by Matthew Hay Brown

The gas tax holiday gained a powerful ally in the House today when Minority Leader John Boehner signed on to legislation that would tie a summerlong suspension to a freeze on earmarks.

"Since Democrats refuse to lead on gas prices and earmark reform - top priorities of the American people - Republicans will," the Ohio Republican said.

Economists and other critics say a gas tax holiday would do little or nothing to reduce prices at the pump, but would deprive the Highway Trust Fund of billions of dollars in revenue.

The legislation introduced today by Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the senior Republican on the House Budget Committee, seeks to offset those loses by freezing spending on earmarks - an issue on which Republicans are attempting to regain the moral high ground.

"For far too long, taxpayers have been footing the bill for billions upon billions in wasteful Washington spending that our nation neither needs nor can afford," Boehner said. "An earmark ban will halt this pork-barrel spending until Congress comes up with a straightforward plan to reform the earmark process and restore some sanity to the federal budget."

by Matthew Hay Brown

With their nominee now seemingly apparent, some Democrats want to see the party's president primary race brought to an end. Not Nancy Pelosi.

"Me? I like combat," the House speaker told reporters at the Capitol today. "You know, I think the best training for campaigning is campaigning. So I think that as they have campaigned, the support in our country has grown for our Democratic message. ... So this is all very healthy."

The Capitol press corps has tried for months to draw Pelosi on her preference for the presidential nomination. With Barack Obama now appearing to have sewn it up, she was asked today if she was ready to share.

"No, no," she said. "I do continue to be excited about the campaigns. I think both of our candidates are presenting themselves magnificently to the American people. Either one of them will be a great President of the United States."

Told that Obama's appearance on the House floor today looked like a victory lap, Pelosi asked, "Did it?" She said she didn't know why the Illinois senator stopped by.

"We have floor privileges in the Senate, and of course, I could go over there," she said. "He and Senator Clinton are always welcome, as well as all of the other Senators, on the House floor, Democrats or Republicans."

Sen. Barack Obama in a Capitol elevator. (Susan Walsh/AP Photo.)

by Frank James

Sen. Barack Obama visited the House today to make his case to those House members who are also uncommitted Democratic Party superdelegates and, understandably, his presence created much excitement.

As Congressional Quarterly (subscription required) reports:

Rep. Yvette D. Clarke's copy of Thursday's New York Daily News tells it all.

Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr., D-Ill., a longtime Obama pal and political ally, taunted Clarke and her friends by calling out to reporters that they were staying away from Obama because "they're scared they're going to get elected."

(Susan Walsh/AP Photo.)

by Jim Tankersley

America's Great Penny Crisis moved one step closer to resolution (of sorts) today, when the House passed a bill to change the metallic composition of the one-cent coin.

Supporters of the measure, approved by voice vote, say it will save taxpayers more than $1 billion in production costs over the next decade by allowing the U.S. Mint to switch to less-expensive metals. As we reported earlier this year, it currently costs 1.7 cents to produce every penny and 10 cents for every nickel.

The bill also would require the Mint to begin churning out a primarily steel penny within 270 days of it becoming law.

Rep. Zack Space (D-Ohio) sponsored the bill, but two Illinois congressmen had big roles in shaping it: Rep. Luis Gutierez (D-Ill.), who chaired the subcommittee hearings on the bill, and Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.), who authored a similar bill last year that this measure mirrored in several respects. Both urged and celebrated the bill's passage.,

Rep. Vito Fossella answers Friday, May 2, 2008, in Staten Island questions about his arrest for driving while intoxicated arrest in Alexandria, Va. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

by Frank James

It's beginning to look like Rep. Vito Fossella, the only Republican in New York City's House delegation, may not have much of a future left in Congress.

Fossella, who's conservative and married, has admitted to having a three-year old love child.

This comes a week after Fossella was arrested in Northern Virginia on drunk driving charges.

There are some congressional districts where this kind of extracurricular behavior might not be fatal to a political career. His Staten Island district probably isn't one of them.

Here's a passage from the latest Almanac of American Politics describing part of Fossella's district:

Culturally, Staten Islanders are deeply conservative--more so than in most of New York's suburbs, and quite a contrast from Manhattanites who live a 20-minute ferry ride away. Taking a cue from Fresh Kills, their motto is apt: "Don't dump on us." Not many people here read the New York Times...

Here's a Bloomberg story on the latest revelation.

By Christopher Stern

Fossella's relationship came to light after he was arrested in Virginia on May 1 for drunk driving.

by Matthew Hay Brown

House Democrats are preparing another emergency war spending bill, and the antiwar movement is growing restive.

"In 2006, the voters of this country gave Congress a clear mandate to end the occupation of Iraq through a stunning Democratic electoral victory," Tim Carpenter, executive director of Progressive Democrats of America, said Wednesday.

"But now, in 2008, we're still waiting for the war to end, while conditions get worse both here and in Iraq," he said. "To put it bluntly, if this Congress won't stand up and put an immediate end to the occupation of Iraq, and start addressing our needs at home beginning with a national single payer healthcare system, then we'll elect Democratic candidates who will."

