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.
In fact, McConnell has taken to praising Paul’s brand of conservatism in public speeches, most recently in a speech at the Jefferson County Republican Party Lincoln Day Dinner in Louisville, where Paul introduced the Minority Leader as the keynote speaker.
McConnell also singled out Paul in his speech last week to the Conservative Political Action Conference, calling him one of the “great freshman conservatives … already taking strong, principled stands in the Senate.”
The senior Senator from Kentucky did not always speak so kindly of Paul’s views.
During the primary, McConnell actively discouraged Republican colleagues from supporting Paul, who had strong backing from the grass-roots tea party movement. Paul, in turn, hinted that McConnell might not be his choice for leader if he won the seat.
Paul’s victory over Grayson was an embarrassing defeat for McConnell and the Republican establishment, but several sources close to both Bluegrass State lawmakers said they mended fences quickly after the primary.
“A week after the primary, Sen. McConnell held a unity rally and no one looked back,” Paul spokeswoman Moira Bagley said. “The most important task was to elect a Republican Senator from Kentucky. Fortunately, through that, the Senators, and staff, established a strong relationship.”
Paul told Roll Call that the first phone call he made after he won the primary was to McConnell.
“That made some of our people mad who, you know, had disagreements because he didn’t support me,” Paul said. “But in the end he was very gracious; he helped me, traveled on the campaign bus.”
Trygve Olson, a Republican strategist who served as the field consultant between the Paul campaign and the National Republican Senatorial Committee, described one occasion during the campaign when McConnell changed his schedule in order to attend a tea party rally with Paul.
As the bus drove to the rally, McConnell peppered Paul with questions about his tea party supporters, what they wanted politically and how they were drawn to the movement.
“McConnell was fascinated with the idea of connecting with people who had never been involved in politics,” Olson said.
He said McConnell understood that Paul represented a constituency of people who are critical for the senior Senator from Kentucky to understand, while Paul had deep respect for McConnell’s knowledge of politics.
As the campaign went on, their relationship — and those of their staffs — continued to evolve so that by the time Paul’s first debate on Fox News occurred in October, senior members of McConnell’s staff played critical roles in Paul’s debate prep.
But it has been a quiet opening for the Senate, with few significant votes and nothing that might split McConnell’s establishment instincts from Paul’s assertively populist conservativism. Republican aides said McConnell and Paul’s relationship has yet to be tested.
“The real test will be in the coming months and years as Rand Paul continues to hold the conservative line when leadership tries to center the caucus,” one Senate GOP aide said. “Those two roles are in tension and conflict — I don’t see Rand Paul changing and I don’t see Mitch McConnell changing.”
However, aides close to the two lawmakers said the increased communication between their respective staff could help diffuse potential conflicts.
Paul confirmed the two lawmakers speak “almost every day” and readily admitted he had much to learn about how the Senate operates.
“I’m really concerned with what we just have to do as far as cutting spending and really have not been here long enough to understand and be a part of how you actually make it happen, other than for me to try to be loud and vocal about how we do what we need to do as a country,” Paul told Roll Call.
Olson noted their relationship has been built on a mutual appreciation for what the other has achieved.
“Mitch McConnell is extraordinarily smart about politics,” Olson said. “In Rand’s case, McConnell became a key mentor and confidant on the art of the political.”
One Republican aide with close ties to Kentucky said McConnell’s acceptance of Paul is a prime example of the Minority Leader’s political aptitude.
“McConnell is a very shrewd politician,” the aide said. “He doesn’t need his right causing him trouble at home.”

