won’t happen before next year, at the earliest. Legislation to help more homeowners refinance in light of record-low interest rates will get caught up in a predictable buzzsaw of argument about Fannie Me and Freddie Mac. And Obama's one new big idea — splitting the budget savings from ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan between infrastructure spending and deficit reduction — is a long shot in part because not enough lawmakers see those on-paper savings as real. As for an immigration overhaul (or even a version of the Dream Act) and more clean energy research, forget it. And his call to make quick work of the Social Security payroll tax cut extension had already run into the conference committee’s roomful of molasses by the time he spoke.

LIGHTING IT UP: Sort of predictably, tweeting surged last night when Obama talked about college affordability, green energy investments and Steve Jobs — topics close to the collective heart of the Twitter generation. Surprisingly, though, Twitter reported this morning that the biggest spike of all occurred at 9:51 — when 14,131 tweets were sent when Obama made his one overt attempt at a joke: “We got rid of one rule from 40 years ago that could have forced some dairy farmers to spend $10,000 a year proving that they could contain a spill — because milk was somehow classified as an oil. With a rule like that, I guess it was worth crying over spilled milk.” No way of knowing, though, whether deregulatory humor was hailed or lambasted by the twitterati.

THE MISSING: Agriculture’s Tom Vilsack was the Cabinet member designated to stay away from the State of the Union last night — in case a catastrophic attack killed everyone else in the Capitol and essentially decapitated the federal government. The tradition dates to the Cold War but has gained more attention in the decade since Sept. 11; the official who’s tapped by the president usually watches the speech from home, albeit with a full phalanx of Secret Service protection for the evening. Vilsack’s job makes him sixth in the line of presidential succession. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano (18th in line) was also a no-show — but she’s in Switzerland this week at the World Economic Forum.

SUNSHINE STATE SHOWDOWN: Newt Gingrich’s surge appears to be continuing in Florida, where the winner-take-all primary is Tuesday but hundreds of thousands of early votes already have been cast. A Quinnipiac University poll out today — its phone calls started two days before the South Carolina primary but continued for two days after Gingrich’s upset win there — showed the ex-Speaker in a statistical tie with Mitt Romney, with 34 percent to 36 percent for the ex-governor. (There’s a 4-percentage-point margin of error.) Rick Santorum is at 13 percent and Ron Paul is at 10 percent. In a “QPoll” Two weeks ago, Gingrich trailed Romney by 12 points.

Gingrich’s cluster of 11 congressional backers will be using the new numbers in a meeting today with other House members and senators who are so far uncommitted but thinking about endorsing him. (Romney continues to dominate in congressional endorsements, with six dozen.) The lawmakers backing Gingrich, all House members, are Texans Joe Barton and Michael Burgess, Trent Franks of Arizona, Dan Burton of Indiana, Dan Lungren of California, Andy Harris of Maryland and fellow Georgians Phil Gingrey , Jack Kingston, Tom Price, Austin Scott and Lynn Westmoreland.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Eighth-term House Democrat Bill Pascrell of New Jersey (75); freshmen House Republicans Andy Harris of Maryland (55) and Richard Hanna of New York (61).

— David Hawkings, editor

Become a Facebook fan at facebook.com/DavidHawkingsDC. Or follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/davidhawkings.

Ex-Gingrich Adviser Now Trying to Close Lobbying Loopholes (Roll Call)

The lawyer who a decade ago advised Newt Gingrich on how to engage in advocacy without officially becoming a "lobbyist" is now working to close the loopholes that enable the former Speaker and other members to avoid public disclosure. » View full article

President Emphasizes Economic Fairness (CQ Today)

If anything, he was able to temporarily reclaim the media spotlight from the Republican presidential contenders. » View full article

Obama Takes Congress to Task (Roll Call)

The president repeatedly acknowledged that the nation's biggest problems may not be solved this year. » View full article

New Negotiations on Payroll Tax Off to a Slow Start (CQ Today)

At Tuesday's public meeting, relatively little of substance was discussed. » View full article

Conservatives Focus on Broad Ideas (Roll Call)

They head to Philadelphia today for the annual Heritage Foundation Conservative Members Retreat as their movement faces a critical test of its ability to shape the Republican Party agenda. » View full article

Damming Up Overruns at the Pentagon (CQ Weekly)

Even the most steadfast Pentagon supporters find it more and more difficult to defend military spending as weapon after weapon exceeds cost projections by tens of billions of dollars. » View full article

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David Hawkings

dailybriefing@cqrollcall.com

CQ Roll Call Daily Briefing: Mitt's Contribution

2012-01-24T08:39:00.000-08:00

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Today In Washington

THE WHITE HOUSE: Obama will arrive at the Capitol at about 8:45 to deliver his third formal State of the Union address. (The speech he gave to Congress a month after taking office doesn’t get that title, because it’s considered presumptuous for a new president to know what the “state of the union” is so soon.) Capitol Hill will be on high-security lockdown, with cars barred from all the close-in streets, starting at 6.

