WHITE HOUSE ENTERS SCALISE FRAY
The White House on Monday waded into a controversy over revelations that the House’s No. 3 Republican spoke to a white supremacist group 12 years ago, saying who the GOP has in leadership “says a lot about who they are.”White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest repeatedly said Scalise once described himself as “David Duke without the baggage.” A reporter for the New Orleans Advocate newspaper said Scalise made the remark to her as he was starting out in the Louisiana Legislature nearly 20 years ago. Scalise’s office did not immediately respond to calls for comment. Earnest said it’s up to Republicans to decide whether he retains his position and what that says about their conference at a time when they are seeking to broaden their appeal to young people, women and minorities.
— Associated Press
THE NEW CONGRESS
The 114th Congress, convening for the first time today, will have:
• 246 Republicans and 188 Democrats in the House.
• 54 Republicans and 44 Democrats in the Senate, plus two independents who caucus with the Democrats.
• 71 newcomers (55 Republicans and 16 Democrats).
•104 women, a record.
• 96 members of racial minorit
GOP leaders in both houses are looking for a swift veto showdown with President Barack Obama over the long-stalled Keystone XL pipeline. And Senate Republicans, winners of a majority in last fall's elections, began laying down markers for other legislative battles ahead.
“Tax reform should not be used as an excuse to raise taxes on the American people,” wrote Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, who will become chairman of the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee. “Any such effort is a needless distraction.”
First, though, will come a day of pomp and ceremony beneath the Capitol Dome.
Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell’s ascension today to the post of Senate majority leader will be automatic following his approval by rank-and-file Republicans late last year.
That is not he case in the House, where the election of a speaker is the main event on any opening day’s agenda. Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas put himself forward as a challenger, and roughly a dozen Republicans announced they will oppose Boehner’s election. But that was far short of the number needed to place his claim on the speakershi[ in jeopardy.
“Rep. Boehner was selected as the House Republican Conference’s choice for speaker in November, and he expects to be elected by the whole House this week,” said his spokesman, Michael Steel.
None of the rebels predicted they would succeed in toppling the 65-year-old Ohioan. Instead, they said the current high command wasn't conservative enough.
Virginia Rep. Dave Brat, who defeated former Majority Leader Eric Cantor in a primary last summer, said the Republican leadership has “strayed from its own principles of free market, limited government, constitutional conservatism. We are at a crucial turning point in our country’s history.”
Two years ago, Boehner was faced with similar criticism, and sweated out his election to a second term.
His hand is considerably stronger this year as a result of the size of the Republican electoral triumph. The party will hold 246 House seats in the new Congress to 188 for the Democrats, the biggest GOP majority in nearly 70 years.
It would have been bigger still, but New York Rep. Michael Grimm’s resignation took effect Monday. He pleaded guilty last month to federal tax evasion.
The intra-party struggle underscored the political peril facing Republicans as they look ahead to control of both houses of Congress. Yet their evident ability to pass the long-stalled Keystone pipeline legislation shows their potential to advance an agenda.
The legislation passed the House but died in a Democratic-led filibuster in the Senate late last year. Now, Republican leaders intend to push the bill through the House late this week, and appear to have more than enough votes to clear it through the Senate as well, given the Republican pickup of nine seats in the elections.
While Obama has not said if he will reject the measure, White House spokesman Josh Earnest outlined a series of concerns with the measure, adding, “I’m not prepared at this point to issue a veto threat related to that specific piece of legislation.”
Republicans stand ready to cast the measure as a bipartisan jobs bill of the type that should be signed into law.
“There’s a lot we can get done together if the president puts his famous pen to use signing bills rather than vetoing legislation his liberal allies don’t like,” McConnell said late last year.
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