Daily Political Wire

George Wenschhof


Kerry Appeals To Russia to uphold "The Rule of Law" - Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday urged Russia to "uphold rule of law" and aid the U.S. in its mission to apprehend Edward Snowden, the former defense contractor wanted on espionage charges.

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Obama To Outline 3 Objectives in Climate Change Speech - When President Barack Obama details his national strategy to combat climate change in a major speech Tuesday at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., he will outline a plan comprised of "three main objectives," a White House official said.
 
The official said that the objectives of Obama's plan are "to prevent the worst effects of climate change by reducing our carbon pollution," "to prepare this country for the impacts of climate change we can’t avoid" and "to lead the rest of the world around combating changing climate."  TPM.com has more here.

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Senate Immigration Bill Going Nowhere in House - House Speaker John Boehner (Ohio) had told his Republican colleagues that no immigration legislation would be brought the floor if a majority of the GOP majority didn’t support it. And, anyone who has spent any time around the current Republican majority in the House — or watched as the farm bill failed last week – recognizes that the Senate immigration bill (and, perhaps, any bipartisan immigration bill) isn’t going to be backed by a majority of the Republican majority in that chamber.
 
How the Senate voted on Monday also affirms that the immigration legislation could well be dead on arrival in the House. Not a single member of the Senate GOP leadership voted for cloture. The Washington Post has more here.

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Supreme Court Punts on Affirmative Action - The court voted 7 to 1 to send the University of Texas’s race-conscious admissions plan back for further judicial view and told the lower court to apply the kind of rigorous evaluation that must accompany any government action that considers race.

But the ruling, one of the most anticipated of the term, was notable for what it did not do. It did not forbid the consideration of race, significantly alter the court’s prescription of how such programs should operate or even pass judgment on the UT program at issue.

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Issa Subpoenas State Department Officials in Benghazi Probe - House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) on Tuesday subpoenaed four State Department officials as part of his investigation into the administration's response to the Benghazi mission attack.

The newly deposed individuals are Eric Boswell, the Bureau of Diplomatic Security's former assistant secretary and its former principal deputy assistant secretary; Scott Bultrowicz, the director of the Diplomatic Security Service; and Elizabeth Dibble and Elizabeth Jones, the former principal deputy assistant secretary and the acting assistant secretary at the Bureau Near Eastern Affairs, respectively.  TheHill.com has more here.

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Massachusetts Voters To Choose Kerry Replacement Today - Massachusetts voters go to the polls on Tuesday to choose between a Republican newcomer and a veteran Democratic Congressman hoping to preserve the majority his party holds in the U.S. Senate.

Representative Edward Markey has enjoyed a strong lead in polls since launching his campaign six months ago to succeed fellow Democrat John Kerry, now U.S. Secretary of State. Markey's opponent is private equity executive and former Navy SEAL Gabriel Gomez, whose solid support among Republicans looks to be not enough to prevail in the liberal-leaning state.  Reuters.com has more here.

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Race for Majority in Senate Promises to be Intense in 2014 - There are 21 Democratic seats up, but only 14 GOP seats in 2014 (two of those seats, South Carolina and Hawaii, are special elections).

Republicans seem almost guaranteed to net additional Senate seats in the 2014 midterms. With two highly vulnerable Democratic open Senate seats already on the books (West Virginia and South Dakota) and at least five other Democratic seats at greater risk than even the most vulnerable GOP seat, Democratic Senate losses are virtually assured.

But, of course, there is a big difference between a Republican gain of two Senate seats, versus netting six or seven seats.  RollCall.com has more here.

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