Obama will start talking soon after 9, following the customary back-to-back standing ovations when he enters the House chamber and then when the Speaker introduces him. Administration officials will start leaking talking points, and their favorite sound bites, at mid-afternoon.

THE HOUSE: Convened at 10 and at noon will start debating five non-controversial bills, including an extension of FAA programs only until Feb. 17 — a deadline designed to force a deal on a long-term reauthorization. The final roll call is promised before 4, and the chamber will be closed before 5:30 for the pre-speech security sweep.

THE SENATE: Convened at 10 for nothing other than six hours of speechifying — with a break at lunch for the first party caucuses of the new year.

HAPPY RETURNS: Obama could not have asked for better timing: His still-likeliest Republican opponent is coughing up hard evidence of his card-carrying membership in the 1 percent — an effective tax rate of 14.5 percent on nearly $42.6 million in income the previous two years — hours before the president calls for a more equitable tax code as the centerpiece of his re-election-year State of the Union.

That Mitt Romney kept some of his millions in an honest-to-goodness Swiss bank account (and closed it only when he committed to this presidential campaign) is a little bit of catnip in the tax forms his campaign released this morning — a detail his opponents can use to underscore how at least one presidential candidate is different from almost every other American. Romney made all his money in 2010 and 2011 while essentially campaigning full time, without a salary — but with plenty of his wealth invested profitably, so almost all the $6.2 million in taxes in those two years were at a 15 percent rate, on the capital gains he realized when he sold securities to pay his bills and write his tithing checks to the Mormon Church.

That lower rate for unearned income is one of the provisions in the tax code that will soon expire, and which Obama will call for altering as part of his crusade for economic fairness as the route to long-term prosperity. (Look for him to repeat the theme from his highly touted middle-class revival speech in Kansas last month — “This country succeeds when everyone gets a fair shot, when everyone does their fair share, when everyone plays by the same rules” — tonight and many nights this year, through his Charlotte convention speech in September and beyond.) The president also is expected to promote his ideas for making college more affordable, restoring stability to the mortgage business and persuading manufacturers to create more jobs. He’ll offer some lip-service to the notion that he’s open to Republican ideas — knowing full well that he’s counting, politically, on the GOP thwarting him at every turn and thereby giving him openings to use his executive authority at the margins while lambasting an obdurate Congress.

FACES IN THE CROWD: Obama is not going to mention Romney by name in his discussion of the tax code — but instead will revive his talk about “the Buffett rule,” the notion that billionaire investors should always pay taxes at a higher effective rate than their secretaries. (Warren Buffett’s personal assistant, Debbie Bosanek, will be in the spectator’s gallery for effect; so will Mark Kelly, who will watch as his wife Gabby Giffords appears on the House floor a final time before her resignation.)

But if the vivid Romney illustration about the growing income divide catches fire with the public, the White House can be expected to make one final push for a“millionaires’ tax” to offset the cost of the yearlong Social Security payroll tax cut, unemployment benefits and a sustained Medicare “doc fix.” The idea may well be different from the simple surtax Reid was pushing all fall; instead, Democrats may turn to the idea of ending the “carried interest” tax law, which allows private equity managers — like the people who work at Bain — to see almost all their income taxed at the lower capital gains rate. (The first formal conference committee meeting on the extenders legislation is at 2:30; the negotiators are looking at an end-of-February deadline.)

NO HOLDING BACK: The official Republican response to Obama’s speech will come from Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana. But the party’s leaders are already offering their “prebuttals”— none more stinging than the one from McConnell. “While we don’t yet know all of the specifics, we do know the goal,” he said as the Senate opened this morning. “Based on what the president’s aides have been telling reporters, the goal isn’t to conquer the nation’s problems. It’s to conquer Republicans. The goal isn’t to prevent gridlock, but to guarantee it.”

Other members of the party are focused on the news yesterday that the president’s fiscal 2013 budget proposal, which by law is supposed to come out Feb. 6, won’t be released until a week later — a sign, in the GOP view, that the president has no serious interest in fiscal restraint this year. (OMB offered no reason for delay, but it’s not unusual for the administration to push back the date. And the agency’s life is complicated this winter because its director, Jack Lew, is about to move to the West Wing as chief of staff.) Lamenting the delay, however, does give Republicans a news hook for talking about their long-shot plans for a process overhaul.

KIRK UPDATE: Mark Kirk’s return to the Senate is almost certainly months, not weeks, away. And so for all intents and purposes, McConnell will only have 46 Republican votes at his disposal for much of this year’s legislative maneuvering.

