• Tuesday, June 27, 2006 | 4:45 p.m. ETFrom Mark Murray
Immigration compromise?
In a conference call with reporters today, Sen. John McCain (R) floated a possible -- but still unlikely -- compromise over the stalled immigration bill, suggesting that the controversial guest-worker and citizenship proposals in the Senate bill could be phased in later dates, while the border security measures -- which everyone seems to support -- could be accelerated. "We want to negotiate and discuss," said McCain, who was joined on the conference call by Sen. Ted Kennedy (D). But such a compromise, McCain insisted, doesn't detract from his goal of passing a comprehensive immigration bill that both beefs up the border and creates a guest-worker program.
McCain's comments come on the heels of Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter's (R) interview yesterday with the Washington Times, in which he said he's open to the idea of enacting border enforcement measures -- before implementing a guest-worker program and a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. "It may be down the line that we will come to some terms on a timetable, with border security first and employment verification first," Specter told the paper.
Also in today's conference call, McCain was asked about House Republicans denigrating the Senate immigration legislation by calling it "Reid-Kennedy" instead of the proper "McCain-Kennedy." He responded, "No matter what you call it, the American people know it's a bipartisan bill." In fact, McCain said, it should be called the "President Bush bill," since the president supports it.
• Tuesday, June 27, 2006 | 1:45 p.m. ETFrom Wendy Jones and Elizabeth Wilner
Line-item veto lacking electricity
A conservative think tank might seem like an ideal audience for a Republican president looking to reassure his base that he's in sync with them on federal spending restraint. Indeed, the crowd at President Bush's speech to the Manhattan Institute on the merits of the line-item veto even included a handful of Senate Republicans -- another key audience for him, since the other point of his speech was to urge the Senate to pass the measure approved by the House last week.
Line-item veto authority would allow Bush to strike out individual items in spending bills without having to veto the entire bill. President Clinton was granted line-item veto authority during his second term, but the courts struck it down. Bush has not vetoed a spending bill -- or any bill, for that matter -- during his presidency.
And yet despite the holy-grail status of the measure, neither Bush nor his audience seemed terribly inspired. For the most part, the applause was polite at best. It got more enthusiastic when Bush talked about not reducing military discretionary spending: "When our troops are in harm's way they will get everything they need to win the war on terror, I have got to be able to look them in the eyes and say, 'It is worth it,' and, 'We support you.'" The pool reporter covering the event for the White House press corps wrote in his report, "You'll get a transcript of the president's remarks, but it can't convey the lack of electricity in the room. Even accounting for the subject matter, it was not one of his best efforts."
Bush also praised the bipartisan support for the line item veto, including from his 2004 opponent John Kerry. He said pointedly that he expects the new bill to receive the support of those Senators who voted for it in 1996. "It makes sense for a Republican president or a Democratic president to reconcile the difference between the House and Senate and show the people that we are serious about spending their money wisely," he said.
• Tuesday, June 27, 2006 | 9:10 a.m. ETFrom Elizabeth Wilner, Mark Murray, Huma Zaidi and Alex Isenstadt
First glance
Late last week, House Republicans began disparaging the Senate's immigration legislation by calling it the "Reid-Kennedy" bill. Up until then, it had been known by the bipartisan moniker McCain-Kennedy. That rhetorical sleight of hand can't disguise how deeply divided the GOP is over this bill -- particularly its provision for a guest-worker program for illegal immigrants. Many oppose such a program and call it amnesty - including enough House Republicans - to prevent Speaker Dennis Hastert, per his "majority of the majority" rule, from bringing it to the floor. Others back it, including President Bush and Sen. John McCain. Today, this split will play out at the polls as Rep. Chris Cannon of Utah, an otherwise conservative Republican who supports a guest-worker plan, faces a primary challenge from an opponent whose tougher stance on immigration could propel him to victory.
Cannon's colleagues in the House have been paying close attention to the political impact of the immigration debate. They took note when former GOP Rep. Brian Bilbray carved out a narrow victory in a special congressional election in San Diego earlier this month by touting his hard-line stance on immigration. Hastert scheduled a series of field hearings for July and August, which will allow the ranks to flog the issue and appeal to the base around the country. Today, if one of their own members in good standing loses his seat for supporting a guest-worker plan, it will only harden their resolve to publicly oppose Bush on the issue -- a fact the White House clearly recognizes.
