It’s still not clear whether Mitt Romney will run for president again. But if he mounts a credible campaign, he will help shape the field.
Members of Congress hold a lot of the power in America and, a new report shows, plenty of wealth. In fact, more than half of them are millionaires.
An analysis of disclosure filings by the Center for Responsive Politics reveals that while lawmakers like to talk about the plight of poor and middle-class Americans, few of them can relate financially.
How vast is the discrepancy in their fortunes? The median net worth of a member of Congress was $1.03 million in 2013, compared with $56,355 for the average American household.
As for who is the wealthiest, Representative Darrell Issa, the California Republican, maintained his top billing with an average net worth of $448 million. He was trailed by Senator Mark Warner, the Virginia Democrat, who has an average net worth of $254 million.
Potential Republican presidential candidates appear to have comfortable nest eggs. Senator Ted Cruz’s average net worth was $3.1 million, and Senator Rand Paul’s was $1.3 million. Meanwhile, Senator Marco Rubio’s net worth was a more modest $443,508.
While Mr. Issa’s worth suffered the biggest year-on-year decline, dropping by $15.6 million, Representative Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, had a very profitable 2013. With her property investments doing well and her investment in the United States Football League thriving, Ms. Pelosi’s net worth rose to $100.8 million from $87.9 million, breaking the elusive nine figure mark.
As potential presidential candidates continue to jockey for position before official announcements are made, one prominent Republican is withdrawing his name before the rumors even begin.
Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, the party’s vice presidential nominee in 2012 and the chairman of the House Ways and Means committee, announced that he would not seek the presidency in 2016.
“After giving it a lot of thought, I’ve decided not to run for president,” Mr. Ryan said in a statement. “Our work at the House Ways and Means Committee over the next few years will be crucial to moving America forward, and my job as chairman deserves undivided attention.”
The announcement, which was first reported by NBC News, comes after Mitt Romney said last week that he was considering another run for the White House.
In October, Mr. Ryan said he would not run for president if Mr. Romney ran in 2016.
I think it’s fair to say that we should have sent someone with a higher profile to be there.
— the White House spokesman, Josh Earnest, expressing regret that the United States did not send someone more prominent to a unity march in Paris.
Criticism of the minor part played by Americans in a rally against terrorism has stung President Obama’s staff.
Senator Claire McCaskill on Monday issued a “firm no” on whether she would give up her Senate seat to run for governor of Missouri.
“I have an amazing job,” Ms. McCaskill said in an interview with the radio station KCUR, adding that “where I can have the biggest impact is to remain in the United States Senate.”
Calling it “not a poll-driven decision,” Ms. McCaskill said that she would have enjoyed playing the underdog in the governor’s race, but that it “felt wrong turning away from my job in the United States Senate.”
Ms. McCaskill also threw her support behind Chris Koster, the Democratic attorney general of Missouri, calling him a “terrific candidate” and pledging to work “very hard” for him in the election.
Ms. McCaskill’s decision not to run put an end to speculation that she would leave the Senate to run for governor, sparing the Democrats what would have been a tough battle in a special Senate election if Ms. McCaskill had won.
Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom of California just crossed himself off the list of potential candidates to replace Senator Barbara Boxer, who announced last week that she would not run for re-election in 2016.
Mr. Newsom said in a Facebook message that “it’s always better to be candid than coy,” and that he wished to remain in California.
“While I am humbled by the widespread encouragement of so many and hold in the highest esteem those who serve us in federal office, I know that my head and my heart, my young family’s future, and our unfinished work all remain firmly in the state of California — not Washington, D.C.,” Mr. Newsom said.
First Draft reported last week that while speculation was already running wild about who might run to replace Ms. Boxer, the tens of millions of dollars required to run for election in California would be an obstacle for many.
Congress has become less politically diverse since last year’s midterm elections, but when it comes to race and ethnicity, the 114th Congress is the most diverse in history.
According toa new report by the Pew Research Center, the new Congress has 91 members who are nonwhite, accounting for 17 percent of the legislative body. That’s up from 86 in the previous Congress.
Newly elected minorities in the House are responsible for the increase, with four new black members and an additional Hispanic member. There are also Asians and Native Americans in Congress.
Although Congress has become more diverse over the years, Pew notes that it is doing so more slowly than the rest of the country. Nonwhites account for 38 percent of the American population.
The biggest increase in diversity is among Democrats in the House, with the number of nonwhite members rising to 56 from 18 since 2001. House Republicans were slower to diversify over that time, adding seven nonwhite members.
Pew notes that the Senate remains far less diverse. Six of the 100 senators are racial or ethnic minorities.
Good Monday morning from Washington, where President Obama is under fire by conservatives because he did not attend the antiterrorism unity march in Paris, Republicans are moving quickly to set the tone in a Congress they control, and several Democrats appear ready to buck their party’s leadership. A Yale study finds that Republicans are sharply split over climate change and what to do about it. And Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin schools Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wis.
