By Jackie Kucinich
Roll Call Staff
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (above) has taken to praising Sen. Rand Paul’s brand of conservatism in public speeches.
After years of strained cordiality in the Kentucky Senate delegation, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R) has forged an unlikely but good rapport with Sen. Rand Paul (R).
At the time that Sen. Jim Bunning (R) retired, he and McConnell hardly spoke, and it looked like Paul might fare no better. The blistering Republican primary for Senate last year saw Paul topple Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson, whom McConnell feverishly worked to elect.
But so far, the bitterness of that contest seems not to have spread to Washington, D.C. Continue reading ‘McConnell’s Bond With Paul Untested’
By Jackie Kucinich
Roll Call Staff
With the budget, trade and jobs high on Congress’ priority list this year, freshman Sen. Rob Portman’s return to Washington appears almost too well-timed.
The Ohio Republican’s credentials are particularly unusual, and a rundown of the top issues in the House and Senate reads like a list of the problems Portman has spent his career tackling.
As both the former head of the Office of Management and Budget and the U.S. trade representative in the Bush administration, Portman frequently worked as a liaison between the legislative and executive branches.
Those who have worked with Portman — whether it was during his tenure in the House or in the administration — expect he will reprise that role in some way in the Senate. Continue reading ‘Portman’s Bio Makes for a Unique Player’
By Jackie Kucinich
Roll Call Staff
A year ago, then-candidate Marco Rubio received a megastar welcome when he was introduced by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) as a keynote speaker at the Conservative Political Action Conference annual gathering in Washington, D.C.
But when CPAC kicks off next week, Florida’s freshman Senator plans to be miles away from the gathering — with Lincoln Day dinners in Miami-Dade and Pinellas counties as the top priorities on his February calendar.
The invitation to address the widely covered conservative meeting is far from the first request Rubio has turned down; it is part of a calculated effort to stay out of the national spotlight as much as possible. Continue reading ‘Rubio’s Strategy: No Spotlight, Yet’
By Jackie Kucinich
Roll Call Staff
In the House Republican Conference, Rep. Ron Paul is untouchable.
For a Member who operates as a loner and has ignored his leadership’s directives for years, the Texas Republican is given an amount of leeway rarely allocated to rank-and-file Members, let alone those who stand to hold positions of power in the House.
But most Members don’t have the massive Libertarian following Paul has maintained since his unsuccessful bid for president in 2008.
The most recent evidence of his unusual status came last week, when he was appointed chairman of the Financial Services Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology. The subcommittee oversees Paul’s nemesis, the Federal Reserve, among other things. Continue reading ‘Grass-Roots Love Protects Ron Paul’
By Jackie Kucinich
Roll Call Staff
On any given day during House votes, Republican Reps. Don Young (Alaska) and Anh “Joseph” Cao (La.) can be seen sitting next to each other in the upper-right side of the chamber, chatting and laughing.
They are, by all accounts, an odd pair with seemingly little in common.
But Cao, a 43-year-old freshman from a Democratic district, and Young, a 76-year-old former chairman who has watched his influence fade, have forged a solid alliance as outsiders. Continue reading ‘Cao, Young Forge an Unexpected Friendship’
By Jackie Kucinich
Roll Call Staff
Rep. Greg Walden (Ore.) appears to have done all the right things to win him an appointed seat at the GOP leadership table: be a good team player, prove you’ve got political and policy chops, and have friends in high places.
House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) tapped Walden last month to serve as the chairman of the Republican leadership, a post that has been vacant since Rep. Rob Portman (Ohio) left the House in 2005 to serve in the Bush administration. At the time, questions abounded about why Boehner would pluck a relatively obscure Member from the back benches and place him in the leadership. But Walden had a somewhat hidden portfolio: He may be National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Pete Sessions’ (Texas) closest friend, he had become a regular counsel for leaders on top issues, and he was willing to give up a powerful committee post to make room for the Conference’s newest lawmaker.
“We wanted to put Greg in a position where he is at the leadership table every week,” said Sessions, who last year appointed Walden to serve as his deputy chairman at the committee.
But the roots between Sessions and Walden run deeper than many political allies. Continue reading ‘Walden Rises Up From Obscurity’
By Jackie Kucinich
Roll Call Staff
Since joining the House Rules Committee last fall, Rep. Virginia Foxx (N.C.) has become a secret weapon for the Republican Party in complex legislative warfare, but she has also sometimes performed like a loose cannon.
Her higher public profile has been a blessing and a curse for House Republican leadership. They have praised Foxx for her unrelenting energy and willingness to dig into legislative details, but they have winced quietly at her mistakes.
Foxx first took center stage during the House Republican protests last August, when GOPers took over the floor to protest the Democratic decision to adjourn for the summer without a comprehensive energy bill. She attended the protest for a dozen days, more than any other member of the Republican Conference. Continue reading ‘Foxx Hunts for GOP, Sometimes Misfires’
By Jackie Kucinich
The Hill
When Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) visited then-Speaker Dennis Hastert’s (R-Ill.) Washington office several years ago, the former wrestling coach greeted him with a big hug.
“What was that all about?” Young asked.
Hastert told him he thought Young had died, saying, “I was down at the White House and an aide came in and announced you had died of a heart attack.”
Continue reading ‘Young: There’s life after lawmaking’