This isn't the first time Cannon has been targeted for his views on immigration: He faced a primary challenge in 2004 but easily overcame it. Demonstrating how potent the issue has become just in the last two years, particularly in Republican-leaning areas, Cannon is now fighting for his political life; he already placed second behind his challenger at the state party convention. The White House is pitching in with phone recordings and statements by both Bushes. "There is a very good chance that he could go down," Jeff Hartley, executive director of the Utah Republican Party, tells First Read. "You wouldn't have the involvement from the White House if he weren't in jeopardy."
Cannon's primary opponent, developer John Jacob, is getting help from a PAC founded by Cannon's House colleague Tom Tancredo and run by the conservative Bay Buchanan, both of whom fiercely advocate tighter immigration controls. The PAC is calling Cannon "the king of amnesty." A loss by Cannon would be just another nail in the coffin for any compromise bill on immigration, especially one containing a guest-worker provision, and a stinging blow to the White House. Also, if Jacob wins, it would be a rare example of a single-issue candidate actually winning an election, notes the nonpartisan Cook Political Report's Amy Walter. Polls open at 9:00 am ET and close at 10:00 pm ET.
On Capitol Hill, the chief sponsors of the Senate bill and a striking assortment of other supporters gather for a 2:30 pm press conference to restate their case for a comprehensive bill. It's not often that you find Kennedy, McCain, Grover Norquist, the US Chamber of Commerce, organized labor, and Catholic bishops all campaigning for the same thing (and all likely losing, at least this year). At 3:00 pm, Kennedy and McCain hold a conference call with reporters.
And Republican National Committee chair Ken Mehlman, who has made outreach to minorities a top priority for the committee, appeals to the League of United Latin American Citizens in Milwaukee at 1:00 pm ET. "A Republican Party that does not reach out to Hispanics does not deserve to win," Mehlman will say, per advance excerpts. He also will reaffirm Bush's support for reauthorizing the Voting Rights Act, another victim of the immigration battle as some House Republicans oppose the re-upping of its provision for multi-lingual ballots.
President Bush makes his own appeal to the party base with a speech on the line-item veto at the JW Marriott Hotel at 10:50 am. Per the White House, Bush will exhort the Senate to pass the measure which the House approved last week. Bush meets with National Endowment for Democracy Award recipients at 1:45 pm. Also today, he has a photo op with Staff Sergeant Christian Bagge of the Oregon National Guard at 1:20 pm, and is scheduled to keep a promise to go for a run with Bagge on the South Lawn at 3:45 pm (weather permitting). Bagge is a double amputee who was wounded by a roadside bomb in Iraq in fall 2005.
Your new favorite political calendar can be found on MSNBC.com by clicking here.
Security politics
A new Gallup poll shows 57% of Americans saying "Congress should pass a resolution that outlines a plan for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq... The poll finds support for the ideas behind Democratic proposals that were soundly defeated in the Senate last week. An uptick in optimism toward the war after the killing of terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi earlier this month seems to have evaporated." Bush's job approval rating in the survey is 37%. "The percentage of Americans who say the president has 'a clear plan for handling the situation in Iraq' has dropped to 31%, a new low. That's still higher than the 25% who say congressional Democrats have a clear plan for Iraq."
A new Washington Post/ABC poll shows 51% opposing "a deadline for getting out of Iraq, but the margin has dwindled as insurgents have continued to kill U.S. troops. The poll found that 47 percent now favor some kind of deadline, up eight percentage points since December. Two thirds of Democrats support setting a deadline, more than double the proportion of Republicans who want a timetable for withdrawal. Among independents, 44 percent support a deadline." Bush's approval rating of 38% "is five points higher than it was in May." Democrats have lost some of their edge over Republicans on which party would better handle Iraq, but the public "gives both Bush and the Democrats low marks on having a plan for success" there.
The AP notes of Bush's events with Staff Sergeant Bagge today: "Bush met Bagge during a New Year's Day visit to Brooke Army Medical Center in Texas -- and when Bagge asked about a White House run, Bush agreed." More: "Bush... used to jog often before joint pain forced him to turn to mountain biking. But he told Bagge he was ready to make an exception."
