Tentative Deal Reached on Stimulus Plan

The New York Times reports:

House leaders and the White House on Thursday announced a tentative agreement on an economic stimulus package of roughly $150 billion that would pay stipends of $300 to $1,200 per family, and more for families with children, plus provide tax incentives for businesses to encourage spending.

The accord was announced by Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, the Republican leader, Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, and Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. at a Capitol news conference and hailed minutes afterward by President Bush as the fruit of “patience, determination and good will” in both parties.

The president and the speaker both described the accord as embracing the basic precepts of their respective parties. Mr. Bush called it “a powerful and effective way to help taxpayers and businesses” by letting people keep and spend more of their own money.

Ms. Pelosi said the package is aimed at the middle class “and to those who aspire to be in the middle class.” She described it as “timely, targeted and temporary — that was our standard.”

In addition to the tax rebates, or stipends, Ms. Pelosi said the package would offer some quick relief for those homeowners in danger of losing their houses.

Mr. Boehner called the package “simple, clean and neat.” Like Ms. Pelosi, he said none of the parties to the talks got everything they wanted. But in the end, he said, “This agreement is a big win for the American people.”

President Bush said the agreement was also a victory for the kind of bipartisanship that some politicians and analysts say is in short supply in Washington of late. And as he has many times, the president said the American economy is “structurally sound” despite rising energy prices and problems in the housing industry.

Democrats released a summary estimating that the rebates would go to 117 million families. About two-thirds of the total package would go toward the rebates, with the remaining one-third going toward business tax breaks, like write-offs for equipment purchases.

Both leaders pledged quick action in the House, and both pointedly urged similar alacrity by the Senate, whose members operate “with their very senatorial rules,” as Ms. Pelosi put it.

“Speed is of the essence,” Mr. Paulson said.

President Bush underscored that message, as he offered warm praise for the negotiators in both parties. He also took the opportunity to urge once again the extension of tax cuts that were approved by the Republican-controlled Congress early in the decade and are to expire within a few years.

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader, said minutes after the announcement that he was pleased an agreement had been reached, and that he wanted a package ready for Mr. Bush by the time Congress recesses around President’s Day. But he said senators would “work to improve the House package” through the addition of unemployment benefits and other items.

Late in the negotiations that preceded Thursday’s breakthrough, Ms. Pelosi agreed not to include two proposals that had broad support among Congressional Democrats: an extension of unemployment benefits and a temporary increase in food stamps.

In exchange for those concessions, the Bush administration and House Republicans agreed that the stipend of at least $300 would be paid to all workers who earned at least $3,000 last year, even those who did not earn enough to pay taxes.

As it was presented on Thursday afternoon, the package calls for workers who paid income taxes to receive $300 to $600, and couples to receive up to $1,200 — plus $300 more for each child. The stipend, which some lawmakers were calling a “tax rebate,” would be subject to income limits so that the wealthiest taxpayers would not receive it. Payments would go to individuals earning up to $75,000 and couples earning up to $150,000. He said roughly two-thirds of the overall package would be aimed at individual taxpayers and one-third at businesses.

Senators Reid and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican minority leader, have yet to give their approval to the accord. But, while there may be some wrinkles to iron out between the House and Senate, there was nothing to suggest any disagreement so severe as to be a potential deal breaker.

Republicans immediately cheered the deal as “tilted toward taxpayers” and avoiding “extraneous spending” on unemployment benefits, food stamps, or infrastructure projects, which some Democrats had said should be included in a stimulus package.

But it was unclear how the package, without extended unemployment benefits or increased food stamps, would be received by Democrats in the Senate, including Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, who have said that those proposals offered the best prospects for quickly injecting added spending into the economy.

Senator Max Baucus, the Montana Democrat who is chairman of the Finance Committee, reiterated his interest in extending unemployment benefits at a hearing on Thursday morning, where he said his committee would mark up a fiscal stimulus bill next week.

“There are reports that a deal may be close on the House side,” Mr. Baucus said. “The Senate will want to speak, as well.”

That announcement of potential action by the Finance Committee could jar Democratic leaders who have been striving for a carefully coordinated effort on the economy. Earlier this week, Mr. Reid announced that the House would take the lead in developing the stimulus package and would conduct the immediate negotiations with the White House and Congressional Republicans.

Noting that tax rebates were one potentially cost-effective method to spur new spending, Mr. Baucus said: “Another example would be expanding unemployment insurance benefits. In recent recessions, Congress has extended the number of weeks that unemployed workers could receive benefits. We could do that again. We could provide a further extension for recipients in high unemployment states. And we could also temporarily increase the dollar amount of benefits to help unemployed workers to pay their bills.”

“Unfortunately, under current law, fewer than 4 in 10 unemployed workers receive unemployment insurance benefits,” Mr. Baucus continued. “To address this problem, we could extend eligibility. For example, we could extend benefits to part-time workers.”