It was a photograph printed, broadcast and tweeted around the globe: The front line of Sunday’s Paris unity march. There was Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority. Between them were the French president, the German chancellor and the leader of Mali, arm in arm.
Glaringly missing were President Obama, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. or Secretary of State John Kerry.
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. was in Paris for an antiterorrism meeting, but he didn’t march. The United States ambassador, Jane D. Hartley, did march, but her presence was not widely noted in a crowd of more than a million people that included 40 world leaders.
“Not an excuse in universe can explain why US failed to send to Paris a more visible rep. than Holder. MIAs BHO/Mrs BHO/Kerry/Biden,” tweeted Aaron David Miller, a former State Department official who has worked for both Democratic and Republican administrations.
Conservatives were uniformly brutal, as expected, with some snidely pointing out that Mr. Obama did make room on his schedule to meet the N.B.A. champions, the San Antonio Spurs, at the White House on Monday.
The White House declined to say whether Mr. Obama or Mr. Biden had considered marching. One administration official noted that the president had issued several public statements about the terrorist attacks, made a condolence trip to the French Embassy in Washington and had spoken on the phone with President François Hollande of France.
A senior State Department official said that Mr. Kerry couldn’t attend because he was in India meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a trip that had long been scheduled. However, Mr. Kerry said on Monday that he would fly to Paris this week in a gesture of support for the French government.
On CNN, Fareed Zakaria took a nuanced view of what he said was a White House mistake. The absence in Paris of a high-ranking American leader, he said, highlighted that the fight against Islamic terrorism is “not all about America.”
— Michael D. Shear and Steve Kenny
The new Republican Congress will challenge President Obama on two fronts this week. The Senate is taking up its Keystone XL pipeline measure, and the House will consider a Homeland Security spending bill that Republicans intend to use to thwart the administration’s immigration efforts.
With the Department of Homeland Security operating under a spending plan that expires Feb. 27, the Appropriations Committee rolled out a $40 billion bill on Friday that would finance border control, law enforcement and antiterrorism efforts. House Republicans are expected to add a series of amendments that would not only deny funding to carry out the president’s executive order on immigration but take aim at some of the earlier White House efforts to tackle the issue.
There is a good reason that the House, which typically waits until the last minute on spending fights, is moving so quickly and so aggressively. The Republican leadership wants its most conservative members to see that the legislation they favor cannot clear the Senate. So by starting early, they preserve time to go back and find a different approach before the money runs out. Both House and Senate leaders have said they would not allow funding for the agency to lapse in the aftermath of the Paris attacks.
The Senate is to begin its Keystone debate on Monday, but it is not expected to get to a final vote on the measure until next week. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, has said he will allow senators a chance to amend the bill, and House and Senate Republicans are scheduled to leave on Wednesday for a joint retreat in Hershey, Pa.
— Carl Hulse
Listening to Republican leaders, you’d think that party members across the board question or deny a human link to global warming.
Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the new majority leader, has made it a priority to block, delay and deny funds to President Obama’s climate change regulations. In 2012, every Republican presidential candidate but one – former Gov. Jon M. Huntsman Jr. of Utah – questioned or denied the science of climate change. In the last year’s elections, many Republicans chose to dodge the issue with a simple phrase: “I’m not a scientist.”
But Republican voters are deeply divided on the issue, according to a survey analysis out on Monday from the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication. It found that 56 percent of all Republicans support regulating planet-warming carbon pollution. The divide is more apparent when Republicans are asked to define their ideology: 62 percent who called themselves moderate Republicans said that climate change is real, but just 38 percent of conservative Republicans and 29 percent of Tea Party Republicans agreed.
“There’s a simmering struggle within the Republican Party to define their stance on climate change,” and Anthony Leiserowitz, an author of the study. “It’s part of the bigger struggle you’re seeing within the Republican establishment and the Tea Party.”
The split could prove to be a challenge for 2016 Republican candidates hoping to win over conservative donors and “super PACs.” Deep-pocketed advocacy groups like Americans for Prosperity have made it clear that they’ll attack candidates in the primaries who support climate-change policy.
Climate change was almost never mentioned in the 2012 presidential race, but it will be impossible to ignore next year. Among the most consequential decisions facing the next president will be whether to carry out President Obama’s proposed climate change rules or try to undo them.
— Coral Davenport
One of the major questions of the new Congress is which Democrats will be willing to break ranks and work with Republicans, who now hold majorities in both the House and Senate. Some early votes last week provided a few clues.
In the House, 12 Democrats joined with Republicans in voting to define full-time work as 40 hours per week under the new health care law, and 28 Democrats voted for the Keystone XL pipeline. More tellingly, eight Democrats voted with Republicans in both instances, guaranteeing that they would be courted by Republicans on future votes. The eight included two freshmen, Representatives Brad Ashford of Nebraska and Gwen Graham of Florida.