The New York Times front-pages the White House's coordinated attack yesterday on the paper and others who "disgracefully" reported the existence of a secret international banking surveillance program.
The Washington Post: "Critics said Bush was trying to divert attention from his own actions... An investigation into how the information was revealed would normally follow such a disclosure. But officials denied that the rhetoric was an attempt to intimidate the media."
"The controversy has sparked renewed debate about whether the government has gone too far in tracking terrorists, and whether news organizations are obstructing the terrorist-tracking effort by exposing the government's methods," says the Los Angeles Times.
The immigration debate
The Salt Lake Tribune previews today's 3rd district GOP primary. "Political observers say the outcome will be decided by how many Utahns turn up at the polls. A small turnout could benefit Jacob," who's challenging incumbent Chris Cannon.
"House Republicans have begun crafting their schedule of summer hearings on the immigration debate with an eye toward boosting public recognition of the chamber's border security bill across the country and forcing the Senate to the negotiating table this fall," Roll Call says. "Republican sources said GOP leaders also are considering the possibility of taking only the most palatable, security-related elements of the Senate bill, combining them into a stripped-down measure this fall and passing it in the House, putting the ball back in the Senate's court... GOP leaders also expect that at least some of the field hearings will be held in the districts of vulnerable Republican Members or places where the party sees pickup opportunities."
Senate Judiciary Committee chair Arlen Specter, who also has scheduled field hearings on the Senate bill, tells the Washington Times in an interview that border security should be Congress' first priority; that "he's open to a compromise that sets goals for border and interior enforcement ahead of a guest-worker program and path to citizenship for illegal aliens;" and that "in order for Congress to produce an immigration bill this year, President Bush must lobby personally on specific details in the bill -- something he has not done."
More on the Bush/GOP agenda
The Financial Times previews Bush's speech on the line-item veto today: "The speech forms part of an increasingly aggressive effort by the White House to woo back disgruntled conservatives, who have become disaffected by the expansion of government spending... Last week, the White House hosted a conference call, led by Karl Rove" and budget director Rob Portman." The attention comes as Congress has passed 14,012 earmarks... worth about $29bn."
Channeling First Read by noting that "the Senate has only 49 days left on its legislative calendar for the year," the Washington Post's Dana Milbank cheekily covers the chamber's devotion of four days to debating a flag-burning ban. "If that formula -- one day of Senate debate for each incident of flag burning this year -- were to be applied to other matters, the Senate would need to schedule 12 days of debate to contemplate the number of years before Medicare goes broke, 335 days of debate for each service member killed in Iraq this year and 11 million days of debate on the estimated number of illegal immigrants in the country."
The Chicago Tribune notes that the flag amendment "could become the first change to the Constitution approved by Congress in 35 years... If the Senate joins the House in approving the amendment, ratification by three-fourths of the states (at least 38) appears likely because many have passed resolutions saying they would ratify it."
The New York Daily News lists Democrats who might be in a tough spot if they choose to vote against the amendment, naming North Dakota Sens. Byron Dorgan and Kent Conrad. The paper also has one Republican saying, '"Robert Byrd, as someone who has voted for it and then opposed it, would certainly be a target.'"
The Wall Street Journal says it's "increasingly unlikely the Senate will take up a bill to cut back the federal estate tax before the July 4 recess." Senate Republicans "still don't have the needed 60 votes and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist doesn't want to bring it up until he knows that it can pass."
The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing today on Bush's use of presidential signing statements to claim the authority to circumvent 750 laws enacted since he took office.
The Washington Post calls Bush's visit to Graceland on Friday with Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi "one of his most personal gestures to a visiting world leader." The visit is a big deal, the paper determines. "Officials on both sides of the Pacific are calling the warm reception a case study of how a personal rapport between world leaders can, on occasion, influence foreign policy. Ties between the United States and Japan... have strengthened even as Washington's relations with Europe at times have sharply deteriorated."
The debate over whether some Southern states should continue to be monitored during elections for adherence to civil rights laws continues after members from those same states blocked the House from debating the extension of certain provisions of the Voting Rights Act last week. The Dallas Morning News says that civil rights groups challenged "Texas and other Southern states that say they have sufficiently improved minority voting rights to deserve relief from federal scrutiny" and "are demanding a vote before the July 4 congressional recess."