Mr. Schumer, at the same hearing, also lamented Ms. Pelosi’s concession on unemployment benefits, but said he hoped that cooperation on a quick stimulus plan would continue. “While I may not agree with every element of the package — such as the decision to leave out extended unemployment benefits, which economists say would give us the greatest bang for the buck — there are some very positive developments around the tax rebate for families,” he said. “I encourage everyone to keep working in a bipartisan way.”

Ms. Pelosi met three times on Wednesday with Treasury Secretary Paulson and Mr. Boehner, who have served as chief architects of the plan in a rare show of bipartisanship.

On her way into a meeting Wednesday evening, Ms. Pelosi signaled that a deal might be close when she said there had been “tremendous” progress during the day.

Democratic leaders said that to speed the economic rescue package they would mostly bypass the usual committee process. Lawmakers said that they hoped the plan could be approved by mid-February and that it would be sufficient to soften an economic downturn and forestall a recession.

“One of the principal tenets of the administration and of ourselves is we have got to do this fast,” Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the majority leader, said Wednesday. “To go through the regular process and have hearings and have mark-ups and subcommittee mark-ups, obviously we would be to some degree twiddling our thumbs while the economy burns.”

The progress toward a stimulus plan came as the Congressional Budget Office revised its economic projections to give a gloomier assessment of the economy, including a widening budget deficit and the first decline in corporate tax revenue since 2003.

The grimmer outlook prompted Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota, chairman of the Budget Committee, to declare that a short-term stimulus package was insufficient.

“In addition to developing a bipartisan stimulus package,” Mr. Conrad said, “we also must work together to tackle the long-term fiscal challenges we face with the coming retirement of the baby boom generation. The American people rightly expect that we will come together to address these two significant challenges.”

House conservatives raised alarms about the emerging economic legislation, saying they feared it would focus too much on tax rebates and not enough on tax incentives to encourage businesses to create jobs.

They said any package should include provisions that would reduce the corporate tax rate, adjust capital gains for inflation and lower the capital gains rate for corporations.

“Giving temporary tax rebate checks to families, as important as that is, is not the same as economic growth,” said Representative Jeb Hensarling of Texas, chairman of the Republican Study Committee. “If you’re going to have an economic stimulus package, it ought to contain some economic stimulus.”

War Funding Plan Faces Uphill Fight

Josh Rogin writes:
Democrats are poised to propose a $50 billion war funding bill that has little chance of becoming law, making it likely the military will be fighting on borrowed money into next year.

The House is expected next week to take up the new partial-year “bridge fund,” which would pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for four months. Democratic leaders, caught between the demands of liberals who want tight restrictions on war funding and members who want the troops to get whatever they need quickly, have come up with a plan that is likely to satisfy neither.

Even if the House passes the bill, it would probably stall in the Senate, where similar measures have failed to draw the 60 votes needed to reach President Bush, who would probably veto it anyway.

Moreover, since the Senate cleared the regular Defense spending bill and the next continuing resolution Thursday night, Republicans and hawkish Democrats lost their two best chances to add some war funding to another legislative vehicle this year.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., announced the details of the bridge fund on Thursday. The measure would require the immediate start of troop withdrawals from Iraq, with a goal of extricating most troops by Dec. 15, 2008. The money in the bill would be limited for the missions of force protection, counterterrorism and training of the Iraqi security forces.

It also contains several Iraq policy measures that the House has tried to enact before. The bill would mandate home stays for returning troops equal to the length of their combat deployments; prohibit the deployment of troops who are not fully trained and equipped; and extend strict rules against torture found in the Army Field Manual to all government agencies and employees.

Although the final bill has not materialized, Pelosi told reporters Thursday that the Iraqi withdrawal language was similar to the language in an early version of the fiscal 2007 supplemental (HR 2206).

That language was vetoed and Congress failed to override.

When asked whether she thought the new war funding bill had a chance of being signed by Bush, or even making it to his desk, Pelosi demurred. “We are restating the differentiation between ourselves and the president of the United States,” she said.

After initially considering a vote on the plan as early as Friday, top Democrats said the House would take it up next week, perhaps on Nov. 13.

“I think we have the votes. Now, we will have a little time to get the proper drafting and vetting on the Iraq bill,” said Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer, D-Md.

Liberals, Blue Dogs Skeptical

Initial reaction to the proposed bridge fund among Democrats was mixed.

In a private meeting Thursday afternoon with the liberal Out of Iraq and Progressive caucuses, Pelosi pledged not to cave in and provide the war funding without strings if Bush vetoes the new bridge fund.

But even with that assurance, Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., left the meeting unconvinced. She hoped that the bill would be postponed to give members a chance to study it carefully before deciding how to vote. “We are saying we want to see it. . . . I want a much bigger commitment than that.”

Members of the Democratic Blue Dog Coalition were equally skeptical but for different reasons.

Gene Taylor, D-Miss., a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said he was concerned the military would be placed under greater strain while Congress wrangled over the funding.

“My initial reaction is, gee, I wish they wouldn’t do this,” said Taylor, adding that planners and suppliers need to know where their funding is coming from.

