Republicans

WASHINGTON - A sweeping bipartisan plan to overhaul the nation's immigration system headed to the Senate floor after a key committee approved it Tuesday, setting the stage for a debate next month that could lead to the biggest victory for advocates of immigrant rights in a generation. The centerpiece of the legislation - a 13-year path to citizenship for many of the 11 million people now in the country without legal status - survived intact. But the bill's supporters accepted amendments that tilted it to the right to attract GOP backing, including some to toughen border security.

WASHINGTON - Committee approval of a sweeping Senate immigration overhaul has put pressure on the House, where Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and top leaders have been pushing a bipartisan group of lawmakers to produce its own bill. House veterans fear that momentum this week in the Senate could leave them behind, all but forcing the lower chamber into considering the Senate bill before their effort has a chance to come to fruition. On Wednesday, the House group was stalemated as the eight lawmakers faced a self-imposed, end-of-the-week deadline to resolve disagreements over healthcare provisions in their bill.

WASHINGTON - President Obama said Friday he wanted to put more Americans to work by slashing the amount of time it takes to grant federal approval for big job-creating projects. But Obama's choice of venue for his remarks - a Baltimore company that makes mining and pumping equipment - provided fodder for Republicans. They noted that the company president had, just the day before, testified on Capitol Hill in support of the Keystone XL pipeline, which the Obama administration has delayed for years over environmental concerns.

Newton R. Russell, a veteran state senator known as an expert on California's complex public pension system and a stickler for upholding legislative rules, died Saturday of lung cancer at his La Cañada Flintridge home, his family said. He was 85. A conservative Republican, Russell served 32 years in the Legislature, including 10 years in the Assembly and 22 years in the Senate, where he represented the communities of Arcadia, Monrovia, Sierra Madre, San Marino, Temple City, Glendale, La Cañada Flintridge and part of Pasadena.

In 1986, lawmakers decided the problem of illegal immigration had to be dealt with. More than 3 million people were living in the United States after crossing the border illegally or overstaying their visas. A new law signed by President Ronald Reagan gave legal status and a path to citizenship to most of those unauthorized residents - helping many secure a slice of the American dream but also giving fuel to critics who sought to turn "amnesty" into a pejorative. Less than 30 years later, the number of immigrants living in the country illegally is thought to have nearly quadrupled, and the freighted baggage of amnesty looms over new efforts to reform the nation's immigration laws.

The complaints of congressional Republicans that President Obama's inaugural address sent them no bouquets and love letters show a lot of gall, given the history of the last four years. Obama's inauguration speech in 2009 was crammed with language about bipartisan cooperation and ending the political rancor in Washington and what did he get for it? First, he got Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell's declaration that the paramount priority of his caucus was to make Obama a one-term president.

Republicans have become a devious party that believes if you cannot win by following fair rules, there is nothing wrong with rigging the game. To their constitutionally endorsed advantage in the Senate, they have added a manipulated advantage in the House of Representatives that some Republicans would like to leverage into an advantage in presidential elections. Let's take a look at how the political game board is set up: The population of California is significantly greater than the combined population of the 20 smallest states in the union, the majority of which are as red as California is blue.

The Republican National Committee's Spring gathering is taking place this week at Loews Hollywood. That is not Hollywood, Fla., or Hollywood, S.C., or Hollywood, Ala. - all real towns in really red states - but Hollywood, Calif., the place where Sean Penn, Ben Affleck, Alec Baldwin, Susan Sarandon, Barbra Streisand, Jane Fonda, Martin Sheen, George Clooney and the rest of the entertainment industry's liberal horde earn their keep. Like Nixon going to China, the Republicans have entered hostile territory.

Republicans not only have to compete with the star power of Michelle Obama, it just may be that they have set a trap for themselves by making the central question of the 2012 presidential campaign, "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" At their convention in Charlotte, N.C., this week, the Democrats, from the first lady on down, are responding to that question with some pretty sharp answers. Here's the most succinct one: "GM is alive and Osama bin Laden is dead. " It's a great bumper sticker line and has the added advantage of deeper resonance.

The "fiscal cliff" looms ahead and it is a solid bet that no one will come up with a deal in time to stop the country from careening off the edge. Nearly everyone claims they want to avoid the automatic tax increases and massive budget cuts that will start kicking in on Jan. 1, but few are ready to make the compromises necessary to make that happen. As expected, anti-tax purists in the House Republican Caucus have gotten in the way of Speaker John A. Boehner's attempts to come up with a fix for the fiscal cliff.