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.
“He is always the guy that leaders are looking to to be the point man,” said Sean Spicer, a former House leadership and Bush administration aide who worked with Portman in both capacities. “People know that Rob is an honest broker and a straight shooter. … People don’t feel like they are going to get burned.”
Portman said his focus is on bringing jobs back to Ohio — where the unemployment rate has hovered near 10 percent for more than a year — but he expects he will end up playing a role in bipartisan talks on budgetary and trade issues.
“I’ve always been able to work across the aisle. I consider it sticking to principle — not compromises but finding common ground on a principled basis,” he said during an interview in his temporary office in the basement of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. “Twelve of my bills were signed into law by President Bill Clinton in the House.”
Tony Fratto, a former White House spokesman and partner at Hamilton Place Strategies, said he would be surprised if the White House does not reach out to Portman on trade issues given his background and the fact that he comes from a state with a mixed view of trade.
“His way of talking about trade issues while being a pro-trade guy from Ohio is a neat trick,” Fratto said. “People want to sit down and talk to him because he has a real understanding of the issues.”
Spicer added, “He always has a way of bringing [trade issues] back to the guy in Ohio who is looking for a job.”
Portman said he anticipates that trade would not be far behind jobs on his legislative agenda.
“I will be involved with [trade] in the context of jobs. You know, [the South Korea free trade agreement] alone, according to the administration, will create 70,000 new jobs, and these other agreements are similarly great for exports because they knock down other barriers to our workers and farmers,” he said.
Portman’s portfolio makes him a natural fit on the Senate Budget Committee. He also was assigned seats on the Armed Services, Energy and Natural Resources, and Homeland Security and Government Affairs panels. Notably, Senate leaders tapped him as a member of the Republican Whip team as well.
As he mulled whether to formally throw his hat in the ring for an open Senate seat and a return to D.C. after three and a half years, he consulted friends on both sides of the aisle.
He sat down to lunch with his former House colleague, Sen. Benjamin Cardin (D-Md.).
“He was in a difficult situation during the campaign: He didn’t endorse me,” Portman said, laughing. “But we talked a lot about why he ran for the Senate and what he thought about it.”
Cardin said he told Portman he would like serving in the Senate.
“He came here and we had lunch together and he was just talking generally about the United States Senate,” Cardin told Roll Call.
“I know how he legislates. He is a very serious legislator.” Cardin said. “He’s a very intense legislator. What I told him was that he would find the Senate very much to his liking because it’s about personal relationships, which he is good at, and you have the opportunity to get a lot done.”
Portman counts Speaker John Boehner as one of his many friends inside the Capitol. Portman credited the Ohio Republican, who represents a Cincinnati-area district that neighbors Portman’s former House district, with encouraging him to run in his first House race.
“I don’t know that I would have run that first time for Congress if he hadn’t approached me and encouraged me to do it,” Portman said.
Sen. Mark Udall described Portman as a “strong” lawmaker who would be critical in efforts to pass bipartisan legislation on issues such as the implementation of the deficit commission recommendations.
Udall added that Portman’s focused nature goes beyond legislative matters.
“He prides himself on being fit — and I think, like me, if he has an hour and the choice was eating a big dinner and drinking two glasses of wine and being in the gym, he’s going to be in the gym,” the Colorado Democrat said.
In addition to his reputation for knowing Washington inside and out, Portman is equally well-known for being just a nice guy.
Entering his makeshift Capitol Hill office the day before the State of the Union, he called out to his staff to come see the briefcase his three children, two in college and one in high school, had gotten for him.
As a few staffers walked into the lobby, he pulled out a shoebox-sized plush “Senator’s briefcase” that included a stuffed cell phone, passport and other small versions of items necessary for his first day at the office.
The one item his family added: a face book containing the photos of his Senate colleagues.
“This will be important,” he said.

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.