James P. Moran, D-Va., a member of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee and an outspoken war critic, was more supportive of the strategy. “Let it go to the president,” he said. “If he vetoes it, then he has no funding for Iraq,”

Few Republicans are expected to support the new bridge fund. Minority Leader John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, attacked the proposal, saying it was “about trying to handcuff our generals and our soldiers in harm’s way in Iraq.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the chamber would take up the bridge fund next week, but didn’t feel confident it could muster the 60 votes needed to overcome a likely filibuster.

“It’s not a question of us finding enough votes to pass it. We support this,” he said, referring to Senate Democrats. “It’s up to the Republicans whether they will help with a few votes in the Senate.”

The Senate cleared the fiscal 2008 Defense appropriations conference report (HR 3222 — H Rept 110-434) by voice vote Thursday night, after Ted Stevens of Alaska, the ranking Republican on the Senate Appropriations Defense panel, abandoned his bid to split the bill from the next continuing resolution (CR).

Because the new CR doesn’t contain any war funding, the Pentagon will have to borrow from its regular budget to pay for war operations beginning Nov. 17.

The House voted, 400-15, to adopt the conference report. (Appropriations, p. 3)

Overall, the conference report would provide the Pentagon $459.3 billion in discretionary funding, $3.5 billion less than Bush’s request and $39.7 billion, or 9.5 percent, more than in fiscal 2007.

It also would provide $11.6 billion in emergency spending for mine-resistant vehicles to protect U.S. forces in Iraq.

Impeachment Fuse is Briefly Lighted

A resolution against Cheney gets parked in committee. Republicans sought an immediate vote in order to spark a House floor fight.

The LA Times reports:

House Democrats on Tuesday beat back a Republican attempt to force them to vote on a divisive resolution to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney for "fabricating a threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction" to justify the war in Iraq.

The 218-194 party-line vote waylaying the measure by sending it to the judiciary committee capped a remarkable afternoon in which Republicans tried to outfox Democrats, switching their votes in a strategy that could have triggered an immediate vote.

"We're going to help them out," explained Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas). "We're going to give them their day in court."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) and her lieutenants maneuvered to avoid a bruising floor fight. Such a clash would have forced Democrats to choose between their liberal base, which might cheer a Cheney impeachment, and a broader electorate, which might view the resolution as a partisan game in a time of war.

With the vote technically slated to last 15 minutes, she held voting open for more than an hour and finally forced the measure to an uncertain future in the committee.

That referral effectively shelved the issue for now, but not before the resolution's sponsor, Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich, a far-left Ohio Democrat running for president, had a chance to read into the record three articles of impeachment against the vice president.

"Impeachment is not on our agenda," said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.). "We have some major priorities. We need to focus on those."

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) agreed that it was not in Pelosi's interest to advance the articles of impeachment. "If she were to let this thing out of the box, considering the number of legislative issues we have pending . . . it could create a split that could affect our productivity for the rest of the Congress," Conyers told Fox News.

The resolution said that Cheney, "in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of vice president," had "purposely manipulated the intelligence process to deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States by fabricating a threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to justify the use of the U.S. Armed Forces against the nation of Iraq in a manner damaging to our national security interests."

The 11-page resolution also charged that Cheney purposely deceived the nation about an alleged relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda and has also "openly threatened aggression against the Republic of Iran absent any real threat to the United States."

If the judiciary committee were to vote out any of the impeachment articles, the issue would then go to the House floor. If the House were to vote to impeach Cheney, the Senate could try him and, with a two-thirds vote, remove him from office. "This vote sends a message that the administration's conduct in office is no longer unchallenged," Kucinich said afterward. Predicting that the judiciary committee will be forced by public opinion to hold hearings, he added, "Hopefully, it will have a restraining effect on this administration to stop this madness."

Four Democrats joined Kucinich to vote against sending the impeachment resolution to committee.

They included Reps. Bob Filner of Chula Vista and Maxine Waters of Los Angeles.

At day's end, Republicans and Democrats were accusing each other of petty political ploys at the expense of important business.

At the White House, Press Secretary Dana Perino noted that Congress "has not sent a single appropriations bill to the president's desk this year . . . yet they find time to spend an entire work period on futile votes to impeach the vice president. It is this behavior that leaves the American people shaking their head in wonder at this Congress."

Cheney spokeswoman Megan M. Mitchell added, "It is one thing for Congressman Kucinich to use this political ploy in his presidential campaign. It is another thing to do so on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives."

Hoyer issued a statement chiding Republicans for turning the potential impeachment of a vice president into "a petty political game."

Insisting that House leaders have their eye on the ball, he added, "Speaker Pelosi and I have made it clear that this Congress is not going to proceed with impeachment, and is going to focus on critical issues facing our nation, such as healthcare for children and the war in Iraq."

The Little-Known Device Used to Block Democrats in the House

Republicans use obscure motion 16 times in a year, compared to just 14 for the Democrats in more than a decade of opposition

The Guardian reports:

All year long, Democrats in the House of Representatives have watched with increasing impatience as their Senate counterparts find themselves bedevilled by a filibuster-wielding Republican minority. On measures criticising the war in Iraq, the House has passed four since May to the Senate's zero; on annual spending bills, the House has cleared all 12 to the Senate's six.

That Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and his Senate Republican colleagues routinely have blocked the Democrats from getting the needed 60 votes on many measures has received considerable press attention, even inspiring a splashy "anti-obstruction" media campaign.

What's far less well known, though, is that the party has almost as nasty a bugaboo in the House. Republicans there have found stunning success with a procedural tool called the motion to recommit, and they have repeatedly used it to divide the Democratic caucus and block key initiatives.

Sometimes called the MTR, its full name is the motion to recommit, with or without instructions. Ironically offered as a minority-party right by Newt Gingrich in the heyday of the Contract With America, its aim is to allow the often-powerless House minority a chance to shape legislation as it moves toward a vote. Even if Democrats allow no debate on amendments to a bill, the MTR guarantees Republicans a vote - usually minutes before final passage - either on new additions they have written or on forcing the measure back to square one.

Republicans have mastered the game of crafting MTRs they know will force Democrats to defect to their side or risk political consequences, especially among the 60 or so Democrats who represent "red" districts. Some Republicans motions are phrased to ensure a delay of the bill at hand if they pass, compelling Democrats to pull measures from the floor rather than lose precious ground.

When Democrats were in the House minority, they succeeded only rarely in blocking Republican initiatives with the gambit. The MTR helped push through the television filter known as the "v-chip" in 1995 and nearly closed campaign-finance loopholes aimed at free-spending political groups four years before the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth targeted John Kerry. Only 14 of the motions, or 7.6 percent of the minority's efforts, prevailed between 1995 and 2006.

This year, 16 of the House Republican motions have passed, several with significant support from across the aisle, blocking initiatives large and small. Remember the effort to bring voting rights in the House to the District of Columbia, which stalled before falling short over the summer? It was derailed first by a successful MTR that called for overturning the US capital's gun ban, which many red-state Democrats supported. Another gave legal immunity to anyone reporting suspected terrorist activity on public transportation, which some Democrats decried as a call to racial profiling.

But the biggest MTR intrusion of the year came last week, when the Republicans stalled a bill to provide greater judicial oversight of secret wiretapping by the Bush administration with a proposed MTR that even critics begrudgingly called clever. The motion provided that no court order would be needed to tap the phones of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida members - a caveat that frustrated Democrats noted was already in their measure.

"All members and all Americans believe in this goal," one Democratic memo stated, "so the authors cynically wrote this redundant motion in such a way that if it passed it would KILL this important national security bill."

The MTR now threatens to become as aggravating to the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, as the filibuster has for Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader. House Democrats have vowed to bring back the wiretapping bill soon, but there are few solutions in sight for how to defeat the Republican MTR should it rear its head.

"We need some discipline on motions to recommit," said Massachusetts Democratic congressman Jim McGovern, a veteran of the rules committee that sets procedures for House debate. "That's going to come."

Indeed, Republicans stopped the majority of Democratic MTRs under Mr Gingrich and former speaker Dennis Hastert by treating the votes as purely political. Even if the minority's alternative plan had merit, Republican leaders urged solidarity, and the motion's defeat, as a matter of party loyalty.

Despite a 93% record of sticking together on House votes this year compared to 84% for Republicans, Democrats have found party loyalty elusive on several MTRs. The clash between a Democratic bill and its forced amendment can be stark: to legislation cracking down on the "no-bid" contracts that have driven charges of Bush administration cronyism, Republicans added language requiring colleges to welcome military recruiters onto campus.

Congressional scholar Norman Ornstein, who recently wrote a book on the health of the legislature titled The Broken Branch, predicted that Democrats might have to consider changing the rules for the pesky motions.

"Democrats are not anticipating as well as perhaps they might some things that can come to the floor and heading them off with language that might be in the bill ... to cut the pins out from under the motions to recommit," Mr Ornstein said.

Such an attempt risks unsavoury coverage that contrasts a mid-year rules change with vows from Ms Pelosi and others to run an open and transparent House. When some Democrats suggested in March altering the guidelines for relevance ("germaneness," in Congress-speak) of the MTRs, Republicans threatened to walk out of the chamber and halt business altogether.

John Boehner, an Ohio Republican and the House minority leader, crowed at those reports of a planned rules change.

"Perhaps before they game the system by changing the rules to their liking, the Democrat leadership should ask its own members why they are voting in droves for our proposals," Mr Boehner said, dropping the "-ic" suffix from his rivals' party in a common Washington putdown.

Faced with the choice between limiting Republican attempts to split their caucus and prodding those members to resist the MTRs, Democrats are likely to choose the latter, at least for the time being. The Republicans' 30-second campaign ad on the wiretapping motion may write itself - featuring ominous Bin Laden visuals and a voiceover murmuring, "Democratic congressman X voted to stop the government from listening to terrorists' phone calls" - but the party's nearly 10-to-1 fundraising advantage over Republicans helps take the sting out of that threat.

