(swong@politico.com or @scottwongDC)
THE SEQUESTER: ONE MONTH IN – In a pair of stories, our own Darren Samuelsohn looks at how the Democratic and Republican arguments are playing in the fight over sequestration.
DEMOCRATS are turning to a “law and order” argument: “The public has largely tuned out the Democrats’ repeated warnings about mid-air plane crashes, troop deaths and mass illness from tainted meat if the sequester cuts stay in place. But Democrats aren’t dropping the threat of disaster, seizing now on the line they think can beat the Republicans: law and order. Prison riots, cocaine flooding the streets, terrorists on board airplanes — even hurricanes and tornadoes left undetected by budget-slashed agencies — have moved front and center as Democrats try to get the public behind blaming the Republicans. …
– “The whole thing leaves Democrats looking a little like they’re rooting for bad news— though they insist that they’re only saying what is likely to happen if the money isn’t replenished. ‘A significant event would certainly alter the mindset,’ said Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.), of the public attitude toward sequester. So to make their case, many of the warnings have taken on the air of emergency, particularly when it comes to public safety. Politically, it could be just as tough a sell as the tainted meat: There have been no reports of anyone purchasing bad products, so it’s hard to convince voters that that’s an immediate and dangerous threat.” http://politi.co/XgmDBW
REPUBLICANS are taking the political high ground: “To figure out why Republicans are winning the sequester wars, look at two numbers. Federal employees have so far taken no furlough days. And the stock market hit an all-time record earlier this month, with the Dow closing Thursday at 14,578. Amid all that, it’s pretty hard for most of the public to understand what the Democrats were talking about, with all their gloom-and-doom chatter earlier this year. But so far, even the White House admits there’s little chance of reversing all the cuts. There’s been no sudden shock to the system. In fact, the economy seems on the mend, with housing starts higher than before the Great Recession.
– “And if this drip-by-drip rollout continues, GOP activists say they’ll keep the political high ground as the cuts slowly sink into the public consciousness — much in the same way people forget that before Sept. 11, they could make a dash for the airport gate without taking off their shoes. ‘For most Americans, they’re not going to notice much of a difference,’ said former House Republican leadership aide John Feehery.” http://politi.co/XgmIFQ
S&P 500 HITS ALL-TIME HIGH: 1,569.19 http://reut.rs/YMlPps
Washington Post, A1, “For federal workforce, furlough terrain is uneven,” By Lisa Rein: “Every U.S. Park Police officer will be off the job for 14 days — but the national parks they patrol will be staffed. The Department of Housing and Urban Development will shut down for seven days starting in May, after concluding that staggering furloughs for 9,000 employees would create too much paperwork. Customs and Border Protection agents are waiting to hear whether the 14 unpaid days they were told to expect will disappear as they did for meat inspectors and federal prison staff. And the Pentagon announced Thursday that it would cut its planned furlough days from 22 to 14. This is the uncertain and uneven landscape of the furloughs that in less than three weeks will begin to affect more than half of the nation’s 2 million federal employees. The budget ax was supposed to fall across the board but hardly does so, federal workers are learning. And the situation is quickly splitting the workforce into haves and have-nots, inflaming labor-management tensions and straining agency resources as everyone struggles through the details. …
–“[L]ate Thursday, as if to underscore the uncertainty, more than 100,000 Justice Department employees learned that they will have to wait until mid-April to find out whether they will be furloughed. They had been told in February to expect 14 unpaid days. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., noting that workers “may be anxious” about lost pay, said Thursday that he needed time to assess the stopgap budget. The Justice Department last Friday eliminated furloughs for more than 3,500 prison staffers.” http://wapo.st/10YyBiO
POLITICO FOR YOUR EARS: The Scrum podcast. David Chalian, Josh Gerstein and Reid Epstein join host Alexander Trowbridge for a discussion on gay marriage at the Supreme Court, Washington’s less-than-breakneck pace on guns, and Ashley Judd’s pass on the Kentucky Senate race. On POLITICO: http://politi.co/11T4ThF On iTunes: http://bit.ly/ZEA1xo
