Rand Paul's NSA Lawsuit Helps Him Lay Claim To A Big Issue

hide captionSen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., in front of the federal district court in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2014, where he filed his lawsuit against the Obama administration and the NSA.

Charles Dharapak/AP

By filing his lawsuit against the Obama administration, including the National Security Agency, over the intelligence agency's collection of phone-call data, Sen. Rand Paul now has ownership of a major issue in a way no other potential 2016 presidential candidate can lay claim.

Paul was there early and his lawsuit will help him prove that. While the best other Republican presidential candidates will be able to do is rhetorically inveigh against the NSA, Paul will be able to say he did more — he sued them.

The revelations by former NSA contract worker Edward Snowden have raised concerns, particularly among Republicans and many younger voters, about the potential for Big Brother-style government abuse.

By staking out a high-profile position on this issue Paul, a Kentucky Republican who filed suit along with Freedomworks, the Tea Party group, can increase his appeal to the segment of voters who've been most alarmed by the Snowden disclosures.

A recent Quinnipiac University poll suggested that voters are split in their support or opposition to the NSA program. Voters who identified as political independents, the type of voters who Paul showed particularly appeal to in his Senate race, are especially troubled by what Snowden revealed. Furthermore, younger voters opposed to the data-collection effort outstripped those who supported it by 12 percentage points.

The lawsuit also comes with a potential problem for Paul, however. As the Washington Post's Dana Milbank reported, a well-known Washington, D.C. constitutional lawyer, Bruce Fein, has complained that Paul's lawsuit contains his intellectual work. Paul's communications director didn't return my call or email request for comment. Fein also did not respond to my request to discuss the issue.

This conjures up the plagiarism controversy of last year that it seemed Paul had finally gotten past when he was accused of using others' lines in his speeches without proper attribution. So for Paul, the lawsuit may wind up cutting both ways.

As Takeover Hopes Fade, House Democrats Remain Upbeat

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hide captionRep. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., and Rep. Ron Barber, D-Ariz., right, pick up box lunches on Feb. 12 before boarding a bus for a trip to a retreat in Cambridge, Md., where House Democrats will hold strategy meetings for two and a half days.

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Rep. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., and Rep. Ron Barber, D-Ariz., right, pick up box lunches on Feb. 12 before boarding a bus for a trip to a retreat in Cambridge, Md., where House Democrats will hold strategy meetings for two and a half days.

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

House Democrats face a decidedly grim election season.

Their hopes of wresting control from the GOP look increasingly remote. Their legislative agenda is stymied. And some of their biggest liberal standard-bearers – Californians Henry Waxman and George Miller — are retiring.

So, as they hunker down on Maryland's Eastern Shore for their annual "issues conference" Thursday and Friday, why do they seem to be in such good spirits?

There was reportedly impromptu dancing to Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley's guitar playing Wednesday night. Leadership also engaged in some good-natured scolding of the press for using "Obamacare" as shorthand for the president's signature Affordable Care Act.

And members, who had high-tailed it out of Washington before the Wednesday night-and-beyond snowstorm shut down the capital, were filling their dance cards with pump-you-up sessions on the minimum wage, income inequality, and how to win over unmarried women. (Make that more unmarried women; it's a demographic already dominated by Democrats.)

Two reasons seem to explain why House Democrats seem so improbably upbeat: The Tea Party and cash.

"The Tea Party is probably what helps House Democrats get up in the morning," says Nathan Gonzales of the non-partisan Rothenberg Political Report, which analyzes congressional races.

"When they look at a number of other factors – from their president's job rating, to some of their own colleagues who are retiring, the news isn't great," he said. "They are fueled by the Tea Party and a Republican-led House that appears to be constantly going too far."

To that point: before the Democrats headed to Maryland, Republican House Speaker John Boehner, stymied by his fractious caucus and facing another crisis over the nation's borrowing power, had to turn to the minority party to get a "clean" debt ceiling bill passed.

