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Political Insider

Posted: 10:09 a.m. Monday, March 4, 2013

Your Daily Jolt: No shutdown standoff? 

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By Daniel Malloy

WASHINGTON -- Perhaps something did come out of that sequester-day White House meeting with President Barack Obama and Congressional leaders. House Speaker John Boehner said on "Meet the Press" on Sunday that he and the president agreed that "we should not have any talk of a government shutdown." The Washington Post has the latest:

The House plans to vote Thursday on a spending measure that would keep the government running after its current funding mechanism elapses March 27.

It would provide funding through the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30, allowing new flexibility to the Pentagon to manage the $40 billion hit the military took Friday but otherwise locking in the sequester’s lower spending levels.

So everything's cool and we have entered a new age of bipartisan harmony?

Assuming that the two sides agree soon on government spending for the latter half of the fiscal year, Washington’s next major fiscal battle will probably come over the summer, when the nation once again bumps up against the debt ceiling.

Oh right, that.

***

Just days after the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments about whether to scrap Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, members of Congress from both parties traveled to Selma, Ala., to revisit the place where the seeds of the VRA were sown: The Edmund Pettus Bridge.

U.S. Rep. John Lewis, an Atlanta Democrat, was beaten on that bridge in 1965 while helping lead a voting rights march. This time he walked with Vice President Joseph R. Biden. Among the other dignitaries in attendance were Republicans U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson of Georgia and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia. The Montgomery Advertiser has more:

"I feel a lot of guilt, like many in my generation, that I could have been here, I should have been here 48 years ago,” [Biden] said at the Martin and Coretta King Unity Brunch Sunday morning, saying he remembered watching the scenes of troopers and deputies shooting tear gas at the nonviolent marchers, trampling them with horses and beating them with clubs. “But I wanted my daughter (and) my sister to be with me here 48 years later."

...

“We didn’t give up. We didn’t give in,” Lewis said, while vowing to continue the fight and noted the accomplishments in [black Alabama U.S. Rep. Terri] Sewell’s victory and in Selma having a black mayor. “But we’re not there yet.”

***

Mayor Kasim Reed has quite a colorful foe in his re-election race in Chef Paul Luna. Creative Loafing reviews Luna's restaurant, Lunacy Black Market:

The restaurant retains its homey feel. We sat on a cluster of upholstered furniture around a coffee table. Luna has taken the unusual step of hiring employees from juvenile detention facilities and women's shelters. You won't notice, which should tell us all something.

There was no written menu Friday night. Dinner, $35 each, was a series of small plates that Luna describes as "uninspired cuisine," meaning that it's straightforward, "not fussy." I lost count of the number of plates sent to the table.

...

Luna assured us, by the way, that he will not stop cooking when he becomes mayor.

***

Obama today is set to name his picks to run the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy. Gina McCarthy, an EPA deputy under former Administrator Lisa P. Jackson, will lead that agency, while MIT physicist Ernest Moniz will lead Energy.

McCarthy is not likely to deviate much from Jackson's aggressive efforts to curb emissions and is sure to remain a thorn in the side of Southern Company and other business interests. She does have a bipartisan resume, though it's unclear whether she'll get points in the Senate for the particular Republican she used to work for. From Politico:

As head of EPA's air office, McCarthy has been at the forefront of the agency’s fight to enact greenhouse gas regulations on sources like vehicle tailpipes and power plants. Those efforts are expected to kick up as the agency attempts to carry out the pledges for serious action on climate change that Obama hinted at in last month’s Inauguration speech.

While McCarthy has often sparred with Republican lawmakers at hearings, she also brings a bipartisan background, including stints working for past GOP governors like Mitt Romney.

Expect contentious hearings for both nominees, given the controversies sparked by environmental and energy policy.

***

Your Washington Correspondent is filling in for Galloway as he hops on the political carnival in South Carolina, and The Chief passes along a story and a note this morning that "If Mark Sanford's not completely back, his chutzpah is." The piece is from New York Magazine, the key passage follows:

According to Jenny, she had already told Mark she would be taking a pass on the race the day before, at the funeral of a mutual friend. So when Mark came to visit her, he arrived with a proposal. “Since you’re not running, I want to know if you’ll run my campaign,” he said. “We could put the team back together.”

 Jenny told him, in so many words, that wasn’t going to happen. Mark made one last appeal.

 “I could pay you this time,” he said.

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About Daniel Malloy

Daniel Malloy is the AJC’s Washington Correspondent, covering Congress and other federal goings-on that impact Georgia.

Send Daniel Malloy an email.

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