History > 2006 > USA > States > Politics

House of Representatives (I)

Jack Ohman

Portland, OR, The Portland Oregonian        Cagle        6.1.2006

http://cagle.msnbc.com/politicalcartoons/PCcartoons/ohman.asp

Target of F.B.I. Raid

Had a Hard Path to Capitol Hill

May 29, 2006
The New York Times
By CHRISTOPHER DREW and ROBERT PEAR

NEW ORLEANS, May 27 — Representative William J. Jefferson has always liked to talk about growing up in an impoverished farm community, picking cotton for $3 a day and hitting the books hard enough to win his ticket out — a scholarship to Harvard Law School.

But even as Mr. Jefferson built a reputation as one of Louisiana's brightest, most effective leaders, a less flattering view began to emerge, one signified by his nickname in political circles, "Dollar Bill."

Early in his career, as a state legislator, he was criticized for enriching his law firm with contracts from state and local agencies. He also ran stores that rented appliances by the month to poor residents, owned dilapidated apartment buildings and was sued by federal regulators over a defaulted loan.

Now, with the Federal Bureau of Investigation raid on his Capitol Hill office on May 20, Mr. Jefferson, a 59-year-old Democrat, is under investigation for possibly turning his efforts to promote trade with Africa into another sideline worth hundreds of thousands of dollars — and has become the central figure in a political drama consuming Washington.

The unprecedented raid has set off a huge institutional showdown, with Republican leaders including J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois, the speaker of the House, challenging the White House and criticizing the F.B.I.'s actions. Democratic leaders have also stood by the speaker's side.

[Continuing the twists and turns, Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, broke with his colleagues on Sunday, saying there was nothing wrong with the F.B.I.'s actions. Page A12.]

President Bush has stepped into the fray, ordering the F.B.I. to seal any records it seized and calling for a 45-day cooling-off period to allow time to resolve the crisis.

The raid on Mr. Jefferson's office took place barely a week ago. But in a sense, the questions circling him have long resonances in his career, which was shaped by a remarkable ascent from the deepest poverty and a quest for the comforts his family never had.

In a 95-page affidavit released after the raid, the F.B.I. accused Mr. Jefferson, an eight-term lawmaker, of demanding more than $400,000 in bribes to help iGate Inc., a technology company based in Kentucky, obtain lucrative contracts in Africa. The bureau said it had also videotaped him accepting a suitcase with $100,000 in cash and later found $90,000 of it in his freezer.

Though the details were blacked out, the affidavit also said the F.B.I. had "evidence linking Congressman Jefferson to at least seven other schemes" in which he "sought things of value in return for his performance of official acts."

Mr. Jefferson has vigorously denied wrongdoing and has not been charged with a crime. "I certainly did not sell my office," Mr. Jefferson said in a recent statement. "The government seems inclined to view the facts in the worst possible light, and to characterize events that could be explained, or are exculpatory, in ways that tend to incriminate."

Whether his actions were criminal or not, several people who have long known Mr. Jefferson said he had often seemed driven by a desire to escape his spartan roots.

"There was always a feeling among those who knew him as Dollar Bill that having grown up as poor as he did, his hunger for wealth always burned," said Allan Katz, a New Orleans political consultant.

Mr. Jefferson, a taciturn man who began his career as a favorite of good-government groups, has built a political empire in New Orleans, winning re-election by wide margins and helping his sister, one of his five daughters and many allies win public offices.

Standing outside a new post office that Mr. Jefferson helped bring to his district, one voter, Joyce F. Smith, said that if the accusations were true, "I'd be very disappointed because he's been a very good congressman."

But many people here have been joking about his "frozen assets" and "cold cash." And Ms. Smith added, it is "hard for me to believe" that he would have stashed legitimate earnings in frozen-food containers and aluminum foil.

Mr. Jefferson was raised, along with eight brothers and sisters, on a small farm in northeast Louisiana, where, he said earlier this year, "our whole life revolved around that cotton field." His father left school after second grade, and his mother attended only through eighth grade.

As a child, Mr. Jefferson was such a good shot, his father once said, that when it came time to bag dinner, "if I wanted one rabbit, I'd give him one shell; and if I needed two rabbits, I'd give him two."

After he graduated from Southern University in Baton Rouge in 1969, Mr. Jefferson has said, he won his mother's blessing to go to Harvard Law School — she had never heard of it — only by explaining that it had been John F. Kennedy's college.

Mr. Jefferson has credited his parents with pressing the value of hard work. Elizabeth Brannum Trass, one of his high school teachers, said in an interview that he had always had the seriousness of purpose that helped catapult him onto a much faster track.

A clerkship with a United States district judge brought Mr. Jefferson to New Orleans in 1972. He got into politics as a campaign aide for Ernest N. Morial, who became the city's first black mayor in 1978 and gave Mr. Jefferson the Dollar Bill nickname.

Friends of both men said the mayor thought Mr. Jefferson had tried too aggressively to collect legal fees for helping Mr. Morial win the election. But after Mr. Jefferson became a state senator in 1979, his political rivals began to use "Dollar Bill" to refer to his expanding financial ventures.

His rental business — which leased television sets and other appliances to people who could not afford to buy them — appeared on the delinquent list in a city sales-tax scandal in the 1980's. And a day after he was elected to Congress in 1990, the Resolution Trust Corporation, which was trying to clean up the mess from the collapse of savings institutions, sued him for $160,000 over an apartment-building loan on which he had quit making payments. He later settled the suit, with friends saying his investments had been hurt by a faltering economy.

Still, once Mr. Jefferson became a close ally of President Bill Clinton, and then won a seat on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, he was able to provide "absolute A+" support for city projects, said Marc H. Morial, one of Ernest Morial's sons and the mayor of New Orleans from 1994 to 2002.

Mr. Jefferson also became known as a strong advocate of freer trade and made at least nine trips to Africa to promote it, including one with President Clinton. He championed a 2000 law that extended trade benefits to sub-Saharan Africa. "Africa is a reservoir of opportunities for American businesses," he said then.

Over the years, Mr. Jefferson has received campaign contributions and free travel from individuals and companies seeking business in Africa, including iGate.

Campaign finance records show he received a $1,000 contribution as early as 2001 from Vernon L. Jackson, the chief executive of iGate, which makes technology to transmit high-speed Internet service across the wires used in some African nations. Mr. Jackson pleaded guilty this month to bribing Mr. Jefferson with more than $400,000 in cash and millions of shares of iGate stock.

Government documents show that Mr. Jackson told the F.B.I. that when he met Mr. Jefferson in late 2000, the congressman voluntarily helped promote iGate's products — a normal and legitimate action for a government official involved in trade issues. But according to the F.B.I. documents, in early 2001, the congressman's actions became improper when he said he would continue to use his influence on iGate's behalf only if Mr. Jackson made payments to a company, the ANJ Group, run by the Jefferson family. The iGate payments were disguised as consulting fees, the F.B.I. said.

Mr. Jefferson says these were private business dealings that had nothing to do with his work on the House committee.

But as part of a 2003 deal to distribute iGate's products, a Nigerian company, Netlink Digital Television, agreed to pay the congressman $5 per subscriber, the F.B.I. affidavit said, "in return for Jefferson's official assistance if the deal was successful."

House records show that in February 2004, Mr. Jefferson led a business delegation to Nigeria and Cameroon as a co-chairman of the Congressional Nigeria Caucus and the Africa Trade and Investment Caucus. The trip, which cost $16,313, according to the records, was paid for in part by iGate.

In 2005, the F.B.I. said, Mr. Jefferson wrote to the vice presidents of Nigeria and Ghana, and traveled to Ghana, seeking approval for iGate projects. Within a week after returning, the F.B.I. said, Mr. Jefferson used his influence to help a Virginia woman, Lori Modi, who had invested $3.5 million in the Nigeria project. He introduced her to officials at the Export-Import Bank of the United States and urged them to provide financing for the project.

But by then, Ms. Modi had asked the F.B.I. to investigate the deal.

Investigators said that in negotiating the deals, Mr. Jefferson had often cited his desire to provide for his five daughters, three of whom also have degrees from Harvard Law School.

From December 2004 through June 2005, the F.B.I. said in its affidavit, Mr. Jefferson increased his demands for equity in one Nigerian company, to 30 percent, to be split among his daughters. He also told an investor that one of his daughters had to be retained to do legal work, according to documents in the case.

Then, on July 30, 2005, when Mr. Jefferson met Ms. Modi at a Ritz-Carlton hotel, the F.B.I. said it supplied her with a briefcase with $100,000 in marked bills. Mr. Jefferson had told her the money would be needed to bribe Nigerian officials, the affidavit said.

As the F.B.I.'s video cameras zoomed in on him, the bureau said, Mr. Jefferson drove off with the briefcase on the seat of his Lincoln Town Car. And when agents raided his home four days later, $90,000 of the money turned up again, in the kitchen freezer.

Christopher Drew reported from New Orleans for this article, and Robert Pear from Washington. Adam Nossiter contributed reporting from New Orleans.

    Target of F.B.I. Raid Had a Hard Path to Capitol Hill, NYT, 29.7.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/29/washington/29jefferson.html

Constitutional Squabble

May Have Earlier Roots

May 28, 2006
The New York Times
By CARL HULSE

WASHINGTON, May 27 — Speaker J. Dennis Hastert is moving publicly to put his constitutional showdown with the Justice Department in the past, but many on Capitol Hill believe that the bitter confrontation will resonate in the coming months.

Lawmakers and senior officials say Mr. Hastert's determined challenge to the Justice Department's court-authorized search of a Congressional office arose as much from frustration at missteps and slights by high-level administration officials as it did from outrage over what he saw as a gross violation of Congressional turf.

He and other Republicans were already upset at the Treasury Department for what they saw as the botched handling of the Dubai ports deal. And they held John D. Negroponte, the national intelligence director, responsible for what they considered the humiliating dismissal of Porter J. Goss, the popular former House member who was forced out as director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

The F.B.I. demand for access to the Rayburn House Office Building suite of Representative William J. Jefferson, a Louisiana Democrat under investigation in a corruption case, was seen as the last straw by Republican leaders worried about holding their majority in the House in the November elections, particularly with President Bush's flagging popularity.

"We are five months away from an election, and we can't afford to make high-profile mistakes," said one senior Republican official who was granted anonymity because he did not want to be identified discussing sensitive party strains. "There is a sense of tension in the air."

The usually low-key Mr. Hastert, a former Illinois high school civics teacher and wrestling coach, found himself at the center of a battle of wills with the administration he has worked hand in glove with for six years. Even he seemed surprised by it. "I tried not to pick a high-profile fight," Mr. Hastert told reporters.

On Friday, in an op-ed column for USA Today, the speaker said he considered the furor finished, given Mr. Bush's decision to seal the Jefferson material for 45 days. "That is behind us now," he wrote. "I am confident that in the next 45 days, the lawyers will figure out how to do it right."

While he battled the administration, Mr. Hastert found himself under fire from some of his own rank and file who believed that the speaker had picked the wrong fight. They said that the public did not understand the alarm over the search and that the tussle was robbing Republicans of a chance to capitalize on the accusations against Mr. Jefferson. And they were concerned that Democrats were scoring points by pressing Mr. Jefferson to quit an important committee.

The leadership, in a six-page document distributed to Republicans, acknowledged that it might not be taking the best political route by challenging the Justice Department search as a violation of the constitutional separation of powers. "Is this a smart battle for Congress to fight?" the leadership asked in the document, put together to try explain its stance on the search. "Perhaps not. Defending constitutional principles — particularly those related to institutional balances of power — is often not politically expedient and often results in bad publicity."

But the document said that a failure to challenge the search would result in serious erosion of the legislative branch's independence. And it said the Justice Department had plunged ahead with a search because the agency had become "tired of waiting" while the House counsel and Mr. Jefferson responded to a subpoena.

Many Republicans remained skeptical. But Mr. Hastert got some unexpected help from an ABC News report — denied by the Justice Department — that he was part of the continuing inquiry into the activities of the former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who pleaded guilty to corruption charges this year. While lawmakers might have been miffed at Mr. Hastert, they were up in arms over what they saw as a not-so-subtle attack on their leader and Mr. Bush's chief ally in Congress. Mr. Hastert, in fact, had postponed plans to retire at the encouragement of the president.

The result of the upset over the search and the perceived shot at Mr. Hastert was a general Republican distemper, at a bad time for the administration. Mr. Bush has made immigration changes a priority. He will need the cooperation of House Republicans in striking a deal with the Senate, which on Thursday approved a measure that was met with disdain in the House. Resentful House Republicans may now be even less willing to work with the White House.

Congressional Republicans say their anger, exacerbated by their midterm political perils, is not aimed directly at Mr. Bush. They believe that Mr. Bush and his immediate circle have improved their efforts to consult with Congress, reversing a previously dismissive attitude as evidenced by two recent appearances by Karl Rove, the White House political strategist, at meetings of House Republicans.