House Democrats, for that brief legislative instance, mattered. So heady was that moment that it prompted Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York to suggest that perhaps a similar scenario could play out in the House on the issue of immigration. The Senate last year passed an immigration reform bill; the House has not acted.

"In this Senate ... we forged a coalition," Schumer said Thursday on MSNBC. "So in the House there's a lot of trouble because our Tea Party friends are very much against it, and while a lot of Republicans are the same as I believe they were on the debt, they want to vote no but hope yes, there's a real chance, I still think, to get this done."

Schumer was engaged in some mischief-making, considering that statistics show that the issue of immigration plays very differently in Republican House districts —the vast majority of which have 20 percent or fewer Hispanic constituents. And it would be a steep climb for House Democrats, currently outnumbered 232-200, to put together a majority on the issue.

California GOP Rep. David Valadao, who previously endorsed immigration reform, dismissed Schumer's proposal.

"Congressman Valadao does not believe there is sufficient support among House Republicans to support a discharge petition related to the Senate immigration bill, nor does he believe that is the best path forward," says Tal Eslick, his chief of staff. "He remains committed to working with Democrats and Republicans to provide a solution that addresses all aspects of immigration reform."

None of this chatter seems likely to translate into a fall victory for House Democrats. They need a net gain of 17 seats to win a majority; their best case scenario at this point looks to be a pick-up of a handful of seats.

While Obama and the Affordable Care Act remain the salient issues in most races, House Republican divisions that have led to majority party gridlock give the nothing-to-lose Democrats an opportunity to hit Boehner and crew for failing to move job, immigration and wage bills. Victimization has its perks.

Despite the cloudy November outlook, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has been busily filling its coffers.

Year-end reports show that the DCCC raised close to $76 million in 2013, and had a balance of $29 million going into the new year.

The National Republican Congressional Committee, by comparison, raised $60.5 million last year, and reported $21 million in the bank at the end of December.

The president is scheduled to give the keynote address at the conference Friday midday, to a group of legislators eager to hear some good news on the health care law front.

More Ambassador Posts Are Going To Political Appointees

The nominee to be U.S. ambassador to, say, Hungary should be able to explain what the U.S. strategic interests are in that country — right?

But Colleen Bell, a soap opera producer and President Obama's appointee to be U.S. envoy to that European country, struggled to answer that simple question during her recent confirmation hearing.

"Well, we have our strategic interests, in terms of what are our key priorities in Hungary, I think our key priorities are to improve upon, as I mentioned, the security relationship and also the law enforcement and to promote business opportunities, increase trade ..." she responded, grasping for words, to a question by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) on Jan. 16. (You can see the full hearing here.)

As McCain tweeted later about the confirmation hearings that day: "You can't make this up."

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hide captionTV producer Colleen Bell, shown here in a 2013 photo, was a big donor for President Obama before she was nominated to become ambassador to Hungary. Obama has chosen more political appointees than his predecessors.

Handout/Getty Images

TV producer Colleen Bell, shown here in a 2013 photo, was a big donor for President Obama before she was nominated to become ambassador to Hungary. Obama has chosen more political appointees than his predecessors.

Handout/Getty Images

President Obama used to say that he wanted to rely more on career diplomats to serve as U.S. ambassadors. But the State Department's professional association, the American Foreign Service Association or AFSA, says that he has named a higher percentage of political appointees than his predecessors. He's given plum assignments to political donors such as Bell, who have made headlines recently with embarrassing gaffes at their confirmation hearings.

The AFSA has been so worried about how ambassadors are chosen that it's drawing up a list of basic qualifications for the job: knowing, for example, what U.S. interests are in the country where they are going to work.

The report, to be released later this month, comes at a time when there's been increased scrutiny of Obama's picks.

The AFSA, which keeps track of appointments, says in his second term so far, Obama has named a record number of political appointees, more than half, as compared to other recent presidents, who tend to name donors and friends to about one-third of the ambassadorial posts.

Ronald Neumann, president of the American Academy of Diplomacy, doesn't have anything against political appointees: His father was one.