Rubio has turned down “hundreds” of national media interview requests (including one for this article) since he was elected in November and instead has engaged only local press, according to sources close to the Florida Republican.
Just last week, Rubio drew mention in news reports about the launch of the Senate Tea Party Caucus because of his decision not to immediately join the small band of lawmakers considered heroes by the grass-roots movement.
But advisers and former colleagues said his decision to shun national exposure is unlikely to hurt the freshman Senator with those who supported him during the campaign.
“The most important thing for grass-roots tea party members is how you vote, it’s not what caucus you join or what TV shows you are on or what speeches you give,” Rubio adviser Todd Harris said.  “The tea party as a movement is into changing the way politicians in Washington vote and make decisions.”
Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) told Roll Call that Rubio’s decision to step back from the glare of the Washington-driven spotlight was very much in line with the former state lawmaker’s personality and legislative style.
“If anyone who supported him thought that they were electing a show horse they were wrong; he’s a workhorse,” Diaz-Balart said. “A show horse without substance fizzles away fairly quickly.”
The strategy has become familiar for new Senators who come to the chamber as high-profile freshmen. Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) used it after he won his protracted battle against former Sen. Norm Coleman (R), as did first-lady-turned-Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.).
Both Franken and Clinton instead involved themselves deeply in their committee work and learning the ways of the Senate rather than immediately jumping back on the national stage.
One GOP strategist noted the local strategy would not only win Rubio points back home, but also inside the Senate.
“It is the right thing to do in the long run,” the strategist said. “You are viewed with more respect in the Conference and on your committees.”
Rubio has taken his time and been deliberate in his transition to Washington. He has yet to give his maiden speech on the Senate floor — a rite of passage for all freshmen. And after a long and extensive search for a chief of staff, Rubio announced just last week he hired Cesar Conda, a former Hill aide and lobbyist described as a policy wonk.
Also last week, Rubio was appointed to the Foreign Relations and Intelligence committees, nearly a week after traveling to Afghanistan with a group of lawmakers that included Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
Al Cardenas, a former Florida Republican Party chairman and Rubio supporter, said that if Rubio paid attention to all of the requests by national media, he would not have time to “spend in his state delivering his message [and] spend time developing deeper bonds with his supporters.”
Cardenas added that unlike Senators from smaller states, Rubio has 13 media markets in Florida alone to keep him busy and that the time to have a national profile could come later.
“That’ll come in due time,” he said. “First he needs to focus on being the best Senator he can be and keep in touch with [his constituents].”
The young, conservative former Speaker of the Florida House exploded onto the national scene last year as the alternative to then-Gov. Charlie Crist in the GOP Senate primary. What began as an underfunded long-shot campaign transformed into a highly sophisticated operation after Rubio began to draw support from national conservatives — DeMint being a key early figure — and groups.
After Rubio posted jaw-dropping fundraising numbers, it became clear that Crist could not win the Republican nomination, and he launched an Independent bid that ultimately imploded. Rubio won the three-way contest with 49 percent, with Crist garnering 30 percent and former Rep. Kendrick Meek (D) capturing 20 percent.
At 39, Rubio is the second-youngest member of the Senate and the chamber’s only Hispanic Republican.
Harris said the decision to focus on Florida was made before Rubio won the competitive three-way Senate race.
“We knew if Marco won, the spotlight on him would start shining on Wednesday morning and so this was something we had to think about,” he said.
Diaz-Balart said Rubio is a natural magnet for national attention and speculation for higher office — including having his name already dropped in the 2012 vice presidential mix — regardless of whether he wants it.
“He is exceedingly eloquent and inspirational, but what makes him special is he’ll learn the process and the issues,” Diaz-Balart said. “He gets it because of his great abilities.”
Rubio’s future in the party began to be discussed among politicians and pundits before he took the oath of office — predictions that Harris dismissed.
“It’s not the voters of Florida’s fault that the national press endlessly speculates about Marco’s future,” he said. “We go out of the way to be accessible to Florida press to talk about what he’s doing.”
Harris added that one of the things that has drawn the press to Rubio is his ability to say something thoughtful when it matters.
“He doesn’t have anything to say right now,” he said. “Until there is a message he wants to communicate, going on national television is just contributing to the noise.”

Correction: Jan. 31, 2011

The article incorrectly stated that Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) is the youngest Senator. He is the second youngest. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) is younger by seven days.

House Republicans will cut 84 committee slots in the 112th Congress, but most will come from the majority side, GOP leadership sources said Tuesday.
Eight existing minority positions will be eliminated in the 112th Congress, while 76 will be cut from the majority. Although the cuts are relatively small for Democrats, they still pose a problem for outgoing Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who already must slice dozens of Members from top committees as Democrats transition into their reduced role as the minority party.
Retirements and re-election losses will do some of the paring for the California Democrat, but she will still be forced to disappoint many junior Members who supported her bid to remain as the top House Democrat, despite losing the majority in the November elections.
Because both parties will have to cut back on the size of the panels, Republicans said the majority-minority ratios will remain about the same as they were in the past two Congresses.
Speaker-designate John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Majority Leader-designate Eric Cantor (R-Va.) have repeatedly said every committee will be trimmed in the 112th Congress in order to improve committee productivity and cut costs, leaving Democrats anxiously waiting to see how many seats would be removed.
“Reps. Boehner and Cantor have been clear that committees will be held accountable for doing their work particularly with respect to their obligation to perform oversight of federal programs and expenditures, and that members are going to be expected to show up for their committee work to ensure these responsibilities are met,” a GOP leadership aide said.
The aide added that GOP members of the most desirable committees would be limited to serving on one panel, while members who serve on less prestigious committees will be able to serve on two.
“The transition team and Steering Committee have been on the lookout for situations in which current committees are excessively large and overpopulated,” the aide said. “Such situations sometimes make it impossible for members to fully participate in all of their committee responsibilities because they sit on multiple committees with overlapping schedules and activities.”
Outgoing Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Tuesday that Democrats were still trying to add seats to some panels. “We believe that we have a higher ratio than they did, so we may be entitled to some additional seats,” Hoyer told reporters. “But that is always a discussion between majority and minority.”
Republicans argue that their ratios accurately reflect Congress’ current makeup. Republicans will represent nearly 56 percent of the House next year to 44 percent for Democrats. Fifty-seven percent of the lawmakers on committees will be Republicans, while 43 percent will be Democrats.
Overall, the majority party holds 29 more committee seats than a straight Democratic-Republican ratio would dictate. But Republicans point out that their reapportionment is comparable to — and in some cases better than — when Democrats were in charge of the House. Democrats held 33 extra seats in the 110th Congress and 27 in the 111th.
Some of the deepest cuts in membership were on “A” committees.
The Energy and Commerce Committee eliminated six majority seats and one minority seat from 111th levels, leaving 30 GOP positions and 22 Democratic slots — meaning Pelosi must cut eight members from the panel.
The Appropriations Committee lost eight majority slots and two minority positions, forcing Pelosi to nix five incumbent Democrats from the panel.
The Financial Services Committee lost nine majority seats and three on the minority side. However, so many Democrats on the panel were defeated or retired that Pelosi only has to chop one from the ranks.
Republicans cut four majority positions on the Ways and Means Committee and none on the minority side. The panel’s ratio will be 22 Republicans to 15 Democrats, meaning Pelosi will have to cut six members from the panel.
Several lower-tier panels were also severely pared down. The large Transportation and Infrastructure Committee took the biggest hit. The 45 majority seats were reduced to 33, and the minority’s 30 seats were cut to 26, according to GOP leadership sources. The Education and Labor Committee lost 10 majority seats and four from the minority.
Although her membership may be unhappy with the current ratios, Pelosi may still have some time to appeal for more seats.
In 2009, negotiations between Boehner and Pelosi went well into January. In a Jan. 12 letter, Boehner vigorously objected to Pelosi’s committee ratios, saying they could amount to “one party rule.”
Pelosi responded by adding three more seats for the minority on key panels: two on Energy and Commerce and one on Financial Services.