And they say Mr. Bush, who heard complaints from Mr. Hastert about the search and Mr. Goss's dismissal, showed that he was sympathetic to the House stance by ordering the seized materials to be sealed for 45 days. The problem, one official said, is with cabinet secretaries like Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales who, from the House perspective, do not seem to consider Congress an equal partner in governance.

As they sought to quiet the fight, which consumed a week that ended oddly with another search of the Rayburn building in a mistaken alarm over gunshots, lawmakers emphasized that they were not trying to bar law enforcement from the grounds. They said they only wanted to establish a procedure that would safeguard constitutional guarantees while not hindering the Justice Department.

"We both want the same thing, and that is for the Justice Department to get to the bottom of the Jefferson case," said Ron Bonjean, a spokesman for Mr. Hastert. "We just want them to do it in the right way."

    Constitutional Squabble May Have Earlier Roots, NYT, 28.5.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/28/washington/28cong.html?hp&ex=1148875200&en=3fc6b0129de8f1b7&ei=5094&partner=homepage

House leaders concede FBI right to search

Updated 5/26/2006 10:45 PM ET
USA Today

WASHINGTON (AP) — House leaders conceded Friday that FBI agents with a court-issued warrant can legally search a congressman's office, but they said they want procedures established after agents with a court warrant took over a lawmaker's office last week.

"I want to know exactly what would happen if there is a similar sort of thing" in the Senate, Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said Friday, shortly after summoning Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to his office.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., concurred: "I am confident that in the next 45 days, the lawyers will figure out how to do it right."

Gonzales was similarly optimistic. "We've been working hard already and we'll continue to do so pursuant to the president's order," he told The Associated Press.

In an editorial page article in USA Today on Friday, Hastert said he and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., have directed House lawyers "to develop reasonable protocols and procedures that will make it possible for the FBI to go into congressional offices to constitutionally execute a search warrant."

Until last Saturday night, no such warrant had ever been used to search a lawmaker's office in the 219-year history of the Congress. Without advance notice, FBI agents then arrived at a House building to conduct an overnight search at the office of Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., an eight-term lawmaker accused of bribery.

They carted away computer and other records in their pursuit of evidence that Jefferson accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in exchange for helping set up business deals in Africa.

Hastert and Pelosi, striking rare, election-year unity, protested that the FBI had not notified them and that the search violated the Constitution's separation of power protections. Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, suggested the matter would be resolved by the Supreme Court.

"No one is above the law," Pelosi, D-Calif., said in a letter Friday to members in her party. "Democrats will not support any position that allows members of Congress to use their office to shield illegal activity, period."

But, she added that "unlike the rights afforded a private citizen," neither Capitol Police, Jefferson, his staff or attorney nor the House's general counsel were allowed to be present. She said any procedures must establish that lawmakers can assert that documents in their office are part of the legislative process protected from disclosure to the executive branch by the Constitution.

"The courts must decide if the documents sought are part of the legislative process," Pelosi said. "When subpoenas are at issue, almost all courts have held that as a constitutional issue is being decided, the documents should remain in the possession of the House. In last Saturday's search, this precedent was ignored."

U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan on Friday set a schedule that could lead to a hearing by mid-June on whether the FBI must return all the confiscated material to Jefferson. Hogan, who a week ago issued the warrant for the search of Jefferson's office, had wanted to hold a hearing on the issue on Tuesday, but prosecutors asked for more time.

Earlier in the week, Hastert lodged a protest directly with Bush during a meeting at the White House and demanded that the FBI return the materials. Bush struck a compromise Thursday, ordering that the documents be sealed and turned over to the custody of Solicitor General Paul Clement until congressional leaders and the Justice Department agree on what to do with them.

"Our government has not faced such a dilemma in more than two centuries," Bush said in a statement. "Yet after days of discussions, it is clear these differences will require more time to be worked out."

The new talks are aimed at establishing guidelines for any future searches that might stem from federal investigations, including a widening Capitol Hill influence-peddling probe centered on convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Meanwhile, a former aide to Jefferson was sentenced Friday to eight years in prison for his role in the bribery scandal investigation involving the congressman.

Brett Pfeffer, 37, of Herndon, Va., pleaded guilty in January to two bribery-related charges: conspiracy to commit bribery and aiding and abetting bribery of a public official. Jefferson's name did not come up in the hearing in federal court, but other documents have made clear he is that public official.

Pfeffer admitted to helping broker deals between Jefferson and a northern Virginia investment executive for whom Pfeffer worked. That executive, who has not been identified in court documents, agreed to pay bribes to Jefferson after Pfeffer said the congressman would require it.

    House leaders concede FBI right to search, UT, 26.5.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-26-congres-raid_x.htm

Vote in House Seeks to Erase Oil Windfall

May 19, 2006
The New York Times
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS

WASHINGTON, May 18 — In an attempt to revoke billions of dollars worth of government incentives to oil and gas producers, the House on Thursday approved a measure that would pressure companies to renegotiate more than 1,000 leases for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

The measure, approved 252 to 165 over the objections of many Republican leaders, is intended to prevent companies from avoiding at least $7 billion in payments to the government over the next five years for oil and gas they produce in publicly owned waters.

Scores of Republicans, already under fire from voters about gasoline prices, sided with Democrats on the issue. Eighty-five Republicans voted to attach the provision to the Interior Department's annual spending bill. The measure would require adoption by the Senate, which is less reflexively supportive of the energy industry than the House, and will almost certainly provoke intense opposition from oil and gas producers.

In a raucous debate on the House floor before the vote, Democrats argued that energy companies were shortchanging taxpayers at the same time that soaring prices for crude oil and natural gas had pushed industry profits to record highs.

"Oil companies want to play Uncle Sam for Uncle Sucker," said Representative Edward J. Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat who co-sponsored the amendment with Representative Maurice D. Hinchey, Democrat of New York. "Today, we must put an end to these senseless giveaways."

Republican leaders, who had hoped to avoid a vote on the issue, agreed that companies should not be getting lucrative incentives in times of high prices. But they insisted that the government had no right to reopen valid leases that it signed years ago with offshore drillers.

"These leases were valid legal contracts signed between the government and these companies in good faith," said Representative Mike Simpson, Republican of Idaho. "The Congress and the government should keep their word when they sign a contract."

In a separate defeat for energy companies, the House voted 279 to 141 to reject a provision that would lift a 25-year ban on oil drilling in coastal areas outside the western Gulf of Mexico.

Lawmakers also voted 217 to 203 to continue the prohibition on drilling just for natural gas.

The lopsided vote to rescind royalty incentives, which surprised many of the proposal's own sponsors, came three months after The New York Times disclosed that companies drilling in publicly-owned waters of the Gulf of Mexico were set to escape royalties on about $65 billion worth of oil and gas over the next five years.

The windfall stemmed in large part from a major error in about 1,000 leases that the Clinton administration signed with energy companies in 1998 and 1999.

To encourage drilling and exploration in water thousands of feet deep, the government offered to let companies avoid the standard royalties, usually 12 percent or 16 percent of sales, for large quantities of the oil and gas they produced.

But the incentives, which have been expanded in recent years by the Bush administration and by Congress, were supposed to stop as soon as prices for oil climbed above $34 a barrel and prices for natural gas climbed above $4 per thousand cubic feet.

For reasons that are now being investigated, the Interior Department omitted the restriction in 1,000 leases it signed in 1998 and 1999. In addition, the Bush administration offered extra "royalty relief" to companies that drilled very deep wells in very shallow water.

The lost royalties are just beginning to hit the government's bottom line.

The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, estimated in March that the royalty incentives could cost the government $20 billion over the next 25 years.

On top of that, at least one oil company, the Kerr-McGee Corporation, has sued the Bush administration in a test case to expand the "royalty relief" far more. If the Kerr-McGee lawsuit is successful, the G.A.O. estimated, the government could lose a total of $80 billion over the next 25 years.

The amendment approved on Thursday would try to force oil companies to revise their contracts and agree to pay full royalties when energy prices climb above the "threshold levels."

To give the government bargaining power, the bill would also prohibit the Interior Department from awarding any new leases to companies that refuse to revisit their leases.

The industry is itself divided on the issue. Some of the big integrated oil and gas companies, like Exxon Mobil, have already declared that they see no need for incentives in today's environment of high prices.

But many smaller producers are determined to retain their incentives and to fight for even more.

"Forcing renegotiations of contracts would be changing the rules in the middle of the game and would raise serious questions about contract law," said Dan Naatz, vice president for federal resources at the Independent Petroleum Association of America, a trade group that represents independent producers. The Bush administration did not take a position on the House measure, though senior officials have repeatedly said they were powerless to change valid contracts.

It is unclear whether the Senate will go along with the provision. But Democratic lawmakers have already been pushing.

Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, filibustered for five hours last month in an attempt to attach a similar proposal to major spending bill. Senator Diane Feinstein, Democrat of California, has drafted a bill similar to the House measure.

    Vote in House Seeks to Erase Oil Windfall, NYT, 19.5.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/19/washington/19oil.html

House Passes a $2.7 Trillion Spending Plan

May 18, 2006
The New York Times
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS

WASHINGTON, Thursday May 19 — After more than a month of delay as Republicans feuded among themselves, the House early Thursday narrowly approved a $2.7 trillion spending plan for next year.

The vote, 218 to 210, came at 1 a.m. after Republican moderates dropped threats to withhold support unless they received commitments to add $3 billion for education, health and community-development block grants. In a nod to the moderates, House leaders included a statement "recognizing" that those programs should receive more than President Bush had requested if savings could be found in other areas.

The vote occurred hours after President Bush signed a bill extending his signature tax cuts.

Meanwhile, House and Senate Republicans continued to haggle over how to extend a long list of other expiring tax breaks, including a deduction for college tuition payments and a savings credit for low-income families, that were left out of the bill that Mr. Bush signed in the White House Rose Garden.

The fights over taxes and spending highlighted the extent to which Mr. Bush and the Congress have become increasingly bogged down on their long-term goals. The struggles are largely over one- and two-year extensions of tax breaks rather than the permanent tax reductions or broader overhaul of the tax cut sought by Mr. Bush, and over comparatively tiny slices of total spending.

The $70 billion bill that Mr. Bush signed would extend his 2003 tax cuts on stock dividends and capital gains for an extra two years, to 2010, and shield 15 million taxpayers for one more year from a big increase in the alternative minimum tax.

The House spending resolution, though largely symbolic, would set broad limits on spending for next year and nonbinding goals for the next five years.

The measure calls for increasing military spending by 7 percent, to nearly $558 billion in 2007, a figure that includes $50 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The package would essentially freeze or cut spending on most domestic discretionary programs, including education, energy and national parks, and it calls for trimming $6.8 billion over five years from entitlement programs like Medicaid and farm subsidies.

The plan would raise the debt ceiling by $653 billion, to $9.6 trillion, and it assumes that the shortfall next year will be $348 billion, about what it is likely to be in 2006.

Democrats argued that the measure would put the burden of budget cuts primarily on poor and middle-class people, as the benefits would flow primarily to the wealthy.

Few lawmakers expected to work out differences between their bill and the spending plan that the Senate passed in March. A failure by House Republicans to pass even their own plan would accentuate their disarray on fiscal issues at a time their public approval ratings, even on issues like taxes, are plunging.

A failure to approve a House spending bill would also have practical consequences, because it would give lawmakers more opportunities to add provisions on the floor and exceed the overall spending limits that Mr. Bush has demanded.

As House Republican leaders worked through the day on Thursday to win over party moderates, Mr. Bush celebrated the limited extension of his tax cuts for investors, small businesses and big financial companies with overseas operations.

Surrounded by Republican leaders and Vice President Dick Cheney as he signed the measure, Mr. Bush again said the cuts were crucial to the long-term health of the economy.

"The American people have used their money better than the government ever could have," Mr. Bush said. "They've used the tax relief to provide for their families and create jobs and help the American economy become the envy of the industrialized world."

The House spending plan calls for $228 billion in tax cuts over the next five years, mostly extensions of tax breaks that are set to expire.

The struggle for House Republicans on Wednesday was to keep total discretionary spending, which includes the Pentagon budget, at $873 billion for 2007 while satisfying demands from Republican moderates for an extra $3 billion on health and education programs.

Moderates, led by Representative Michael N. Castle of Delaware, had already persuaded leaders to shift $4 billion from military spending. House Republican leaders tried to persuade Mr. Castle and other moderates to settle for a promise to channel any additional savings to community-development block grants, schools and police programs.

    House Passes a $2.7 Trillion Spending Plan, NYT, 18.5.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/18/washington/18budget.html?hp&ex=1148011200&en=03b8053694c5aed3&ei=5094&partner=homepage

House approves $70 billion tax cut bill

Wed May 10, 2006 8:21 PM ET
Reuters
By Donna Smith

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The House of Representatives on Wednesday agreed to extend a tax break on investment income in a $70 billion tax cut package that Democrats said would mostly help the rich while deepening budget deficits.