Obama: ‘SHAME ON US’ IF WE’VE FORGOTTEN NEWTOWN – Kathleen Hennessey writes for the L.A. Times: “Three months after the Newtown, Conn., shooting, President Obama said Americans and lawmakers should be ashamed if they’ve forgotten the calls for tighter gun laws that followed the elementary school massacre. ‘The entire country was shocked, and the entire country pledged we would do something about it and that this time would be different,’ Obama said Thursday at the White House. ‘Shame on us if we’ve forgotten. I haven’t forgotten those kids. Shame on us if we’ve forgotten.’ Obama’s remarks were aimed at reviving the stalled momentum for new gun-control laws, an effort that has been crowded out by other issues and stalled in Congress. Although the Senate is expected to begin voting on a bill when it returns from a recess the week of April 8, a bipartisan group of lawmakers has not yet struck a deal on key details and lawmakers have said that major provisions backed by the president – bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines – will not be included in the package, although it will be proposed as an amendment. … Obama’s remarks, his first extended comments on the subject in more than a month, came on a “day of action” coordinated by gun-control advocates trying to keep the pressure on lawmakers.” http://lat.ms/163itfk
FIRST LOOK: NEW GROUP BRINGS REAGAN INTO GUN DEBATE – United Network of Rational Americans, or “The UNRA” (pronounced UN-R.A.) — a new online advocacy group for gun owners who back the 2nd Amendment as well as universal background checks, is out today with a YouTube video marking the 32ND anniversary (Saturday) of the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan. UNRA suggests Reagan would have supported universal background checks, citing an op-ed he wrote in 1991 in favor of the Brady law, which required limited background checks for firearm purchases. Watch the video here: http://youtu.be/l5ZULLbEwMY Read the 1991 NYT op-ed here: http://nyti.ms/YjG0ZF
VOTEVETS.ORG IS SPENDING $ 150,000 on a new TV ad, pressuring lawmakers in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, and North Dakota to support background checks. The ad features Iraq War Veteran and Purple Heart recipient, Glenn Kunkel, who fires an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle at a mannequin, displaying the power of the weapon. “I had to pass a background check to join the Marine Corps, before I could carry a weapon similar to this one in Iraq. Here at home, anyone can purchase this weapon, no questions asked,” Kunkel says. He then fires off a number of rounds into a water-filled mannequin, which explodes with each hit. “I support the Second Amendment, but we’ve seen what can happen when these fall into the wrong hands,” he continues with images of the Sandy Hook Elementary memorial. “I needed a background check to carry similar weapons in combat. We should require the same here at home.” Watch here: http://youtu.be/l5ZULLbEwMY
NYT LEAD EDITORIAL: ‘MALICIOUS OBSTRUCTION IN THE SENATE’ – “Earlier this month, during one of his new across-the-aisle good-will tours, President Obama pleaded with Senate Republicans to ease up on their record number of filibusters of his nominees. He might as well have been talking to one of the statues in the Capitol. Republicans have made it clear that erecting hurdles for Mr. Obama is, if anything, their overriding legislative goal. There is no historical precedent for the number of cabinet-level nominees that Republicans have blocked or delayed in the Obama administration. Chuck Hagel became the first defense secretary nominee ever filibustered. John Brennan, the C.I.A. director, was the subject of an epic filibuster by Senator Rand Paul. … Jacob Lew, the Treasury secretary, was barraged with 444 written questions, mostly from Republicans … Gina McCarthy, the nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, is being blocked by Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri until he gets the answers he wants on a local levee project. And Thomas Perez, nominated to be labor secretary, is being held up by Senator David Vitter of Louisiana, who is angry about the Justice Department’s enforcement of voting rights laws. By comparison, there were four filibusters of cabinet-level positions during George W. Bush’s two terms, and one under President Ronald Reagan. …
– “Last week, Caitlin Halligan, another appeals court nominee, had to withdraw from consideration after Republicans filibustered her for the second time, on the flimsy pretext that she was a legal activist. Republicans clearly don’t want any of Mr. Obama’s judges on the important United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to which she was nominated, and the president needs to be more aggressive about filling the four vacancies on the court. Republicans clearly have no interest in dropping their favorite pastime, but Democrats could put a stop to this malicious behavior by changing the Senate rules and prohibiting, at long last, all filibusters on nominations.” http://nyti.ms/ZGZOFl
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IT’S GOOD FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 2013. Welcome to The Huddle, your play-by-play preview of the day’s congressional news. Send tips, suggestions, comments, complaints and corrections to swong@politico.com. If you don’t already, please follow me on Twitter @scottwongDC.
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TODAY IN CONGRESS – The House and Senate are in recess this week and next week.