The Los Angeles Times covers the Supreme Court decision to consider "whether emissions from new cars, trucks and power plants must be further regulated to slow climate change... The high court voted to take up the issue over the objection of the Bush administration... The case, to be heard in the fall, could be one of the most important environmental disputes to come before the court. Environmental advocates said automakers could be forced to produce a fleet of vehicles that pollute less."
It's the economy...
Edward Lazear, chairman of Bush's Council of Economic Advisors, testifies before the Joint Economic Committee on the "Prospects for the U. S. Economy" at 10:00 am.
Treasury Secretary nominee Hank Paulson is expected to receive a fairly smooth confirmation hearing this morning. "People close to the process suggested he would be grilled on the US budget deficit, health and social security reform, the trade deficit, international competitiveness and US economic relations with China... Senate Democrats... are not expected to challenge his personal qualifications for the job. Instead, they will try to draw out differences between him and Mr. Bush on economic policy." – Financial Times
Ethics
The Houston Chronicle says that a Texas federal judge yesterday noted that he thinks that former Rep. Tom DeLay (R) withdrew from the November election, rather than simply moving to Virginia, thereby making him ineligible for the ballot. The judge's statement indicated "potential trouble for Republicans who want to name a replacement candidate... At issue is whether DeLay withdrew from the race after he won the primary or is ineligible to be on the ballot. If he is ruled ineligible, a committee of four Republican precinct chairs representing each of the counties in the 22nd District - Brazoria, Fort Bend, Galveston and Harris - would be able to select a nominee to replace him."
The Democrats
Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean has two public events today. First, he addresses the Sojourners' Pentecost 2006: Building a Covenant for a New America! Conference, in Washington at 8:30 am. Then tonight, he throws out the first pitch at Camden Yards, where the Orioles play the Phillies. Sen. Hillary Clinton also addresses the Sojourners conference today.
Former President Clinton headlines a New Hampshire Democratic party fundraiser in Bedford tonight.
The Boston Globe writes up Sen. John Kerry's speech on energy and global warming yesterday, in which he "proposed creating mandates for reducing America's oil consumption, expanding the availability of renewable fuels for cars, and freezing and reversing greenhouse gas emissions."
Who are the swing voters of the upcoming election, what are they thinking, and how will they vote? Two Democratic pollsters, Anna Greenberg and Guy Molyneux, tried to answer these questions yesterday in a briefing on what they billed as the largest poll of likely swing voters this year (613 swing voters in 66 swing congressional districts and eight competitive Senate races). Their findings: These voters want change. Seventy-three percent think the country is on the wrong track; they favor Democratic House candidates over Republicans, 45%-28%; and they prefer Democratic Senate candidates over Republicans, 53%-31%.
The poll also found that swing voters, by large majorities, favor a government agenda that boosts education funding, provides health care to all, promotes energy dependence -- and rolls back Bush's tax cuts for Americans earning more than $200,000 per year to pay for it. So why didn't more of them vote for John Kerry, who campaigned on a nearly identical platform two years ago? Greenberg suggested that that Kerry didn't articulate that agenda well, and that Iraq and national security overshadowed it. "I'd argue we haven't had a fair test" of this agenda, she said.
More on the midterms
The Supreme Court's ruling that Vermont's campaign finance law, which set limits on contributions to and expenditures by candidates for state office, is unconstitutional is viewed as experts and observers as a complicated wash for both parties. – Wall Street Journal
USA Today considers whether African-American Republican candidates for statewide office in Maryland, Ohio and Pennsylvania could scramble Democrats' traditionally strong support from African-American voters. "Political observers view the three GOP campaigns - win or lose - as a watershed."
The general election in the Maryland gubernatorial race will officially kick off tomorrow as presumptive Democratic nominee and Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley holds a big rally to mark his filing as a candidate, and Gov. Bob Ehrlich (R) heads "to his boyhood home in the working-class Baltimore suburb of Arbutus to announce his reelection campaign. A decision on his running mate will follow before Monday's filing deadline." – Washington Post
The New York Times covers last night's debate in New Jersey between Sen. Bob Menendez (D) and his GOP opponent Tom Kean Jr. (R). Their first debate, which took place on Sunday, was one of the "nastiest in recent memory," the paper says. But last night's focused more on their policy difference (on Iraq and taxes) than on personal attacks.