In the Senate, Democrats split on an unsuccessful attempt by Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts to change a Wall Street provision in a terrorism insurance bill. Thirteen Democrats voted against Ms. Warren, and Republicans looking for Democratic votes will be sure to remember them.
— Carl Hulse
The Supreme Court begins hearings at 10 a.m., including in the First Amendment case Reed v. Town of Gilbert, No.13-502.
Anthony Foxx, the transportation secretary, is to unveil a 30-year transportation plan.
Heritage Action — the political arm of the Heritage Foundation — begins a two-day policy conference focusing on conservative issues, starting at 11 a.m.
The Brookings Institution holds a conference on the dangers posed by Westerners who have joined Islamist fighters in Iraq and Syria, starting at 10 a.m.
In a year’s time, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey and Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin could be facing off in Republican primary presidential debates.
On Sunday, they were on opposite sides of a very cold football field in Green Bay, Wis., with Mr. Ryan cheering on the Packers and Mr. Christie in town with his good friend Jerry Jones, the owner of the Dallas Cowboys (their bear-hug bromance was made famous in a video last week).
So when the Packers beat the Cowboys on Sunday, Mr. Ryan got in a rare last word against Mr. Christie:
“@GovChristie, do you need a hug now? #GoPackGo #WinninginWisco?”
— Steve Kenny
A newly declassified report shows the growing F.B.I. role in wireless surveillance.
Republican governors are facing a test of their pragmatism.
Nate Cohn of The Upshot makes the argument that Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin is the potential candidate who should most worry former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida.
Former Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania indicates “he intends to reclaim conservative primary voters ahead of another White House bid in 2016.”
The firing of Atlanta’s fire chief has turned into a political debate about freedom of speech and religious expression.
Global coverage of the Paris unity rally from The Guardian, Le Monde (in French), Frankfurter Allgemeine (in German), The Jerusalem Post (in English), Al Jazeera (in English), El País (in Spanish), O Globo (in Portuguese), Dawn (from Pakistan, in English) and China Daily (in English).
Given Mitt Romney’s recent signals to Republican donors that he is thinking of a 2016 run, The Washington Posts asks: What the heck is he doing?
Some congressional Democrats say the party isn’t doing enough to line up younger leaders, Politico reports.
In anticipation of a same-sex marriage ruling from the Supreme Court, The Los Angeles Times revisits a 1958 California case that it says was “the first gay rights victory at America’s highest court.”
Like the Politics Newsletter? Get it delivered to your inbox.
Terror gripped France after gunmen attacked a satirical newspaper office and held hostages at a kosher supermarket, leaving at least 20 dead, including the three terrorists.
In the wake of the attacks, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. will attend a summit in Paris on Sunday, convened by the French interior minister, to discuss terrorism threats and foreign fighters. He will appear on four network shows, including NBC’s “Meet the Press,” ABC’s “This Week,” CNN’s “State of the Union” and CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
Several lawmakers will also weigh in on the crisis in Paris, including Senator Richard Burr, Republican of North Carolina and chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, on ABC and Representative Michael McCaul, Republican of Texas and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.
Senators John McCain, Republican of Arizona, and Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, will discuss the effect the terrorist attack may have on American national security on CNN.
Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will give insight into several international crises on “Fox News Sunday.”
The House voted to approve the Keystone XL pipeline this week and the Senate is expected to do the same in the coming weeks. On “Fox News Sunday,” Senators Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware, and John Hoeven, Republican of North Dakota, will debate the Obama administration’s delay in approving or rejecting the pipeline.
A newly Republican-controlled Congress convened in Capitol Hill this week, and Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, will talk about the party’s priorities this year on CBS.
Representatives Carlos Curbelo, Republican of Florida, and Norma Torres, Democrat of California, invited Univison’s “Al Punto” to follow them on their first days in Congress. Mr. Curbelo and Representative Ruben Gallego, Democrat of Arizona, will also appear on Telemundo’s “Enfoque.”
The race to succeed former Representative Michael G. Grimm has officially begun.
The Staten Island district attorney, Daniel M. Donovan Jr., a Republican, announced in a statement on Friday that he would be “seeking the endorsements of the Republican, Conservative and Independence Parties in the upcoming special election for the 11th Congressional District of New York.”
“I expect the selection processes of those parties to commence sometime in the near future and will only comment further in due course after those party processes have taken place,” he said.
Mr. Donovan is perhaps best known outside Staten Island for handling the case in which a grand jury did not indict the police officer whose chokehold resulted in Eric Garner’s death. He is a strong favorite to win a special election to replace Mr. Grimm, who officially stepped down on Monday after pleading guilty to felony tax fraud.
