VoteKansas.org

House Appropriations Chairman Jerry Lewis is being investigated as part of the Cunningham probe.

The LA Times reports:

Federal prosecutors have begun an investigation into Rep. Jerry Lewis, the Californian who chairs the powerful House Appropriations Committee, government officials and others said, signaling the spread of a San Diego corruption probe.

The U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles has issued subpoenas in an investigation into the relationship between Lewis (R-Redlands) and a Washington lobbyist linked to disgraced former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Rancho Santa Fe), three people familiar with the investigation said.

The key paragraph: 

It is not clear where the investigation is headed or what evidence the government has. But the probe suggests that investigators are looking past Cunningham to other legislators and, perhaps, the "earmarking" system that members of Congress use to allocate funds.

Aside from the fact that earmarking greases the skids for bad legislation...and aside from the fact that it often leads to bloated spending bills chock full of extraneous projects...it just plain looks bad.

There is almost no way to secure an earmark without at least the appearance of impropriety or a quid pro quo. The earmarking process itself opens lawmakers -- upright and corrupt alike -- up to these types of allegations.

From my column this morning:

"You are going to have to be radical," Luntz told one group. By radical, of course, he meant conservative -- the way Republicans used to be conservative a la 1994. Absent this "radical" return to conservative principles, the conservative base voter is likely to sit out come November, resulting in a GOP bloodbath at the polls.

Luntz is reminding anybody who will listen that the current numbers are dismal. President Bush’s approval ratings are in the low 30’s and dropping while most generic congressional polls show Democrats holding double digit advantages -- some as high as 18 points -- over Republicans. Compare these numbers to only a six-point generic Republican advantage and a low 40’s approval rating for President Clinton heading into the 1994 elections, and you have the recipe for a GOP disaster this fall.

According to the AP, the Senate will resume the debate on immigration reform next week and spend as long as two weeks on the measure. Insiders I have spoken to are skeptical about the chances for the Senate to reach an agreement and even more skeptical about final passage of an overall bill. At issue with final passage is the naming of Senate conferees to negotiate with the House.

Reid has insisted that once the bill is passed, those who support protecting illegal immigrants from deportation must control the Senate team that will negotiate with the House in conference in developing a final bill.

"Unless there is agreement on conference, the bill will go nowhere. Nowhere," Reid said Wednesday.

So Harry Reid, who insists that he is against amnesty, is demanding that certain members be named as conferees who will "protect illegal immigrants from deportation." That's not amnesty? 

Texas Senator John Cornyn today called on Democrats to drop their threat of a filibuster against judicial nominee Brett Kavanaugh:

“If there's going to be a fight, then I think we ought to take it on and let the American people decide which side of the fight they agree with. Democrats should end this empty threat, but if they don’t, we’re ready.”

30 Representatives in the House have penned a letter to their leadership asking them to hold the line on spending. Porkbusters has the details.

Perhaps what is most notable about this letter is who did not sign it. Limited government stalwarts like Mike Pence and John Shadegg did not sign the letter.

I am not hitting them for not signing it. I can think of at least a couple reasons why they wouldn't, the most obvious reason being that House leadership has been very up front about their determination to stop the Senate's big-spending railroad to nowhere-containing boondoggle in its tracks (pun intended). The second being that they may not be around to sign it. Pence has been overseas doing great things (read about them here), thus he may not have been around when the letter was being signed.

Nevertheless, this letter is well written and contains a great message -- a message the GOP needs to hammer home over the next 6 months. Cutting the wasteful spending contained in this bill will be a great start.

Yesterday, Heritage's Andrew Grossman brought to our attention the possibility of pork funding being funnelled to projects out of funding intended for for troops. Today, Heritage President Ed Feulner weighs in:

At risk is the $94.4 supplemental spending bill President Bush requested from Congress to provide $92 billion for hurricane relief and the troops in Iraq and $2.4 billion for avian flu response. Despite his warning that anything above this amount would lead to a veto, several senators abused the must-pass status of the legislation to add $14 billion in wasteful pork-barrel goodies for influential constituents, labor unions and corporations.

Hmmm...

Via Sixers blog...House Republicans today will roll out a "suburban agenda" at 1:00. 

By all accounts judicial nominee Brett Kavanaugh successfully navigated the treacherous waters of yesterday's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.

Ed Whelan says Democrats' attempts to tar the nominee were "ineffectual": 

The second hearing on Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the D.C. Circuit ended some minutes ago. I watched the bulk of the hearing at my desk while trying to get some real work done. Kavanaugh did an excellent job (as did Chairman Specter), and the committee Democrats were ineffectual at best.