The House voted 244-185, mostly along party lines, for the package that will extend for two years a 15 percent top tax rate for income from capital gains and dividends. That reduced rate was the centerpiece of President George W. Bush's 2003 economic package and was set to expire at the end of 2008.

The bill, which will cost the treasury about $70 billion over five years, also provides a one-year extension of alternative minimum tax relief that will protect millions of taxpayers from a tax originally intended for the wealthiest Americans.

The Senate was expected to pass the bill in a close vote on Thursday.

Bush supports the measure. "I urge the Senate to vote swiftly so that I can sign this bill into law," he said late Wednesday in a statement.

Republicans said low rates on capital gains and dividends helped fuel the economic recovery, bringing more revenues into federal coffers.

Treasury Secretary John Snow at a rally organized by House Republicans cited a Treasury Department report released on Wednesday showing a larger-than-expected increase in tax revenue in April. Snow said the surge was due mostly to higher corporate tax receipts and credited Republican tax cuts.

"The revenues to the U.S. government are surging, and with this surging revenue we are going to be in a position to see the deficit come down," Snow said.

Republican backers pointed to strong economic growth and a stock market on the verge of an all-time high as proof they had done the right thing.

"We all know that our tax relief sparked this economic growth," said House Speaker Dennis Hastert, an Illinois Republican. "By extending key provisions of that tax relief, today's legislation adds just another spark to the already booming economy."

But Democrats said the tax package was skewed to the wealthy, set the wrong priorities and squeezed funding for important programs while adding to the nation's debt.

Rep. Earl Pomeroy, a North Dakota Democrat, said Republican tax cuts were forcing lawmakers to raise the debt ceiling for the fifth time since 2002. He said the nation's debt, which stood at about $5.6 trillion when Bush became president, will have doubled by the time he leaves the White House.

"We are leaving our children with a legacy of debt that they will never get out of," Pomeroy said during the House debate on the bill.

The liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said the average middle-income household would see a tax reduction of about $20, while households with incomes that top $1 million will see an average $42,000 tax cut.

    House approves $70 billion tax cut bill, R, 10.5.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyID=2006-05-11T002104Z_01_N10220495_RTRUKOC_0_US-CONGRESS-TAXES.xml

More Questions Surface in the Wake of a Congressman's Bribery Case

May 7, 2006
The New York Times
By PAUL von ZIELBAUER and DAVID JOHNSTON

WASHINGTON, May 6 — A federal investigation into one congressman's bribe-taking last year has produced a second round of inquiries into the actions of officials at the C.I.A. and the Homeland Security Department and of members of the House Intelligence Committee, government officials say.

These new inquiries reach beyond Randy Cunningham, the former Republican House member from California who was sentenced in March to more than eight years in prison for taking $2.4 million in bribes from military contractors. The investigations suggest a growing suspicion among some lawmakers that corrupt practices may have influenced decision-making in Congress and at executive-branch agencies.

Last month, The San Diego Union-Tribune and The Wall Street Journal reported that federal investigators were looking into whether the military contractors involved in Mr. Cunningham's bribery had also arranged limousines, poker parties and prostitutes for him at the Watergate and Westin Grand hotels here.

Law enforcement officials have confirmed these reports, and a manager at the Watergate has said the hotel was subpoenaed by federal officials seeking documents related to the poker parties. Calls to Mr. Cunningham's lawyer, K. Lee Blalack II, seeking comment were not returned.

The investigation has led to further official inquiries into who arranged and attended the poker parties and their connections to the military contractors who played roles in Mr. Cunningham's bribery.

The inspector general of the Central Intelligence Agency, the agency says, is conducting an inquiry into Kyle Foggo, its executive director, who said this week that he attended some of the parties over the years.

Mr. Foggo, the C.I.A.'s third-ranking official, is a longtime friend of Brent R. Wilkes, one of the military contractors whose role is described in the indictment against Mr. Cunningham. Mr. Wilkes has not been charged, and his lawyer did not return calls on Friday.

Mr. Wilkes is a business associate of Mitchell Wade, a military contractor who pleaded guilty in February to providing more than $1 million in bribes to Mr. Cunningham. Mr. Wade's lawyer declined Friday to discuss his client's role in the investigation.

A C.I.A. spokesman said Saturday that Mr. Foggo has said he did not violate agency rules in the awarding of contracts and that the poker games were nothing more than a gathering of friends. Mr. Foggo was promoted to his job at the C.I.A. by Porter J. Goss, who abruptly resigned Friday as director of the agency. There has been no suggestion by officials involved in these investigations that Mr. Goss did anything wrong or was under investigation.

The inquiry into the poker games has also put a spotlight on the limousine company that ferried Mr. Cunningham and others to the Watergate and Westin Grand. The company, Shirlington Limousine and Transportation, is operated by Christopher D. Baker, a man with a history of criminal convictions and financial troubles. Shirlington won a contract worth as much as $25.2 million to drive homeland security employees and officials around Washington.

Lawyers for Mr. Baker did not return calls seeking comment, and a message left with Shirlington Limousine's answering service on Saturday did not bring a response. The company is listed at several addresses in the region, including a post office box in Arlington, Va., and an apartment in a residential building in downtown Washington.

Shirlington provided 12 minibuses five days a week to drive homeland security employees among downtown offices, and 10 drivers to ferry department executives around the region in department-owned sedans.

F.B.I. agents have talked to Shirlington employees about driving Mr. Cunningham and prostitutes to hotel poker parties, and have interviewed women who work for escort services, said a lawyer involved in the investigation.

On Friday, Republicans and Democrats on the House Committee on Homeland Security announced that they planned to investigate Shirlington Limousine's contract.

"The information we've obtained raises a number of serious questions, from the contracting process to possible security concerns," said Representative Mike Rogers of Alabama, the Republican chairman of the House subcommittee in charge of management and oversight at the Department of Homeland Security. "The appearance of a lack of background checks on contractors is another troubling personnel issue at D.H.S. that we are examining."

In a draft letter to the inspector general of homeland security, to be sent Monday, Representative Bennie G. Thompson of Mississippi, the ranking Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee, asks why the department hired the limousine company and whether Shirlington's bid received preferential treatment. It seeks a list of official passengers.

Democrats on the committee said Friday that they plan to ask homeland security officials about the Shirlington contract in a May 18 hearing.

Larry Orluskie, a homeland security spokesman, said background checks were conducted on all Shirlington drivers before they were given access to department cars and officials. He stressed that the department does not use Shirlington's limousines and that it has been "absolutely satisfied" with the company since awarding it a contract in April 2004.

"The drivers are professional," he said. "The buses are always on time. The contract is just perfect."

In January, the top Republican and top Democrat on the House intelligence committee announced their own inquiry into whether Mr. Cunningham's bribery schemes had influenced the committee's business. The intelligence committee oversees the 16 intelligence agencies and their $44 billion annual budget.

    More Questions Surface in the Wake of a Congressman's Bribery Case, NYT, 7.5.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/07/washington/07inquire.html

Lobbying Bill Passes Narrowly in House

May 4, 2006
The New York Times
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, May 3 — The House narrowly passed a bill on Wednesday intended to restore public trust in Congress by reshaping the relationship between lawmakers and lobbyists. But Democrats denounced the measure as a sham, and 20 Republicans voted against it.

The measure, which passed 217 to 213, is the first lobbying and ethics legislation since 1995, the year after Republicans took control of the House. Republicans have been promising to pass lobbying legislation since January. But the measure proved extremely divisive, so much so that the bill nearly died last week in a Republican feud over earmarks, the pet projects that are often slipped into bills at lobbyists' behest.

The new bill would require lobbyists to disclose more of their activities, increase financial penalties for violations and require lawmakers and their aides to attend ethics training.

It also aims to discourage earmarks by requiring House members who write spending bills to disclose them, a move lauded by fiscal conservatives who complain that earmarks waste taxpayer money and drive up the cost of legislation.

But the measure falls short of what Republican leaders promised after the scandal involving the lobbyist Jack Abramoff rocked the Capitol in January. The chief Republican architect of the bill, Representative David Dreier of California, the House Rules Committee chairman, conceded that he wished that the measure "were stronger than it is."

But Mr. Dreier also called it a "very, very strong package," and promised that it was just the beginning of Republican efforts to clean up Congress. The bill now goes to reconciliation with a stronger version passed by the Senate. The leaders in both chambers hope to do that as quickly as possible.

"Our aim, our goal, is a Congress that is effective, a Congress that is ethical and a Congress that is worthy of the public trust," Mr. Dreier told colleagues on the House floor. He added: "After we pass this bill, let me tell you what is next on our agenda — more reform. The Republican Party is the party of reform. The drive for reform never stops."

Republicans have been trying to adopt the mantle of reform since January, when Mr. Abramoff, who wined and dined lawmakers with lavish meals at his Washington restaurants and golf outings to Scotland, agreed to cooperate in a corruption inquiry. The plea, coupled with the resignation of a Republican House member, Randy Cunningham of California, on bribery charges, gave Democrats fodder for their campaign theme of a Republican "culture of corruption."

After Mr. Abramoff's plea, Mr. Dreier and Speaker J. Dennis Hastert endorsed the idea of barring members of Congress and their aides from accepting trips paid with private money. But the bill the House passed Wednesday would not ban the trips. Rather, it calls for the House ethics committee to draft trip rules by June 15. Before then, privately financed trips will require advance approval from two-thirds of the ethics panel.

Unlike the measure approved by the Senate, the bill does not address the "revolving door," the Capitol Hill term for lawmakers and aides who leave Congress to become lobbyists. The Senate bill aims to rein in that practice by requiring lawmakers and senior aides to refrain from lobbying former colleagues for two years, instead of the current one year.

The Senate bill would also bar lobbyists from giving gifts and meals to lawmakers. The House bill keeps the current limit of $50 for gifts or meals.

"We are cleaning up Congress the way teenagers clean up their bedrooms," said Representative Brian Baird, Democrat of Washington. "And the result will be the same mess."

Eight Democrats voted for the measure, which had led to deep splits among House Republicans. To address that problem, the leadership agreed to work in conference to extend restrictions on earmarks beyond spending bills to all legislation.

Among the 20 Republicans who voted against it was the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Representative F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. of Wisconsin. Others, particularly those facing re-election fights, agreed with Democrats that the measure was too weak. They included Representative Christopher Shays of Connecticut, who supported a Democratic alternative that would have banned lawmakers' use of corporate jets and imposed the two-year revolving-door restriction.

Mr. Shays said after the vote that "the Democrats did a much better job of presenting a bill," and took aim at the new majority leader, Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, who has been lukewarm to restricting travel.

"This is not John Boehner's forte," Mr. Shays said. "This is not something he believes in."

Mr. Boehner, a staunch opponent of earmarks, pronounced himself elated at the outcome.

"Trust between the American people in this Congress is very important, and this is the first major step in rebuilding that trust," he said.

It is now up to the House and Senate Republican leaders to appoint negotiators to reconcile the differences in their bills. Mr. Hastert said he expected to do so next week. A spokesman for the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, said Mr. Frist would also like to move quickly.

With polls showing public approval ratings for Congress at historic lows, Republicans are eager to have a bill on President Bush's desk long before the November elections.

"The sooner the better," Mr. Boehner said.

    Lobbying Bill Passes Narrowly in House, NYT, 4.5.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/04/washington/04lobby.html?hp&ex=1146801600&en=ae24028735e5a7a8&ei=5094&partner=homepage

House Passes Limit on Cash for Groups in Campaigns

April 6, 2006
The New York Times
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, April 5 — The House narrowly passed a bill on Wednesday that would sharply limit contributions to nonprofit advocacy groups like MoveOn.org and Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which revolutionized politics during the 2004 elections with their ability to escape campaign finance rules by raising unlimited cash from private donors.

The vote was 218 to 209, with 18 Republicans and 7 Democrats defecting from their respective party positions. The measure would cap individual contributions to so-called 527 groups, which draw their name from a provision in the tax code, to $25,000 a year for activities intended to mobilize voters behind issues, as opposed to specific candidates.

The bill now goes to the Senate, where John McCain, the Arizona Republican who is the author of campaign finance legislation passed in 2002, is offering a similar measure. The measure is not on the Senate calendar, and Democrats would have an easier time blocking it there.

The vote was a victory for Republicans in an otherwise difficult week, marked by the announcement that Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, the former Republican leader, would resign from Congress.

The new majority leader, Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, was terse after the vote. Asked for a comment, Mr. Boehner said, "We won."

But even if the bill becomes law, it is unclear how much will change. Already, groups like MoveOn.org are operating under another section of the tax code, 501(c)4, which is not covered by the legislation passed Wednesday.

A Republican opponent of the bill, Representative Mike Pence of Indiana, has compared the exercise to whack-a-mole, a carnival game in which a player hits one mole with a hammer and another pops up.

The 527 groups emerged as a political force during the 2004 election campaign. The Democratic presidential candidate, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, suffered from attacks on his war record by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, and George Soros funneled tens of millions into liberal groups like MoveOn.org.