The 52-year-old freshman senator remains in intensive care in Chicago three days after suffering a significant stroke, because doctors need to be constantly monitoring the bleeding that caused sufficient swelling in his brain to require the pressure-relieving removal of a piece of the right side of his skull. The possibilities for complications — from infection, especially — are intense in the short term. In the long term, the senator faces a long and difficult period of physical and occupational rehabilitation — and despite the therapy, his doctors predicted yesterday, he may never recover the full use of his left arm (he’s left-handed) and have some lasting facial paralysis. The good news, neurosurgeon Richard Fessler at Northwestern Memorial said yesterday, is that the location of the blockage means Kirk’s prospects are strong for an eventually complete mental recovery. (South Dakota Democrat Tim Johnson, who suffered a brain hemorrhage in December 2006, spent several weeks in a medically induced coma and did not return to the Senate until the following September, but he’s now well enough to chair the Banking Committee.)

Until Kirk returns, his aides will be substantially but not completely limited in what they can do to advance the boss’ agenda. As in the case of other lawmakers who have been incapacitated, their staff my seek help from like-minded senators and congressmen to promote legislation, and from home-state colleagues to complete constituent casework.

NO SIR, THAT’S JUST A MONEYBOMB: The TSA may have picked the wrong senator for a full-on pat-down. Rand Paul is a member of the Homeland Security Committee, has a reputation for doggedness when it comes to defending civil liberties — and is eager to start distinguishing his own version of tea party Republicanism from that of his father (because the senator is already thinking about a presidential run four years from now, when his dad will be 80 and has promised to be out of public life). The senator says his experience at the Nashville airport yesterday — when he was prevented from getting on his first-choice flight after he triggered a magnetometer alarm and then refused to be touched by TSA agents — could spur him to offer legislation requiring the agency to allow airport passengers a second chance to go through screening machines.

After Paul bought a ticket on a different flight back to D.C. and cruised through a different checkpoint, he and TSA Administrator John Pistole talked — and agreed that maybe pat-downs should not be the only option for secondary screening. How fast Pistole moves now will determine how long Paul can make legislative hay from the contretemps.

LUNCHTIME CHATTER FODDER: Martin Scorsese’s fantastic Paris adventure tale “Hugo” received 11 Academy Award nominations this morning, more than any other movie; the silent film “The Artist” was second, with 10. Both were put up for best picture along with “The Descendants,” “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close,” The Help,” “Midnight in Paris,” “Moneyball,” “The Tree of Life,” and “War Horse.” (Because of a change in the nominating rules, the best-picture field is one fewer than in the previous two years.)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Two California Democrats with (for now) nearly abutting Northern California House districts: John Garamendi (67) and Mike Thompson (61); HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan (46).

— David Hawkings, editor

Become a Facebook fan at facebook.com/DavidHawkingsDC. Or follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/davidhawkings.

Stuart Rothenberg: Will GOP Risk Goldwater II? (Roll Call)

Gingrich's populist message makes conservatives feel good — in the same way Goldwater's "in your heart, you know he's right" message won over conservatives almost 50 years ago. » View full article

Obama Expected to Focus on Jobs in Speech (CQ Today)

The president is now referring to the issue as "American values." » View full article

Stroke Could Have Kirk Out for Months (Roll Call)

The freshman Senator underwent "successful" surgery Monday and is recovering in a Chicago hospital, according to a spokesman. » View full article

John Cranford's Political Economy: Financial Fallout (CQ Weekly)

What, if anything, does it mean that the United States is refusing to participate in a bailout of Europe's struggling economies? » View full article

GOP Bills Aim to Overhaul Budget Process (Roll Call)

The Congressional Budget Office would have to implement some significant changes to how it makes its estimates. » View full article

GOP Rules Talk-Show Circuit (Roll Call)

Republican lawmakers appeared on the Sunday shows nearly twice as often as Democratic lawmakers in 2011. » View full article

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David Hawkings

dailybriefing@cqrollcall.com

CQ Roll Call Daily Briefing: What Tomorrow Will Bring

2012-01-23T08:31:00.000-08:00

Monday, January 23, 2012

Today In Washington

THE SUPREME COURT: The justices decided unanimously that police must have a search warrant before using GPS technology to track criminal suspects — a potentially landmark ruling in favor of preserving some measure of personal privacy in the digital age.

The court overturned the drug conspiracy conviction of D.C. nightclub owner Antoine Jones, concluding that the main evidence against him — a monthlong log of his whereabouts on a tracking device the police hid on the bottom of his car — was obtained in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights to be protected from an unreasonable search. “By attaching the device to the Jeep," Scalia said, “officers encroached on a protected area.” His opinion was joined by Roberts, Kennedy, Thomas and Sotomayor. Alito, Ginsburg, Breyer and Kagan signed a concurring opinion that suggested the same ground rules should be applied to mobile phones.

THE WHITE HOUSE: Obama is spending the bulk of his day refining and rehearsing tomorrow’s State of the Union speech. His only scheduled on-camera event is a 1:40 photo op in the East Room with the reigning Stanley Cup champion Boston Bruins.