Specter made clear at the end of the hearing that the committee vote to report Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Senate floor will take place on Thursday. I would be very surprised if the Democrats actually try to filibuster Kavanaugh’s nomination, but perhaps Senator Kerry has planned another trip to Davos, Switzerland.

Congress Daily reports that "Kavanaugh breezes though 2nd judicial nomination hearing": 

An unruffled Brett Kavanaugh weathered a barrage of critical Democratic questions Tuesday and pledged to be nonpartisan if confirmed as a judge on U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

Hugh Hewitt is happy with the progress and makes two points: 

First, the White House got some momentum and needs to get at least the circuit court names released asap, especially those for the D.C. Circuit, which must become the priority for the Judiciary Committee staff.

Second, anything less than an up or down vote on all judicial nominees other than those named by the Gang of 14 a year ago deeply damage McCain's campaign, as it will underscore that he got hornswaggled again by Dems, just as with McCain-Feingold and McCain-Kennedy. Specifically, there are no "extraordinary circumstances" surrounding nominees Boyle or Haynes. If either lacks 51 votes, so be it.

A friend on the Hill points out this huge contradiction within the Democratic caucus:

- Confident Democrats Lay Out Agenda, By Jonathan Weisman Washington Post, May 7, 2006

But Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid says investigations should be “at the bottom” of the agenda

“I'm not heavy into investigations. I think that should be way down at the bottom of our agenda.”

- Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), media availability, May 9, 2006

I am going to predict the Pelosi wing wins out on this one if the Dems gain power. 

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas have come to an agreement on a $70 billion tax cut package setting the two chambers up for a vote later this week.

Congress Daily has the details:

At the core of the reconciliation agreement is a two-year extension of the capital gains and dividend tax cut, through 2010, and a one-year alternative minimum tax patch that protects 15.3 million taxpayers from having to pay the tax in 2006. The bill also will boost allowable expensing limits for small businesses under Section 179. It also extends for one year a tax benefit that allows multinational companies to defer taxes on their "active financing" income earned overseas.

In a press release, House Majority Leader John Boehner praised the agreement:

Time runs a piece about the wooing of the blogosphere by politicians. As a result, lawmakers are hiring staff who are blog savvy:

Jack Kingston, a GOP congressman from Georgia who is one of only a few in his party who blogs regularly, works closely on his posts and his podcasts with blog-savvy press spokesman David All, 27. "My strong recommendation for anybody who is getting on the information highway is to to have a co-pilot who is 25 years old or younger," says Kingston.

H/T - TG Political Wire 

The Hill newspaper reports that some Hill conservatives have asked Republican Study Committee Chairman Mike Pence to stay on as the group's leader after 2006. Pence's role as leader of this committee has been invaluable to the conservative movement:

In addition, GOP leaders have promised to extend earmark reform to authorizing committees, such as Ways and Means and the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

Pence also receives high marks from conservatives for “Operation Offset,” a public campaign House conservatives launched last year advocating spending cuts to pay for hurricane reconstruction. The campaign was a rebellion against the GOP congressional leadership and, although it angered leaders, succeeded in making fiscal discipline one of the top Republican priorities of 2006.

Without Pence's leadership, it is fair to say that much of this would not have happened - or at least would have been less effective. The former radio talk show host understand how to message conservatism better than any politician in Washington, DC. He must remain a leader. More members should approach him and encourage him to stay.

Andrew Grossman, writing on the Heritage Policy blog, highlights a twisted and devious potential plan in regards to the Senate-passed emergency supplemental bill:

But at least one aide to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is too clever for such a simple move. He proposes what seems, at first blush, like maybe a sensible solution: a 13-or-so percent across-the-board cut in the supplemental spending to bring the bill's total cost into line with the President's initial request and veto threat. Just cut everything by the same amount, it seems, and the bill will slide right under the President's cap. It's an easy way out.

This ploy just highlights the terrible trade-offs that pork-barrel spending leads lawmakers to make. Relative to the President's request for emergency spending, this proposal would cut funding for defense in the supplemental--money for our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq to meet needs that are the very purpose of this legislation--by $9.5 billion. An across-the-board cut would also chop $2.6 billion from funding to respond to the actual emergency of Hurricane Katrina.

Read the whole post here.

As sure as the sun rises in the east, Democrats will try to block judicial nominations. The Washington Post reports that Democrats today will attempt to put the brakes on federal appeals court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's nomination.