AROUND THE HILL – Join POLITICO at 8 a.m. on April 9 as our Chief Economic Correspondent Ben White takes his daily newsletter live for the first-ever Morning Money Breakfast Briefing featuring Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio). RSVP here: http://bit.ly/Zr2aEJ
GUEST-WORKER DISPUTE COULD DELAY IMMIGRATION BILL – David Nakamura writes on A1 of the Washington Post: “A worsening dispute over a new guest-worker program has emerged as the most serious obstacle to a bipartisan deal on immigration, threatening to delay the unveiling of a Senate bill early next month. The impasse has prompted a bitter round of name-calling between labor and business groups, which accuse each other of imperiling comprehensive immigration reform. The Obama administration has remained on the sidelines as the standoff has worsened, calculating that the president would risk alienating Republican senators crucial to the process. … The guest-worker issue helped derail the last serious attempt at reform in 2007 with assistance from Obama, then a U.S. senator from Illinois. The current attempt at reform is being led by a bipartisan group of eight senators, who are attempting to fashion model legislation for a broad immigration overhaul.” http://wapo.st/YjCwWQ
YOUNG: ‘I MEANT NO DISRESPECT’ FOR USING TERM ‘WETBACKS’ – Katie Glueck writes for POLITICO: “‘My father had a ranch; we used to have 50-60 wetbacks to pick tomatoes,’ [Rep. Don] Young, an Alaska Republican, told a local radio station in a story posted Thursday. ‘It takes two people to pick the same tomatoes now. It’s all done by machine.’ Young’s comments came as part of a wide-ranging interview in which he slammed regulations and offered his own prescriptions for the economy. The word ‘wetback’ is a slur often used to refer to undocumented immigrants, especially those from Mexico. ‘During a sit-down interview with Ketchikan Public Radio this week, I used a term that was commonly used during my days growing up on a farm in Central California,’ he said later Thursday, according to reports. ‘I know that this term is not used in the same way nowadays, and I meant no disrespect.’” http://politi.co/YXu8YP His full interview with KRBD is here: http://bit.ly/XgxKef
CRAIG LOSES MAJOR BATTLE AGAINST FEC – Steven Dennis in Roll Call: “A federal judge has refused to dismiss a suit in which former Sen. Larry E. Craig is accused of improperly using campaign funds in a quest to vacate his guilty plea in a Minnesota airport bathroom sting. The Federal Election Commission contends the Idaho Republican violated federal law by using $ 200,000 in campaign funds for his legal defense. After CQ Roll Call revealed in 2007 that he had been arrested and pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct, Craig attempted to change his plea. He also ended up retiring from Congress as a result of the scandal. The judge didn’t buy Craig’s contention that his travel to the airport restroom was a part of his official duties because he was en route to his state, and therefore he was entitled to use his campaign account.” http://bit.ly/14sZoXy
BOSTIC HITS SANFORD ON PERSONAL LIFE – Alex Isenstadt reports from Charleston, S.C.: “Underdog South Carolina Republican congressional hopeful Curtis Bostic mounted a last-ditch bid on Thursday night to halt former Republican Gov. Mark Sanford’s momentum, calling him politically damaged and saying he would risk losing the seat to a Democrat in the general election. Appearing in a debate at the Porter-Gaud School here ahead of Tuesday’s special runoff election, Bostic launched his most aggressive assault on Sanford’s personal life yet, telling the Republican crowd, ‘A compromised candidate is not what we need.’ ‘Democrats,’ he said, ‘are excited at the possibility of taking this seat back.’
– “Bostic, a former Charleston County councilman who has long been active in the South Carolina evangelical community and the homeschooling movement, had avoided discussing Sanford’s home life until now. The exchange came up about an hour into the nearly 90-minute debate, the first of three faceoffs before Tuesday. Voters, Bostic had said in recent weeks, were already well aware of the events of June 2009, when Sanford lied about and then admitted to having an affair with an Argentine woman — an episode that splintered the former governor’s family life and dashed his presidential ambitions. But with polls showing Bostic heading into the final days as the decided underdog against the better-known and better-funded Sanford, the former councilman turned up the heat. ‘Trust is a central issue,’ he said. ‘In fact, it’s become a central issue in this race.’” http://politi.co/14zTa8F
GRAHAM TRIES TO SELL IMMIGRATION REFORM … IN S.C. – Julie Hirschfeld Davis writes for Bloomberg: “It’s just after lunchtime at the Lexington, South Carolina Chick-Fil-A, and Stephen Lewis is giving U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham a piece of his mind about undocumented immigrants. ‘Why can’t they understand the word ‘illegal?’’ Lewis, a 72-year-old retired Marine, asks Graham on March 26 as the senator swings by his table to shake hands. ‘They’re not undocumented workers, they’re illegal folks in this country, and if you’re illegal doing anything, then you should be punished and made to pay for it.’ It’s a familiar gripe to Graham. A second-term Republican, he has long led the effort in Washington to allow undocumented immigrants living in the U.S., currently estimated to number about 11 million, a chance to become citizens as part of a broad immigration rewrite.