THE HOUSE: Convenes at 2 to debate whether to create a Web-based system for issuing permits to hunt on federal land (aka “duck stamps”) and whether to make an ecologically interesting spot on the Northern Mariana Islands part of the National Parks system. Votes to pass both bills will be at 6:30.

THE SENATE: Convenes at 2 with no scheduled business other than the confirmation of John Gerrard, a 16-year veteran of the Nebraska Supreme Court, as a federal trial judge.

FAMILIAR SCRIPT: Congressional Republicans are prepared to wait until tomorrow, in the hours before Obama arrives at the Capitol, to unleash their opening salvos in their election-year war on almost everything the president and his Democratic allies do or say.

Before Obama can use his national State of the Union TV audience (about 45 million, probably) to lambaste Congress for its past year of dysfunction — and to chide the lawmakers in advance for this year's expected more of the same — the GOP will seek to turn the rhetorical tables back on him. Republicans in both chambers will make a great deal of the fact that Tuesday will mark 1,000 days since the Senate adopted a budget, which they will say is, more than anything, evidence of the president’s lack of leadership. Republicans in the Senate will start talking angrily, if not in any detail, about punishing Obama (by delaying many of his nominees) because of his newly aggressive use of his presidential recess appointment powers. And Republicans in the House, especially, will return to their really hard bargaining positions on the package of wrapup legislation that was left behind at Christmas — promising to do the fiscally responsible thing by shaving back long-term unemployment benefits and blocking any tax on millionaires to pay for a 10-month payroll tax cut extension, and do the economically responsible thing by forcing the president to reverse field on the Keystone XL pipeline.

In other words, for at least this week, until the actual must-do business gets started, the Republicans will be on-message as 100 percent unified in saying whatever the other side wants is bunk. Which is totally unsurprising and precisely the message Obama’s annual speech to Congress will seek to rebut. The president will say that it’s only such knee-jerk recalcitrance that’s preventing a better and fairer economy for the middle class — and a more responsible Washington budgeting process that relies on tough decision-making instead of sequesters. (He’s likely to offer only a warmed-over outline of his deficit-reduction plans, withholding the details until his budget submission in two weeks.)

JOINING THE MARCH: Boehner will be the kickoff speaker at noon, when the annual “March for Life” rally gets under way on the Mall. Several thousand people are expected to brave the soggy weather and attend the rally, then march up Constitution Avenue to the Supreme Court. Abortion opponents have staged a rally every year on this day since 1974 — the first anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision that the Constitution gives women the right to have abortions. But it’s unusual for members of the congressional leadership to participate. The Speaker says he’s going to tell the crowd how proud he is to be the leader of the House’s “bipartisan pro-life majority.”

GLOVES OFF: Tonight’s debate, on NBC starting at 9 at the University of South Florida in Tampa, is the 18th of the Republican presidential campaign — and really might be the most important one yet. It will be the first such encounter since the race became — at least for the next week — a two-man affair. (Rick Santorum is reserving his dwindling resources for a last stand in a less expensive, not-winner-take-all state, and Ron Paul is similarly looking down the road to more hospitable contests — meaning caucuses, where his organizers with passion can shine.)

The Republican establishment will be looking on, with a worried if not-quite-arched eyebrow, to see whether Mitt Romney is really back on track after two consecutive wobbly debate performances that will be remembered mainly for his verbal contortions about keeping his tax returns under wraps. (He’s now promising that details of his 2010 return, and an estimate of his 2011 return, will be made public by tomorrow night.) GOP elders and donors will be looking to see how forcefully and convincingly Romney will say to his rival’s face what he said about him on the stump yesterday: that Gingrich was qualified to be a talk show host, but not president, because it “was proven he was a failed leader” after his four years as Speaker, when “he had to resign in disgrace” because of his ethical reprimand and the loss of confidence of the Republicans who knew him best — the rank-and-file members of the House. (The former governor offered another preview of his new and more confrontational approach this morning, when he called on Gingrich to give back the $1.7 million he’d been paid by Freddie Mac to atone for his alleged lobbying culpability in the housing crisis.)

The assignment for Gingrich, meanwhile, is to parry the Romney brickbats with such elegance and cool that he fortifies the newest story line he’s written for himself — that his 12-percentage-point upset thumping in South Carolina on Saturday means he’s the better bet to take on Obama in the fall, and that the registered Republicans in Florida may as well get in on his self-professed inevitability. (In the shortest term, he wants to perform solidly enough that the money keeps pouring in. Yesterday his campaign reported a post-primary haul of $1 million.) Gingrich continued this morning to deny that he was ever a lobbyist, and he said his campaign was working with the Center for Health Transformation — which he founded but no longer runs — to release records proving that. His surge, he added on ABC, means “you’re going to see the establishment go crazy in the next week or two.”