The 11th District, which comprises Staten Island and a sliver of Brooklyn, is heavily Republican; Democrats have all but written it off in the special election, the date of which has not been set. They like their odds better in 2016, a presidential year, when turnout traditionally soars.
But Republicans on Staten Island and in Washington seem happy with Mr. Donovan.
Since he expressed interest in the seat, Mr. Donovan said in his statement, “the enthusiasm for my candidacy has only broadened and intensified, with expressions of support also from beyond the two boroughs.”
In a statement, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said Mr. Donovan “would fit right in” with the House speaker, John A. Boehner, and the Republicans in Congress “who protect the ultrawealthy and corporate special interests at the expense of the middle class.”
The statement added that voters wanted “the focus back on the middle-class families struggling to pay the bills — not another political sideshow.”
Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated the middle initial of the Staten Island congressman who resigned. He is Michael G. Grimm, not Michael C.
The political classes may be embracing the inevitability of a Bush-Clinton clash in 2016, but some voters are not sold.
A dozen who participated in a focus group in Denver on Thursday — an even mix of Democrats, Republicans and independents — expressed disdain for political dynasties and a desire for leaders who understood the economic pain of the middle class.
“Essentially what they’re telling us is, ‘I don’t trust these people — they’re part of an establishment I don’t like,’’ said Peter D. Hart, a Democratic pollster who conducted the session, referring to Jeb Bush and Hillary Rodham Clinton.
A focus group is not a poll. Its participants don’t represent more than themselves. But campaigns love focus groups for their in-depth sampling of voters’ moods and raw glimpses of their views. Mr. Hart convened this one for the nonpartisan Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.
Asked for a word or phrase to describe Mr. Bush, the responses included: “Joke”; “No thank you”; “Scion”; “Interesting”; “Don’t need him”; “Intriguing”; “Greedy”; and “Bad seed.’’
Asked which potential candidate they would most like to spend an hour with, half the group named Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts. “If she ran, she could be the next president,’’ said Jenny Howard, an accountant who said she had voted for Mitt Romney and Cory Gardner, the Republican elected senator from Colorado in November. “She is personable and knowledgeable.’’
Asked who they thought would be the next president, regardless of their own preference, several said Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky. Andrew Regan, a beekeeper and the most liberal of the group, said, “I would consider him.’’
Afterward, Mr. Hart said, “You can’t leave this without feeling how hard pressed these people are and how they’re looking for someone who will be a voice for their cause, and Elizabeth Warren has broken through.’’
None of the four Democrats in the focus group “were ready to go to the ramparts for Hillary,’’ he said.
Similarly, Republicans and independents “knocked Bush around as hard as you could, and it was much more visceral and personal than it was, ‘Gee, I disagree with his stance on immigration’ or ‘I have a hard time on Common Core,'” Mr. Hart said.
His conclusion: Both the Bush and Clinton camps have their work cut out to bring voters on board.
Senator Harry Reid of Nevada said Friday that he might not regain the vision in his right eye after suffering a nasty fall in which he broke four ribs and some bones around his eye.
“This isn’t anything that is a slam dunk,” he said in an interview with KNPR, a Nevada public radio station. “I had a serious injury in my eye. There’s blood accumulation there, and we’re hoping that resolves itself.”
The remarks were Mr. Reid’s first detailing the extent of the injuries he sustained while working out last week. As the new Congress convened this week, Mr. Reid, now the Democratic leader, was at home recovering.
“Everybody is speculating I fell off a treadmill or whatever,” he said in describing his regular workout routine — a set of exercises that would be rigorous for just about anyone, let alone someone who is 75.
“I do 250 situps. I do some yoga-type stuff for a little while. And then I’ve been using, for the last three or plus years, these bands,” he said. “I do these things hundreds of times, three days a week.”
When one of the rubber workout bands snapped, it sent him flying into some cabinets, fracturing his face.
To help his eye heal, his doctors have recommended as little movement as possible. The KNPR interviewer, Dave Becker, asked whether Mr. Reid still had the stamina he once did. The senator wasn’t having any of it, pointing out how many situps he can do, after all.
“I don’t know how many people out there could sit down and do 250,” he scoffed.
Showing that his loyalty to the Dallas Cowboys has no limits, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey is shrugging off controversy over his football loyalties — and his acceptance of flights and tickets from the team’s owner, Jerry Jones — opting to pay his own way to attend this weekend’s playoff game in Wisconsin.
“As a lifelong Cowboys fan, it’s hard to pass up attending a playoff game when you’ve been dubbed the team’s mojo,” said Michael Drewniak, a spokesman for the governor. “Not wanting to risk breaking the team’s 5-0 streak by messing with karma, Governor Christie, his orange sweater, and his son, Andrew, will all travel to Lambeau Field this weekend to attend the game against the Green Bay Packers.”