Steven T. Dennis contributed to this report.

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.

It’s not that Paul doesn’t have the seniority for the post; he is, in fact, the longest-serving Member on the subcommittee.
But some Republicans questioned whether he would receive the position after he refused to sign the Republican earmark moratorium last March and requested 41 projects totaling more than $100 million for his Congressional district.
At the time, one GOP leadership aide said, “if Members are deliberately breaking the rules, it will be a serious matter and one that the Steering Committee will consider.”
For most Members, this would merit at least a stern talking-to, if not a harsher punishment.
“If you are Ron Paul or if you are Jeff Flake or somebody like that, that has your own, let’s say, power base outside of this town that is independent of this town, I think leadership has to be careful with you,” one Member said.
Another Member agreed that Paul’s following insulated him but noted the subcommittee may not have a central role in major legislation in the 112th Congress.
“It may have annoyed them, but they didn’t hold it against me,” Paul told Roll Call, when asked about his decision to request projects in spite of the ban.
Paul told Roll Call that party leaders were well aware of his stance on earmarks when he refused to support the GOP moratorium because of his belief in increased transparency. With publicly disclosed earmarks, the public can see where federal dollars are being allocated.
Republicans passed an extension of the moratorium that bans the practice for the 112th Congress. “The Congress should have a say in how the money is spent,” he said, noting that he votes against the spending bills as a whole. “Congress should be the most important branch of the government. Not the executive branch.”
As Paul spoke, his friend Rep. Walter Jones Jr. walked silently next to him. The North Carolina Republican had a different experience with leadership several years ago, when he was denied a subcommittee gavel on the House Armed Services Committee because he had expressed his opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Asked if his support base had helped him keep his position, Paul smiled and said he didn’t know, but he was sure his fans would have been unhappy if he was slighted.
“Yeah, they would be upset,” he said, adding that the anti-federal government sentiment also played a role in his prominence in the Conference. “Momentum has a lot to do with it.”
Paul supporters are as numerous as they are vocal.
At the February 2010 meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference, supporters crowded into the ballroom of the Marriott Wardman Park, making Paul’s speech one of the most well-attended. He went on to win CPAC’s annual presidential straw poll with 31 percent of the vote, beating out party heavyweights such as former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. And more than 90,000 people have “liked” the Facebook site “Ron Paul 2012.”
Paul supporters have also spoken enthusiastically with their wallets.
After raising tens of millions of dollars for his presidential run, Paul still has a campaign war chest of nearly $2 million – quite a cushion for a lawmaker who was re-elected with 76 percent.
While Paul may not vote with Republicans – he has been, on more than one occasion, one of the few Republicans to vote with Democrats on issues such as the war or some social issues – political operatives at the National Republican Congressional Committee said he has been the consummate team player financially.
In the 2008 cycle, Paul transferred $54,000 to the NRCC. He more than doubled that amount in the 2010 cycle, transferring $135,000 from his campaign account. That does not include Paul’s direct donation to other candidates.
Paul has taken his unique power and the attention he has received in stride, saying the message he has touted for decades is finally catching on in Washington.
“Although [other lawmakers] denied it for years, the movement has been there,” he said.
“After however many years, the sentiment is anti-federalism.” He added, “My ideas suddenly aren’t so out there.”

