A looming battle between two prominent Texas Republicans is heating up after U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison confirmed that she’ll leave the Senate this fall to challenge Texas Gov. Rick Perry for his post in 2010.

Hutchison, Texas’ senior senator whose term ends in 2012, has not formally decided to run against Perry — the longest-serving governor in the state’s history — and will likely make that announcement in August, she told Dallas radio host Mark Davis in an interview on Wednesday.

Hutchison told Davis that she will likely resign her U.S. Senate seat “sometime in October, November … in that timeframe,” and return to Texas to focus on her gubernatorial campaign, with a primary run-off by May 2010.

“I’m coming home to try to give leadership to Texas,” said Hutchison, a television news reporter before she entered politics. “For him to try to stay on for 15 years is too long,” she said, referring to Perry.

A big question is the possibility that Texas could turn Democratic in coming years. In a recent article, The Economist said Texas — a long-time bastion of conservative Republicanism and home of former U.S. President George W. Bush — could swing Democratic in coming years due to a rising population of immigrants.

The last time a Democratic governor sat in the Austin statehouse was 1990, when Anne Richards won the governorship. She was replaced by Republican George W. Bush, who went on to become U.S. president.

Photo credit: Reuters/Jason Reed (Hutchison at hurricane briefing in Austin in 2008, across the table from Perry and then-president Bush)

Two of the biggest and most influential U.S. conservative groups have split over U.S. Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, with more than three million business members, urged the U.S. Senate to confirm her. It concluded that the New York judge would provide the court with a needed perspective on business matters.

But the National Rifle Association, with four million members, opposed President Barack Obama’s nominee. They wrote that they see Sotomayor as a threat to gun rights.

The Senate seems virtually certain to confirm Sotomayor — before it begins its August recess — as the first Hispanic and just third woman ever on the highest U.S. court.

In a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which held Sotomayor’s confirmation hearing last week, Bruce Josten, executive vice president at the Chamber, hailed the former courtroom lawyer turned appeals judge.

“Her extensive experience both as a commercial litigator and as a trial judge would provide the U.S. Supreme Court with a much needed perspective on the issues that business litigants face,” Josten wrote.

“Consistent with her Senate testimony, the Chamber expects Judge Sotomayor to engage in fair and evenhanded application of the laws affecting American businesses,” Josten added.

While Sotomayor appears to have a clear record on business matters, she has what’s seen as a murky one on gun rights. And at her Senate hearing, she followed tradition by deflecting questions about this and other divisive issues.

The NRA, however, concluded it had seen and heard enough. “We believe any individual who does not agree that the Second Amendment guarantees a fundamental right (to bear arms) and who does not respect our God-given right of self defense should not serve on any court, much less the highest court in the land,” NRA leaders wrote Senate members

The NRA, which grades lawmakers according to selected votes, put senators on notice their political futures may be at stake. “Given the importance of this issue, the vote on Judge Sotomayor’s confirmation will be considered in NRA’s future candidate evaluations,” NRA leaders wrote.

Photo credit: REUTERS/Jason Reed

Former comedian Al Franken on Monday made it clear in his first appearance in the U.S. Capitol as senator-elect that he had not come to entertain.

Franken did not crack a single joke, nor did he take a single question as he spoke briefly to reporters outside the Senate chamber. Instead he vowed to work hard and tried to downplay expectations now that his election has clinched a super-majority of 60 for President Obama’s Democrats in the Senate.

“A lot has been made of this number 60.  The number I’m focused on is the number two.  I — I see myself as the second senator from the state of Minnesota,” Franken said. (The other Minnesota senator is Amy Klobuchar).

Franken said voters expected him to work on the economy, energy, education and health care issues. “I am going to work day and night to make sure that our kids have a great future and that America’s best days lay ahead,” he said.

Majority Leader Harry Reid welcomed Franken to the chamber with a pledge that Democrats would not use their expanded numbers to “ram” legislation through the Senate despite a full plate of proposals on healthcare and climate change.

On the other hand, Reid said he hoped Republicans would stop being “the party of no” — a favorite moniker Democrats use for Republican resistance to dramatic changes that Obama’s party is trying to push through Congress.

Franken was declared the winner of a Senate seat in Minnesota last Tuesday after one of the longest Senate races ever, as the Minnesota Supreme Court rejected former Senator and Republican Norm Coleman’s legal arguments that an earlier recount was unfair.

Franken’s election gave Democrats the 60 Senate votes needed to stop procedural delays known as filibusters. This should help Obama’s party push through changes on complex issues such as climate change and healthcare, although the party has traditionally had trouble ensuring all its members vote the same way.

Franken is expected to be sworn in on Tuesday by Vice President Joe Biden, who also serves as President of the Senate. The last one he swore in was Illinois’ Roland Burris.