However, unlike some of the campaign "bundlers" — wealthy fund-raisers who bundle contributions from a variety of donors — getting nominations in the Obama administration, Neumann's father was a professor of international relations, who had traveled and written extensively about the Middle East before serving as ambassador to Afghanistan, Morocco and Saudi Arabia.

"He was an enormously competent appointee who served four presidents, three embassies and two parties, which is kind of unusual," Neumann says of his father. The two men used to joke that they "came into the foreign service together" — his father at the top and Neumann at the bottom.

So Neumann, who like his father served as ambassador to Afghanistan, tries to take an even-handed approach, saying all ambassadors, whether political appointees or career diplomats, need to be vetted properly.

"There is a law, which both parties ignore, about ambassadors needing to be qualified: the Foreign Service Act of 1980," Neumann points out. "People still get through even if they are manifestly not qualified."

There have been some particularly tough confirmation hearings lately, though. The same day McCain quizzed Bell, the Arizona senator was also perplexed when the nominee to become ambassador to Norway, hotel executive George Tsunis, described a party in that country's ruling coalition as "a fringe element." And then there was the recent grilling of Obama's pick for ambassador to Argentina.

At times it's a good idea to have someone with the president's ear out in key countries around the world. But Robert Silverman, president of the AFSA, says most other major powers don't do things this way.

"They send us career professional diplomats as ambassadors," he says, suggesting that "those countries know that career professionals are the people most likely to further their country's interests in the United States. It is a simple matter of sending the right people to the right jobs."

That's why he asked a group of former ambassadors — five political appointees and five career diplomats — to draw up the soon-to-be published list of the basic qualifications for U.S. ambassadors.

More Ambassador Posts Are Going To Political Appointees

The nominee to be U.S. ambassador to, say, Hungary should be able to explain what the U.S. strategic interests are in that country — right?

But Colleen Bell, a soap opera producer and President Obama's appointee to be U.S. envoy to that European country, struggled to answer that simple question during her recent confirmation hearing.

"Well, we have our strategic interests, in terms of what are our key priorities in Hungary, I think our key priorities are to improve upon, as I mentioned, the security relationship and also the law enforcement and to promote business opportunities, increase trade ..." she responded, grasping for words, to a question by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) on Jan. 16. (You can see the full hearing here.)

As McCain tweeted later about the confirmation hearings that day: "You can't make this up."

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hide captionTV producer Colleen Bell, shown here in a 2013 photo, was a big donor for President Obama before she was nominated to become ambassador to Hungary. Obama has chosen more political appointees than his predecessors.

Handout/Getty Images

TV producer Colleen Bell, shown here in a 2013 photo, was a big donor for President Obama before she was nominated to become ambassador to Hungary. Obama has chosen more political appointees than his predecessors.

Handout/Getty Images

President Obama used to say that he wanted to rely more on career diplomats to serve as U.S. ambassadors. But the State Department's professional association, the American Foreign Service Association or AFSA, says that he has named a higher percentage of political appointees than his predecessors. He's given plum assignments to political donors such as Bell, who have made headlines recently with embarrassing gaffes at their confirmation hearings.

The AFSA has been so worried about how ambassadors are chosen that it's drawing up a list of basic qualifications for the job: knowing, for example, what U.S. interests are in the country where they are going to work.

The report, to be released later this month, comes at a time when there's been increased scrutiny of Obama's picks.

The AFSA, which keeps track of appointments, says in his second term so far, Obama has named a record number of political appointees, more than half, as compared to other recent presidents, who tend to name donors and friends to about one-third of the ambassadorial posts.

Ronald Neumann, president of the American Academy of Diplomacy, doesn't have anything against political appointees: His father was one.

However, unlike some of the campaign "bundlers" — wealthy fund-raisers who bundle contributions from a variety of donors — getting nominations in the Obama administration, Neumann's father was a professor of international relations, who had traveled and written extensively about the Middle East before serving as ambassador to Afghanistan, Morocco and Saudi Arabia.

"He was an enormously competent appointee who served four presidents, three embassies and two parties, which is kind of unusual," Neumann says of his father. The two men used to joke that they "came into the foreign service together" — his father at the top and Neumann at the bottom.