– “Now as Graham, 57, teams with three other Republicans and four Democrats to finalize such a bill, he is working to answer the complaints of South Carolina voters while keeping an eye on any potential Republican primary challenge to his re-election next year. ‘There’s a sea change happening in the Republican Party on this, and I see it here,’ Graham says in an interview as sips Coke Zero while riding from his Columbia office to Mrs. B’s Southern Kitchen to greet voters. ‘If I can sell it in South Carolina, don’t come to me and say it’s hard. This is a conservative state, and the way we’re selling it is to fix it.’ With Congress on a two-week vacation, Graham is traveling his skeptical state as aides to the so-called “Gang of Eight” senators haggle over the specifics in Washington. The Senate group is pushing to unveil its measure the week of April 8.” http://bloom.bg/XnwmFT
–Meanwhile, anti-illegal immigrant group NumbersUSA blasted an “urgent action alert” to its 31,000 South Carolina members asking them to “turn up the temperature on Graham,” Roll Call’s Humberto Sanchez reports. http://bit.ly/XgDtkl
SCHWARTZ PLANS RUN FOR PA. GOVERNOR – POLITICO’s Jonathan Allen has the story: “Rep. Allyson Schwartz has decided to run for governor of Pennsylvania, joining a developing field of Democratic candidates who believe they can beat Gov. Tom Corbett in 2014. Emboldened by a private primary poll commissioned by EMILY’s List, Schwartz has hired Obama campaign veteran Reesa Kossoff as communications director for her political operation and plans to open a state-level campaign account early next month, a source close to the five-term congresswoman said.” http://politi.co/14z0Sjl
JOBS ACT FALLS SHORT OF PROMISES – Dina ElBoghdady writes for WaPo: “When lawmakers unveiled the carefully named Jobs Act a year ago, backers expected it to get caught up in the typical grind of Capitol Hill: vigorous debate followed by a long wait for a vote that might never happen. Instead, the legislation sailed through — perhaps too fast. Even supporters say they expected more time to work out the kinks in the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, which aimed to help small, private firms raise money and grow so they could hire more workers. Now, nearly a year after its enactment, major portions of the act are in limbo, and other parts have failed to measure up to the grandiose job-creation promises. The act underscores how difficult it can be for Washington to spur job creation, even when there’s strong bipartisan consensus on a plan. President Obama hailed it in a Rose Garden ceremony as ‘exactly the kind of bipartisan action needed’ to help the economy. Republicans claimed it as their own. The measure came together months before last year’s election, making it politically difficult to resist a proposal that promised to yield jobs.” http://wapo.st/XgDftj
BOEHNER MEMO: GOP’S HAD A FEW GOOD MONTHS – Jake Sherman writes for POLITICO: “House Speaker John Boehner congratulated himself, and fellow Republicans, on a few good months in a memo sent to his conference on Thursday. But the speaker didn’t outline a roadmap for what could be a rocky few months ahead. Looking back, Boehner (R-Ohio) complimented Republicans for successfully handling certain potentially explosive issues: passing a budget that balances in 10 years; avoided raising taxes to blunt sharp government spending cuts; and a Senate-passed nonbinding measure to build the Keystone XL pipeline. But the memo didn’t mention anything about upcoming fights that might hike the nation’s debt limit, a topic of slight obsession among most GOP lawmakers. Not a word on immigration reform, overhauling gun laws or same-sex marriage — issues splashed across the front pages of most newspapers across America.” http://politi.co/ZCC6dk
THURSDAY’S TRIVIA – Tom Saleeby was first to correctly answer that the late Rep. Mo Udall of Arizona also played professional basketball and ran for president, only to drop out during the Democratic primary. He played with the Denver Nuggets.
Huddle also gives a shout out to Sandy Maisel, a professor of government at Maine’s Colby Colllege who also got the right answer – just 12 hours late. We think she had a pretty good excuse: She was “under for back surgery.”
TODAY’S TRIVIA – Tom Saleeby has today’s question: Steve Kornacki replaces Chris Hayes as host of MSNBC’s “Up” this weekend. In his first political performance as an 11-year-old, what gubernatorial candidate did Kornacki portray in his elementary school’s mock debate? First to correctly answer gets a mention in the next day’s Huddle. Email me at swong@politico.com.
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