Mr. Jones flew Mr. Christie on his private plane and gave him seats in his luxury suite for previous games, stirring controversy over the ethics of a governor accepting such gifts.
An awkward hug between Mr. Christie and Mr. Jones during the Cowboys’ win at home on Sunday drew even more attention to the governor’s allegiances, as well as teasing from Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, threatening to draw the issue into the early stages of the 2016 Republican presidential nomination fight.
Mr. Drewniak said that the governor’s decision showed how seriously he took the sport.
“The governor will be paying for travel and tickets for himself, his sweater and his son to make sure we keep silliness out of the football season,” Mr. Drewniak said.
Rising education levels were a crucial factor in America’s economic growth. The president hopes they can be again.
Legislation to authorize the Keystone XL pipeline project is moving on to the Senate.
The House passed the pipeline bill by a vote of 266 to 153, with the help of 28 Democrats.
The vote comes after Nebraska’s Supreme Court issued a ruling that would allow the pipeline to be built through the state, putting pressure on President Obama, who is skeptical of the project.
The White House on Friday threatened to veto the bill if it comes to Mr. Obama’s desk.
Speaker John A. Boehner said that the president was playing politics with the project and urged him to let it move ahead.
“In light of today’s Nebraska Supreme Court ruling, the president should reconsider his threat to veto the Keystone pipeline and the tens of thousands of jobs it will create,” Mr. Boehner said. “A presidential veto would put his own political interests ahead of the needs and priorities of the American people.”
Nebraska’s highest court gave its blessing today to construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, but its ruling hasn’t swayed President Obama.
Shortly after the court’s decision to validate the pipeline’s route became public, the White House renewed Mr. Obama’s threat to veto legislation to authorize the pipeline’s construction. That bill is scheduled for a vote in the House today.
“Regardless of the Nebraska ruling today, the House bill still conflicts with longstanding executive branch procedures regarding the authority of the president,” said Eric Schultz, the White House deputy press secretary. He added that the measure “prevents the thorough consideration of complex issues that could bear on U.S. national interests, and if presented to the president, he will veto the bill.”
The State Department, Mr. Schultz said, is examining the ruling as part of its review of the pipeline, and “we are going to let that process play out.”
The White House had cited “uncertainty due to ongoing litigation in Nebraska” as one justification for its official threat to veto the legislation.
Speaker John A. Boehner, Republican of Ohio, said after the court’s decision that the president “is now out of excuses for blocking the Keystone pipeline and the thousands of American jobs it would create.”
Evidently, Mr. Obama disagrees.
We’re taking questions and answering them as fast as we can as part of our continuous political helpline. In this latest installment, our congressional team is answering select questions about the 114th Congress. This is the second batch of answers. The first group of answers can be found here.
[nytintqa question_id=26323 version=2]
Considering that “I am not a scientist” is one of the most common answers you’ll get from a Republican these days if you ask about the threats from global warming, it’s unlikely that the 114th Congress will bring much in the way of new environmental protection laws.
The closest possible policy change lawmakers are talking about now is an increase in the gas tax, which would help pay for highway infrastructure improvements. But any drop in gasoline consumption that could result from that would be unintended.
The clean-air rules that environmental advocates and Democrats would like to see imposed will have to come from President Obama’s pen via executive order. He has already been doing that, much to the chagrin of Republicans in energy-producing states.
They are suing to stop him, leaving in doubt whether any of the new regulations will remain in tact.
— Jeremy W. Peters
[nytintqa question_id=26322 version=2]
While there is overwhelming scientific consensus that human activity — specifically, burning coal for electricity and gasoline for transportation — is the chief driver of climate change, that fact carries little weight in the new Republican Congress.
President Obama, who tried but failed to enact climate change legislation in the Democratic-majority Congress, is now using his executive authority to enact regulations designed to slash planet-warming carbon pollution from cars and coal-fired power plants.
A top priority of Republican leaders in the new Congress — particularly of the new Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, a major coal-producing state — will be to find ways to block, delay or defund those climate change rules.
— Coral Davenport
[nytintqa question_id=26327 version=2]
Mr. Sessions seemed to be in line to assume the chairmanship of the Budget Committee, not because he was the most senior Republican on the committee but because the Republican who outranked him, Michael B. Enzi of Wyoming, was ranking member on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.
Most assumed he would jump at that job. Instead, a still-more-senior Republican, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, asserted his right to the health committee gavel, sending Mr. Enzi back to Budget.
And in the game of musical chairs, Mr. Sessions was left standing when the music stopped. He had no full committee chairmanship because he had insufficient seniority.
— Jonathan Weisman
The Clinton Foundation announced the departure of its chief executive, Eric Braverman, on Friday after just 18 months on the job. A veteran aide to Hillary Rodham Clinton is taking his place temporarily.