GRACEFUL EXIT: Gabby Giffords is bringing some symbolic closure to her congressional career today, meeting with other victims — as well as law enforcement officials, rescue workers and bystanders — who were at the “Congress on Your Corner” supermarket parking lot meet-and-greet where the congresswoman was shot 54 weeks ago. She’s also got a session planned with local officials and community leaders, and she’ll visit a family assistance center at a local food bank recently created with $215,000 donated in Giffords’ honor. Her office says today will be her last in Tucson before she hands in her resignation letter to Boehner later in the week. She’s expected at the State of the Union tomorrow night — where her presence will, at least for a few minutes at the start, put a sheen of good feeling on what will otherwise be a predictably partisan hour of political theater.

It had become conventional wisdom in recent weeks that Giffords realized she had not recovered sufficiently to run for a fourth term this fall. But her decision to resign now was known only to a small circle of her closest advisers and took the Arizona political establishment by surprise. As a result, the public field of would-be Democratic successors is totally empty, and probably will be for at least another week — although state legislators Linda Lopez, Matt Heinz, Paula Aboud and Steve Farley, along with Pima County Supervisor Ramon Valadez, are all expected to be starting back-channel efforts to assess the potential for their candidacies. Three Republicans already have started testing the waters: state Sen. Frank Antenori, college rugby coach and sports broadcaster Dave Sitton and 2010 nominee Jesse Kelly.

Complicating the political calculations is the reality that the special election — the primaries will be in April and the final round in June — will be in the 8th District as it’s been configured for the past decade, which has a nearly down-the-middle partisan split, but the regular election five months later will be in a newly drawn (and newly numbered, as the 2nd) district with a clear if not lopsided Democratic lean. The redistricting means that — if Giffords meant what her most ardent fans hope she meant on her resignation video yesterday, when she said “I will return” — her political territory would be more amenable than it has been.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: The oldest senator, New Jersey’s Frank Lautenberg, is now 88. Two fellow Democrats, Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware and Rep. Joe Baca of California, are each turning 65. House GOP freshman Bobby Schilling of Illinois is 48.

— David Hawkings, editor

Become a Facebook fan at facebook.com/DavidHawkingsDC. Or follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/davidhawkings.

Obama Steals GOP Rhetoric (Roll Call)

Democrats and Republicans alike expect the president to roll out moderate-sounding proposals that echo some GOP positions on energy, taxes, spending and regulations. » View full article

The Web Rises Up, the Hill Backs Down (CQ Weekly)

There appears to be no clear way to salvage legislation backed by the old-guard entertainment industry. » View full article

Recess Move Changes Stakes for Nominations (CQ Today)

A lawsuit has already been filed to challenge the legality of the recess appointments Obama made Jan. 4. More suits are expected. » View full article

Democrats in Search of a Fiery Speech (Roll Call)

While a combative speech could include some unpleasant moments for all members, Democrats say they are happy to sit through them as long as Obama touts some of their party's accomplishments and goes after Republicans. » View full article

House GOP Uses Retreat to Lay 2012 Plans (Roll Call)

"This is the most focused and serious-minded retreat I can remember being part of," Boehner said. » View full article

Payroll Tax Debate Set to Resume (CQ Today)

The formal House-Senate conference committee will convene its first meeting Tuesday. » View full article

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David Hawkings

dailybriefing@cqrollcall.com

CQ Roll Call Daily Briefing: Backlash, Blackout, Backpedal

2012-01-20T08:28:00.000-08:00

Friday, January 20, 2012

Today In Washington

THE WHITE HOUSE: Obama is precisely three-quarters of the way through his term, and he’s marking the third anniversary of his inauguration with a light workday: He met with the secretary of State this morning and has a senior staff meeting at 5. His only other public event is a 2:45 re-election fundraiser in the Jefferson Hotel.

THE HOUSE: Not in session; next convenes at 2 on Monday. (Republicans are still in Baltimore for their annual bonding and strategic planning retreat.)

THE SENATE: Convenes at 2 for a pro forma session.

MORE BETA TESTING: The drive for legislation to combat online piracy suffered a probably fatal blow this morning, when Reid called off next week’s Senate test vote on the measure in the face of a crushing rejection.

The majority leader asserted he was not giving up on the bill, only trying to buy time for work on a new version that would strike a different “balance between protecting Americans’ intellectual property and maintaining openness and innovation on the Internet.” But while he asserted a deal that would satisfy both Hollywood and Silicon Valley was still within reach, his move was an undeniable signal that prospects have all but evaporated for the legislation — and less than a week after it looked to be one of the few big policy measures with a good chance of sustaining broad bipartisan support and getting all the way through Congress this year.

