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Table of Contents
TODAY'S HILL ACTION
A TEA PARTY DIVIDED
DEMOCRAT EFFORTS TO END BUDGET STALEMATE
REVELATIONS ABOUT ARMY USE OF PSYOPS
Congressional 
Climate Bill Tracking 
Keyhole Image H.R.658 - FAA Reauthorization and Reform Act of 2011
Keyhole Image H.R.164 - Damaged Vehicle Information Act
Keyhole Image H.R.514 - FISA Sunsets Extension Act of 2011
Keyhole Image H.R.1 - Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2011
Keyhole ImageH.R.4 - Small Business Paperwork Mandate Elimination Act of 2011
Keyhole Image H.R.96 - Internet Freedom Act
Keyhole Image H.R.605 - Patients' Freedom to Choose Act
Keyhole Image S.244 - State Health Care Choice Act

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Greetings!  
Please enjoy today's issue of the Congressional Climate newsletter, brought to you by Lobbyit.com!
Today's Hill Action: 

 

THE SENATE:

 

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SENATE COMMITTEES:

 

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THE HOUSE: 

 

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HOUSE COMMITTEES:
 
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Tea Party Fracturing Over New York Special Election

  

  

2-25 bellaviaOnce again, the tea party movement is poised to play a critical role in deciding a New York special election. 

But major questions remain in New York's 26th district over whether grass-roots conservatives will support the establishment favorite, state Assemblywoman Jane Corwin (R), or the tea party's sentimental favorite, Iraq War veteran David Bellavia (R).

 

Their decision could help deliver the traditionally Republican seat to Democrats, although Bellavia appears to be running as a third-party candidate regardless.

 

Just two days after the seven local GOP county chairmen unanimously selected Corwin as the Republican nominee, Bellavia formed a Congressional exploratory committee with the Federal Election Commission.

 

It was, according to Bellavia's statement, "another milestone on the road to the United States Congress." And he's taking his candidacy seriously.

 

Sources say thtat Bellavia will secure a national fundraiser in the coming days and plans to add a national consultant in the next week. Regardless of whether local tea party groups openly support his candidacy, Bellavia could tap into the national conservative grass-roots movement to fund a formidable campaign.

 

"He's going to have the tea party's support," Bellavia spokesman Bill Hagan said on Thursday. "We've been inundated with e-mails and people showing up at his house. It's been overwhelming."

 

New York's tea party community, however, is divided. There are signs that local conservatives learned from the 2009 special election in New York's 23rd district, where a tea party-backed challenger split the Republican vote, ultimately handing the seat to a Democrat for the first time in more than a century.

 

"We're not entirely unhappy with Jane Corwin," Julianne "Jul" Thompson, chief organizer and co-founder of the largest tea party organization in the western New York district, TEA New York, said this week. "She actually does embody a lot of the tea party values. She is fairly conservative."

 

Thompson and her husband, who all but endorsed Bellavia in a Buffalo newspaper earlier in the week, have also privately met with the potential third-party challenger in recent days.

 

Thompson said she has some concern about Corwin's positions on abortion, the environment and stem cell research. Corwin told local reporters this week she opposes partial-birth abortions and opposes government funding of abortion, but she has supported legal abortion in the first trimester. 

 

While she concedes that Bellavia has more traditionally conservative positions on abortion, Thompson also sees the danger in a three-way race. The question is whether the Thompsons will make an endorsement in the race. Their silence, of course, could be seen as a tacit approval for Bellavia.

  

"We're not thrilled about a third-party run," Julianne Thompson said. "But Bellavia seems determined to run a third-party line, with or without tea party support."

 

Corwin has been accumulating endorsements from other conservatives. The Monroe County Conservative Party gave her its support Thursday evening, and the tea party-backed 2010 gubernatorial candidate, Carl Paladino, who lives in the district, has come out in her favor as well.

 

"I'm a proud member of the tea party movement in New York, and together we helped change the face of Congress in November," Paladino said in a statement distributed by the National Republican Congressional Committee, which is painfully aware of the risks associated with a three-way race. "Jane Corwin will be another member in our movement to take our country back."

 

And the leader of another New York-based tea party ally, Primary Challenge, also backed Corwin:

 

"I know that Jane Corwin is the right person to represent New York's 26th District in Washington and she has my unwavering support," said the group's founder, Lenny Roberto. "As the founder of Primary Challenge, the last thing we need is a third-party challenge that could give liberals in Washington another vote to spend taxpayers' hard-earned money."

 

Indeed, Democrats' best hope for taking the seat is a three-way race that divides the Republican vote.

 

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Steve Israel (N.Y.) has consistently downplayed expectations, noting that Democratic presidential candidates were soundly defeated in the district in both 2004 and 2008.

 

New York Democrats, however, are in no rush to select a candidate.

 

Erie County Clerk Kathy Hochul has emerged as the most likely to win the nod from the Democratic county chairmen, but there are a handful of potential nominees.

 

Local Democratic leaders have yet to begin the interviewing process in earnest, and there's nothing to suggest they need to rush. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has introduced a bill to the state legislature to reconcile an issue with the state election law. The complication could extend the timing of the special election by 70 to 80 days.

 

It was the perception that Republican County chairmen rushed the process that angered the local tea party movement, and it may have also ultimately led to Bellavia's decision to seek a third-party line.