In anticipation of major GOP gains in next week’s elections, House Republican leaders have put together a list of experienced Washington hands to help fill top staff positions for the surge of newly elected outsiders.
Leading the effort are Minority Leader John Boehner (Ohio), Minority Whip Eric Cantor (Va.) and the National Republican Congressional Committee.
The leaders have put together a list of about 75 to 80 potential chiefs of staff, including current and former Capitol Hill staffers and lobbyists who have been recommended or have inquired about working for an incoming Member, according to several Republicans familiar with the document.
“There will be a lot of new, energetic Republicans coming to town – some of whom will have staff, others who will begin to assemble their teams,” Cantor spokesman Brad Dayspring said in an e-mail. “There’s a lot of important work to get done right out of the gate, so it’s important that newly elected Republicans have access to experienced, competent staff so that they can hit the ground running.”
One former GOP staffer said leadership has been actively, but informally, seeking individuals to fill the chief of staff positions for new Members from tough districts. The goal is to help the freshmen navigate Washington and to guide them through future election cycles.
“Every election cycle, the NRCC offers to assist our new members by providing a résumé file of qualified staffers,” NRCC Communications Director Ken Spain said in an e-mail.
Several Republican lobbyists said it is important for GOP leadership to assist incoming lawmakers with filling senior-level staff positions, especially for those who could face tough re-election races in 2012.
“You want to be sure that the newbies, when they hit town, do not necessarily bring their campaign staff to run their Congressional offices, because in some cases they are totally ill-equipped,” one veteran Republican lobbyist said. “Winning an election is one thing, running a Congressional operation is another. A lot of these folks are really, really new to politics.”
A Republican strategist agreed, saying Members who come from swing districts benefit from having a staffer who already “knows the ropes” on the Hill to keep them from making mistakes.
The strategist said the leadership recommendations are less about controlling the new Member than about making sure “they don’t struggle for the first four or five months.”
GOP leaders are also expected to take an active role in making sure incoming committee chairmen have acceptable staff directors leading the panels. With the potential for new leadership at the Energy and Commerce Committee and the Appropriations panel, the Steering Committee is expected to vet potential chairmen’s choices for the most senior staff level, according to several Republican lobbyists.
“Those are very important committees,” one former GOP leadership aide said. “They do the lion’s share of the work in the House. There’s no doubt leadership would have an interest in who would be the staff director.”
A Republican aide confirmed leadership’s interest in having staff that works well with Boehner to move the agenda forward.
“Obviously, having effective committee staff is crucial for the entire Republican Conference, so it is an issue the Steering Committee may consider,” the aide said.
Boehner’s desire to influence key committee hires is not unprecedented.
In 2007, Boehner and then-National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Cole clashed when Boehner asked Cole to fire top staffers after a series of problems plagued the campaign committee.
Cole refused the request, and Boehner later backed current NRCC Chairman Pete Sessions (Texas) in his successful race against the Oklahoma Republican for the 2009-2010 cycle.
Democrats have also aided new Members choose their chiefs of staff.
As recently as 2008, Democrats helped the new class to fill top staff positions, a senior Democratic aide said.
Rather than having a list of potential staff at the ready, the Democratic Caucus, led by then-Chairman Rahm Emanuel (Ill.) and Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), helped incoming lawmakers find an appropriate match, the aide said.
“After it was clear they had won their race, there was a series of conversations about what they were looking for in a chief of staff,” the aide said.
Democrats had a “resume bank of sorts,” but they often went outside of it if no one fit the Member’s criteria, the aide said.
“It was one of the top priorities that we filled immediately,” the aide said, noting that Democrats plan on facilitating a similar search to help their new Members after the midterms.

JOHNSTOWN, Pa. – Few Congressional candidates get the chance for a rematch less than six months after a loss.
That makes Republican Tim Burns’ strategy of employing the same campaign playbook he used during his unsuccessful bid to replace the late Rep. John Murtha (D) all the more curious.
It has been almost five months since Burns lost the special election to Mark Critz (D), a former Murtha aide. And despite losing by a surprisingly healthy margin, Burns is by and large running the same race all over again.