Besides, as Mr McGovern pointed out, "If I order the wrong thing for lunch, these guys will run a 30-second ad against me."

The stakes are particularly high for the House wire-tapping vote. Democrats believe they have the votes to pass their bill, which largely threads the needle in satisfying the liberals and conservatives among them. But a difficult battle remains with their filibuster-plagued Senate counterparts.

The Senate intelligence committee has offered legal immunity to the telecommunications companies that allowed the Bush administration to eavesdrop without a court order. That group of senators is the only congressional panel to win access to documents on the purported legal framework for the wiretapping, and Democrats in the House have refused to discuss immunity until their members can examine the documents.

"We can't provide immunity when we don't know what we're providing immunity for," said Stacey Farnen Bernards, a spokeswoman for House majority leader and Maryland Democrat Steny Hoyer.

The Senate judiciary committee soon will take up the intelligence committee's measure, and its members remain in the dark with the House, denied access to the Bush administration documents. Even if the Senate begins debating a bill without a shield for the telecoms, however, Republicans there are almost certain to insist on 60 votes to end a filibuster.

Thus Democrats' ability to beat back an MTR and pass the House bill becomes crucial to establishing the party's position, as George Bush continues to insist on his way or a veto.

Presidential Race Influencing Congress on Iraq

By the time Congress finishes a supplemental spending plan for the Iraq War, senior Democrats say, it is likely that voters in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina will have made their choice on White House hopefuls.

The “Super Tuesday” primaries probably will be over, too.

Congressional Quarterly reports:

That political calendar — combined with the reality of how hard it is for Democrats to get left and center to agree — has caused some senior lawmakers to conclude that Congress will soon end up letting the parties’ presidential candidates take the lead on Iraq policy.

“The outcome of the presidential primaries will help to bring focus to the debate on Iraq in Congress,” said Rep. John P. Murtha, D-Pa., chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee.

House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer, D-Md., agreed, saying, “There’s no question that the presumptive presidential nominee will carry a lot of influence on the Iraq debate.”

Murtha, a close adviser to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said he has advised the leadership to put off the supplemental spending debate until early 2008 to allow time for Democrats to form more consensus on Iraq.

The supplemental will be the vehicle for the big showdown on whether to continue funding for the war, and “it will be decided in January or early February,” he said.

Congress has a target adjournment of Nov. 16, and there won’t be any urgency to make a decision before January, Murtha argued. “There is enough money in the pipeline until then,” he said.

The leadership is not willing at this stage to be pinned down on a timetable for the supplemental. “We will be discussing it over the next few weeks,” Hoyer said. There are a lot of factors. I don’t want to pinpoint any one factor.”

But senior appropriators James P. Moran, D-Va., and David E. Price, D-N.C., said Murtha’s opinion would carry considerable weight. “The short answer is we will probably follow Mr. Murtha’s advice,” said John B. Larson of Connecticut, vice chairman of the House Democratic Caucus.

Hoyer and Majority Whip James E. Clyburn, D-S.C., confirmed that the supplemental had no place on the immediate floor calender and said it was unclear when it would go to the floor.

Liberals, Republicans Want Action

But the push to delay action on funding has run into flak from liberal Democrats, who fear they are losing votes for their position.

“I would like to see the showdown now, rather than waiting until next year,’’ said Judiciary Chairman John Conyers Jr., D-Mich.

Some Republicans also criticized the notion.

“I’d like to see the Democrats move the supplemental as soon as possible. They should not be playing politics with this,’’ said Eric Cantor, R-Va., the chief deputy whip.

“I think it’s inane for us to wait,” said Jerry Lewis of California, ranking Republican on Appropriations.

But Deborah Pryce, R-Ohio, a moderate who is not running again, predicted that many Republicans would welcome putting off further showdowns on Iraq until the winners for each party emerge from the primaries.

“Each party will be looking for its presumptive leader to begin to lead at that point,” she said. “The Democrats almost already have that in Hillary [Clinton]. I hope that the candidates for both parties will help to move us to the center.”

Former House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., also predicted a softening of the debate’s ideological edges.

“By early next year, there will be a coming together [for] both parties and their presidential candidates. And they will be moving to the center on Iraq and other issues. By March, it will all be about presidential politics,” he said.

February Milestone

Minority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said Republicans would closely watch where the front-runners for the two parties line up on Iraq after Super Tuesday, on Feb. 5.

“A lot will depend on the situation [in Iraq] at the time. And a lot will depend on what the presidential candidates are saying about Iraq after Feb. 5,” Blunt said.

Clinton, New York’s junior senator and the front-runner so far for the Democratic presidential nomination, said on “Meet the Press” on Sept. 23 that she would vote against the next supplemental “because I think that it’s the only way that we can demonstrate clearly that we have to change direction.”

But she has also distanced herself from proposals that would rapidly reduce troop levels and end the war next year.

At the Democratic presidential debate in Hanover, N.H., on Sept. 26, she said it would be “my goal to have all troops out by the end of my first term.”