What changed the dynamic, literally overnight, was the blackout of websites led by Wikipedia, Google and other online powerhouses on Wednesday — which galvanized an enormous reservoir of anxiety and opposition from Americans living their lives largely online. (The backlash’s enormity and ferocity stunned a Congress that is generally adept at seeing a bill’s supporters and opponents arrayed in predictable rows, and months in advance.) The opponents sent more than 7 million emails that day alone attacking the legislation as effectively sanctioning government censorship of what they watch, hear and read — and strangling online entrepreneurship along the way. The two Judiciary chairmen pushing the measure, liberal Democrat Pat Leahy in the Senate and conservative Republican Lamar Smith in the House, say such fears are in no way warranted; instead, they say, their aim is only to give the Justice Department some new legal powers to work with copyright holders on shutting down the offshore websites that make money not only by stealing or counterfeiting American pop culture but also peddling bogus brand-name clothing and faux pharmaceuticals.

Congressional leaders initially assumed they retained sufficient support to push the bill through quickly and essentially sidestep the critics. But within a day, at least eight of the measure’s 40 original sponsors – Democrat Ben Cardin and Republicans Kelly Ayotte, Orrin Hatch, Marco Rubio, Chuck Grassley, Roy Blunt, Scott Brown and John Boozman — had publicly repudiated the measure, promoting McConnell to press Reid last night to try to buy the negotiators some time by delaying the initial vote.

Leahy asserted this morning that he would try to make the most of the extra time, but he could hardly hide his displeasure or his expectation that the legislative drive had stalled for the year. “The day will come when the senators who forced this move will look back and realize they made a knee-jerk reaction to a monumental problem,” he said. Smith issued his own statement saying that he would put his committee’s deliberations on his bill on ice until a consensus emerges on a new legislative approach — essentially signaling he would leave it to the Senate to come up with a viable plan.

GAME ON: Expectations are solidifying that Newt Gingrich will win South Carolina — and thereby become, at the last possible moment, the single consensus Republican presidential alternative to Mitt Romney.

The state’s most prominent GOP and tea party kingmaker, Sen. Jim DeMint, said this morning that tomorrow’s contest is now “clearly a two-man race.” And if the Speaker’s continued surge in the tracking polls ends up heralding his first primary victory, he would certainly be able to raise the money and assemble the organization needed to sustain a primary and caucus battle lasting well beyond Florida on Jan. 31. (For starters, you can bet an entire Super-PAC’s worth of cash that Gingrich will remind people, a thousand times over, that since the GOP began staging a presidential primary in South Carolina in 1980, every single winner has gone one to secure the nomination.) “This really could go on for a while,” RNC Chairman Reince Priebus predicted this morning.

Gingrich’s amazing return to the top of the pack was heralded last night, when he emphatically gambled — and with resounding success, at least in the hall — that the only thing the state’s evangelically conservative electorate likes less than an “open marriage” advocate is the “elite media ” asking him about it. His vituperative attacks on both ABC (for putting Marianne Gingrich on the air) and CNN (for making her allegations the opening question) are dominating today’s coverage, reaffirming his standing as the most consistently high-performing stage presence in American politics — and effectively boxing out “landslide” Rick Santorum, who seems unable to get any traction despite his new, if asterisk-encrusted, lead in Iowa and his own really solid (if not quite “grandiose”) debate performance.

Romney, meanwhile, put a new label on his own candidacy last night when he offered yet another new and different answer to the drumbeat of questions about releasing his tax returns: “Maybe.” He absolutely remains the probable nominee, but he’s not the inevitable one anymore — no matter how many high-profile, possible running-mate endorsements he uncorks each day. (Today’s came from Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia.)

THE PARTICULARS: Polls will be open from 7 to 7 tomorrow. Although there’s no Democratic contest and any of the state’s 2.7 million registered voters may participate (there’s no party registration), the consensus is that turnout will be below 19 percent – or about 500,000, more than four years ago but fewer than in 2000. The statewide winner gets 11 convention delegates, and 2 delegates go to the winner in each of the seven (one more than in the last decade) congressional districts.

THEY’RE SO CUTE TOGETHER: It’s more than clear by now that all the optimistic talk after Gabby Giffords was shot a year ago — about how the tragedy would herald a period of renewed bipartisan collegiality and civility at the Capitol — was naive in the extreme. But at least one gesture from that period will be repeated next week: Many (but probably not most) of the senators and House members attending the State of the Union will sit with a lawmaker from the other party. The members can’t stand the nickname for this little gesture of goodwill — “date night” — but it’s hard to argue that the symbolism creates just another moment to remember how much life in Congress is like life in high school.