He’s pounding on Critz as an ally of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the vilified California Democrat, and arguing that Critz exemplifies Washington’s wrong-direction policies on health care and the economy.
Burns said in an interview that several factors worked against him in May, including the bruising he suffered in the Republican primary and the presence of a Libertarian Party candidate on the special election ballot, who siphoned away precious conservative votes.
“After the special election, I wasn’t even sure for a couple days what my chances were going to be,” he said. “But we very quickly realized what happened and why this was going to be different in the fall.”
In Burns’ eyes, he doesn’t need to change because since May, the road has risen to meet him.
“We’ve been focused on the same things: jobs, the economy, repealing health care, keeping taxes low and stopping the out-of-control spending,” Burns said. “It just so happens that the concerns that we have in this district are the same concerns that people have nationally.”
Republicans across the country have picked up significant momentum in the past few months as the political current against Democrats has intensified. During a Tuesday dinner with supporters, Burns sought to convey that message, reassuring the Washington County Republican Party that this election’s outcome would be different, even if his campaign pitch is the same.
“Tim’s got a lot of momentum going. I think he’s finally taken his stride,” said Thomas Uram, the chairman of the Washington County Republicans.
Polling has been tricky in the 12th district. Burns supporters went to bed on May 19 thinking Burns and Critz were in a statistical dead heat, but they awoke to the news that Burns had lost by 8 points. A recent poll of 400 likely voters by Harrisburg-based Susquehanna Polling & Research had Critz up 43 percent to Burns’ 36 percent with 21 percent undecided. The margin of error was 4.9 points.
Both Burns and his supporters think turnout will be in his favor this time around now that the momentum has so strongly shifted to the GOP. In May, Democratic voters turned out big to cast ballots in the Senate primary race in which Rep. Joe Sestak defeated Sen. Arlen Specter.
Sensing the potential for a favorable turnout, Burns has embraced national party figures such as Minority Leader John Boehner (Ohio), whom he says he will support for Speaker if Republicans win the House in November.
Asked about the Republican “Pledge to America” agenda, Burns said it was a “good start” but that he was “rarely” asked about it on the campaign trail.
“I’m supporting it, but I haven’t made it a central theme in my campaign,” he said.
Meanwhile, Critz is distancing himself as much as possible from the Murtha legacy of party loyalty. Critz has not taken a stand on whether Pelosi should remain Speaker and has emphasized his independence over party politics.
Critz said his biggest challenge is to make sure his message can resonate above the money coming into his district by independent groups looking to unseat him.
“It’s just making sure that my message gets out there,” he said. “I’m being actually crucified on TV from several different groups that come in and spend exorbitant amounts of money to paint me as the bad American.”
The campaigns seek to tie Critz directly to Pelosi, but he says that since arriving in Congress a few months ago, he has voted 70 percent of the time with conservative Republican Rep. Tim Murphy (Pa.) and nearly 60 percent of the time with Boehner.
Jim Johnston, the director of operations at Bucyrus America Inc., a manufacturing plant that Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and Critz toured Tuesday, called the ads “brutal.”
Asked whether he was a Critz supporter, Johnston said: “He definitely is a supporter of the industry itself, and he’s from Western Pennsylvania. He understands the energy needs of this area.”
Sitting in his campaign office in his hometown of Johnstown, Critz confessed that the eight months of constant campaigning has started to wear on him. Yet, it also has him energized.
“I’m just doing what I need to do. It’s the same thing I did in the spring,” he said. “This was way bigger than I ever expected. I’m just concentrating on what I need to do for 15 more days, and I’m hopeful that my hard work and the independent voice that I’ve given the people of this area is going to carry me through.”
He said the long race has made him appreciate how Murtha could spend the day visiting everyone at a big business conference and then turn to tired aides such as Critz and say, “What’s next?”
“Now, being the Congressman, I sort of understand it,” he said. “It’s this adrenaline.”