The House Republican leadership said the bill was necessary to close a loophole in the 2002 campaign finance bill, which prohibited federal candidates and national parties from accepting unlimited soft money donations from individuals, unions and corporations. The bill passed Wednesday requires 527's to follow the same rules as party committees.

The 2002 bill "left an obvious and easy loophole to exploit," said Representative David Dreier, chairman of the House Rules Committee and a major champion of the 527 bill.

Another Republican, Representative Candice S. Miller of Michigan, said the 527's were doing work that Democratic political committees were no longer permitted to do. "Essentially, what happened here is the political parties were outsourced," Ms. Miller said, adding, "527's ran TV ads, they operated Web sites, they ran phone banks, mobilized the get-out-the-vote efforts."

But Democrats said the measure was an effort to disadvantage them in the November mid-term elections. They said if Republicans were serious about campaign finance reform, the bill would curb other types of nonprofit groups as well.

"This is not reform, it's retaliation," said Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the Democratic whip. Referring to Republicans, he added, "They are trying to gag their opponents and further empower their supporters."

The debate marked a sharp turnaround for both parties from 2002, when Democrats pushed legislation to restrict campaign spending and many Republicans opposed it, arguing that limiting contributions was tantamount to interfering with the First Amendment.

"You've changed your principles," Mr. Hoyer told Mr. Dreier at one point. "In my opinion, you've changed your point of view."

But Representative Christopher Shays, Republican of Connecticut and a chief sponsor of the bill, said it was Democrats who had changed their principles. "This is a surreal debate," Mr. Shays said. "This is a debate that has consequences, and yet it seems to almost be like a game."

The measure drew a strange coalition. Groups like the Alliance for Justice, a liberal organization that has worked to defeat President Bush's judicial nominees, joined with the Club for Growth, a conservative anti-tax group, to oppose the measure.

Bob Bauer, a Democratic election lawyer who worked with the coalition opposing the measure, said little would change if the measure is passed, and predicted another outcry after the 2006 races. "You will see legislative efforts in the next round directed against these 501(c) organizations," he said. "It is going to simply be endlessly applied to chase after more speech."

    House Passes Limit on Cash for Groups in Campaigns, NYT, 6.4.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/06/washington/06donate.html?hp&ex=1144382400&en=00f5e1fea37df414&ei=5094&partner=homepage

DeLay Is Quitting Race and House, Officials Report

April 4, 2006
The New York Times
By CARL HULSE

WASHINGTON, April 3 — Representative Tom DeLay, the relentless Texan who helped lead House Republicans to power but became ensnared in a corruption scandal, has decided to leave Congress, House officials said Monday night.

Mr. DeLay, who abandoned his efforts to hold onto his position as majority leader earlier this year after the indictment of the lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a former ally, was seeking re-election as vindication. But he told selected colleagues that, facing the possibility of defeat, he had decided not to try to hold on to his House seat.

"He just decided that the numbers and the whole political climate were against him and that it was time to step aside," said one Congressional official with knowledge of Mr. DeLay's plans. The official did not want to be identified because Mr. DeLay's formal announcement was scheduled for Tuesday in Houston.

His decision was first reported Monday by MSNBC and by Time magazine on its Web site, which posted an interview with Mr. DeLay, as did The Galveston County Daily News. "I'm very much at peace with it," Mr. DeLay told Time of his decision.

Mr. Delay, who is serving his 11th term in Congress, told the Galveston paper he planned to step down from his seat by late May or June.

Congressional aides said Mr. DeLay had informed his Texas colleagues and other Republican leaders, including Representative Thomas M. Reynolds of New York, the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, as well as President Bush.

One DeLay ally said that the lawmaker had been considering leaving Congress since he gave up his leadership post in January and that he had been persuaded to make the break last week, when his former deputy chief of staff, Tony Rudy, pleaded guilty to corruption charges. He was also said to have been influenced by troubling poll numbers in his district in the Houston area.

Though Mr. DeLay had moved into the background since leaving the majority leader's office, his decision to leave Congress could rattle House Republicans already anxious about their prospects in November, partly because of the cloud of ethics problems caused by the scandal involving Mr. Abramoff and Mr. DeLay's former inner circle.

The decision also threw into turmoil the 22nd Congressional District, where Mr. DeLay convincingly won a primary contest by a margin of better than 2 to 1 against three Republican rivals less than a month ago.

Monday night, with the news ricocheting around Texas and Washington, the mayor of Mr. DeLay's hometown, Sugar Land, David G. Wallace Jr., said he would seek the seat. Asked in an interview if he was running, he said, "I am."

Mr. Wallace, 44, an investment banker and real estate developer serving his second two-year-term in the part-time City Hall position, said he had not talked to Mr. DeLay about a vacancy but had been hearing "rumors in the last couple of days."

"Our understanding is that if Tom vacates the seat, there will be a special election called," Mr. Wallace said.

Mike Stanley, campaign manager for Tom Campbell, a lawyer who led the Republican challengers to Mr. DeLay in the primary March 7, said he believed Mr. Campbell would now seek to reenter the race.

"He had already decided to run in two years if Mr. DeLay still held the seat," Mr. Stanley said. Mr. Campbell drew just under 10,000 votes, or about 30 percent, with Mr. DeLay winning 20,558 or 62 percent.

Bill Miller, a leading Austin lobbyist close to the Republican leadership, said Mr. DeLay called Gov. Rick Perry Monday night. Mr. Miller quoted Mr. DeLay as saying "I don't want to be a distraction" and said he had maintained that his decision to drop out of the race had nothing to do with any pending criminal action.

In an interview Monday night, Richard Cullen, Mr. DeLay's principal criminal defense lawyer, said that his client had been pondering a withdrawal from the race for some time and that "it had nothing to do with any criminal investigation."

"The decision had absolutely nothing to do with the investigation," Mr. Cullen said. "It was a very personal decision and a political one."

Mr. DeLay is under indictment in Texas on campaign-finance related charges for his role in a state redistricting plan that gained Republican House seats in the state but focused national scrutiny on his political tactics.

The indictment forced him to step aside from his leadership post, but he had intended to return if he beat the charges.

Mr. Delay told the Galveston County paper that he decided last week after speaking to the Christian group Vision America that he could be more effective pushing the conservative cause if he left Congress.

"I can continue to be a leader of the conservative cause," he said. "I can do more to grow the Republican majority, rather than spend the next eight months locked down in running a campaign."

Bill Burton, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said Mr. DeLay's decision was "just the latest piece of evidence that the Republican Party is a party in disarray, a party out of ideas and out of energy."

Mr. DeLay, 58, who served most of his time in the leadership as the whip, was known for his ability to deliver Republican votes on contentious issues and for fund-raising power that helped Republicans hold the majority for the past decade.

In 1994, as Republicans battled Democrats for control of the house, Mr. DeLay joined Representative Newt Gingrich and others in developing the so-called Contract With America and arguing that after 40 years in power, the Democratic Party had become corrupt and arrogant. He became majority leader in 2002, serving alongside Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, the man Mr. DeLay helped ascend to the speaker's position in 1998.

Representative John A. Boehner, the occasional DeLay rival who won the internal election to replace him as majority leader, on Monday called his predecessor one of the "most effective and gifted leaders the Republican party has ever known."

"He was a tireless advocate for his constituents, the state of Texas, and all Americans who shared a commitment to the principles of smaller government, more freedom, and family values," Mr. Boehner said.

With Mr. Rudy's guilty plea last Friday, he became the second former DeLay aide to admit wrongdoing in the corruption investigation centered on Mr. Abramoff, who has also pleaded guilty to conspiring to corrupt public officials, including members of Congress.

Mr. Abramoff, Mr. Rudy and the other aide, Michael Scanlon, who had been Mr. DeLay's press secretary in the House, are all cooperating with the Justice Department, which is investigating whether Mr. DeLay and other members of Congress accepted travel, gifts or money from Mr. Abramoff and his associates in return for legislative favors.

Mr. Rudy's plea agreement, which covers actions he took on Mr. Abramoff's behalf both while on Mr. DeLay's staff and after leaving the House to work as a lobbyist, did not allege any wrongdoing by Mr. DeLay or say that Mr. DeLay knew of any criminal activities by Mr. Rudy.

Mr. DeLay was indicted last September in Texas on unrelated charges involving violations of state election laws including money laundering and conspiring to funnel illegal corporate contributions to Republican statehouse candidates in 2002. The charges were later scaled back by a state judge to the money-laundering counts and remain the subject of an appeal.

In the fall of 2004, Mr. DeLay was admonished by the House ethics committee on three issues involving misuse of his influence, including an offer to support the House candidacy of the son of a former Republican representative from Michigan, Nick Smith, in return for Mr. Smith's vote for a Medicare prescription drug benefit.

Mr. DeLay, a one-time pest exterminator, was elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 1978, where he helped ignite a Republican resurgence in long-Democratic Texas.

Ralph Blumenthal contributed reporting from Houston for this article, and Philip Shenon from Washington.

    DeLay Is Quitting Race and House, Officials Report, NYT, 4.4.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/04/washington/04delay.html?hp&ex=1144209600&en=e30a90150d28c3a1&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Hastert Hints at Compromise on Immigration Bill

March 30, 2006
The New York Times
By RACHEL L. SWARNS

WASHINGTON, March 29 — Speaker J. Dennis Hastert said Wednesday that he and other House Republicans recognized the need for a guest worker program, opening the door to a possible compromise with the Senate on fiercely debated immigration legislation.

"We're going to look at all alternatives," Mr. Hastert, an Illinois Republican, said at a news conference. "We're not going to discount anything right now. Our first priority is to protect the border. And we also know there is a need in some sections of the economy for a guest worker program."

Many House Republicans and conservatives in the Senate still oppose any legislation that would grant citizenship to illegal immigrants, like the bill passed by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday. And as the Senate began its debate on immigration on Wednesday, Republicans were deeply divided over the fate of the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States.

Mr. Hastert's comments were the first public hint of an olive branch.

Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he was heartened by the remarks. He said they were a significant shift for the House, which defied President Bush's call for a temporary worker program and passed a border security bill in December that would criminalize illegal immigrants.

Since then, Mr. Bush and business groups have urged Republicans to support a temporary worker program to help fulfill the economy's needs for labor.

"I'm very pleased that Speaker Hastert has demonstrated flexibility on that issue," said Mr. Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican. "It is a recognition that our economy is in need of some immigrant workers."

Mr. Specter said he was prepared to support a compromise that would not provide a path to citizenship for all illegal immigrants in an effort "to present an even more balanced approach."

On Monday, before his committee voted, Mr. Specter proposed a compromise that would require illegal immigrants to return home briefly after spending six more years in this country. They could then participate in a temporary worker program or move toward citizenship if they are highly skilled, hold supervisory positions or have a close relative who is a citizen or permanent resident.

Mr. Specter and his committee ultimately voted for the legislation that would grant all illegal immigrants the possibility of citizenship.

    Hastert Hints at Compromise on Immigration Bill, NYT, 30.3.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/30/politics/30immig.html

House Approves $4.2 Billion in Aid Sought by Louisiana

March 17, 2006
The New York Times
By LESLIE EATON

It took weeks of crunching data, crossing fingers and lobbying in Washington. But Louisiana officials and the Bush administration succeeded yesterday in persuading the House to approve $4.2 billion in hurricane relief that state officials say is crucial to their effort to rebuild houses and apartments ruined by last year's storms.

The House did not require that all this money be spent in Louisiana, as the state's delegation and the White House had urged, leaving state officials concerned that some of the money might be claimed by Mississippi or Texas.

But before voting 348 to 71 to spend the money, the House beat back continuing efforts by conservative Republicans to eliminate all of the $19 billion of hurricane spending from the $92 billion emergency supplemental spending bill, which also includes large sums to pay for the war in Iraq. These lawmakers, trying to curb government spending, have also raised concerns that the hurricane money is not being spent wisely.

Though the measure still faces critics in the Senate, its passage in the House was a deep relief for Louisiana officials, who have struggled to come up with a housing plan after the White House rejected a proposal earlier this year to create a special agency to buy up flooded properties and sell them to developers.

"I want to thank the country for its generosity, in that these funds will let these people go back to work," said Representative Bobby Jindal, Republican of Louisiana, whose district includes suburbs west and north of New Orleans.

Housing remains in short supply in Louisiana, and state officials say that makes it virtually impossible for the local economy to recover.

Mr. Jindal said he expected the money to be reserved for Louisiana, even though that is not required in the version of the bill passed by the House.

The money approved by the House yesterday is in the form of community development block grants, which the state can use to buy out properties that cannot be safely rebuilt, as well as to restore houses and rental units. Under the plan for the money proposed by Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco of Louisiana, homeowners could receive up to $150,000, while owners of rental properties would be eligible for loans and other assistance.

Donald E. Powell, whom the Bush administration appointed to oversee the reconstruction of the Gulf Coast, supported the plan and visited Capitol Hill to explain it, a spokeswoman said in an e-mail message.