So Neumann, who like his father served as ambassador to Afghanistan, tries to take an even-handed approach, saying all ambassadors, whether political appointees or career diplomats, need to be vetted properly.

"There is a law, which both parties ignore, about ambassadors needing to be qualified: the Foreign Service Act of 1980," Neumann points out. "People still get through even if they are manifestly not qualified."

There have been some particularly tough confirmation hearings lately, though. The same day McCain quizzed Bell, the Arizona senator was also perplexed when the nominee to become ambassador to Norway, hotel executive George Tsunis, described a party in that country's ruling coalition as "a fringe element." And then there was the recent grilling of Obama's pick for ambassador to Argentina.

At times it's a good idea to have someone with the president's ear out in key countries around the world. But Robert Silverman, president of the AFSA, says most other major powers don't do things this way.

"They send us career professional diplomats as ambassadors," he says, suggesting that "those countries know that career professionals are the people most likely to further their country's interests in the United States. It is a simple matter of sending the right people to the right jobs."

That's why he asked a group of former ambassadors — five political appointees and five career diplomats — to draw up the soon-to-be published list of the basic qualifications for U.S. ambassadors.

Debt Ceiling Vote Relied On GOP's 'Tough Vote' Caucus

hide captionHouse Speaker John Boehner, Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (left), and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (right) were among the 28 Republicans whose votes made it possible for most other Republicans to vote against the debt ceiling hike.

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Within the House Republican Conference, an unofficial "tough vote" caucus is taking shape.

Its members are the ones who tend to cast the unpleasant, politically painful, bite-the-bullet votes — like this week's debt ceiling vote. Other fiscal votes that fit the pattern include last year's fiscal cliff deal or the vote to end last year's partial government shutdown.

The numbers in the tough vote caucus vary slightly from bill to bill, but the core contingent is fairly small in size: Just 28 House Republicans, for example, voted with nearly all the Democrats — 193 of them —to raise the debt ceiling.

The ranks of the tough vote caucus include more than a few retiring members who don't have to worry about the political repercussions of their actions. But there are also members who will have to face primary or general election voters again.

These members know they're going to catch it from hard-liners and other fiscal hawks who say they'd rather take the risk of the nation defaulting on its obligations than increase the statutory debt ceiling. For some, their vote could mean a Tea Party-backed challenge.

A senior House Republican aide explained to me that those in the GOP's tough vote caucus know they make it possible for their fellow Republicans to vote in opposition to various must-pass measures like the debt ceiling hike — thus allowing their colleagues to tout to voters how stingy they are on fiscal issues.

"It's such a good vote for all these Republicans who vote against it, knowing that it's going to pass, knowing that all they need is small group of Republicans to make sure that they vote for it so that it will pass. Because none of these people want to vote against raising the debt ceiling and then actually blow through the debt ceiling and then be on record supporting that course of action.

"So all these Republicans can vote against raising the debt ceiling ... and then they go back to their districts, back to their conservative constituencies and say, 'Look, I stood up. I was against raising the debt ceiling. I stood on my principles, blah, blah, blah.' So it just comes to the question of who is in this small group of Republicans that is willing to walk the plank on this?

"This is a tough vote for my boss because he's going to go home and hear it from his conservative constituents," said the aide, who works for one of the plank walkers.

The list of those voting to raise the debt ceiling included House GOP leaders like Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy of California. Committee chairmen Darrell Issa, Ed Royce and Howard "Buck" McKeon, all from California, and Dave Camp of Michigan, were also yes votes.

At least five were members who have announced their retirements at the end of this year: McKeon, Howard Coble of North Carolina, Jim Gerlach of Pennsylvania, Gary Miller of California and Richard "Doc" Hastings of Washington state.

With few exceptions, the House Republicans who voted yes were from states President Obama won in 2012.