But she and the two other Democratic front-runners, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois and former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina (1999-2005), declined to promise that all troops would be withdrawn from Iraq by the end of their first term.

The leading GOP presidential candidates — former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Sen. Fred Thompson (1995-2003) of Tennessee, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney — have allowed little daylight between themselves and Bush on the war. Only Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, who trails in polls, has taken a strong anti-war stand with his proposal (HR 2605) to end the authorization for the war (PL 107-243).

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he believed that the Democratic presidential candidates in the Senate — who also include Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware and Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut — were already having a big impact on the Iraq debate by promoting their own initiatives.

Reid said he had made no decision on when the supplemental would move but added that the emergence of a presumptive Democratic nominee would help build consensus on Iraq.

Plus, he said, “It will take a lot of attention off of me, which will be nice.”

6 War Protesters Arrested at Democratic Lawmaker's Orange County Office

From the LATimes:

Six antiwar demonstrators were arrested Wednesday at the Garden Grove office of Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Santa Ana) after camping there overnight and telling her they wouldn't leave unless she promised not to approve more funding for the war in Iraq.

Most of the protesters are members of the group Military Families Speak Out, and some have relatives in the armed forces. They entered the office about 7 p.m. Tuesday during an open house. They sat on the floor in the lobby and refused to leave unless the congresswoman made the statement they wanted. Sanchez, who opposes the war, refused.

The lawmaker's staff initially chose not to call police and allowed the group to stay overnight. Police removed the protesters in handcuffs about 8:15 a.m. Wednesday, while Sanchez was attending a meeting of Orange County Latino leaders.

The protesters were taken to the Garden Grove Police Department, where they were issued misdemeanor citations for trespassing. Five were released pending an October court hearing, but Robert Dietrich was being held because he refused to sign a document promising to appear in court.

Sanchez, Orange County's only Democratic member of Congress, voted in 2002 against giving President Bush authorization to invade Iraq. More recently she voted to begin pulling troops out within 90 days.

Tuesday night Sanchez said she could not support the protesters because the $145 billion in Iraq war funding was in the same bill that would provide money to build the C-17 aircraft in California.

"I never voted for this war," she said. But "I'm not going to vote against $2.1 billion for C-17 production, which is in California. That is just not going to happen."

Protesters did not accept Sanchez's argument.

"This is a war that was made up and people are dying, and there is no reason for it," said Ed Garza, who was one of those arrested and who has a nephew in the military.

Medea Benjamin, who was not at the protest, said, "It's quite immoral for Sanchez to say she is more concerned about jobs in her district than the lives of our soldiers." Benjamin is co-founder of the national women's peace group Code Pink.

Declaring the start of the sit-in, Patricia Alviso, whose son has served two tours in Iraq, said, "We risk arrest to demonstrate the level of our commitment to peace, and we risk arrest because our children risk far more."

Once seated on the lobby floor, Alviso began reading the names of Californians killed in Iraq.

"Jeromy D. West," she said.

"God forgive us," the others responded.

"Aaron Boyles."

"God forgive us."

Such sit-ins have become more popular in the last year because of war critics' desperation over the situation in Iraq, Benjamin said

Before Congress approved $95 billion for the Iraq war in March, protesters conducted sit-ins in the offices of several Democrats, including Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Rep. Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts. Also targeted were the offices of Republican critics of the war, such as Sen. Olympia J. Snowe of Maine.

Democrats have been targeted more than Republicans by the nonpartisan Military Families Speak Out because they control Congress, co-founder Nancy Lessin said. Code Pink is planning to camp out and conduct a hunger strike next week at the home of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco).

When protesters refused to leave Sanchez's office Wednesday, more than a dozen police officers surrounded it.

Those arrested were Garza, 60, of Santa Ana; Alviso, 55, of Huntington Beach; Dietrich, 61, of Los Angeles; Jarret Lovell, 34, of Costa Mesa; Abraham Ramirez, 23, of Fullerton; and Tutrang Tran, 25.

Rep. Gerald Nadler: "This (FISA) Bill Is What Karl Rove Decided He Needed To Win Elections"

Democratic Congressman Jerrold Nadler accuses the Bush administration of illegal actions:

House Members Say They Will Try To Block Arms Sales To Saudis

The Washington Post:

The Bush administration's plan to sell $20 billion in advanced weaponry to Saudi Arabia and five other Persian Gulf countries is running into congressional opposition and criticism from human rights and arms control groups.

Members of Congress vowed yesterday to oppose any deal to Saudi Arabia on grounds that the kingdom has been unhelpful in Iraq and unreliable at fighting terrorism. King Abdullah has called the U.S. military presence in Iraq an "illegitimate occupation," and the Saudis have been either unable or unwilling to stop suicide bombers who have ended up in Iraq, congressional sources say.

Human rights groups warned that new U.S. arms meant to contain Iran's rising influence could backfire, allowing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to rally greater support for his hard-line faction in the run-up to parliamentary elections next spring.