Mr. Powell and Sean Reilly, a member of the Louisiana Recovery Authority who also met with House staff members earlier this week, emphasized that the $4.2 billion request was based on a rigorous analysis of the state's losses.

"Every single dollar ties back to a destroyed house or a destroyed piece of critical infrastructure," Mr. Reilly said in an interview.

This approach contrasts with the state's early estimates of its needs, which critics on Capitol Hill said were overblown and unsubstantiated.

Louisiana will soon send another lobbying contingent to the Senate, which is not expected to vote on the bill until May, Mr. Reilly said.

"It gives us more time to make our case," he added, "but the bad news is, every delay means a delay in recovery. People are really hurting."

In the meantime, senators from Texas and Mississippi are likely to try to get more hurricane-relief money for their states, either by increasing the appropriation or by ensuring that they get some part of the housing money approved yesterday.

Texas has estimated that it needs $2 billion in hurricane aid, and a spokesman for Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Republican of Texas, said yesterday that she was committed to taking as much money as she could to her state.

Some members of the Louisiana delegation expressed disappointment that the $4.2 billion was not explicitly reserved for their state, which they say suffered disproportionately from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

"This has put us in a competition for the pittance, the few dollars," said Representative Charlie Melancon, Democrat of Louisiana, whose district includes St. Bernard Parish, which was deeply flooded after Hurricane Katrina.

Mr. Melancon said he was also frustrated that the House had not approved an amendment he sponsored to increase the $1.46 billion in the bill to rebuild New Orleans levees.

"They're hoping we disappear off the radar screen," Mr. Melancon said of his colleagues. "People who wear Christ on their sleeves and vote against helping people are the biggest hypocrites."

    House Approves $4.2 Billion in Aid Sought by Louisiana, NYT, 17.3.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/17/politics/17aid.html

House approves $91.9 bln for wars, Gulf Coast

Thu Mar 16, 2006 8:45 PM ET
Reuters
By Vicki Allen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday easily approved $91.9 billion that President George W. Bush sought for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and for Gulf Coast hurricane relief, even as lawmakers voiced doubts about the efforts.

The emergency spending bill also contained language barring a state-owned Arab company, Dubai Ports World, from managing American ports, although the company has pledged to pull out of the deal the administration initially approved.

The House passed its bill by 348-71, although lawmakers fretted about the soaring costs of the Iraq war and Gulf Coast recovery. The Senate's version of the bill has not yet cleared its Appropriations Committee.

The bill included $67 billion for military operations, bringing the wars' costs so far to nearly $400 billion; $19 billion for the Gulf Coast, bringing that to about $90 billion, and $4.1 billion in emergency foreign aid.

Conservative Republicans tried to strip the hurricane funds, saying the spending needed more scrutiny and the administration did not appear to have a viable recovery plan.

"Human tragedy is not an unlimited check drawn upon the checkbook of the federal taxpayer," said Rep. Jeb Hensarling, a Texas Republican. That was defeated easily as other lawmakers said it would hamper the recovery effort.

Republicans barely defeated a push by Democrats to add $1.23 billion to tighten security at U.S. ports and for other homeland security initiatives they said Bush had slighted.

"The American people expect us to do more than talk about inadequate port security and disaster preparedness," said Rep. Martin Sabo, a Minnesota Democrat. Kentucky Republican Rep. Hal Rogers called the amendment "absolute overkill."

In Wednesday's action on this bill, the House overwhelmingly went on record to rebuke a deal to turn over management of six U.S. ports to an Arab-state owned company, which lawmakers said would compromise U.S. security. Dubai Ports World withdrew in the political firestorm.

Lawmakers on Thursday also rejected a Democratic amendment that targeted Halliburton by seeking to bar new contracts with companies that defense auditors say have overcharged the government by $100 million or more for services in Iraq.

Defense auditors have disputed hundreds of millions of dollars of the company's charges for fuel and other goods and services. The oil services giant was led by Dick Cheney before he became vice president in 2001.

Rep. Bill Young, a Florida Republican who chairs the Appropriations defense subcommittee, said he was "tempted to accept the amendment," but worried it could interrupt the flow of food, transportation and other services the company supplies to U.S. forces.

The House also rejected Bush's demand to target all $4.2 billion in community development grants to flood mitigation in Louisiana, but instead made them available throughout the hurricane-stricken Gulf Coast region.

The House voted to boost funds for peacekeeping in the Darfur region of Sudan by $50 million, bringing those emergency funds in the bill to about $300 million. It also approved $26 million for three new Marine Patrol aircraft for drug interdiction efforts in Colombia.

    House approves $91.9 bln for wars, Gulf Coast, R, 16.3.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyID=2006-03-17T014509Z_01_N1660854_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ-USA-SPENDING.xml

House panel clears emergency war funds

Thu Mar 9, 2006 12:00 AM ET
Reuters
By Vicki Allen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A House of Representatives committee on Wednesday rejected the Bush administration's new initiative to promote democracy in Iran as it approved $71 billion in emergency funds mostly to finance the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Republican-led House Appropriations Committee granted the administration almost all of the $67 billion it wanted for the wars, and ordered that some $1.3 billion be used to upgrade armor on Army vehicles after the Pentagon was criticized for skimping on those protections for troops in Iraq.

Lawmakers also took aim at several of President George W. Bush's plans for $4.1 billion in emergency foreign aid.

The emergency spending package which totaled $91 billion also included $19.1 billion in relief for the hurricane-battered U.S. Gulf Coast.

The committee cut most of the $75 million Bush sought for new pro-democracy efforts in Iran, calling the plan announced with fanfare last month poorly justified. The committee instead funded existing pro-democracy programs for the country now locked in an international standoff over its nuclear program.

Lawmakers also slashed most of the $62 million in aid the administration wanted for Afghanistan because the State Department has not declared that the Kabul government is fully cooperating with efforts to fight the country's poppy trade, which yields most of the world's heroin.

At Democrats' urging, the committee added $50 million in aid to Liberia, on top of $128 million already approved, to show support for the new president of the war-torn country, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Africa's first elected woman leader.

Lawmakers also agreed to put into law a block on aid to the Palestinian Authority unless the new government being formed by the militant group Hamas renounces terrorism and recognizes Israel's right to exist, backing Bush's stance. The amendment would not impede humanitarian relief to the Palestinian people, lawmakers said.

The war funds for the Pentagon would come on top of the $320 billion the White House budget office said has been allocated so far, and costs are expected to climb to around $500 billion by next year with the bulk going to Iraq.

"I believe in the end DOD (Department of Defense) will get virtually everything it asks for. It almost always does," said Rep. David Obey of Wisconsin, the committee's top Democrat and a critic of Bush's Iraq policies.

The committee's evening meeting was interrupted twice by Iraq war protesters, who were forcibly removed from the room.

PORTS DEAL AMENDMENT

The full House was scheduled to vote on the spending package next week, but the bill could get caught in a showdown with Bush over an amendment to block a Dubai company's bid to manage six U.S. ports, a deal approved by the administration.

Shrugging off Bush's veto threat, the committee voted overwhelmingly to include the ports measure on the must-pass spending bill.

The Senate is starting work on its version of the spending package, with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice slated to make their pitch for the funds to its Appropriations Committee on Thursday.

The House committee approved almost everything the Pentagon wanted in its $67 billion plan.

But in the wake of complaints that the Pentagon has been slow to field fully armored vehicles in Iraq, the committee ordered that $850 million be used to upgrade armor on Army combat vehicles and that those be made available to National Guard forces. It also more than doubled funds the Pentagon sought for newer, safer Humvees, adding $480 million.

The committee provided $4.85 billion the Pentagon sought to train and equip Iraq's and Afghanistan's own security forces, but rejected the $1 billion it wanted for various construction projects related to force training.

    House panel clears emergency war funds, R, 9.3.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyID=2006-03-09T050011Z_01_N08160438_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ-SPENDING.xml

House panel votes to block ports deal

Wed Mar 8, 2006 11:24 PM ET
Reuters
By Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. House of Representatives committee on Wednesday voted overwhelmingly to block an Arab-owned company from managing American ports, defying President George W. Bush who has vigorously supported the deal.

By a vote of 62-2, the House Appropriations Committee approved a measure to stop the state-owned United Arab Emirates company Dubai Ports World from managing six U.S. ports.

A vote by the full House could come next week on the legislation, which was attached to a must-do bill providing more emergency funds for the war in Iraq and for rebuilding Southern states hit by hurricanes last year.

Earlier on Wednesday, White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters in New Orleans, where Bush was again assessing Hurricane Katrina rebuilding efforts, "the president's position has not changed" on the fight over the Dubai company's role in managing U.S. ports.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said the administration was "actively soliciting the views of members of Congress, as well as state and local officials" as part of a 45-day review of the deal.

Bush enjoys the support of at least one key Republican, Thad Cochran of Mississippi, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee and will shepherd the emergency spending bill through the Senate.

"I support him (Bush) in upholding the contract with Dubai Ports World," Cochran said, adding he was convinced the company's "management techniques will improve the efficiency of the ports and will not jeopardize national security."

The House committee's vote on Wednesday was a reaction reacting to what members said was broad opposition to the deal by constituents. House Majority Leader John Boehner on Tuesday called it a "very hot political potato."

On the other side of the Capitol, Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, offered a measure as an amendment to a sweeping Senate lobby-reform bill to block the ports deal.

It was unclear if Schumer's proposal would even come for a vote in the Republican-led Senate where Majority Leader Bill Frist has said he would oppose consideration of any such measure until the 45-day review is done.

Since word of the deal broke last month, lawmakers have complained about security risks if ports management was turned over to firms from countries that in the past were sympathetic to terrorist activities.

"We want to make sure the security of our ports is in America's hands," said House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis, a California Republican. Lewis' amendment did not try to force broader controls on foreign investment in U.S. facilities, as some lawmakers have suggested.

Lewis' amendment targets just the Dubai ports deal by blocking use of federal funds to implement it and barring the acquisition of leases or contracts of British-based P&O by Dubai Ports World. The Arab company's takeover of the global assets of P&O -- including ports such as New York and New Jersey -- sparked the controversy.

One of the committee members arguing against blocking the port deal was Rep. James Moran, a Virginia Democrat, who said, "Dubai is a staunchly pro-American, pro-business nation whose objectives are entirely the opposite of Osama bin Laden."

Moran, like Bush, said that working with Middle East companies such as Dubai Ports World would further American goals of modernizing and Westernizing the Arab world.

The other committee opponent, Rep. Jim Kolbe, an Arizona Republican, argued, "American ports are going to be just as insecure after we pass this amendment as they were before."

Over the past year or so, Democrats have accused Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress of seriously underfunding U.S. port security efforts, including checking ship containers for possible weapons of mass destruction.

The Bush administration says concerns about the deal are unwarranted and the United Arab Emirates has been a valuable ally in fighting terrorism after the September 11 attacks.

Management of the U.S. ports was included in a $6.85 billion deal in which Dubai Ports World would take over the global assets of Britain-based port operating company P&O.

(Additional reporting by Vicki Allen, Matt Spetalnick and Tabassum Zakaria)

    House panel votes to block ports deal, R, 8.3.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=newsOne&storyID=2006-03-09T042354Z_01_N08257508_RTRUKOC_0_US-BUSH-PORTS.xml

Patriot Act Revisions Pass House, Sending Measure to President

March 8, 2006
The New York Times
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, March 7 — The House passed revisions to the broad antiterrorism law known as the USA Patriot Act on Tuesday, clearing the way for President Bush to sign legislation making permanent most of the major provisions of the original 2001 law.

The bill passed, 280 to 138, with just two more votes than needed under special rules requiring a two-thirds majority. The vote was the last step in a tortuous journey through Congress. The House action approved amendments to a bill revising the original act; the revised bill passed the House last year and was adopted last week by the Senate after having been bottled up there for months.

The vote on Tuesday was an important victory for Mr. Bush, who has maintained that the act is an essential component in fighting terrorism. The major provisions of the original bill had been set to expire on March 16. Mr. Bush is expected to sign the revised version before then.

Passed after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Patriot Act greatly expanded the authority to investigate terror suspects. Critics have said, however, that it infringes on personal privacy by allowing investigators access to information like medical and library records.

The measure passed on Tuesday was a product of negotiations between the White House and four Senate Republicans and adds some judicial oversight. For instance, it prevents the F.B.I. from demanding the names of lawyers consulted by people who receive secret government requests for information, and it would prevent most libraries from being subject to such requests.

Critics say those safeguards do not go far enough. But Representative F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., the Wisconsin Republican who is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, praised the compromise and said opponents had relied on "exaggeration and hyperbole" to challenge it.

"Intense Congressional and public scrutiny has not produced a single substantiated claim that the Patriot Act has been misused to violate Americans' civil liberties," Mr. Sensenbrenner said.