WASHINGTON - A sweeping bipartisan plan to overhaul the nation's immigration system headed to the Senate floor after a key committee approved it Tuesday, setting the stage for a debate next month that could lead to the biggest victory for advocates of immigrant rights in a generation. The centerpiece of the legislation - a 13-year path to citizenship for many of the 11 million people now in the country without legal status - survived intact. But the bill's supporters accepted amendments that tilted it to the right to attract GOP backing, including some to toughen border security.

WASHINGTON - During the 2010 campaign, Rep. Brad Sherman, a Democrat from Sherman Oaks, joked, "Every time I try to encourage the White House to do more to help us elect Democrats to the House of Representatives, I send them a picture of Darrell Issa with the word 'subpoena' underneath. " Issa, who has headed the House's top investigative committee since his party won control of the chamber in 2010, has lived up to Sherman's expectations. The Republican from Vista in San Diego County has become the Obama administration's chief antagonist in Congress.

WASHINGTON - When Sen. Orrin G. Hatch took his seat on the dais for the Senate Judiciary Committee's debates on the immigration reform bill, the 79-year-old was not just one of 18 senators. He was the most sought-after vote. A towering but genteel figure, Hatch was seen as the potential Republican domino - the first GOP senator beyond the four in the bipartisan group that crafted the immigration bill to join the effort. A yes from Hatch, the bill's supporters hoped, would heighten the odds of support from the GOP as the bill moved to the full Senate.

SACRAMENTO - It seemed like a fairly good idea at the time - the idea of Abel Maldonado running for governor. He wasn't going to win. But neither would he be a Republican embarrassment. There was no Republican in sight with even a faint chance of beating Gov. Jerry Brown next year. Amend that. There was no credible challenger preparing to take on the Democratic incumbent, period. The moderate Maldonado, 45, from Santa Maria - a former mayor, legislator and lieutenant governor - seemed credible.

WASHINGTON - Republican opposition in many statehouses to expanding Medicaid next year under President Obama's healthcare law - opposition that could leave millions of the nation's poorest residents without insurance coverage - will likely widen the divide between the nation's healthiest and sickest states. With nearly every GOP-leaning state on track to reject an expansion of the government health plan for the poor, the healthcare law's goal of guaranteed insurance will become a reality next year mostly in traditionally liberal and moderate states.

WASHINGTON - President Obama said Friday he wanted to put more Americans to work by slashing the amount of time it takes to grant federal approval for big job-creating projects. But Obama's choice of venue for his remarks - a Baltimore company that makes mining and pumping equipment - provided fodder for Republicans. They noted that the company president had, just the day before, testified on Capitol Hill in support of the Keystone XL pipeline, which the Obama administration has delayed for years over environmental concerns.

Forget voter ID laws. What this country needs are laws to keep stupid people from voting. Now, I'm not talking about folks who can't recite the preamble to the Constitution, or who can't tell you what the 1st Amendment covers, or how many Supreme Court justices there are. I'll even exempt those poor souls who don't know who the first president was, or can't name the two houses of Congress, or don't know the name of their representative. But, if you were to show up at the polls in November, and the poll worker were to ask you “Is President Obama a Muslim or a Christian?

WASHINGTON -- President Obama's proposal to create a Veterans Jobs Corps to stem high unemployment among recent military veterans was shelved Wednesday after Republicans in the Senate balked over the five-year $1-billion cost, giving both sides fresh ammunition for the November election. The measure had been on Obama's to-do list for Congress, a modest set of initiatives aimed at boosting the nation's sluggish economy that Republicans have largely rejected. The jobs bill would have hired veterans who served in the military since the terrorist attacks of Sept.

WASHINGTON - President Obama's nominee to lead the Energy Department won unanimous confirmation by the Senate on Thursday while two other Cabinet choices narrowly advanced out of committee, amid complaints from Democrats over Republican delaying tactics. Ernest J. Moniz, an MIT physics professor who becomes the new Energy secretary, is the fifth Cabinet appointment confirmed since Obama won a second term, and the first without any Republican dissent. By comparison, all but one of President George W. Bush's 11 initial second-term appointments were confirmed by the end of April, even though his party held no more Senate seats than Democrats control now. Republicans had delayed consideration of Thomas E. Perez, Obama's choice to lead the Labor Department, and Environmental Protection Agency nominee Gina McCarthy before Thursday's party-line committee votes to recommend them to the full Senate.

In requiring the U.S. Senate to confirm presidential appointments, the Constitution aims to ensure a second level of scrutiny of the qualifications of government officials. But Senate Republicans have hijacked the confirmation process, not only to thwart individual nominees but to undermine laws they don't agree with. If they continue in their obstructionism, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) should revisit the possibility of doing away with the filibuster for nominations. The most immediate test case involves the National Labor Relations Board, the federal agency that moderates disputes between labor and management.