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- Photo credit: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque (Franken on Capitol Hill on Monday)

If you ever wondered what Illinois and Iran might have in common, here’s one answer: President Obama is most definitely not picking sides in their elections.
 
So insists the White House.
 
“Our response … on this has been, from the very beginning, consistent,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told a briefing Thursday when asked about the post-election turmoil in Iran.
 
“The American people and this government are not going to pick the next leader of Iran,” he said. “That’s something that the Iranians have to do.”
 
That doesn’t mean they won’t tsk-tsk loudly from the sidelines as the opportunity permits.
 
The administration has voiced concern about how the election was conducted, but shied away from suggesting any fraud was involved in President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s defeat of challenger Mirhossein Mousavi.
 
They say they don’t favor either candidate, but insist the challenger’s supporters have a right to continue their protests a week after the vote.
 
“We have to ensure that we express our views, as I’ve said, about ensuring that people can demonstrate, have their causes and concerns heard,” the White House spokesman said.
 
Obama’s also steering clear of the U.S. Senate race in Illinois, Gibbs said, even though he met last Friday with Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan.
 
Chicago papers say the Obama administration is pushing her to run for the president’s former U.S. Senate seat in 2010, but the White House begs to differ.
 
“Let me be explicit,” Gibbs said. “The president is not going to pick a candidate in the Illinois Senate race.”
 
And the meeting at the White House with Obama, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and senior adviser Valerie Jarret? Why, Madigan and Obama are just old friends and Obama has “enormous respect for what she accomplished,” Gibbs said.
 
And oh, by the way …
 
“I think she’d be a terrific candidate. But we’re not going to get involved in picking that candidate in Illinois.”
 
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Photo credit: Reuters/Larry Downing (Obama speaks at a fundraiser Thursday night)

The U.S. Senate approved a resolution on Thursday apologizing for slavery and segregation of African-Americans, almost five months after Barack Obama was sworn in as the first black U.S. president.

While the Senate resolution acknowledged that an apology for centuries of wrongdoing could not erase the past, it said a “confession of the wrongs committed and a formal apology to African-Americans will help bind the wounds of the nation that are rooted in slavery, and can speed racial healing and reconciliation, and help the people of the United States understand the past and honor the history of all people of the United States.”

In an unusual step, the three-page resolution was read in its entirety in the chamber, where the first black senator, Hiram Revels of Mississippi, stepped onto the Senate floor about 139 years ago.

However, the resolution is not without controversy.  Some are upset by the last lines of the resolution that include a disclaimer: “Nothing in this resolution — A) authorizes or supports any claim against the United States; or B) serves as a settlement of any claim against the United States.”

Democratic Senator Roland Burris, the lone African-American in the Senate, argued that the disclaimer should not prohibit future congressional action on the issue of reparations.  Despite the concern, the resolution passed the Senate by voice vote.

Iowa Senator Tom Harkin noted that the Senate adopted resolutions apologizing to Native Americans, for the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II and for not enacting anti-lynching legislation — but never slavery.

“A national apology by the representative body of the people is a necessary collective response to a past collective injustice,” Harkin said on the Senate floor.

For more Reuters political news, click here.

- Photo credit: Reuters/Finbarr O’Reilly (a man is silhouetted in the “Door of No Return” at Goree Island in Senegal where African slaves were shipped out.)

The U.S. Senate went two different ways on the estate tax, which has been a contentious issue for years — a tax congressional Republicans have villified as the “death tax”.

Senators voted 51-48 to include a provision in the fiscal 2010 budget that called for exempting estates at $5 million for individuals and limiting the tax to 35 percent — though the measure is non-binding and could be stripped out when the legislation is melded with a separate budget that passed the House of Representatives.

The amendment provoked a moment of drama in an otherwise long day of voting in the Senate where Democratic leaders scrambled to find the votes to kill the amendment, which scores some political points to those who have rallied against the estate tax for years.

The amendment was backed by several Democrats, including a couple senators facing tough re-election bids next year, Senators Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Patty Murray of Washington.

The New York Times was so incensed by the amendment it wrote the following in its lead editorial on Thursday:

“The proverbial millionaires next door — the plumbers, contractors and accountants who amass substantial wealth through hard work and modest living — are not the intended beneficiaries of the proposed cut. The Obama budget already takes care of them, because it retains today’s law, which imposes the estate tax only on couples with property worth more than $7 million, or individuals with property worth more than $3.5 million. That means 99.8 percent of estates will never — ever — pay a penny of estate tax.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell argued that “No one should have to be taxed on their assets twice, and no one should have to visit the taxman and the undertaker on the same day. But if we can’t repeal this tax, then we should at least lower it at a time when Americans are already burdened by shrinking retirement savings.”

President Barack Obama had proposed in his budget plan keeping the estate tax exemption at its current level of $3.5 million and tax the rest at 45 percent.

But minutes later the Senate adopted a second amendment that would require a 60-vote threshold to change the estate tax rate and exemption beyond the current levels unless commensurate tax relief was offered those who earn less than $100,000 annually.

