Arkansas Republican Rep. Tom Cotton plans to announce his bid next week to challenge two-term incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor in next year’s elections, according to a person familiar with the congressman’s plans.
Tag Archives: Mark Pryor
HUFFPOST HILL – Supreme Court Weighs Gay Marriage, Still No White House Tours
By The Huffington Post News Editors
The Supreme Court gave no clear signal where it was headed on Proposition 8, but there was no mistaking Antonin Scalia’s beliefs about septuagenarian breeding (He’s pro.). Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says she doesn’t use email, which means we can say whatever we want about her here. And Chris Christie vowed to keep Prince Harry clothed when the British royal visits New Jersey, even though “Naked Prince” sounds like a brightly colored beverage we’ve consumed on the Shore. This is HUFFPOST HILL for Tuesday, March 26th, 2013:
GUN CONTROL: NO AGREEMENT ON BACKGROUND CHECKS – Sam Stein: “Negotiations over legislation that would extend background checks for gun buyers are still officially on. But aides on the Hill involved in those conversations said a breakthrough remains far off and discussions are unlikely to get serious for another week or so. ‘My guess is after Easter they will all start really talking because then that clock starts clicking,’ said a source close to negotiations who spoke on condition of anonymity. The authors of the bill, set to head to the floor of the Senate after the Easter recess,were casting a wider net for potential Republican co-sponsors, according to a report this week. But one of those who reportedly being wooed — Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) — downplayed the report…That means center stage remains occupied by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.)… Schumer and Coburn remain at odds over two central issues — how those checks are conducted, and whether records should be kept of firearms transactions. Coburn wants new gun sales to use online portals for conducting background checks. Schumer wants a federal firearms license holder to do the work. Coburn doesn’t support keeping sales records for private transactions. Schumer has said he sees that as potentially gutting the purpose of the law.” [HuffPost]
VOTE-A-RAMA BODES ILL FOR GUN CONTROL – Sure, it was nearly four in the morning, but the world’s greatest deliberative body wasn’t afraid to make decisions about firearms. Roll Call: “Senators voted 50-49 in favor of an amendment by Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, to establish a two-thirds requirement for the passage of any gun control legislation in their chamber. While the budget resolution is nonbinding and the amendment did not win the 60 votes needed to be adopted, the outcome underscores how many senators strongly support gun rights, just as the chamber prepares to debate the biggest package of gun control measures in nearly two decades. Six Democrats from gun-friendly states joined a nearly united Republican conference to support Lee’s amendment: Max Baucus of Montana, Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Mark Pryor of Arkansas.” [Roll Call]
Senate Passes Budget for the First Time in Four Years
Filed under: U.S. Government, Government Spending, Breaking News
By ALAN FRAM
WASHINGTON (AP) – An exhausted Senate gave pre-dawn approval Saturday to a Democratic $3.7 trillion budget for next year that embraces nearly $1 trillion in tax increases over the coming decade but shelters domestic programs targeted for cuts by House Republicans.
While their victory was by a razor-thin 50-49, the vote let Democrats tout their priorities. Yet it doesn’t resolve the deep differences the two parties have over deficits and the size of government.
Joining all Republicans voting no were four Democrats who face re-election next year in potentially difficult races: Sens. Max Baucus of Montana, Mark Begich of Alaska, Kay Hagan of North Carolina and Mark Pryor of Arkansas. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., did not vote.
The vote came after lawmakers labored through the night on scores of symbolic amendments, ranging from voicing support for letting states collect taxes on Internet sales to expressing opposition to requiring photo ID‘s for voters.
The Senate’s budget would shrink annual federal shortfalls over the next decade to nearly $400 billion, raise unspecified taxes by $975 billion and cull modest savings from domestic programs.
In contrast, a rival budget approved by the GOP-run House balances the budget within 10 years without boosting taxes.
That blueprint- by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., his party’s vice presidential candidate last year – claims $4 trillion more in savings over the period than Senate Democrats by digging deeply into Medicaid, food stamps and other safety net programs for the needy. It would also transform the Medicare health care program for seniors into a voucher-like system for future recipients.
“We have presented very different visions for how our country should work and who it should work for,” said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who chairs the Senate Budget Committee. “But I am hopeful that we can bridge this divide.”
A day that stretched roughly 20 hours featured brittle debate at times. The loudest moment came toward the end, when senators rose as one to cheer a handful of Senate pages – high school students – who lawmakers said had worked in the chamber since the morning’s opening gavel. Senators then left town for a two-week spring recess.
Congressional budgets are planning documents that leave actual changes in revenues and spending for later legislation, and this was the first the Democratic-run Senate has approved in four years. That lapse is testament to the political and mathematical contortions needed to write fiscal plans in an era of record-breaking deficits that until this year exceeded an eye-popping $1 trillion annually, and to the parties‘ profoundly conflicting views.
“I believe we’re in denial about the financial condition of our country,” Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, top Republican on the Budget panel, said of Democratic efforts to boost spending on some programs. “Trust me, we’ve got to have some spending reductions.”
Though budget shortfalls …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
Mark Pryor Is 2014 Election Target For Club For Growth
By The Huffington Post News Editors
WASHINGTON — The conservative Club for Growth on Thursday got an early start on the 2014 election when it launched an ad targeting Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.).
The six-figure ad buy follows the same playbook Republicans used in the last two elections: link targets to President Barack Obama and make them defend their vote for the Affordable Care Act.
“He’s the only Arkansan in Congress today who voted for Obamacare,” the ad’s narrator says. “The only one who voted for the Obama stimulus. He joined Obama to bail out the Wall Street banks. Who is he? Mark Pryor.”
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Vets groups' praise for Hagel adds pressure on GOP
Countering the Republican-led opposition to President Barack Obama‘s nominee for defense secretary is a less flashy but powerful constituency: military veterans.
Veterans’ organizations have praised Chuck Hagel, a twice-wounded combat veteran of Vietnam and deputy administrator in President Ronald Reagan’s Veterans Administration.
The Veterans of Foreign Wars has called him uniquely qualified to become Pentagon chief. The Military Officers Association of America said his experience gives him “a range of perspectives.” The American Legion said he was a longtime advocate for veterans.
The organizations, which as congressionally chartered, stopped short of an outright endorsement.
Republican-leaning outside groups have waged a well-funded campaign against Hagel, airing television commercials, running full-page newspaper ads and expressing their opposition on local radio stations.
Officials from Americans for a Strong Defense, hoping to pressure Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor, spoke out on an Arkansas station this week.
Hagel’s first test could come as early as Thursday with a possible vote in the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The committee chairman, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., has said he would like to vote when the committee holds a hearing with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on last September’s deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya.
Some Republicans on the committee are circulating a letter calling for a delay in the vote until Hagel provides more information about recent speeches, the groups he has addressed and their ties. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is dissatisfied with what Hagel, a former two-term GOP senator from Nebraska, has disclosed so far.
“I’m not going to make any decision on Sen. Hagel until we get all the information we’ve requested,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told a small group of reporters on Wednesday. “I don’t think we should be voting.”
Democrats were working to resolve the last-minute issues.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said his staff was trying to determine whether Cruz’s questions are “are keeping with the normal parameters of what nominees are supposed to provide or whether it exceeds that.”
In a letter to Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., who opposes the nominee, Hagel said he had …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News