And arms control groups said Bush's strategy would accelerate an already-dangerous trend that could increase tensions rather than generate a greater sense of security.

The administration plans to sell advanced satellite-guided bombs, fighter aircraft upgrades and new naval vessels to six Gulf Cooperation Council countries, including Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman, U.S. officials say.

U.S. officials acknowledged that congressional reaction has been mixed but cautioned that details of a broader arms package -- including $30 billion in military aid to Israel and $13 billion to Egypt over the next 10 years -- have yet to be released. "As we move forward, we will work very closely with Congress, as well as our friends and allies in the region," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

But Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who was briefed on the deal Tuesday, said he had several reservations. "This is not a sale at Macy's that you go in and buy a bunch of stuff. There are a complex set of relationships behind it, and while it's very desirable to have the Saudis and others recognize that Iran is an existential threat, there is also a degree of responsibility that they have to show on broader U.S. foreign policy interests," he said in an interview.

In the context of the arms deals, Lantos said the oil-rich countries should use windfall profits from high oil prices to cover the expenses of Iraqi refugees who have flooded Jordan. Saudi Arabia should not try to re-broker reconciliation between Palestinian moderates and militants, he added, and Qatar should look at the television network al-Jazeera's role in the region.

Reps. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) and Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) said yesterday that they will introduce a joint resolution of disapproval to block the deals when Congress is formally notified. They have seven Democratic co-sponsors.

In an interview, Weiner said any arms proposal would find broad bipartisan opposition on the Hill. "The reputation of the Saudis has taken quite a beating since 9/11, and despite the fact that the administration has done everything to portray them as part of the moderate Arab world, members of Congress of both parties are increasingly skeptical."

Under the Arms Export Control Act of 1976, Congress must approve major arms sales. In 1986, the threat of a joint resolution of disapproval played a role in persuading the Reagan administration to cut back an arms package to Saudi Arabia.

Eliot L. Engel (D-N.Y.), a senior member of the House Foreign Relations committee who was also briefed last week, said a pivotal issue will be whether Israel maintains the "qualitative military edge" in the region.

Arms experts called for a serious debate on the quality and quantity of weapons going to the Gulf states. "This administration does not have an arms sales policy, except to sell, sell, sell," said Daryl G. Kimball of the Arms Control Association. "That approach in the Middle East can be like throwing gasoline on a brush fire."

Human Rights Watch said the arms deals would undermine long-term U.S. goals in the Middle East. "This will reduce pressure on Egypt and the Arab states to reform their politics. It's another case of trying to purchase stability at the expense of liberty," said Washington director Tom Malinowski.

House Votes To Deny Aid to Saudi Arabia

U.S. House votes to deny all aid to Saudi Arabia:

The US House of Representatives has voted to deny all aid to Saudi Arabia, despite repeated assurances by the administration the desert kingdom was cooperating with the United States in the war on terror.

The ban is contained in a little-publicized amendment quietly slipped by a bipartisan group of lawmakers into a 34.2-billion-dollar bill financing US foreign operations in fiscal 2008.

The massive bill, featuring a wide range of humanitarian programs, was approved by lawmakers in the middle of the night on Friday.

Similar measures on aid to Saudi Arabia have been passed by the House before. But the current one goes a step further by closing a legislative loophole that in the past had allowed the administration of President George W. Bush to waive these bans by invoking requirements of the war on terror.

The amendment, championed by New York Democrat Anthony Weiner, a strong supporter of Israel, states that "none of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available" by the foreign operations bill "shall be obligated or expended to finance any assistance to Saudi Arabia" or "used to execute a waiver."

While oil-rich Saudi Arabia has never been a large recipient of US aid, the Bush administration channeled a total of more than 2.5 million dollars to the kingdom in fiscal 2005 and 2006 as part of their partnership in the war on terror, congressional officials said.

Neither Saudi diplomats nor administration officials have publicly commented on the vote.

However, the sponsors of the amendment made it clear they were particularly upset by what they described as Saudi Arabia's support for the militant Palestinian group Hamas, which refuses to recognize Israel and has just taken control of the Gaza Strip.

In a fact sheet released to the media, the lawmakers pointed out that Hamas was receiving more than 50 percent of its financing from Saudi Arabia, and last May alone, the Saudi government planned to send 300 million dollars to the Islamist group.

Representative Weiner charged that Riyadh was in fact actively working against US interests.

"By cutting off aid and closing the loophole we send a clear message to the Saudi Arabian government that they must be a true ally in advancing peace in the Middle East," the congressman said.

The sponsors of the measure also accused the Saudi government of undermining US military efforts in Iraq by making "no official move" to stop about 3,000 Saudi nationals actively fighting US troops in the violence-torn country.

They said Sheik Saleh al-Liuhaidan, head of the Saudi Arabian judiciary, had approved the transfer of money and men to Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, the now slain head of Al-Qaeda in Iraq.

As many as 61 percent of all suicide bombers in Iraq are of Saudi Arabian descent, the fact sheet claimed.