    Patriot Act Revisions Pass House, Sending Measure to President, NYT, 8.3.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/08/politics/08patriot.html

G.O.P. Leaders Vowing to Block Ports Agreement

March 8, 2006
The New York Times
By CARL HULSE

WASHINGTON, March 7 — Defying President Bush, House Republican leaders said Tuesday that they would take immediate steps to scuttle a deal giving a Dubai company control of some major seaport operations without awaiting the outcome of a 45-day review of potential security risks.

Representative Jerry Lewis, the California Republican who is chairman of the Appropriations Committee, said he would use a committee hearing on Wednesday to add a provision preventing the deal from moving forward.

Mr. Lewis said he would add the provision to an essential emergency spending measure that provides money for the war in Iraq and for Hurricane Katrina recovery. "It is my intention to lay the foundation to block the deal," he said.

"Our public is very concerned about a foreign country, in this case specifically a foreign country from the Middle East, having a major role in our ports," Mr. Lewis said.

The effort was endorsed by Speaker J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois, who has rarely broken with Mr. Bush.

After a meeting of House Republican leaders, Ron Bonjean, a spokesman for Mr. Hastert, said, "We do not believe the United States should allow a government-owned company to operate American ports."

The House effort marked a remarkable public breach with the White House after years of working in tandem or quietly settling any differences behind closed doors. It demonstrated that the administration's effort to dampen opposition by negotiating a new security review and emphasizing Dubai's strategic value as an asset was failing.

A White House spokeswoman, Dana Perino, said the administration would continue to work with Congress to try to resolve the matter, giving the company, DP World, the right to operate some shipping terminals at Eastern ports.

"There are a lot of conversations that are ongoing between the company and Congress and the administration and Congress," Ms. Perino said. "The company reached an agreement to ask for a 45-day investigation, and that process is going to get under way. The conversations are going to continue to take place, and we will go forward from there."

Mr. Bush has threatened to veto any legislative effort to overturn the port deal, but lawmakers would make that option more difficult by using must-pass legislation that provides about $91 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as hurricane recovery money. The bill is on a fast track and could reach the House floor next week.

Mr. Lewis and senior aides said that the exact wording of the port provision was still being drafted, but that its intention would be to bar DP World.

Mr. Lewis acknowledged that the House action would lead to negotiations with the Senate, where some senior Republicans have been more supportive of the deal but others in both parties have strenuously resisted.

The decision by House Republicans to act was infused with election year political calculations. Republican members have been bombarded with protests from constituents alarmed at the proposal, and the agreement for a 45-day review has done little to slow the outpouring.

"This is a very big political problem," Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House majority leader, said Tuesday.

"It is pretty clear to me," Mr. Boehner said, "that the House is going to speak on this sooner rather than later."

Several Republicans also said they saw little alternative but to act or face the prospect of Democrats' taking the initiative, potentially cutting into a Republican political advantage on national security issues.

Democrats said they were surprised at how quickly Republicans were moving to separate themselves from Mr. Bush.

"What this shows is that the Republican leadership realized this cannot be swept under the rug and that time, if anything, will make things worse," said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, a strong critic of the port proposal. "The only question is, 'Is the Republican leadership acting with the quiet acquiescence of the White House or over their objections?' I think it is the former."

An outright ban on the deal by Congress would go beyond some of the existing legislative proposals that would grant lawmakers the ability to reject the deal after the security review.

But in another sign of deep Republican unrest, Representative Duncan Hunter, the California Republican who is chairman of the Armed Services Committee, proposed a broader bill on Tuesday that would require foreign companies to divest ownership of any domestic facilities deemed critical to national security through a review by the Pentagon and the Homeland Security Department.

In spite of the growing Congressional opposition, the chairman of DP World said Tuesday in a television interview that he still expected the company, which is state owned, to triumph and take over the terminal operations.

The chairman, Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, said on the CNN program "Situation Room" that he attributed much of the opposition to a misunderstanding. The company would show during the review that it placed great emphasis on security, he said.

"This 45 days that we have volunteered for review is a good chance for all of us, I think," he said. "And I think by the end of this, they will realize that there is no fear, no worry about security."

    G.O.P. Leaders Vowing to Block Ports Agreement, NYT, 8.3.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/08/politics/08ports.html?hp&ex=1141880400&en=e797444bb411c396&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Ex-Congressman Gets 8-Year Term in Bribery Case

March 4, 2006
The New York Times
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD

SAN DIEGO, March 3 — After acknowledging that he had "made a very wrong turn," former Representative Randy Cunningham was sentenced in federal court here on Friday to eight years and four months in prison for taking $2.4 million in bribes from military contractors in return for smoothing the way for government contracts.

The government, which called the misconduct unprecedented for its "depth, breadth and length," said the sentence was the longest ever handed down for a member or former member of Congress in a federal corruption case.

In a halting, cracking voice before journalists, friends, political associates and others, Mr. Cunningham, 64, stood before the judge and largely read from a statement as he pleaded for leniency and, turning to prosecutors, apologized for his crime.

"I rationalized decisions I knew were wrong," said Mr. Cunningham, a Naval pilot ace in the Vietnam War and "Top Gun" instructor who parlayed those experiences into a powerful political career. "Before there must be forgiveness, there must be redemption. No man has ever been more sorry."

Judge Larry Alan Burns of Federal District Court said the former congressman's conduct, which prosecutors said included keeping a "bribe menu" with the prices of influence, undermined faith in government and wasted tax dollars. In addition to some cash payments, Mr. Cunningham bargained for gifts like a sport utility vehicle, a Tiffany statue, Bijar rugs and candelabras.

Judge Burns said Mr. Cunningham, an eight-term Republican from Rancho Santa Fe who represented the northern suburbs of San Diego, could have retired to business long ago if he wanted to make copious money but instead engaged in bid rigging and badgering officials and other witnesses to help cover his tracks.

"You made a wrong turn and continued for three to five years," Judge Burns said, referring to what prosecutors documented as the period of misconduct. "I wonder how far you would have gone.

"You undermined the opportunity and option for honest politicians to do a good job."

The judge rejected Mr. Cunningham's request to delay his arrival in prison so he could visit his 91-year-old mother, saying Mr. Cunningham had had months to say his goodbyes.

Judge Burns, in recognition of what Mr. Cunningham's lawyers have described as his failing health, recommended sending him first to a prison medical center for evaluation. He also voiced admiration for Mr. Cunningham's war heroism.

Mr. Cunningham's lawyers had asked the judge for a six-year sentence, citing his military service and what they called health so failing that he may have seven years to live. Prosecutors urged the judge to abide by the 10-year sentence that Mr. Cunningham had agreed to after he pleaded guilty in November and resigned from Congress. Judge Burns noted that the sentence could be reduced by 15 months if Mr. Cunningham behaved well in prison.

Prosecutors said they might also seek a reduction if they are satisfied that he was cooperating with their investigation.

Mr. Cunningham was ordered to pay $1,804,031.50 in restitution for back taxes, penalties and interest owed to the government and was ordered to forfeit an additional $1,851,508, based on cash he received in his crimes.

The extent of corruption stunned his constituents and Republican colleagues on Capitol Hill and, along with the scandal centering on the lobbyist Jack Abramoff, sparked calls to change lobbying rules. The two investigations and others involving lawmakers and senior aides have emerged as major election themes.

Given Mr. Cunningham's focus on funneling federal money to specific projects in exchange for lobbyists' payoffs, his case put particular scrutiny on "earmarking," using measures to direct money to favored projects.

Proposals are circulating in the House and Senate to require more disclosure of the projects and their sponsors and to open opportunities to strip the earmarks slipped into bills at the last minute.

In the weeks leading up to the sentencing, sharper details of Mr. Cunningham's crimes emerged. In court papers, the government said he had behaved like an old ward boss, sketching out a "bribe menu" on a note card with the Congressional seal. One column offered $16 million in contracts in exchange for the title to a boat the contractor had bought for $140,000. The card further detailed how much more contract work could be bought for every additional $50,000 paid to Mr. Cunningham.

The papers document lavish travel on chartered jets paid by contractors with catered meals of lobster, wine and "other extravagances." Bribers put him up at top-of-the-line resorts like the Royal Hawaiian on Oahu, Hawaii and in the Greenbriar Resort in West Virginia.

Mr. Cunningham, the government said, "bullied and hectored" officials standing in his way and tampered with witnesses to have them play down or distort his misdeeds.

The principal co-conspirator in the case, Mitchell Wade, a military contractor who is the founder and former president of MZM Inc. in Washington, pleaded guilty last week in federal court to several charges, including giving Mr. Cunningham $1 million in bribes.

Mr. Cunningham's lawyers in court filings, including a psychiatric report, portrayed his life as disintegrating, saying ailments had left him with perhaps seven years to live.

The psychiatric report, by Dr. Saul J. Faerstein of Beverly Hills, Calif., said Mr. Cunningham suffered depression and suicidal thoughts, in addition to a history of prostate cancer and other ailments.

Searching for an explanation for Mr. Cunningham's conduct, Dr. Faerstein said: "Society needs heroes and wants them to be superheroes. The normal sense of mortality is suppressed in order to fulfill this role."

After the sentencing, two marshals approached Mr. Cunningham and escorted him without handcuffs from the courtroom, one of them guiding him by the waist, patting him on the back and whispering in his ear. Mr. Cunningham will spend perhaps a week or so in a jail across the street before moving to prison, said an assistant United States attorney, Phillip L. B. Halpern, who helped prosecute the case.

On March 23, the government plans to auction some of the antiques that Mr. Cunningham forfeited after pleading guilty, including French armoires, candlesticks, nightstands and a glass buffet.

    Ex-Congressman Gets 8-Year Term in Bribery Case, NYT, 4.3.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/04/politics/04cunningham.html?hp&ex=1141534800&en=ccd9daf48307fc31&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Accord in House to Hold Inquiry on Surveillance

February 17, 2006
The New York Times
By ERIC LICHTBLAU and SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, Feb. 16 — Leaders of the House Intelligence Committee said Thursday that they had agreed to open a Congressional inquiry prompted by the Bush administration's domestic surveillance program. But a dispute immediately broke out among committee Republicans over the scope of the inquiry.

Representative Heather A. Wilson, the New Mexico Republican and committee member who called last week for the investigation, said the review "will have multiple avenues, because we want to completely understand the program and move forward."

But an aide to Representative Peter Hoekstra, the Michigan Republican who leads the committee, said the inquiry would be much more limited in scope, focusing on whether federal surveillance laws needed to be changed and not on the eavesdropping program itself.

The agreement to conduct an inquiry came as the Senate Intelligence Committee put off a vote on conducting its own investigation after the White House, reversing course, agreed to open discussions about changing federal surveillance law. Senate Democrats accused Republicans of bowing to White House pressure.

For weeks, the Bush administration has been strongly resisting calls from Democrats and some Republicans for a full review into the National Security Agency's surveillance program, saying such inquiries are unnecessary and risked disclosing national security information that could help Al Qaeda.

Elsewhere on Thursday, a federal judge ordered the administration to begin turning over internal documents on the surveillance program, the Justice Department balked at having John Ashcroft, the former attorney general, and other former department officials testify about it before Congress, and lawyers for a Kentucky man prepared to bring a federal civil rights lawsuit on Friday against President Bush to have the surveillance declared illegal and unconstitutional.

The surveillance, authorized in secret by President Bush soon after the Sept. 11 attacks, has allowed the N.S.A. to eavesdrop on the international phone and e-mail communications of hundreds and perhaps thousands of people within the United States without warrants when the authorities suspect that they might have links to terrorists.

Mr. Hoekstra has been one of the staunchest defenders of the program. But in discussions this week with other Republican and Democratic leaders of the committee, he agreed to have the committee open the inquiry, officials said, after signs that some Republicans on the panel had growing concerns about the operation.

Ms. Wilson said the review would include closed-door briefings by intelligence officials about the operational details of the program, a review of its legality and discussion about whether changes are needed in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, which bans eavesdropping in intelligence investigations without a court order.

While the administration agreed under pressure last week to provide limited operational details to the House and Senate intelligence committees, Ms. Wilson said she wanted more information and remained uncertain whether the N.S.A. had the needed safeguards in place to protect against civil rights abuses against Americans.

But Jamal Ware, a spokesman for Mr. Hoekstra, said: "This is not an inquiry into the program. It's a comprehensive review of the FISA statute. " He said Mr. Hoekstra "wants to set up a process to move forward and look at the entire statute and ways to modernize it."

But aides in two other Congressional offices, speaking only on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, said their understanding of the agreement was that the inquiry would focus in large part on operational details of the surveillance program.

Meanwhile, in the Senate, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, said the White House had agreed in principle to negotiate on legislation that would give Congress authority to oversee the eavesdropping.

Mr. Roberts used the deal to push off a vote on a plan by Democrats to conduct a full-scale investigation of the program. The senior Democrat on the panel, Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, emerged from a closed-door committee meeting fuming and accused Republicans of caving to White House pressure.