The $195 billion legislation, which could come to a vote this week, includes funds to pay for military options in Iraq and Afghanistan into next spring, with the requirement that the Pentagon begin removing combat troops within 30 days, starting a pullout that would be completed by the end of 2009.

It also would expand education funding for service members, extend unemployment insurance, suspend new rules that cut Medicaid funding for the poor and disabled, strengthen levees in New Orleans and restore funding for military base realignment.
Lawmakers will consider the bill in three separate parts, voting on the war funding, war policy and domestic spending.

President Bush has told Congress to give him the money for Iraq and Afghanistan without restrictions or add-ons; Republicans have accused Democrats of playing politics with the troops by loading up their legislation with other projects.

But some of the strongest opposition is coming from the antiwar left, where some oppose any additional war funding under any circumstances. Democrats.com is advising supporters to tell their representatives to "stop the Iraq sellout;" Progressive Democrats of America will be going door to door with its "Healthcare not Warfare" campaign.

by Matthew Hay Brown

The congressional stalemate over prices at the pump continues.

Senate Democrats unveiled new energy legislation this afternoon that they said would address the root causes of rising gasoline prices. But their Consumer-First Energy Act, with its proposals to raise taxes on oil companies, is likely to be blocked by Senate Republicans.

Meanwhile, the Republican proposal to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve and off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, introduced this afternoon as the American Energy Production Act, is even less likely to go anywhere in the Democratic Senate.

"Even as it costs Americans more every day to fill up their gas tanks, Bush Republicans only offer more of the same failed energy policies that brought us to this point," Majority Leader Harry Reid said.

The Democratic legislation, by contrast, protects consumers, he said.

"Instead of helping big oil make more money at the expense of average Americans, we are forcing oil companies to change their ways," Reid said. "We will hold them accountable for unconscionable price-gouging and force them to invest in renewable energy or pay a price for refusing to do so."

by Matthew Hay Brown

House Democrats are taking exception to President Bush's dismissal today of a housing bill expected to pass today in the House.

Bush, after meeting this morning with House Republicans, said he would veto the bill to insure new loans for cash-strapped homeowners. The White House has called it a "bailout;" Bush said today it would reward "speculators and lenders."

"American families confronting foreclosue deserve better from the president than a veto threat," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in response to Bush's remarks. "They deserve the House's bipartisan housing plan that will protect the American dream of home ownership."

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer was more pointed.

"As the second term of his failed presidency winds to an end, President Bush has little left on the agenda but finger-pointing. With gas prices skyrocketing and with Americans losing their homes to foreclosure at record rates, the president can do little but blame, criticize, and pass the buck. ... Americans saw today an Administration out of leadership, and a president out of ideas."

Bush said he was "committed to a good housing bill that will help folks stay in their house, as opposed to a housing bill that will reward speculators and lenders. There's a House alternative that will do the right thing for the American people when it comes to housing."

by Whitney Blair Wyckoff

Tony Zirkle, who spoke at an Adolf Hitler birthday party last month on how prostitution and pornography impact white women, came in third place in Indiana's 2nd Congressional District Republican primary yesterday. Fighting prostitution and porn is a major plank in Zirkle's platform.

He has said that he will speak to any group who invites him, but he dodged questions from an Indiana paper asking whether he was a white supremacist sympathizer.

Washington Post columnist Al Kamen has the story:

Tough news last night in the closely watched Republican primary in Indiana's 2nd Congressional District.

Zirkle, whose top campaign issue is opposition to pornography and prostitution, finished a distant third behind Goshen, Ind., businessman and GOP establishment candidate Luke Puckett and Culver, Ind., newspaper delivery man Joseph Roush. Puckett won with 48 percent of the vote; Zirkle drew 16 percent.

by Matthew Hay Brown

Senate Democrats are planning to unveil legislation tomorrow to contain rising prises at the pump - and it won't include the gas tax holiday idea that has dominated the last few days of the Democratic presidential primary race.

"We are going to come up with our own proposal tomorrow which won't be Clinton or Obama's, it will be the Senate Democrats'," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told CNN's Wolf Blizter this afternoon. "It's something that will have the ability to impact prices."

The Nevada Democrat didn't divulge details, but told Blitzer the bill would not iunclude the gas tax holiday favored by Hillary Clinton and opposed by Barack Obama. Panned by economists, the idea is seen as having no chance of making it through Congress.

"You decided that's not necessarily a good idea right now?" Blitzer asked.

"It's not what we're going to do," Reid said. "We're not going to interject ourselves in the presidential election."

by Matthew Hay Brown

Democrats are preparing for another confrontation with the White House over Iraq.

House Democrats have developed an emergency war spending bill that includes all the money President Bush has asked for, and much that he didn't, including spending on domestic programs that he has told Congress to leave out. The $170 billion legislation would also require the president to pull combat troops out of Iraq by the end of next year - a timetable of the sort Bush has already vetoed.