The Senate pairings announced so far include Lisa Murkowski and Mark Udall, Dick Shelby and Mary Landrieu, Mark Kirk and Joe Manchin, Susan Collins and Joe Lieberman, Pat Toomey and Bob Casey, Kay Bailey Hutchison and Barbara Mikulski, Olympia Snowe and Mark Begich, Kelly Ayotte and Jack Reed, Marco Rubio and Bill Nelson, and Pat Roberts and Claire McCaskill. House combinations include Michael Grimm and Loretta Sanchez, John Shimkus and Tim Bishop, Tom Marino and Hank Johnson, Bob Latta and Joe Donnelly, Louie Gohmert and Carolyn Maloney, Michael McCaul and Doris Matsui, Steve Fincher and Jim Cooper, Dave Reichert and Ron Kind, Pat Meehan and Jackie Speier, Reid Ribble and Kurt Schrader, Brett Guthrie and John Yarmuth, Steve Womack and Mike Ross, Jack Kingston and John Barrow, and Frederica Wilson and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Today, House Democrats Shelly Berkley of Nevada (61) and Bill Owens of New York (63); on Sunday, House Republicans Steve Chabot of Ohio (59) and Rick Crawford of Arkansas (46).

— David Hawkings, editor

Become a Facebook fan at facebook.com/DavidHawkingsDC. Or follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/davidhawkings.

SOPA Fight Pits Big Porn Against Little Porn (Roll Call)

Larry Flynt argues that his side of the industry has suffered at the hands of piracy more than any other business. » View full article

Stuart Rothenberg: A Rough Estimate of the Current House Field (Roll Call)

For those who care about control of Congress, the picture there is starting to come into better focus. » View full article

For Republicans, a United Front, but Tension Beneath (CQ Weekly)

In many situations, McConnell's goals bump up against Boehner's headaches. » View full article

Bipartisan Seating Backers Press On Despite Increased Rancor (Roll Call)

Advocates of bipartisan seating at the State of the Union insist the feel-good exercise is more than just empty political symbolism. » View full article

For Obama, No Escape From Pipeline Rejection (CQ Today)

Republicans are playing up one labor group's condemnation of the decision. » View full article

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David Hawkings

dailybriefing@cqrollcall.com

CQ Roll Call Daily Briefing: Doin' The Charleston

2012-01-19T08:40:00.000-08:00

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Today In Washington

THE WHITE HOUSE: Obama is arriving in Orlando, his latest incursion into a bellwether state just ahead of his Republican presidential challengers. (The Jan. 31 primary in Florida, the third-biggest electoral vote prize at 29, is the next contest after South Carolina.) At Walt Disney World at 12:35, he will unveil plans for boosting the travel and tourism industry by, among other things, speeding up visa processing — especially at consulates in China and Brazil — and creating a fast-track airport screening system for “low-risk” overseas visitors. None of his proposals requires legislation, predictably, because the presidential year is going to be all about advancing a “we can’t wait” agenda for changing policy on his own, without the divided Congress.

Air Force One will be wheels-up at 2:15 for an intense evening of fundraising in New York: One cocktail party for $5,000 donors and another one for $15,000 givers at the exclusive Upper East Side restaurant Daniel, a $35,800-a-seat dinner in the Brooklyn home of director Spike Lee and then a $100-ticket bash at the Apollo Theater featuring performances by Al Green and India Arie. The president’s due back home soon after midnight.

THE HOUSE: Not in session. (Almost all the Republicans are at the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront for their annual start-of-the-year retreat, paid for by the business and trade associations that underwrite the Congressional Institute.)

THE SENATE: Not in session.

ALL EYES ON NEWT: Rick Perry ended his presidential campaign this morning and endorsed Newt Gingrich — providing a crucial closing kick of momentum (and about 5 percent of the vote) to the former Speaker two days before the South Carolina primary. “Newt is a conservative visionary who can transform our country,” Perry said in Charleston. “Newt is not perfect, but who among us is?” he added, saying Gingrich has “the courage to tell those Washington interests to take a hike if that’s what’s in the best interest of our country.”

But Gingrich’s prospects for staying in the hunt for the long term may well rest on a pair of back-to-back prime-time TV broadcasts tonight. The first (which starts on Fox at 8) is the final debate before Saturday’s voting in the state, where the ex-Speaker’s poll numbers are surging into striking distance from Mitt Romney. Another characteristically strong on-stage performance, and another balky performance by the front-runner like the one he turned in on Monday, has the potential to propel Gingrich toward a vitally important win. But that’s assuming the second half of the double feature (on ABC at 10) turns out to be a total bust: an extensive interview in which the candidate’s second wife, Marianne Gingrich, will do her best to try to ruin her ex-husband’s career.

Whatever revelations she offers beyond what’s on the record — Gingrich started romancing her long before divorcing his first wife, and kept her in the dark long after starting his affair while Speaker with his current wife, Callista, who was then a House Agriculture Committee staffer — will provide an intense test for Gingrich’s career-long trouble with self-discipline. So far, his plan is to ignore what’s said on “Nightline” and let surrogates (led by his daughters from his first marriage, Kathy Lubbers and Jackie Cushman) do the trash-talking for him in the hours before thousands of evangelical Christian South Carolinians make their decisions at the polls.

NOT HIS BEST DAY: Left on the sidelines, at last for a few hours, is Romney, who had hoped today’s news would be dominated by the latest installment in his I’m-the-inevitable-one tour: an endorsement from another paragon of the Republican establishment — Rob Portman, the freshman Ohio senator, supercommittee member, Bush-era budget chief and trade czar, and everybody’s choice for a spot on any Romney running-mate short list.