Members of the center-right Republican Main Street Partnership, like freshman David Valadao, who represents a competitive Central California district, and Dave Reichert of suburban Seattle were also among the 28 Republicans — three more than were needed — who added their votes to get the debt bill to the 218 votes. The measure passed the Senate Wednesday and went on to the president's desk.

One thing these members had in common is that none of them felt the immediate pressure of a competitive Tea Party challenger. "For somebody who is facing a strong primary challenge from a Tea Party-type candidate, yeah, this would've been a very tough vote to take," the GOP aide said.

Debt Ceiling Vote Relied On GOP's 'Tough Vote' Caucus

hide captionHouse Speaker John Boehner, Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (left), and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (right) were among the 28 Republicans whose votes made it possible for most other Republicans to vote against the debt-ceiling hike.

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Within the House Republican Conference, an unofficial "tough vote" caucus is taking shape.

Its members are the ones who tend to cast the unpleasant, politically painful, bite-the-bullet votes — like this week's debt-ceiling vote. Other fiscal votes that fit the pattern include last year's fiscal cliff deal or the vote to end last year's partial government shutdown.

The numbers in the tough vote caucus vary slightly from bill to bill, but the core contingent is fairly small in size: just 28 House Republicans, for example, voted with nearly all the Democrats — 193 of them —to raise the debt ceiling.

The ranks of the tough vote caucus include more than a few retiring members who don't have to worry about the political repercussions of their actions. But there also members who will have to face primary or general election voters again.

These members know they're going to catch it from hardliners and other fiscal hawks who say they'd rather take the risk of the nation defaulting on its obligations than increase the statutory debt ceiling. For some, their vote could mean a Tea Party-backed challenge.

A senior House Republican aide explained to me that those in the GOP's tough vote caucus know they make it possible for their fellow Republicans to vote in opposition to various must-pass measures like the debt ceiling hike — thus allowing their colleagues to tout to voters how stingy they are on fiscal issues.

"It's such a good vote for all these Republicans who vote against it, knowing that it's going to pass, knowing that all they need is small group of Republicans to make sure that they vote for it so that it will pass. Because none of these people want to vote against raising the debt ceiling and then actually blow through the debt ceiling and then be on record supporting that course of action.

"So all these Republicans can vote against raising the debt ceiling...and then they go back to their districts, back to their conservative constituencies and say, 'Look, I stood up. I was against raising the debt ceiling. I stood on my principles, blah, blah, blah.' So it just comes to the question of who is in this small group of Republicans that is willing to walk the plank on this?

"This is a tough vote for my boss because he's going to go home and hear it from his conservative constituents," said the aide, who works for one of the plank walkers.

The list of those voting to raise the debt ceiling included House GOP leaders like Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy of California. Committee chairs Darrell Issa, Ed Royce and Howard "Buck" McKeon, all from California, and Dave Camp of Michigan, were also yes votes.

At least five were members who've announced their retirements at the end of this year: McKeon, Howard Coble of North Carolina, Jim Gerlach of Pennsylvania, Gary Miller of California and Richard "Doc" Hastings of Washington state.

With few exceptions, the House Republicans who voted yes were from states President Obama won in 2012.

Members of the center-right Republican Main Street Partnership like freshman David Valadao who represents a competitive central California district and Dave Reichert of suburban Seattle were also among the 28 Republicans, three more than were needed, who added their votes to get the debt bill to the 218 votes. The measure passed the Senate Wednesday and went on to the president's desk.

One thing these members had in common is that none of them felt the immediate pressure of a competitive Tea Party challenger. "For somebody who is facing a strong primary challenge from a Tea Party type candidate, yeah, this would've been a very tough vote to take," the GOP aide said.

A Closer Look At How Corporations Influence Congress

Eric Lipton, an investigative reporter for The New York Times, has been writing about how corporations work in opaque ways to shape debates. He also explains the revolving door between Congress and lobby groups, and how non-profit think tanks aren't always what they seem.