In a statement, Mr. Braverman said that it was “the right time for a new leader.” That new leader, at least while the Clinton Foundation searches for a permanent replacement, is Maura Pally, whose history with Mrs. Clinton dates to the Clinton White House. More recently, she has run Mrs. Clinton’s initiatives at the foundation.
Mr. Braverman, a friend of Chelsea Clinton from their days working at McKinsey & Company, joined the Clinton Foundation at a time of transition for the sprawling global philanthropic group, which has defined Bill Clinton’s post-presidential charitable work. He was named chief executive in July 2013, replacing Bruce R. Lindsey, a longtime confidant of Mr. Clinton who remains the foundation’s chairman. Mr. Braverman’s arrival came just as news reports emerged of infighting and conflicts of interest at the foundation.
At the same time, Chelsea Clinton began exerting a leadership role, built her own team and made structural changes that made some longtime Clinton aides uncomfortable. Meanwhile, after Mrs. Clinton stepped down as secretary of state, she formed a team that included Ms. Pally and others.
In a statement, the Clinton family said, “Eric’s leadership helped us improve our governance structure, increase coordination across the foundation and build better internal processes.”
In recent months, Ms. Pally has spearheaded Mrs. Clinton’s work on women and girls and youth initiatives. She formerly worked as a special assistant in the Office of the White House Counsel under Mr. Clinton, developing a close relationship with the office’s deputy, Cheryl D. Mills.
People close to Mrs. Clinton said Ms. Pally does not necessarily want to work on Mrs. Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, should she run, but will remain a key adviser. In a statement, Ms. Pally said she was “incredibly honored and humbled by the opportunity to step into this role during this transition.”
President Obama is now out of excuses for blocking the Keystone pipeline and the thousands of American jobs it would create. Finally, it’s time to start building.
— Speaker John A. Boehner, following a Nebraska Supreme Court ruling that cleared the way for the Keystone XL pipeline to be built through the state.
The hot debate among Republicans over how to respond to economic improvement got little clarity on Friday from a December jobs report that gave ammunition to those Republicans who want to claim credit for the recovery and those who want to keep bashing it.
Employers added 252,000 new jobs last month, more than economists had expected, and the unemployment rate fell to 5.6 percent, also beating expectations. That capped the best year of job growth since 1999.
On the other hand, a five-cent drop in average hourly earnings in December nearly wiped out the six-cent gain the month before. For the year, wages rose 1.7 percent, probably not enough to keep up with inflation. The percentage of Americans with a job — 59.2 percent — hasn’t budged for three months and was up less than a percentage point for the year, meaning that much of the improvement in the unemployment rate was the result of retirements and other exits from the labor force.
Still, with gas prices plunging and share prices soaring, some Republicans have shifted to taking credit for the revival rather than bad-mouthing it.
Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio stuck to the traditional script on Friday, finding the dark lining in the silver cloud and pressing President Obama to sign laws that the new Congress could pass this month concerning the Keystone XL oil pipeline and the Affordable Care Act.
“While the economy is showing some signs of improvement, far too many middle-class families are struggling to bridge the gap between rising costs and stubbornly flat paychecks,” he said.
We’re taking questions and answering them as fast as we can as part of our continuous political helpline. On Friday, our congressional team answers select questions about the 114th Congress. Here is their first batch of answers. We will post more as the day goes on.
[nytintqa question_id=26321 version=2]
Republicans can certainly get a Keystone bill to President Obama’s desk, and probably will in the next week or so. But it is doubtful they can override the president’s promised veto in either the House or the Senate.
Republicans already have 60 sponsors, including six Democrats, for the measure that cleared the Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Thursday, and there are a handful of other Democrats who will back it.
But it takes 67 votes in the Senate and 290 in the House to overcome a veto, and Republicans seem short of that number.
So it appears that the pipeline will remain a defining political struggle, even when there are questions about whether it will be built, given the steep fall in oil prices.
— Carl Hulse
[nytintqa question_id=26324 version=2]
A central element of the planned Republican governing strategy is passing the annual spending bills separately and avoiding a continuing resolution. That gives lawmakers a greater opportunity to influence federal spending and reduces chances for a year-end pileup that leads to the possibility of a government shutdown.
Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader and a longtime member of the appropriations committee, is adamant about handling the bills the traditional way. Having said that, Congress has been unable to pass the 12 bills individually for years.
My best guess is that Congress will pass a fair number of the easier bills — defense, military construction, legislative branch, for instance — and then end up packaging some others at the end of the fiscal year. As for the sequester, its fate will be tied to the ability of Republicans to agree on a budget.
— Carl Hulse
Q.
Will funding for Homeland Security stop next month because of the bipartisan stuff within our government? Are we safe?
— @JenMardenNY via Twitter
Unclear. But probably not. (Which is to say, you’re probably safe.)