The lawmakers also argued that Saudi clerics continued to preach hate towards the United States, Israel and their allies, while the government cracked down against those calling for democratic reforms.

"By continuing to promote and finance acts of terrorism, including those targeting innocent families, the Saudis are actively undermining our efforts to promote democracy and bring stability to the Middle East," said Congresswoman Shelley Berkley, a Nevada Democrat and another sponsor of the ban.

She insisted that the United States should not be rewarding Saudi Arabia for what she called "their record of broken promises and disturbing terrorist ties."

Saudi Arabia is a leading source of imported oil for the United States, often providing about 20 percent of total US crude imports, according to State Department statistics. It is also the largest US export market in the Middle East.

The State Department describes Saudi Arabia as "an important partner in the campaign against terrorism, providing assistance in the military, diplomatic, and financial arenas."

Gingrich's Lesson For Pelosi

The speaker should value loyalty, not longevity, for House leadership posts to keep Democrats in line.

In the LA Times, Ron Brownstein writes:

House Democrats avoided a full-scale meltdown over their top domestic priority Monday when Speaker Nancy Pelosi forced Michigan Rep. John D. Dingell to shelve most of an energy bill that amounted to a slag heap of special-interest favors for the auto, coal and utility industries.

But the compromise only delays an inevitable confrontation between Dingell, the chairman of the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee, and the majority of House Democrats over energy independence and global warming. And it shouldn't stop Democrats from asking why a legislator so far from the party's mainstream on energy and the environment controls a chokepoint over its policies on those issues.


Dingell, who was first elected in 1955, is a canny legislator, dogged investigator and reliable Democratic vote on most issues. But his brazen challenge on energy — driven by his lifelong determination to defend his state's auto industry — harkened back to the breakdown in party cohesion that increasingly undermined House Democrats in the last years before they lost the majority in 1994. With party leaders unable to enforce discipline, committee chairmen frequently set their own course, and backbench members routinely opposed party priorities. The problem reached epidemic proportions during President Clinton's first two years, when alternating defections from liberals and conservatives produced an image of chaos that ultimately hurt all House Democrats.

One of the best weapons Democratic leaders had to discourage such dissension was the reform that liberals imposed in 1975 to elect House committee chairs, rather than automatically awarding the posts to the longest-serving members. Using the new rules, House Democrats quickly overthrew a few out-of-step chairs, but they gradually drifted back to reliance on seniority. That allowed even chairmen who defied the party on key issues — as Dingell did by fighting clean-air legislation during the 1980s — to maintain their positions.

When Republicans took control in 1995, then-Speaker Newt Gingrich dusted off and improved the old liberal playbook. First, Gingrich reached around the most senior member on three committees (Appropriations, Judiciary and Energy and Commerce) to pick chairs who would follow his direction. Then he imposed six-year term limits on all committee chairs.

Gingrich's changes replaced a culture of seniority with a culture of competition that awarded chairmanships to legislators who most reliably supported the leadership. Republicans carried the system to excess by systematically denying chairmanships to moderates and punishing almost any independent thinking. But overall, Gingrich's approach helped Republicans consistently move their agenda through the House despite persistently narrow majorities.

When Democrats regained control after the 2006 elections, they insisted they had learned from Republican techniques. But they blinked at the toughest step. Pelosi, ruffling senior Democrats, maintained Gingrich's term limits for chairmen. But she reverted to a seniority system in naming the chairman of every permanent House committee.

Pelosi's allies say that decision was justified because the chairmen-in-waiting had worked so hard to help recapture the majority. But Dingell's insurrection on the energy bill shows the risks in that course.

With Congress' approval rating plummeting amid stalemate over Iraq, many Democrats believe that legislation to improve fuel economy and to promote renewable energy offers their best chance this year for an important legislative achievement. Instead, Dingell produced an energy bill engineered so precisely to the specifications of the U.S. auto companies that it should have come with tail fins.

The compromise announced Monday would force Dingell to drop his most egregious proposals, which aimed to preempt efforts underway in California and the federal government to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from cars. But in return, the bill would abandon proposals to require tougher fuel economy for cars and trucks.

Overall, the deal is a victory for Pelosi, but it won't be the last word on either issue. Dingell says he plans to revive his preemption proposals if the House considers global warming legislation this fall. And he looms as an enduring obstacle if other Democrats later try to add tougher fuel efficiency requirements, either on the House floor or when the House bill is melded in a conference committee with the energy legislation the Senate is debating.

Dingell sincerely believes that in fighting tougher fuel economy and pollution standards, he is protecting his autoworker constituents. He's wrong. Detroit would be more competitive today if Washington had required years ago that it produce more fuel-efficient cars. But at nearly 81, Dingell's not going to experience a green conversion. Which is why Pelosi will have no one to blame but herself if she fails to learn from this confrontation with the most venerable of the House's "old bulls."

If Pelosi wants to run with the bulls — and not get trampled by them — she needs to take a lesson from Gingrich and send a clear message that loyalty, not longevity, will determine who holds the gavels in her House.