'Citizens United' Critics Fight Money With Money

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hide captionA woman signs a giant banner printed with the preamble to the United States Constitution during a demonstration against the Citizens United ruling in Washington in Oct. 2010.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

A woman signs a giant banner printed with the preamble to the United States Constitution during a demonstration against the Citizens United ruling in Washington in Oct. 2010.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

It's been four years since the Supreme Court's controversial Citizens United ruling, the case that set the stage for unlimited and often undisclosed contribution money in federal elections. This year, the super PACs and social welfare organizations that use that money for attack ads are already at it, even as Republicans and Democrats are still choosing their candidates for the fall campaigns.

Advocates of stronger campaign finance laws are 0-for-6 at the Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts. And there's no consensus in Congress on what, if anything, should be done. But critics of Citizens United, including newly enlisted philanthropists, are organizing a long campaign of their own to reduce the political influence of big money.

One of those philanthropists is Phil Radford, co-founder of the Democracy Initiative. Radford says polls show rising anger as Americans see money's influence in Washington.

"I think that outrage will translate into people, district by district, asking their members of Congress: What are they doing to make sure America is a democracy again?" he says.

The Democracy Initiative is a consortium led by Greenpeace USA — where Radford is executive director — the Communications Workers of America, the NAACP and the Sierra Club. It's active on voter rights, and it runs Fix The Senate Now, a campaign that has already helped to lower parliamentary roadblocks in the Senate.

But even efforts to control money take money.

"This fight has been chronically underfunded for way too many years," says Nick Penniman. He's director of the Fund for the Republic, a tax-exempt group working to recruit more philanthropists to the cause.

"Unless we can increase the number of philanthropists donating to the fight for reform, we're not going to be able to ever have the financial power that we need to create a real surge."

His goal: $40 million, which the Fund would then distribute in grants. It's no small sum. Penniman calls it ironic but necessary.

David Keating, on the other side of the debate, calls it futile. Keating is president of the Center for Competitive Politics, which advocates for fewer limits and no new disclosure requirements.

It's All Politics

Post-'Citizens United' Senate Snapshot: Money Doesn't Guarantee Victory

He says polls over time show that Americans are leery of politicians who want to regulate political speech, including political money. He also says the Citizens United ruling seems to benefit liberals and conservatives alike.

"I think more people are getting used to the new system — the new freedoms that we have from recent Supreme Court decisions," he says.

But Wendy Weiser, head of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice in New York, is looking at different poll numbers. She says Citizens United and other recent decisions get little public support.

"When there's such a wide gap between public perceptions of constitutional values and the court's decisionmaking, those decisions are ultimately not sustainable," she says.

Meanwhile, lawyers against Citizens United are working up new legal theories. One target is a section of the Citizens United ruling that shrank the legal concept of political corruption.

Essentially, Citizens United says money only corrupts politicians who do favors for donors in return for contributions. Zephyr Teachout at Fordham University Law School says that's radically different from the Founding Fathers' view of corruption. They discussed it a lot, she says, but in terms of corrupting the institution and the system, not the individual lawmakers.

Politics

Supreme Court Hears Another Challenge To Campaign Finance Law

"The Founding Fathers didn't even talk about criminal bribery or criminal law as a way to protect against corruption," Teachout says. "What they were concerned about is all the ways in which money and power could influence people, representatives in particular, to be unfaithful to their constituents."

Keating, not surprisingly, doesn't buy it. "I think if the Founders looked at the types of remedies being proposed by people who support these, I think, basically crackpot legal theories, they would laugh."

But that theory about the Founding Fathers is just one of many under development, perhaps coming soon to federal courthouses around the country.

Election Panel: Long Lines Were 'Management' Problem

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hide captionPresident Obama speaks to media as he meets with, from left, Robert Bauer, Co-Chair, Presidential Commission on Election Administration, Vice President Joe Biden, and Benjamin Ginsberg, Co-Chair, Presidential Commission on Election Administration, and other members of the Presidential Commission on Election Administration on Jan. 22.

Carolyn Kaster/AP

President Obama speaks to media as he meets with, from left, Robert Bauer, Co-Chair, Presidential Commission on Election Administration, Vice President Joe Biden, and Benjamin Ginsberg, Co-Chair, Presidential Commission on Election Administration, and other members of the Presidential Commission on Election Administration on Jan. 22.