Instead, the endorsement is but an afterthought in a campaign news rundown behind Perry, Marianne Gingrich and the not-so-surprising, ultimately unimportant but still really headache-inducing news out of Iowa: Romney didn’t win the caucuses by 8 votes, after all — at least, not officially. Meaning he’s so far 1-for-2, not 2-for-2, in the early balloting — and could yet be 1-for-3 by the weekend. Recounting and coming up with the certified results resulted in Rick Santorum with 34 votes more than Romney — although paperwork from eight of the state’s 1,774 precincts is missing and probably will be forever, which is why the state party is not ever going to declare an “official” winner, and why the Romney campaign is now saying he’s willing to call it a tie.

The three South Carolina polls out today (all taken with Perry still in the hunt) all show essentially the same thing: Romney slipping but still ahead by about 10 points.

‘NO’ IS NOT THE END: Few things in a year of predictable political posturing were as easy to forecast as Obama’s rejection of the Keystone XL Pipeline yesterday. He said that if Congress forced his hand and made him make a quick decision, the decision would be “no.” And that’s just what happened. But it’s just as easy now to predict that the two sides in the fierce fight will harp on the standoff all year, with each camp trying to force a final decision in its favor and neither side expecting that will happen before the election.

Republicans, who have seized on the 1,700-mile oil pipeline from Canada to Texas as their favorite engine of job creation, are already searching for legislative avenues to compel the administration to reverse field. In the meantime, they’ll settle for some good television: House Energy and Commerce is working to arrange a hearing next week where Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will be pressed hard to defend her department’s recommendation that the $7 billion pipeline plan be stopped. (The issue belongs to State because it’s a Canadian company, Calgary-based TransCanada Corp., that wants to do the construction.)

Democrats, for their part, say they are confident the standoff will work well for them because it provides something tangible to boast to their base in the environmental community. (The plan calls for the pipe to snake across the ecologically fragile Sandhills of Nebraska.) They’ve concluded that the boost they get from their green constituents far outweighs the heartburn they’re causing with members of some labor unions, who were salivating over TransCanada’s talk about creating as many as 20,000 construction jobs in the next two years. (The administration says the project would bring no more than 6,000 jobs.)

THE OTHER MITCH: Mitch Daniels will deliver the televised response to Obama’s State of the Union next Tuesday night — offering him one more high-profile turn on the national stage before his governorship of Indiana ends in a year, and one final opportunity for wistful Republicans to wonder what might have been, had he run for president this time. Boehner and McConnell announced the choice this morning. Daniels will be only the third governor tapped to respond to a Democratic State of the Union in the past two decades; the others were Virginia’s Bob McDonnell two years ago and New Jersey’s Christie Whitman in 1995. All the others have been members of Congress, including House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan a year ago.

HOW TALL IS $15 MILLION? The National Park Service now has all the money it says it needs ($15 million) to return the Washington Monument to the condition it was in before the August earthquake. That’s because the half provided by Congress last month was matched this morning by billionaire Bethesda businessman and history buff David Rubenstein, a co-founder of The Carlyle Group private equity behemoth. The Park Service hopes to have a contractor begin work on the 555-foot obelisk by the end of next August, and it will be a year after that before the delicate masonry work is done and a million visitors a year can start streaming in again. It’s not clear whether the work will require a reconstruction of the scaffolding that was used during the restoration of 1999-2001. The work will not include repairing water damage since the quake or making reinforcements to prevent damage in future temblors. And still to come is a long-range plan for revamping the monument grounds and creating a new visitor center; the winner of a design competition is to be named in May.

HINCHEY’S GIFT: Maurice Hinchey is insisting to everyone who asks, and who doesn’t ask, that he’s cancer-free and healthy enough to run for and win an 11th term representing upstate New York in the House. The veteran Appropriations Committee member says he’s announcing his retirement this afternoon because, at 73, it’s simply time to retire — and to cut his old Democratic buddies in Albany a huge break. That’s because now the Legislature will be able to carve up his sprawling Poughkeepsie-to-Binghamton-to-Ithaca district and be halfway toward meeting their reapportionment obligation, which is to do away with two of the state’s 29 House districts. And the other half of the task is almost as easy: Soon enough a new map will be out that disappears the Brooklyn-Queens district that Bob Turner claimed for the Republicans after last summer’s Anthony Weiner melodrama. The Democratic state Assembly sacrifices one district upstate, and the GOP state Senate gives up one in the city. It could hardly be any easier.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Kilili Sablan, the independent-turned-Democrat who’s the first congressional delegate ever sent from the Northern Mariana Islands (57).

— David Hawkings, editor

Become a Facebook fan at facebook.com/DavidHawkingsDC. Or follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/davidhawkings.

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