"It is apparent to me that the White House has applied heavy pressure in recent weeks to prevent the committee from doing its job," Mr. Rockefeller said. "Although some members of this committee indicate they need more time to decide on what action to take, I believe this is another stalling tactic."

In a sign of the bitter partisan split the potential inquiry has engendered, the Senate panel met behind closed doors for nearly two hours before voting, along party lines, simply to adjourn. Mr. Roberts said that if there was no detailed agreement with the White House by the time of the next committee meeting, on March 7, the panel could take up the issue of an inquiry then.

"The administration is now committed to legislation and has agreed to brief more Intelligence Committee members on the nature of the surveillance program," Mr. Roberts said, adding that "the administration has come a long way in the last month."

Mr. Roberts and other Republicans say they are wary of an investigation into the secret program because providing information to Congress might result in leaks. But Democrats say there is no way to pass legislation involving the program until they have more information about it.

"I don't think it's possible for Congress to produce responsible bipartisan legislation dealing with a program that Congress knows very little about," Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, said.

Until now, Mr. Bush has steadfastly resisted the idea of new legislation, arguing that he has the inherent authority to order the wiretaps and that Congress also gave him the power to do so when it authorized him to use military force after the Sept. 11 attacks. But the White House is under increasing pressure from Republicans who are skeptical of that assertion.

Democrats and a growing number of Republicans say the eavesdropping violates the surveillance act, which when it was passed in 1978 created a special intelligence court to oversee domestic wiretapping. They have called for the law to be revamped. On Thursday, Mr. Roberts talked about possible changes in the act without saying what they might be.

The White House is unlikely to agree to bring the wiretapping under the scope of the FISA court, as most Democrats and some Republicans want. Instead, the administration appears interested in a proposal by Senator Mike DeWine, Republican of Ohio, that would explicitly authorize the wiretapping, without court warrants, but create small Congressional subcommittees to oversee it.

Mr. DeWine said that Harriet E. Miers, the White House counsel, called him Wednesday, on the eve of the expected Intelligence Committee vote, to talk about his legislation, and the White House indicated some support for it.

But the DeWine proposal is unlikely to satisfy other critics of the program, including some Republicans, who say it must be brought within the scope of the intelligence court. Among them is Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania and the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, who is circulating legislation that would require the court to pass judgment on whether the wiretapping is constitutional.

"Unless they're prepared to have a determination on constitutionality as to their programs, window dressing oversight will not be sufficient," Mr. Specter said.

    Accord in House to Hold Inquiry on Surveillance, NYT, 17.2.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/17/politics/17nsa.html?ei=5094&en=36843e33d850eee1&hp=&ex=1140238800&adxnnl=1&partner=homepage&adxnnlx=1140182387-Y0Ybnp5PG+LNgRoyA4kVPw

News Analysis

A Cry of Concern by Republicans at Voter Unease

February 3, 2006
The New York Times
By ADAM NAGOURNEY

WASHINGTON, Feb. 2 — The surprise election of Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio as House majority leader was a cry of concern by an entrenched Republican majority, acutely worried that voter unease about corruption and partisan excesses could threaten its control of Congress this November.

Mr. Boehner packaged himself as the reform candidate, methodically distancing himself from Representative Tom DeLay, the hard-driving former majority leader identified with both ethics investigations and a searingly partisan manner. His victory, following the restrained and politically unadventurous State of the Union speech on Tuesday night by President Bush, left the impression of a party on the defensive as it surveys the inhospitable electoral terrain.

White House officials have grown increasingly anxious about the prospect that Democrats could regain control of the House this November, even as they have become less worried about holding on to the Senate. Their concern is particularly pointed because if Republicans lose control of either house of Congress, it is difficult to see what Mr. Bush could accomplish in his last two years in office.

After 12 years of Republican control of the House, the White House views House Republicans as vulnerable to precisely the wave of voter discontent that gave them control of the House in the first place in 1994.

"If they are not worried about next November, they are whistling past the graveyard," said Joe Gaylord, a Republican consultant who helped engineer that 1994 Republican sweep that led to the election of Newt Gingrich as the Republican speaker.

Mr. Gaylord said he did not think it would be enough for Republicans to reject someone closely identified with Mr. DeLay. To get through to voters, he suggested, the new leadership must change the way it does business after years of, for example, pushing legislation through on party-line votes.

"This offers them an opportunity to start off in a new direction," he said. "We've gotten former members off the floor and out of the gym. But for Congress to look better in the eyes of voters, they have to turn a new page. There actually has to be a difference. They have to be fairer: conference committees with Republicans and Democrats on them."

Rich Galen, a Republican consultant, said he was not convinced that corruption would hurt his party in the Congressional elections, but he said he had no doubt that had been critical to Mr. Boehner's success by offering a contrast to Mr. Blunt, who is married to a tobacco lobbyist. "It makes a difference: I think Blunt's background — his marriage — really counted," Mr. Galen said

Before a closed-session vote that stunned Republicans here, Democrats were practically exuberant at the prospect that Representative Roy Blunt, a close ally of Mr. DeLay, would succeed Mr. DeLay as majority leader.

"The election of Roy Blunt, which seems likely, is going to give us an enormous opportunity," Howard Dean, the Democratic Party chairman, said in interview before the vote.

Whether the election of Mr. Boehner — or, to cast it more precisely, the rejection of Mr. Blunt — is going to be change the story line is an open question.

Despite his close ties to lobbyists, Mr. Boehner went to great lengths to present himself as a reform candidate, and he was not as close to Mr. DeLay or to Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist at the center of the influence-peddling investigation that has Congressional Republicans so worried, as Mr. Blunt.

But Mr. Boehner was an active member of the lobbying-governing culture that has taken hold here, and Democrats were quick to try to pierce his claim of virtue with e-mailed newspaper articles detailing his ties to lobbyists. What is more, as several Republicans argued on Thursday, a party that had come into office as fresh-faced reformers under Mr. Gingrich has now, after 12 years, become the face of the establishment; at the same time, the Democratic minority is intent on presenting itself to the public much the way Mr. Gingrich's Republicans did.

Although he has worked across the aisle on issues like education, Mr. Boehner is unlikely to take House Republicans in a notably different direction than his predecessors when it comes to the big issues facing Congress this year, like tax cuts, spending restraint and the war in Iraq. He is likely to be as much of an ally to Mr. Bush as Mr. Blunt would have been, even if he is not as personally close to White House officials.

At the least, the best thing he can do for the White House is to hold together the increasingly fractious and nervous House Republican conference, which has had difficulty passing some tax and budget legislation in particular.

Still, Mr. Boehner is a politically more appealing public figure than the sometimes undemonstrative Mr. Blunt, and the combative Mr. DeLay, a consideration for any Republicans who might be concerned about giving Democrats a polarizing figure to run against.

"Boehner is not as pugnacious as DeLay by any stretch of the imagination," Mr. Galen said. "He is little bit harder to demonize because of his manner."

And Mr. Boehner is known, in a take-no-prisoners leadership, for being more willing to work with Democrats. At a time when Republicans are concerned that voters are blaming them for the bitter partisan atmosphere that has gripped this city since they took power — Mr. Bush peppered his speech on Tuesday with pleas for bipartisanship — a majority leader who is deliberately not polarizing may prove a welcome change for Republicans as they head into this difficult year.

    A Cry of Concern by Republicans at Voter Unease, NYT, 3.2.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/03/politics/03assess.html?hp&ex=1139029200&en=1ec60a5bf6a4c9b3&ei=5094&partner=homepage

House Approves Budget Cutbacks of $39.5 Billion

February 2, 2006
The New York Times
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, Feb. 1 — House Republicans eked out a victory on a $39.5 billion budget-cutting package on Wednesday, with a handful of skittish Republicans switching their votes at the last minute in opposition to reductions in spending on health and education programs.

The vote helped President Bush deliver on his promise to rein in federal spending while underscoring deep anxiety within his party over cutting social welfare programs in an election year.

The measure represents the first major effort by lawmakers since 1997 to cut the growth of so-called entitlement programs, including student loans, crop subsidies and Medicaid, in which spending is determined by eligibility criteria.

It passed 216 to 214, with 13 Republicans voting against. The Senate, with Vice President Dick Cheney casting the decisive vote, approved the spending cuts in December. The bill now goes to the White House for Mr. Bush's signature.

Coming on the heels of the State of the Union address, the vote was a critical test of Mr. Bush's ability to hold his fractured party together.

The House also voted Wednesday to extend the broad antiterrorism bill known as the USA Patriot Act until March 10, giving House and Senate negotiators time to settle differences on another of Mr. Bush's priorities, a measure to revamp the act and make it permanent.

The spending bill, which covers a five-year period ending in 2010, will achieve savings of $6.4 billion in Medicare, the health care program for the elderly, through a variety of changes that include higher premiums for all beneficiaries, with steeper increases for the more affluent and a freeze in payments to home health care providers.

In the Medicaid health care program for the poor and disabled, $4.8 billion will be saved in part by increasing co-payments and reducing payments for prescription drugs.

Mr. Bush said that he looked forward to signing the legislation and that the budget proposal he would send to Congress on Monday "will continue to build on the spending restraint we have achieved."

After years of cutting into social programs, the budget vote spotlighted how difficult it will be for Mr. Bush to press ahead with even deeper cuts this year. While the bill has strong appeal to fiscal conservatives who are Mr. Bush's Republican base, it makes party moderates nervous — so much so that four switched their votes to oppose the bill after intensive lobbying from advocacy groups over the holiday break.

Determined to see the measure pass even as they knew it would make life tough for party members, Republican leaders waged their own intense lobbying campaign. Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri, the Republican whip and acting majority leader, could be seen on the House floor deep in conversation with his colleagues as the roll was being called, apparently counting votes until the last minute so he could determine which moderates could be released to vote no.

With House leadership elections set for Thursday, Mr. Blunt, the front-runner for majority leader, had a personal stake in the outcome.

"Clearly, if we hadn't won it would be a huge thing," Mr. Blunt said after the vote. "But it's really not about me. It's about the members coming back and taking a very tough vote."

So tough that some moderates who voted in favor of the measure later felt compelled to defend themselves. Among them was Representative Sherwood Boehlert, Republican of New York, who called it "a very agonizing" decision. But Mr. Boehlert, one of three Republicans to vote against a recent tax-cutting bill, said he had become convinced that entitlement programs must be revamped before they gobbled up the entire federal budget.

"The present course is unsustainable," he said. "We can't keep cutting taxes and cutting revenues, while cutting programs to protect the most vulnerable in society."

But conservatives, who pushed hard within their caucus for the cuts, were delighted. Representative Mike Pence, Republican of Indiana, a leader of a group of House conservatives, called the vote "a step toward restoring public confidence in the fiscal integrity of our national legislature."

With the Senate taking up a tax-cutting measure at the same time, Democrats used debate on the measure to sound what will be a major election-year theme: that Republicans are cutting taxes for the rich at the expense of services for the poor.

"A vote for this bill is a vote, literally, to take away from health care from our children so we can give more money to the super-rich," Representative Louise M. Slaughter, Democrat of New York, said.

At a time Congress is consumed by a lobbying scandal, Democrats complained bitterly that the measure had been written without them, with the help of paid representatives from the drug and insurance industries, and then presented for a vote before they had a chance to review it.

"This is a product of special interest lobbying," said Representative John D. Dingell, Democrat of Michigan, "and the stench of special interests hangs over the chamber as we consider it today."

The budget-cutting bill is actually a holdover from last year. It first passed the House just before Christmas in an all-night marathon session. The vote was 212 to 206, with nine Republicans joining 196 Democrats and one independent in opposition. The bill then went to the Senate, which made a few minor changes, forcing the House to reconsider it on returning this week.

Those tweaks, and the resulting delay, gave groups like AARP, which represents retirees, and Americans United, a progressive advocacy group that fought Mr. Bush's plan to revamp Social Security, time to mount an aggressive campaign against the cuts, and they did.

Brad Woodhouse of Americans United, said his group ran more than 300 events nationwide during the Congressional winter recess "to create the type of wave we created against the privatization plan." John Rother, AARP's policy director, said his group had run print advertisements and focused on Congress members in swing districts.

Mr. Rother said AARP objected in particular to a provision in the bill that would temporarily strip Medicaid coverage from elderly nursing home residents if they had given away money in the previous five years. The provision would cover money given to charity, he said, or to a grandchild for tuition; recipients would lose coverage in an amount equal to what they had given, he said, adding that lawmakers were often surprised to learn of the language.

"It's really punitive — inhumane is the other word I would use," he said. "I think a lot of these guys had no idea that was in there when they voted on this." Still, he said it had been difficult to persuade lawmakers to switch their votes. "It's tough for these people to say openly, 'I made a mistake; I didn't know what I was voting on.' "

The four who did were Representatives Rob Simmons of Connecticut, who announced his decision last week, Jim Gerlach of Pennsylvania, John E. Sweeney of New York and Jim Ramstad of Minnesota.