Carolyn Kaster/AP

The commission President Obama appointed last year to figure out how to fix long lines at the polls and other election problems has sought to steer clear of the many partisan land-mines surrounding how Americans vote.

And the two co-chairs of the panel continued to do so Wednesday as they presented their unanimous recommendations to the Senate Rules Committee.

When asked by Democrat Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota whether some states were doing things intentionally to disenfranchise voters — like limiting early voting days — commission co-chair and Democratic election lawyer Bob Bauer responded diplomatically.

First, he said the commission was struck by how much it had heard from both Democrats and Republicans, "once the lights were off and the doors were closed," about their desire to improve the way elections are run.

And then he told senators that any partisan plots to disenfranchise voters would be far less likely to succeed if states adopted some of the changes proposed by the bipartisan panel, like improving the accuracy of voter registration lists.

"There's more vulnerability of the system to those sorts of shenanigans if the system itself is weak," Bauer said. "If it's strong, it's less likely that it will break down under political pressure or by political design."

His commission co-chair, Republican attorney Ben Ginsberg, also said the panel found a lot of common ground when it came to elections, including agreement that no voter should have to wait more than 30 minutes to cast a ballot. Some voters had to wait six or more hours in 2012 to vote.

Ginsberg also said, in response to a question from Republican Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, that the commission found no evidence in hearings around the country that long lines were the result of partisan plots — as some have suggested.

Instead, Ginsburg said, it was almost exclusively a management problem. Some election officials simply misjudged how much equipment and personnel they needed at certain precincts. The commission is providing online programs to help local election officials better manage resources.

But how much impact the panel's recommendations will have is an open question. For the most part, it's up to state and local governments to decide whether or not they want to make the changes. And those debates are often fraught with political debate over how easy or difficult voting should be.

One of the commission's biggest concerns involves voting technology — a non-partisan issue that has nevertheless become highly politicized.

Bauer and Ginsberg warned that there's a huge crisis in voting technology right around the corner. They said all the new voting equipment purchased after the disputed 2000 presidential election will "no longer be functional" within the next 10 years. But the process now in place to upgrade the equipment is in disarray.

That's because the federal agency known as the Election Assistance Commission needs to certify all new voting technology. And there's one big problem — the EAC hasn't had any commissioners since 2011 because of a dispute between Republicans and Democrats over whether or not there should even be an EAC.

Republicans think the EAC has outlived it's usefulness and should be eliminated. Democrats think it should continue to oversee how elections are run.

Bauer and Ginsberg — again diplomatically — suggested that an alternative way to certify voting equipment should be found in the event the EAC never gets up and running again.

In one more sign that elections and politics are difficult to separate, the Rules Committee had scheduled a vote on President Obama's two Democratic nominees to the EAC — Myrna Perez and Thomas Hicks — right after Bauer and Ginsberg testified. But at the last minute, the vote was postponed until after the Senate's Presidents Day recess, because the committee couldn't get a quorum.

Senate Follows House Lead In Passing Debt Limit Raise

Audio for this story from All Things Considered will be available at approximately 7:00 p.m. ET.

Eager to follow their House colleagues out of Washington for a break, senators Wednesday cleared a raise to the debt ceiling for the president to sign into law. It will take the issue of limiting U.S. debt off the table until March 2015.

Democrats Clash In Military Sexual Assault Debate

hide captionNew York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, center, and Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, right, are at odds over the best way to respond to military sexual assaults.

AP

The Capitol Hill crackdown on sexual assaults in the U.S. military has been a rare mission on which Republicans and Democrats have found common ground over the past year.

The effort, spearheaded by Senate women — including an unprecedented seven on the Armed Services Committee — has already resulted in scores of tough new provisions designed to root out sexual predators, improve victims' services, and end commanders' ability to overturn jury convictions.

The reforms were wrapped into the National Defense Authorization Act signed by President Obama in December.