The Republican National Committee has decided against sending Congressional staffers out on the campaign trail for traditional get-out-the-vote efforts, focusing its resources instead on mailings and other last-minute pre-election efforts, the committee confirmed Tuesday.
The RNC traditionally runs the GOTV operation for Capitol Hill, which includes recruiting and registering staff that want to help the GOP at the state level.
But this year the committee canceled the deployment program to cut costs ahead of the midterm elections.
Doug Heye, a spokesman for the RNC, said the money would instead be used to fund other parts of its “72-hour program,” such as paid mail.
“What the change means is that we are channeling our resources so that we will be as effective as possible,” Heye said. “With early and absentee voting becoming more prevalent – both in voters who use it and states that allow it – it was decided last year that a last-minute deployment was not cost-effective.”
Heye said the RNC made the decision after a review of deployments during the 2009 elections in New Jersey and Virginia. After the review, the committee determined that the program was not cost-effective.
“We spent $1 million in Virginia on deployment,” Heye said, noting that while voter contact grew in both states, it grew at a slower pace in Virginia.
Heye said the RNC will continue to run the 72-hour program, which includes voter registration call centers and 352 state-level Victory centers where volunteers can join the GOTV effort.
Heye noted that the RNC has made 17 million contacts – phone calls or door knocks made by volunteers – with voters this year.
The cancellation of the deployment program doesn’t mean staffers have to stay home.
Several Members plan to run their own get-out-the-vote efforts and pick up the tab through their leadership political action committees.
For example, Illinois Republican Reps. Peter Roskam, Aaron Schock and John Shimkus will send staffers to their home state to aid campaigns in the final days before the elections, with the hope of helping push Republican candidates over the finish line, a GOP staffer said.
This source said the Illinois program was planned months ago and was modeled on an Ohio GOTV effort organized by Minority Leader John Boehner (R).
The cancellation of the deployment program comes as RNC Chairman Michael Steele has received criticism for low fundraising numbers and a cross-country bus tour that many campaign operatives have deemed unnecessary and ineffective.
“We have the best electoral climate since ’94, and the RNC has no money for get out the vote? I hope Chairman Steele at least saved a few bucks to redecorate his office again,” one House GOP aide quipped.
Brad Woodhouse, a spokesman for the Democratic National Committee, said the Democrats would likely send Washington, D.C., aides out into the field to assist in the midterm elections effort.
“I’m sure, as is normal, we’ll make some deployments to campaigns from here as well – because we’ve had our best fundraising for a midterm ever and because we’ve outraised the RNC by millions this year,” Woodhouse said in an e-mail. “We don’t have to make the same choices they are.”
Several Republican state party officials said the additional support is always helpful but not necessarily vital given their strong in-state volunteer turnout this year.
“There’s never been a commitment from the RNC for a certain number of people to be deployed to the states, and it’s not something we planned for in our Victory program,” John McClelland, a spokesman for the Ohio Republican Party, wrote in an e-mail. “If people were deployed to Ohio, we might have a hard time finding something for them to do that isn’t already assigned to a volunteer.”
Garren Shipley, communications director for the Virginia Republican Party, said in an e-mail that his group hadn’t requested any help from the deployment program either.
“We’ve got fantastic campaigns this year with huge grassroots support and hadn’t thought all that much about asking for outside help,” Shipley said. “We’ve got several districts with incumbents who are in excellent shape, and if we need to draw out-of-district support, that’s the first place we’d call. But so far we haven’t even had to do that.”
“We’re in good shape with or without deployment,” he added.

Roll Call Staff

Republican leaders launched in May an Internet-based initiative to collect public opinion on key issues, saying the effort would lead to a new governing agenda from the party. But when the agenda was revealed last week, only one provision appears to have come solely from that effort.

The rest of the proposals that became part of “A Pledge to America” already existed as a part of other House Republican initiatives or as bills offered by individual Members months before the website was launched.

Only one provision – a proposal to advance major bills one at a time and avoid omnibus legislation ­- seems to have emerged directly from the America Speaking Out website, according to a Roll Call analysis of the agenda.

Rep. Peter Roskam (Ill.), deputy chairman of the America Speaking Out project, said many of the topics that ended up in “Pledge” were discussed heavily on the website, proving that they were important to the public.

“There were a lot of website discussions on tax policy, a lot of website discussions on Constitution themes like anchoring Congressional action back to the Constitution, a lot of web conversation about health care, generally,” he said.

“It’s not that big of a surprise if you think about it,” Roskam said of the issues that ended up in the pledge. “Let’s face it, none of these topics are new topics.”

Chief Deputy Minority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), the chairman of the agenda project, said at the launch of the America Speaking Out initiative that it would help shape the new GOP agenda, which would also draw ideas from town halls, Republican Solutions Groups and other areas.

“At AmericaSpeakingOut.com, all Americans are invited to submit their ideas for a policy agenda and take part in a national discussion of solutions,” McCarthy said in May, when the website launched.

Brendan Buck, a spokesman for the GOP agenda project, said the purpose of the America Speaking Out website and town hall series was to figure out what average citizens wanted included among GOP priorities.

He cited the issues in the national security section as an example of an area where many of the ideas that were offered on the website coincided with bills offered by House Republicans.

The proposals in the GOP plan “to keep our nation secure at home and abroad” pull several ideas from a May 13 document released by Armed Services Committee Republicans titled “Defend America.”