As of now, House Republicans are still trying to finalize the details of a bill to finance most of the Homeland Security Department, while also preventing President Obama from carrying out his executive action on immigration.
Even if such legislation manages to pass the Senate, the president is likely to veto anything that undoes his unilateral immigration directive, which would allow as many as five million immigrants living in the country illegally to remain.
And this sets up a possible shutdown of the Homeland Security Department. But neither party wants to see the agency run out of funding at the end of February, and neither does President Obama, making such an outcome unlikely.
As Speaker John A. Boehner said on Thursday, “I don’t believe that the funding of the department is, in fact, at risk.”
“The issue isn’t about funding the Department of Homeland Security,” he said. “Members of Congress support funding the department. But we cannot continue to allow the president to go around the Congress and go around the law and take unilateral action like he has.”
— Ashley Parker
Q.
Who is the strongest member of the new Congress, physically?
— @jakeinternet via Twitter
Using the highly scientific method of both personal opinion and purely anecdotal evidence, we’re going to go with a three-way tie between Representatives Tulsi Gabbard, Democrat of Hawaii; Markwayne Mullin, Republican of Oklahoma; and Aaron Schock, Republican of Illinois.
They all do a (bipartisan!) early morning workout led by Mr. Mullin, a former professional mixed-martial-arts cage fighter, and it is hard core. Trust us. No offense to their very legitimate policy chops, but we’re betting you’d rather go toe-to-toe with them on the House floor than in a dark alley. (At least, we at First Draft certainly would.)
Fourth place goes to Representative Paul D. Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, who famously does P90X in the House gym.
— Ashley Parker
Good Friday morning from Washington, where Republicans ponder how to handle the good economic news, and the retirement of Senator Barbara Boxer of California means big money for campaign consultants and advertising agencies. President Obama is in Tennessee offering up a plan for free community college educations that will cost a lot of money. We get an early look at former Gov. Mike Huckabee’s take-no-prisoners campaign primer (Jay Z fans beware). Plus, we seek a professional opinion on the state of Speaker John A. Boehner’s tan.
The Labor Department will release December job totals on Friday morning, and all signs say it’s full-steam ahead.
That puts Republicans in a bind. Should they acknowledge the economic silver cloud, or keep looking for the dark lining?
The payroll processor ADP set the cheery tone this week in reporting that employers added 241,000 workers last month. That beat expectations. Then forecasters increased their numbers for the final three months of 2014 after the government reported higher export totals than expected and lower imports, led by record declines in imported oil.
Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the new majority leader, hinted at a new Republican approach in proclaiming on the Senate floor that “the uptick appears to coincide with the biggest political change of the Obama administration’s long tenure in Washington: the expectation of a new Republican Congress.”
Well, maybe. Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, the new Finance Committee chairman, stuck to the old script when he released a compendium of woes: Low participation in the labor force, little change in the percentage of the population actually employed, slow wage growth and falling median income. Oh, and record debt.
Still, the job totals released on Friday will almost certainly show that 2014 had higher employment gains than any year since 1999.
The conservative economics writer James Pethokoukis might have summed up the predicament in an essay published in The Week: “The G.O.P. said Obamanomics would kill the economy. It didn’t. Now what?”
— Jonathan Weisman
The actor George Clooney, former Senator Scott P. Brown of Massachusetts and the billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer now have one thing in common. They are all in the conversation about who might take a shot at filling Senator Barbara Boxer’s California seat in 2016. (She announced on Thursday that she wouldn’t be running again.)
All it will take is a little money. Well, maybe a lot of money. “You’re talking about tens of millions of dollars,” said Stuart Rothenberg, editor of The Rothenberg Political Report. And that’s just for a primary.
The sum could double, he suggested, if a well-financed executive or entrepreneur jumps in on the Republican side. In 2010, Ms. Boxer spent nearly $30 million to defeat Carly Fiorina, the former chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard, who spent $22 million herself.
“It’s a glamour state, and I’m sure it will be enticing to people who have significant personal wealth,” Mr. Rothenberg said. There hasn’t been an open Senate seat in California since 1992, and there is likely to be a long line of would-be candidates who have been waiting their turn.
Jennifer Duffy of the Cook Political Report said spending on the Boxer seat would easily outpace the $118 million total in last year’s North Carolina race — the costliest Senate battle of 2014.
“California is a bottomless pit for money in a statewide contest,” Ms. Duffy said. “There is never too much, but there is easily too little.”
— Alan Rappeport
First Draft obtained an early copy of former Gov. Mike Huckabee’s latest book, “Guns, God, Grits and Gravy,” and let’s just say that it isn’t the bland description of policy and life story offered up by so many would-be presidents.
Here’s the title of Chapter 10: “Bend Over and Take It Like a Prisoner!” That’s the part where Mr. Huckabee lashes out at the Transportation Security Administration, the Internal Revenue Service, the Patriot Act and people who don’t know how to buckle a seat belt (they “shouldn’t be allowed to fly”).