 

"How sad, the GOP leaders stuck their finger high in the air and told the TEA Party to stick it," TEA New York co-founder Rus Thompson said the night Corwin was selected. "They have endorsed Corwin, they have now set their own table and invited a third-party candidate to challenge them for this Congressional seat."

  

Bellavia should have plenty of time to raise money. His first fundraiser is scheduled for early next month.

Senate Democrats readying new offer on budget stalemate

 

 

2-25-11budgetcut The high-stakes political maneuvering over government spending cuts continued Thursday as Senate Democrats for the first time said they are readying specific budget cuts they hope will satisfy House Republicans. Unless the two sides reach an agreement, the government will run out of money and shut down at the end of next week.

 

However, an aide for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, quickly indicated the proposed cuts don't go deep enough to end the stalemate.

Democrats say they would save billions by speeding up proposed cuts in President Obama's budget for 2012 and by getting rid of money for earmarks in the spending bill currently funding the government, according to a Senate Democratic aide who would not speak on the record about the negotiations. That current bill, which expires March 4, funds the government at a level $41 billion below what President Obama proposed for this year, a cost savings both Democrats and Republicans are claiming as they debate deeper cuts.

 

"We've said all along we're prepared to negotiate beyond the $41 billion that we've already put on the table," the Senate Democratic aide said. "Now were putting out a seven month offer that makes serious cuts, and we'll see if the Republicans will be reasonable or insist on a government shutdown unless they get all their demands."

 

In response, Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said House Republicans would press ahead with their announced plan to vote next week on a two-week long funding bill that that cuts $4 billion in government spending while both sides negotiate a long-term measure for the rest of the fiscal year.

 

Senate Democratic leadership aides met Thursday with Democratic aides from the Senate Appropriations Committee to identify possible savings from two key areas, the Senate Democratic aide explained.

 

The first is about $8.5 billion for legislative earmarks in the current government funding bill. The second would come from a package of $24.7 billion in cuts President Obama has proposed for next year. Democrats would institute some of those cuts right away.

 

An exact dollar figure for the Democrats' new proposal won't be available until the package is finalized.

Key Senator Calls Psyops Charges Serious, but He Denies Feeling Manipulated

2-25 jackreed

Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., calls revelations that the Army used psychological operations in Afghanistan to win more tax dollars to train Afghan forces a serious matter that could lead to military reprimands. But he tells sources that he never felt manipulated by his Army briefers and doubts other lawmakers did, either.

 

"I think there's enough to look at it very seriously," Reed said, citing Gen. David Petraeus's move to investigate charges of systematic use of psyops to influence visiting lawmakers, including Reed and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. "If there is a violation of rules or regulations, that will have to be corrected. And those in charge will have to be counseled or reprimanded."

 

Reed, a West Point graduate and former paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne, said that the aura of psyops sounds a bit overblown but that reports that the Army retaliated against a lieutenant colonel who objected to the practice raised legitimate concerns about the focus of U.S. training efforts in Afghanistan. Allegations of official Army efforts to manipulate visiting lawmakers first surfaced in Rolling Stone magazine.

"I think the impression generated is there is some type of concentrated mind control, some type of sophisticated manipulation, and not just of information but the context of that information," Reed said, trying to downplay the spy-novel sizzle of the psyops designation. "And when you read the article, it comes down to preparing files on and soliciting advice on how you communicate. The connotation of psyops is information that was much more deliberately misleading or that was creating an alternate reality," he continued. "I was in Afghanistan in 2010; I didn't even see [Gen. William] Caldwell. I've seen three different commanders of training operations. I've been to Afghanistan 11 times. I do not just seek out just one opinion. I talk to people in the field, diplomats and soldiers. I go recognizing, frankly, everyone has an institutional agenda. I try to approach all of these things with a questioning mind."

 

Reed described his Army briefings in Afghanistan as "nothing out of the ordinary, nothing I hadn't seen in 11 trips to Afghanistan and 15 trips to Iraq."

 

Even so, the paper trail of Caldwell's use of pysops on visiting lawmakers last year and subsequent objections raised by Lt. Col. Michael Holmes, leader of the Information Operations unit at Camp Eggers in Kabul, has left Reed more than mildly uneasy.

 

 "I would assume anyone would want to have some biographical information, to be briefed, to understand your audience," Reed said. "That is just natural. The issue here is that's not something under the purview of the psychological operations domain of the Army. That's the crux of the issue. What was done? Was it appropriate and done by the appropriate personnel? The objections [from Holmes] should have raised significant concerns among the command. With a professional saying this doesn't seem to be something in my scope, it should have raised an issue. The other issue is if there is any connection in raising a legitimate point and an administrative punishment. Making a sincere, constructive comment on a policy decision, that should be accepted on the merits. But if that leads to punishment, that's no way to run a railroad."

 

Reed said he doesn't know the law on pysops and Army operations well enough to suspect criminal wrongdoing in the Afghanistan briefings. His deeper concern is that the revelations could increase public skepticism about the direction and future success of U.S. efforts in Afghanistan, where training Afghan forces is central to expediting the withdrawal of U.S. forces, which now number nearly 100,000.

 

"I just think it raises all of those issues: To what degree have we turned the corner? Do we have a good plan? It does contribute to questions about the strategy and execution."
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