Another provision in that section would require the Department of Homeland Security to ensure immigrants who have their visas revoked are deported – an idea that was in a bill introduced by House Judiciary Committee ranking member Lamar Smith (R-Texas) on March 4.

The pledge includes a proposal to allow small businesses to deduct 20 percent of their business income.

Republicans have repeatedly touted this as a measure that would receive bipartisan support if it were brought to the floor immediately.

The idea was a part of an economic plan offered by Ways and Means ranking member Dave Camp (R-Mich.) and Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) in January 2009. It was also a part of the Republican Better Solutions package released in January 2010.

Many other proposals in the Republican plan “to stop out of control spending and the size of government” came from a House Budget Committee initiative called “Cut Spending Now” released on May 25.

The Republican proposals in that document that also made their way into the pledge included: bills to cancel unspent stimulus funds and the Troubled Asset Relief Program, both authored by Republican Study Committee Chairman Tom Price (Ga.); a measure to roll back spending to 2008 levels, proposed by Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) in October 2009; and a bill to “sunset” outdated and duplicative programs, introduced in January 2009 by Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas).

The health care section of the agenda is based almost entirely on the Common Sense Health Care Reform and Affordability Act introduced by Camp in November 2009.

A health care repeal bill introduced by Rep. Wally Herger (R-Calif.) in May 2010 is also included in the agenda. Herger’s bill would repeal the health care law passed by the House in March and replace it with the Camp legislation.

“That is a promise we have made for a very long time,” Buck said.

Not all the ideas in the Republican agenda came from GOP proposals. At least one item was originally introduced by a Democrat.

Rep. Brian Baird (D-Wash.) introduced a bill in June 2009 that would make sure legislation would be published online 72 hours before coming to a vote. A discharge petition using the “Read the Bill” language was later introduced by Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.).

Buck and Members involved with the project have insisted the solutions outlined in the document were meant for immediate implementation, though the House is expected to adjourn by the end of this week, leaving little time to address any of the bills even if Democrats wanted to. Democrats have rejected the agenda as a rehash of bad Republican policies.

Republican leaders were working on a strategy at the end of last week to try to move some of the legislation this week.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Thursday his decision to ask former Rep. Mark Souder to resign is an example of his philosophy that Members must be held to a high standard of ethical behavior and can be punished even without breaking a law or House rule.
The Indiana Republican resigned earlier this month after admitting to Boehner that he had an extramarital affair with a staff member.
Boehner told Roll Call that he has spoken to several Members over the last year and a half who, he believed, had done something or came close to doing something unethical.
“I’ve had Members in here where I thought they crossed the line,” such as former Reps. John Doolittle (R-Calif.) and Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.), Boehner said during an interview Thursday. “I have had others I thought were approaching the line.” Doolittle and Renzi stepped aside from their committee positions in 2007 after each of them came under federal investigation for unrelated incidents. Renzi faces corruption charges in federal court in Arizona; Doolittle has not been charged.
“Every case is different. People have tried to peg me down: What’s the standard? Where’s the line? I couldn’t tell you,” Boehner said. “I could not give you the definition except that I know it when I see it.”
Boehner said his decision to advise Souder to step aside after he confessed the affair with a female staff member was the right call even if Souder had not technically violated any rules.
“To my knowledge … the only rule that [Souder] violated was ‘the general welfare clause,’ is what I call it. Conduct unbecoming of a member,” he said. “To my knowledge, but I don’t believe there was any law that he broke.”
After a series of GOP ethical meltdowns in the 109th Congress helped catapult Democrats into the majority, Boehner said he pledged to his depleted flock that he would not tolerate Members who flouted the rules or the law.
“I say what I mean. I mean what I say. I do what I say I’m going to do,” Boehner said. “I’m the most transparent person in this town. And I’ve done exactly what I promised my Members.”
Boehner said Souder’s fall from grace has done nothing to deter Republicans from hammering Democratic leaders on their handling of the scandal involving former Rep. Eric Massa.
The New York Democrat stepped aside in disgrace in March after allegations surfaced that he sexually harassed several male staffers.
As the details of Massa’s behavior unfolded, House Republicans — led by Boehner — called for an ethics investigation into what Democratic leaders knew about Massa’s relationship with his staff.
“No. No, no, no,” Boehner said when asked whether he regretted harping on Democrats for Massa’s misdeeds. “It is clear that Democrat leaders knew they had a serious problem for some time before he left. And considering it involved violations of the rules of the House, violations of law.”
The House ethics committee is investigating what Democratic leaders knew about Massa’s relationships with his staff.
Democratic leaders have said they acted quickly the minute they heard about the allegations against the New York Democrat and referred the matter to the ethics committee.