There are colorful anecdotes and allusions that explain his conservative principles. Same-sex marriage? “One has to be more imaginative than Pixar to claim that the Bible approves of homosexual behavior.” And Chapter 2’s title is a simple statement about “Guns and Why We Have Them.”
He spends a lot of time dissecting the “Culture of Crude” (Chapter 4’s title). He takes on Miley Cyrus at the MTV Video Music Awards (“a disgustingly pornographic performance that showed just about everything she had – except talent”) as well as Jay Z and Beyoncé (“Does it occur to him that he is arguably crossing the line from husband to pimp by exploiting his wife as a sex object?”).
He also spends an entire chapter on the “Dumpster-diving, snuff-dipping, knuckle-dragging dopes” of reality television — but not those on “Duck Dynasty.”
The book’s overarching theme is personal freedom, or “Get Off My Lawn,” as Chapter 9’s title puts it.
— Nick Corasaniti
The Iowa Republican Party’s straw poll is likely to take place again this summer.
Many prominent Iowa Republicans, including Gov. Terry E. Branstad, had indicated they wanted to end the quadrennial tradition in Ames. But the state party’s governing board is poised re-authorize what has become a lucrative fund-raiser for the party.
Party leaders were worried that the straw poll might interfere with its coveted caucuses, the first contest of every presidential year. But on Thursday, the Republican National Committee issued an advisory that “the straw poll has absolutely no bearing on the official presidential nomination process.”
Former Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota won the straw poll in 2011, only to come last in the caucuses early the next year. And former Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota dropped out after his poor showing. Mr. Branstad and others hoped those results would lead many candidates to bypass the straw poll, signifying the end of the long-running summer event.
“You could do an event but not have a poll and still give candidates to speak to a crowd,” Mr. Branstad said in an interview last month.
But some Iowa Republicans feared a conservative group would step in with a poll of its own that would draw attention and money that would otherwise go to the state party.
— Jonathan Martin
President Obama is in Knoxville, Tenn., to announce his ambitious proposal to provide a tuition-free education for millions of community college students. The Upshot’s David Leonhardt explains that the plan’s roots can be found in a 2008 book by the economists Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz called “The Race Between Education and Technology.”
The House is expected to consider a bill to expedite construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.
Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his wife, Jill, fly to San Antonio to address the Student Veterans of America conference.
The Labor Department releases December’s employment data at 8:30 a.m.
Speaker John A. Boehner had an eventful week: suffering an uprising against his re-election as speaker, defending Representative Steve Scalise, Republican of Louisiana, over a 2002 speech to a white supremacist group, laying out the congressional response to President Obama’s immigration action, and showcasing a very deep winter-recess tan burnished at his new condominium in Marco Island, Fla.
Yes, his tan, which has been much commented on, is a hue we at First Draft have rarely seen. So we decided to investigate.
Using the handy Sherwin-Williams Color Visualizer, we uploaded a high-resolution, tightly cropped picture of the speaker from a news conference this week.
Unfortunately, none of the colors we were able to identify using Photoshop’s eyedropper tool were a direct match in the Sherwin-Williams database of paint colors.
But the Color Visualizer found us the closest matches: “Spicy Hue” and “Husky Orange,” the latter of which fits nicely with Mr. Boehner’s recent description of himself: “ I am not a squish.”
“I’m pretty comfortable in my own skin,” Mr. Boehner said, as Husky Orange as it may be.
— First Draft
A senior American official says one of the suspects in the Paris terrorist attack trained with Al Qaeda in Yemen. France remains on edge as the search for the gunmen continues.
Congressional Republicans work on a bill to finance the Homeland Security Department while keeping it from carrying out President Obama’s immigration initiative.
New Yorkers sound off on the Police Department feud with Mayor Bill de Blasio and find both are to blame.
Many energy experts say the Keystone XL pipeline debate is about politics rather than policy.
President Obama cuts mortgage insurance rates.
Vermont finally elected its governor on Thursday. Under state law, the race was too close to call, so the Legislature voted to give Gov. Peter Shumlin a third term.
The Washington Post columnist Robert McCartney explains the judge’s reasoning in handing a light sentence to former Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia.
First Things, a religious journal, lays out the steps former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas can take to avoid “the identity politics trap” as an evangelical Christian and presidential candidate.
Republicans have introduced five anti-abortion bills in the first few days of Congress, The Huffington Post reports.
The Daily Beast surveys the ethnic makeup of the nation’s lawmakers and sums up its findings with this headline “The Unbearable Whiteness of Congress.”
Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin has signed on for a meeting of potential Republican presidential candidates in Des Moines this month and has hired an adviser for his nascent presidential campaign, according to The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Like the Politics Newsletter? Get it delivered to your inbox.