Since Republicans now have only 42 seats in the Senate, and 10 Democrats supported the earlier amendment, reaching 60 votes likely would be tough.

In any event, since the amendments are part of the non-binding budget resolution, the votes are really just symbolic.

Click here for more Reuters political coverage.

Nearly five months after the 2008 election, there’s no sign that either Norm Coleman or Al Franken will definitively be declared the winner in the race for one of Minnesota’s U.S. Senate seats, allowing him to spend the next six years in Washington.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell told Reuters in an interview that it could be many months before all legal challenges are exhausted. “I don’t think we’re going to see the end to this matter any time soon,” McConnell said.

For those who have forgotten about this cliff-hanger: Coleman, the Democrat-turned-Republican first-term senator running for reelection, lagged behind Democratic comedian-author-Franken by only 225 votes after a recount of nearly 2.4 million ballots cast for the two.

Legal challenges followed and the two candidates are awaiting a ruling any day now by a three-judge panel in Minnesota.

But McConnell said that won’t be the end of it. He said Coleman is likely to employ a Bush v. Gore argument and try to convince the courts that there needs to be a uniform standard of counting ballots throughout the state.

It “will be litigated out not only in state court but potentially in federal court as well,” McConnell predicted.

Asked whether he was concerned that Minnesota is going so long without a full team in the U.S. Senate, McConnell replied, “Yeah, it’s a shame.”

In the meantime, Democrats are two votes short of a filibuster proof majority in the U.S. Senate that’s needed to advance most major legislation, instead of the one vote short they would be if Franken was declared the winner based on his narrow margin.

Senator Dick Durbin, the number-two Democrat in the Senate, is getting impatient.

“There reaches a point where Minnesota is entitled to two senators and if it keeps coming up Al Franken the winner, Al Franken the winner,  I think it’s time for the national Republican Party to move on.” Asked whether he and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid might just try to seat Franken at some point soon, Durbin replied,  ”I’m not ready to say that.”

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- Photo credit: Reuters/Mitch Dumke (Franken and Reid meeting in January.)

The grumblings in the British press about how Prime Minister Gordon Brown was treated on his visit to the United States will almost certainly increase when they learn that several Senate committees kept working while he addressed a joint meeting of Congress.

Brown’s session with President Barack Obama at the White House was cast by some in the British press as a bit of a snub because there was no formal news conference, dinner with their spouses or other fanfare for his visit — the first by a foreign leader with the new president. Instead the two chatted with reporters in the Oval Office and took a handful of questions.

And as the British leader addressed members of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate, a rare honor bestowed a visiting foreign leader, at least four Senate committees plowed ahead with their hearings on a wide variety of subjects.

As Brown called on the United States to lead the world out of the global recession, the Senate Finance Committee pummeled Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner with questions about how to do just that.  And the Senate Judiciary Committee was busy investigating the national security policies of the now-gone Bush administration.

Brown met several times with Bush during his presidency and was treated with a rare visit to Camp David to try to seal their working relationship and friendship in 2007.

Additionally, the Senate Agriculture Committee met during Brown’s remarks to discuss ways to improve child nutrition and the Senate Special Committee on Aging delved into health reform.

Although some committees continued, senior Democratic and Republican leaders attended Brown’s speech, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, as well as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Joe Biden who sat behind Brown as is customary for such sessions.

Still, Brown was treated to a lunch with congressional leaders after his speech.  Additionally, numerous lawmakers sought Brown’s autograph after his speech just like Obama’s address to Congress last week.

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- Photo credit: Reuters/Jason Reed (Brown addresses a joint meeting of Congress.)

U.S. Senate Democrats had less than 70 minutes to spare when they finally filed the paperwork on Saturday for the compromise they reached with a handful of Republicans for the $827 billion economic stimulus package, setting up a vote for early next week.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had hoped to file the specific language much earlier on Saturday but drafting took significantly longer. The compromise measure, some 778 pages long, was brokered by Republican Senator Susan Collins and Democratic Senator Ben Nelson.

With the paperwork filed, that will set a vote for 5:30 p.m. EST on Monday to wrap up debate on the stimulus package. If there are 60 votes, the Senate will vote on passing the legislation on Tuesday

Had the Democrats filed after midnight, that potentially could have delayed the votes and hampered their goal to get the legislation on President Barack Obama’s desk by Feb. 16 as he has sought.

Senators spent a few hours on Saturday afternoon debating the stimulus plan, with Republicans complaining that they were being rushed while Democrats said there was no time to lose to get the package done.

If the Senate approves the package of spending and tax cuts, lawmakers will have to work out differences with it and an $819 billion bill that the House of Representatives passed last week before it could be sent to Obama for his signature.

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- Photo credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst (Senators Collins and Nelson discuss the compromise on the economic stimulus package on Friday)