In a statement after the vote, Mr. Gerlach said he was "very concerned about how the legislation reduces funding for mental health and education as well as important health care areas that will ultimately target our nation's most needy citizens."

    House Approves Budget Cutbacks of $39.5 Billion, NYT, 2.2.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/02/politics/02spend.html?hp&ex=1138856400&en=372a767c4201455d&ei=5094&partner=homepage

House votes to extend Patriot Act

Wed Feb 1, 2006 9:51 PM ET
Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With time running out, the House of Representatives agreed on Wednesday to a second brief extension of key provisions of the anti-terrorism USA Patriot Act while lawmakers try to settle differences over civil liberties.

First passed after the September 11 attacks, the act expanded the power of federal authorities on such fronts as wiretaps and secret searches. With a number of provisions set to expire on Friday, the House approved a measure on a voice vote to extend them until March 10.

The Senate was certain to provide its needed concurrence to allow more time to address concerns that the rights of law-abiding Americans are adequately protected, aides said.

The provisions had been initially set to expire on December 31, but Congress and the White House earlier agreed to push back the date until this Friday.

They did so after four Senate Republicans joined Democrats to block an earlier House-passed bill to permanently extend the provisions unless changes were made.

Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho, one of the four Republicans, said he and others had been in discussions with the White House and expected to reach an agreement soon.

"We believe what we're offering is important and does not tie the hands of law enforcement," Craig said, providing no details.

One concern has been over the ability of the government to obtain an individual's private records in a probe of terrorism, even if, critics complain, the individual has no ties to terrorism.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, a Wisconsin Republican, said the bill, which was blocked by the Senate, would provide new safeguards and again called for its passage.

"I believe it is healthy to continue to debate the merits of the Patriot Act and to conduct vigorous congressional oversight ... but it is also imperative that we not play political games with the vital tools our law enforcement and intelligence communities need," Sensenbrenner said.

    House votes to extend Patriot Act, R, 1.2.2006, http://today.reuters.com/News/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-02-02T025050Z_01_N01376042_RTRUKOC_0_US-SECURITY-PATRIOT.xml

Capitol police apologize to activist Sheehan

Wed Feb 1, 2006 9:12 PM ET
Reuters
By Joanne Allen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Capitol Police dropped charges against activist Cindy Sheehan on Wednesday and apologized for arresting her in the House of Representatives chamber shortly before President Bush's State of the Union address.

Sheehan, who became a central figure in the U.S. anti-war movement after her son Casey was killed in the Iraq war, was taken from the Capitol in handcuffs and charged with unlawful conduct after refusing to cover an anti-war slogan on her T-shirt.

The Capitol Police said in a statement that it had reviewed the incident and determined the arrest was unwarranted.

"While officers acted in a manner consistent with the rules of decorum enforced by the department in the House Gallery for years, neither Mrs. Sheehan's manner of dress or initial conduct warranted law enforcement intervention," the statement said.

Capitol Police Chief Terrance Gainer also apologized to the wife of a House Republican who was told to leave the chamber during Bush's speech for wearing a shirt bearing words of support for U.S. troops.

Rep. Bill Young of Florida had condemned the treatment of his wife, Beverly. Young, who chairs the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, said on the House floor his wife was called "a demonstrator and a protester" for doing what Bush had asked of Americans: supporting U.S. soldiers serving in Iraq.

The Capitol Police statement said neither guest should have been confronted about her expressive T-shirt.

"The officers made a good faith, but mistaken, effort to enforce an old unwritten interpretation of the prohibitions about demonstrating in the Capitol. The policy and procedures were too vague," Gainer said. "The failure to adequately prepare the officers is mine."

Sheehan, who won wide attention with an anti-war vigil outside Bush's Texas ranch, was attending the speech as the guest of Rep. Lynn Woolsey, a California Democrat.

In a speech on the House floor, Woolsey said Sheehan wore a shirt that highlighted the number of dead U.S. soldiers in Iraq. "Since when is free speech conditional on whether you agree with the president of the United States?" Woolsey asked.

"How can we claim to be fighting on behalf of freedom around the world, making the world safe for freedom when we are smothering freedom here at home?" she said.

The Capitol Police department said it would ask the U.S. attorney's office not to pursue the unlawful conduct charge against Sheehan. The charge carries a maximum sentence of one year in prison.

Sheehan and other activists were arrested in September for protesting outside the White House without a permit, a misdemeanor that carriers a $50 fine.

    Capitol police apologize to activist Sheehan, R, 1.2.2006, http://today.reuters.com/News/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-02-02T021239Z_01_N01400453_RTRUKOC_0_US-BUSH-SPEECH-SHEEHAN.xml

The Scene

Alito's Presence Is Reminder of Bush's Political Muscles

February 1, 2006
The New York Times
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, Jan. 31—When President Bush entered the House chamber on Tuesday night for his State of the Union address, his latest political trophy — Samuel A. Alito Jr., newly confirmed and sworn in as a justice of the Supreme Court — was on full display, a powerful reminder that Mr. Bush can still flex his muscles on Capitol Hill.

"It's like a prizefighter showing his belt," said Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota.

But the prizefighter has taken more than a few punches in recent months, and so Republicans were especially eager for Mr. Bush to assert himself on issues like the war in Iraq, health care, the economy, jobs and energy independence. As Mr. Thune said, hours before the speech, "He's got to get out there and really lead."

Mr. Bush arrived in the Capitol at a chaotic moment for Congressional Republicans, who are absorbed by the fallout from the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal and consumed with the outcome of leadership elections scheduled for Thursday. They are consumed, as well, with their own political futures in this midterm election year and worried that their fortunes will rise or fall with that of the president.

So the mood on Capitol Hill was palpably different from last year, when Mr. Bush, fresh from his 2004 re-election victory, used his State of the Union speech to propose initiatives to revamp Social Security and the tax code — initiatives that wound up in the legislative dustbin.

Back then, Mr. Bush was talking about how he had political capital and intended to use it. Republicans were exuberant and Democrats down in the dumps. Now the situation has reversed.

"There ain't no capital, " Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., Democrat of Delaware, said. "As a matter of fact, he's coming here to borrow."

Republicans, for their part, had a little less spring in their steps. "We're still exuberant," said Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi. "But we have a little bit more realization that it's tough getting things done in Washington."

The State of the Union address is often as much symbolism as substance. The president — who typically summons members of Congress to the White House — leaves 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, making the short trip to the other end of the street in a gesture of deference to the lawmakers whose help he needs to achieve his legislative goals.

In recent administrations, the speech has also become an occasion for the president to spotlight ordinary people in an effort to put a human face on his domestic and foreign policy priorities. But a Democrat, Representative Lynn Woolsey of California, tried to turn the tables on Mr. Bush on Tuesday by inviting Cindy Sheehan, the antiwar protester whose son died in Iraq and who garnered attention last year by demonstrating outside Mr. Bush's ranch in Texas.

The invitation sent the Capitol into a tizzy, and, as the speech was just beginning, a spokesman for Ms. Woolsey said Capitol police had detained Ms. Sheehan and refused her entry to the chamber. Ms. Woolsey, a staunch opponent of the war and a friend of Ms. Sheehan's, said she did not intend to make Mr. Bush uncomfortable.

"I didn't see this as a political statement at all," she said, adding, "The president invites his guests and members of Congress invite theirs, and I'm proud Cindy is my guest."

But Mr. Bush had a compelling counterpoint: the parents and widow of Dan Clay, a 27-year-old Marine staff sergeant who was among 10 soldiers killed in Falluja when a roadside bomb exploded Dec. 1. The invited guests also included several soldiers, among them a wounded Air Force technical sergeant, Jamie Dana, who later adopted Rex, her bomb-sniffing dog.

Rex was on the guest list, too.

Republicans, who regard national security as the president's greatest strength, welcomed his effort to seize the spotlight in that arena. But with gas prices rising and health care costs spiraling upward, some could not help but sound a bit weary.

"You're dealing with a president who's in his second term," said Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, who said she was most interested in energy independence. She added, "There is some of the newness that has certainly worn off."

    Alito's Presence Is Reminder of Bush's Political Muscles, NYT, 1.2.2006,http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/01/politics/01scene.html

DeLay Ends Bid to Regain Post as G.O.P. Leader

January 8, 2006
The New York Times
By CARL HULSE

WASHINGTON, Jan. 7 - Representative Tom DeLay, under pressure from colleagues and swept into an election-year lobbying scandal, abandoned his effort to remain House majority leader on Saturday. The move touched off a battle for the House Republican leadership in a campaign season tinged by corruption.

In letters sent Saturday to fellow House Republicans and Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, Mr. DeLay said he supported the call for an election of a new leader and was stepping aside to avoid becoming a political liability as Republicans face a determined Democratic challenge to their majority.

"The job of majority leader and the mandate of the Republican majority are too important to be hamstrung, even for a few months, by personal distractions," Mr. DeLay said in the letter to Mr. Hastert, the man he personally picked to take the speaker's job in a previous round of leadership turmoil in 1998. In his letter to the Republican conference, Mr. DeLay said he had "always acted in an ethical manner within the rules of our body and the laws of our land."

Though his allies just hours earlier had suggested Mr. DeLay would resist moves to oust him, his aides said he came to a different conclusion on his own Saturday morning in Texas as he assessed his waning support and the potential damage to House Republicans. He then telephoned Mr. Hastert to deliver his decision, according to a House leadership aide who did not want to be identified discussing private conversations.

Mr. Hastert said Republicans would hold a leadership election after they return for the State of the Union address on Jan. 31. "It is an honorable decision and the right decision for the House Republican conference," he said of Mr. DeLay's announcement. Mr. DeLay acted after a group of House Republicans on Friday began circulating a petition calling for an election to bar him from the post. The move came after the lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a former DeLay ally, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to criminal corruption charges in a case that could also involve other former senior DeLay aides.

Mr. DeLay intends to seek re-election to his seat representing the Houston suburbs and reclaim his position on the Appropriations Committee, but he will no longer wield the power that for years made him one of the most influential Republicans in the capital.

His decision immediately kicked off a potentially divisive fight over who should become the new leader - a chief face of the party as well as the senior floor strategist.

Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri, the No. 3 elected Republican who has been filling in for Mr. DeLay since his September indictment in Texas in a campaign-finance case, began rounding up support by telephone, arguing that his success in pushing through difficult budget and spending legislation in the past few months had proved his abilities and earned him the job permanently.

But Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, a well-liked lawmaker who has served in the leadership before, was expected to announce his own candidacy as early as Sunday.

Others could also throw in their names, including Representatives Mike Pence of Indiana, Mike Rogers of Michigan and Jerry Lewis of California. Should Mr. Blunt prevail in the majority leader's fight, that would create a vacancy for majority whip and lawmakers were also preparing for a potential contest for that post. Mr. Rogers was seen as a possible candidate along with Representatives Eric Cantor of Virginia, the appointed deputy whip, and Zach Wamp of Tennessee. Lawmakers and top aides said there seemed to be no mounting challenge to either Mr. Hastert or Representative Deborah Pryce of Ohio, the chairwoman of the party conference.

A White House spokeswoman, Erin Healy, reading from an official statement, said, "We respect Congressman DeLay's decision to put the interests of the American people, the House of Representatives and the Republican Party first. We look forward to continuing to work with Speaker Hastert and all House Republicans to build upon the important accomplishments we have achieved on behalf of the American people to make America safer and more prosperous."

It was not clear whether Bush administration officials played any role in pushing Mr. DeLay out, and Republicans who consulted with the White House and leadership on Capitol Hill said events had unfolded strictly within Congress.

Mr. DeLay stepped down from the post in the fall after his indictment in Texas on campaign-related charges of money laundering. But he was aggressively battling those accusations, and many of his colleagues considered the case partisan. But the Abramoff plea and the potential involvement in that case of others who had been close to Mr. DeLay shifted the political dynamic.

House Republicans have stood by Mr. DeLay, who became majority leader in 2002 after serving for years as the party whip, despite a series of rebukes by the House ethics committee and a ferocious courtship of the lobbying industry that brought him under attack for having too heavy a hand in encouraging firms to hire favored Republican lobbyists. Democrats have complained for years about Mr. DeLay's iron control of the House, his unwillingness to engage the minority party and his ethical conduct. One Democratic leader said Saturday that his decision to step down would not spare Republicans from attacks over ethics.

"The culture of corruption is so pervasive in the Republican conference that a single person stepping down is not nearly enough to clean up the Republican Congress," said Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic leader.

Those backing the petition drive for a new leader had hoped that Mr. DeLay would take himself out of the fight rather than have to be forced out by his colleagues. Kevin Madden, a spokesman for Mr. DeLay, said he made his choice after talking with his staff and other advisers and weighing his options.

"He doesn't see this as being broken," Mr. Madden said. "I think it is something that he sees as being best for the conference."

Anne E. Kornblut contributed reporting for this article.

    DeLay Ends Bid to Regain Post as G.O.P. Leader, NYT, 8.1.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/08/politics/08delay.html