Like Roberts, Kavanaugh, 41, has spent most of his professional life in the service of conservative causes and bosses. Now White House staff secretary, Kavanaugh was deeply involved in Kenneth W. Starr's investigations of President Bill Clinton regarding Whitewater and Monica S. Lewinsky.

Kavanaugh also is widely described as brilliant, affable and disarming, attributes that prevented Democrats from successfully demonizing Roberts. And as they did with the Roberts nomination, Democrats are focusing largely on what they do not know about the nominee, an approach that gained little traction in the chief justice's confirmation debate.

The Democrats' attempts to slow play this nomination will provide an easy opportunity for the GOP to get on message. Combine this opportunity, with the upcoming opportunity presented in the Hayden confirmation hearings in which Democrats will trot out the NSA wiretap issue, and Republicans are set to score some political points.

Hawaiian Senator Daniel Akaka took the Senate floor today to speak in favor of S. 147, the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act. Akaka's bill would create a new governing entity to govern all Americans with "one drop" of native Hawaiian blood.

Akaka has secured a deal that couples his race-based governing legislation with the Death Tax repeal. As such, the bill may come before the Senate before Memorial Day.

"I will continue to work to bring this bill to the floor as promised by the Majority Leader and the Junior Senator from Arizona," said Akaka, referring to a deal with Bill Frist and Jon Kyl. Akaka insists that his bill has broad bipartisan support in the U.S. Senate.

That is a scary thought.

Akaka today promised to come to the Senate floor everyday from now on to talk about his legislation until the Senate schedules it for a vote.

UPDATE: Akaka's speech today on the Senate floor was in response to a Lamar Alexander speech in which the Tennessee Senator declared his support for a recently issued U.S. Commission on Civil Rights report that urged Senators to vote against the race-based governing legislation. Alexander issued a press release explaining:

The Commission said the legislation “would discriminate on the basis of race or national origin and further subdivide the American people into discrete subgroups accorded varying degrees of privilege.” The legislation would establish a new governing entity for individuals of native Hawaiian descent which would have the authority for government to government negotiations with the United States of America. The legislation is awaiting consideration by the full Senate.

“This bill would create a separate, independent, race-based government for native Hawaiians. Our Constitution guarantees just the reverse: equal opportunity without regard to race,” Alexander said.

“America is a nation based not upon race, but upon our common values, including liberty, equal opportunity, democracy, and the rule of law. I hope my colleagues will join me in opposing this bill.”

Also of note, Akaka claimed broad support among Hawaiians for his bill, but this polling suggests otherwise.

For more on this issue, read Senator Alexander's floor speech in the extended section.

According to this report filed by Robert Bluey, many conservatives are viewing White House Counsel Harriet Miers as an obstacle to the continued nomination of solid conservative judges:

The White House would not directly respond to the charge, which was made this morning during a conference call with more than 40 conservative leaders. Two people on the call—whose identities I promised to keep confidential—said they had inside knowledge of the recommended nominees whom Miers nixed.

This morning President Bush made it official and named Air Force General Michael Hayden as the new CIA director replacing outgoing Porter Goss.

Many in Congress are already criticizing the nomination. Democrats in particular will look to play politics during the Senate nomination process.

To those who wish to do so, Texas Senator John Cornyn today fired back. In a statement released this morning Cornyn said: 

“If Senate Democrats are looking to the Hayden nomination as an opportunity to attack the NSA’s terrorist surveillance program, we welcome that debate. If the President’s opponents hope to argue that we’re doing too much to prevent terrorism, that the intelligence agencies are fighting too hard against terrorists around the world, then we look forward to taking that debate to the American people.

“Gen. Hayden and his colleagues in our intelligence forces need the right tools, the right focus and the right people to ‘connect the dots’ and prevent further attacks.”

Representatives from the House and Senate are working this week to garner a compromise on the two chambers' versions of the emergency supplemental bill. Let's hope the House sticks to its guns and trims back the Senate's exorbitant spending.

Congress Daily AM: 

With costs escalating and wear and tear on troops and their equipment accumulating, the Pentagon says it needs the bill before lawmakers depart for Memorial Day. The chambers largely agree on military, intelligence and foreign aid funds.

The conference sticking points are likely to center on unrelated topics, such as agriculture assistance for farmers hit by natural calamities and high energy prices, border and port security, and aid to the Gulf Coast fishing industry.

At $109 billion, the Senate bill is $17 billion more than the House approved in March, and $14.5 billion more than President Bush requested after accounting for additional funds for pandemic flu countermeasures. Bush has repeatedly said he would veto a bill if it reaches his desk at more than $94.5 billion, which he refers to as "92.2 billion, plus" pandemic flu funds.