"We will address what we have consistently addressed, and that is a desire by Democrats, reflecting, we believe, the overwhelming desire of the American public, 60-percent-plus, for a change in the course that we have been pursuing in Afghanistan and Iraq," said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, describing the bill that could hit the House floor as early as Thursday.

Hoyer said the legislation, which has not been made public, also would " reflect things that we have talked about before in terms of redeployment, in terms of dwell time, in terms of length of stay in theater and other things along that line that we have expressed our view on, including the status-of-forces agreement that the administration seems to be pursuing, which, without Senate approval, which seeks to bind a successor administration. We don't think that is appropriate without the Congress's involvement."

Finally, he said, it would address domestic needs. Democrats have spoken of funding for veterans, investment in infrastructure and extending unemployment insurance.

"Sending $100-billion-plus to Iraq and Afghanistan may be necessary in the short term," he said. "But both in the short and long term, investing in America and Americans is also a critical priority, certainly for us."

by Matthew Hay Brown

Special election losses in Illinois and Louisiana could portend "catastrophe" this fall for House Republicans - unless the party charts "a bold course of real change."

So says Republican former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, in a column that was posted today on the Human Events web site - and is being passed around by the Democartic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Reviewing the Democratic victories in Illinois and Louisiana, the historically high disapproval ratings for President Bush and polls that show the public trusts Democrats over Republicans to better handle the deficit, taxes and terrorism, Gingrich says "an emergency, members-only" conference is in order.

"At the meeting, they should pose this stark choice: Real change or certain defeat," he writes, and proposes nine "acts of real change" that could "begin to rebuild the American people's confidence that Republicans share their values, understand their worries, and are preparted to act instead of just talk."

by Matthew Hay Brown

House Democrats picked up an anti-abortion member over the weekend with the special election victory of Don Cazayoux, and could gain another if Travis Childers defeats Greg Davis in Mississippi next week. So does that mean the caucus, which has relied on the support of voters who favor legal abortion, is growing more conservative?

"This is not a party issue," House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said this morning, when asked the question at his weekly meeting with the Capitol press corps. "We don't make that a party issue. We don't whip that issue. Members have to vote their conscience on that issue, and do."

Hoyer, himself a moderate Democrat from conservative Southern Maryland, listed the issues that unite the party as "the quality of life for real people, jobs, their health care, their education for their kids, and their national security and homeland security and security at home."

"That is why people are Democrats," Hoyer said. "And that is what distinguishes, I think, the Democratic Party from the Republican Party. The social issues are issues which people feel strongly about for one reason or another. But the issues that I think you will see pretty consistent Democratic unity on are issues affecting families every day."

by Matthew Hay Brown

With the victory Saturday of former prosecutor and state legislator Don Cazayoux to the Louisiana seat last held by Republican Richard Baker, House Democrats have gained another seat ahead of the November election.

In March, Democrat Bill Foster won the special election in Illinois to succeed Republican former House Speaker Dennis Hastert. The Democratic House majority now stands at 235, up two since the elections of 2006.

"Democrats are winning in solidly Republican districts because the country agrees it's time for a change from the status quo in Washington," House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel said today. "Louisiana has sent a clear message about that need for change."

In a memo circulated late Saturday, the National Republican Congressional Committee said there was a lesson to be learned from the result.

"When Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi were introduced into this campaign, Don Cazayoux was leading by a large margin in the polls," the NRCC said. "Since then, Republicans saturated the Baton Rouge airwaves in an effort to nationalize this contest and make the election about the real life consequences of a Barack Obama presidency and a continued Pelosi-run Democratic Congress. In that time, Republicans made substantial ground.

by Matthew Hay Brown

President Bush has warned Democrats against adding domestic spending to the upcoming war spending bill. The Democrats aren't listening.

"All the while President Bush has invested in the battlefront, he has consistently ignored the home front," Rep. Andre Carson says today in the weekly Democratic radio address.

"American tax dollars are supporting the construction of new roads in Iraq while the potholes in my hometown of Indianapolis are only getting bigger," says the Indiana Democrat, who was elected in March to succeed his late grandmother, Rep. Julia Carson. "Our tax dollars are being used to train teachers to teach in Iraqi schools, while too many American children go without the education they need and deserve. While new hospitals and health clinics are being built in Iraq, the President proposed cutting Medicare for seniors and refuses to extend health insurance coverage to millions of children.

"If we took even a fraction of the billions of dollars we spend in Iraq and used them here at home, we could make real progress and help get our nation out of our economic slump."

President Bush has said the emergency supplemental bill to fund operations in Iraq and Afghanistan is not the place for the spending the Democrats contemplate. The Democratic address follows.

by James Oliphant

Storm clouds continue to gather in the Senate over federal judges. Republicans, eager to fill some key appeals court vacancies with conservatives before the end of President Bush's term are stepping up the pressure on Patrick Leahy, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Last month, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) secured a pledge from Senate chief Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to send three circuit court nominees to the Senate floor for a vote by Memorial Day.

Ah, but which three nominees? That's the question.