"The awareness of this issue has been raised to a height never imagined before," says Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat and member of the Armed Services Committee, which last spring held high-profile hearings on the military sexual assault crisis. "Most informed Americans are now aware of this very serious issue and are deeply interested in it."

But a simmering policy dispute between two Democratic senators — both women and both influential members of the Armed Services Committee — has been overshadowing gains that most characterize as nothing short of historic.

The point of contention? Legislation proposed by New York Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand that would take the unprecedented step of stripping U.S. military commanders of control over decisions about whether to pursue prosecution in cases involving sexual assault allegations.

Her fellow Democrat, Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri, is aggressively opposing the effort, arguing that the change would not improve the climate or legal path for victims. She has legislation of her own that promotes additional, non-controversial reforms to combat sexual assault but would leave prosecution decisions in the hands of the military chain of command.

Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., also opposes Gillibrand's measure, as have the White House and military leaders.

The argument had become increasingly contentious leading up to what was expected to be a Gillibrand-McCaskill legislative showdown this week in the Senate.

McCaskill suggested that Gillibrand would need the votes of 60 senators to advance her bill – a statement many read as tantamount to a filibuster threat. And Gillibrand, who argues that the status quo has not worked even in what's supposed to be a "zero tolerance" climate, this week peppered her Twitter feed with entries like this: "How many more rapes must we endure to wait & see what reforms are needed?"

But scheduling, horse-trading, and, perhaps, Gillibrand's very public pursuit of those 60 votes (her office this week confirmed it has 54 publicly-confirmed supporters — including nine Republicans, among them Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ted Cruz of Texas), have pushed the schedule back to later this month. At the earliest.

Gillibrand's Senate supporters, among them Blumenthal and Sens. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisc., Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, suggest that she is very close to getting to the 60-vote threshold. But that count would include some senators who would vote to take it to the floor for debate, but would not support it in the end.

McCaskill's people say they do not believe that Gillibrand has, or will get, the 60 votes needed.

What may have damaged for now the New York senator's pursuit of 60 votes is a recent report by a female-dominated panel of experts that overwhelmingly concluded military commanders should maintain their authority over the prosecution of sexual assault cases.

Former U.S. House Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman said she came to the panel, established by Congress to study the prospect of moving sexual assault prosecutions out of the chain of command, believing that Gillibrand's proposal "sounded right."

"I changed my mind," Holtzman said when the panel presented its findings.

If removing the commander as the convening authority, she said, and putting the power in the hands of "prosecutorial bureaucracy" would make a difference, "I would be saying junk it. We can't have the present system.

"But we haven't seen any evidence of that," she said, a conclusion shared by eight of the nine panel members, which included two men.

The battle is expected to be rejoined when senators return from their Presidents' Day holiday break later this month.

"Whether the McCaskill bill or the Gillibrand bill," Blumenthal says, "one of them will pass, and will make a difference."

With Senate's OK, Debt Limit Bill Will Head To White House

The Senate has voted to extend the federal debt limit, giving final congressional approval to a bill that is meant to cover the government's finances into 2015. The measure passed on a 55-43 vote.

But the most dramatic phase of the legislation's passage came just before the final tally, when it had to get past a cloture vote. Politico says, "Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R) demanded the 60-vote threshold on the debt hike."

As The Hill reports:

"The 67-31 cloture vote took more Senate time than usual, highlighting the arm-twisting going on behind closed doors, as few Republicans wanted to be seen as casting the deciding vote for the bill. It wasn't gaveled closed until more than an hour after it began."

With their 55 votes backing the measure, the Democrats needed five Republicans to join them. And as happened in the House yesterday, when Speaker John Boehner voted in favor, the chamber's GOP leadership was forced to take action.

From Politico:

"Ultimately, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) — both of whom are up for reelection this year and face primary challengers — voted to advance the debt hike measure."

Wednesday's Senate approval comes one day after the House gave its reluctance embrace to the legislation. Republicans in that chamber had hoped to tie military pension requirements to the debt bill, but they gave up that quest. A similar measure regarding the pensions remains active in the Senate.