Capitol Briefing

By Ben Pershing
A conservative seniors' group is launching a seven-figure ad campaign against House Democrats who voted for the party's health-care reform bill Saturday, accusing them of cutting Medicare and saddling future generations with hefty deficits.

The 60 Plus Association -- an advocacy group that calls itself the "conservative alternative" to AARP -- plans to spend $1.5 million on television ads targeting eight Democratic lawmakers and on phone calls against seven more, all in districts with relatively large populations of seniors. The first spot, against Rep. Earl Pomeroy (N.D.), begins airing Thursday morning, while the remainder -- targeting Reps. Vic Snyder (Ark.), Joe Donnelly (Ind.), Brad Ellsworth (Ind.), Baron Hill (Ind.), Dina Titus (Nev.), Tom Perriello (Va.) and Gerald Connolly (Va.) -- will launch Thursday night or Friday.

"The House passed a 2,000-page health care bill that cuts Medicare $400 billion, raises taxes on small business killing jobs and makes insurance you have cost more," the announcer says in the TV spot. Seniors then appear to say the lawmaker "betrayed us" and that his or her state "won't forget" the vote. The automated phone calls will feature a similar message, delivered by singer Pat Boone, 60 Plus' national spokesman.

Though the Republican National Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee have vowed to go after Democrats who voted for the health-care measure, the 60 Plus effort marks the first major paid advertising campaign from the right since the House vote. Multiple liberal groups have already gone on the air to thank Democrats who voted yes and criticize those who voted no. Conversely, 60 Plus is also launching an ad thanking one Democrat, Rep. Charles Melancon (La.), for voting against the House bill.

The 60 Plus Association is active on an array of policy fronts, advancing conservative positions against the estate tax and climate change legislation as well as health care. The group regularly squares off against AARP, which gave the House's health-care bill a critical boost by endorsing it last week.

The issue of Medicare cuts in the House bill has been the subject of controversy. A big chunk of the cuts come through reducing reimbursements to insurers that run the private Medicare Advantage program. Liberals have criticized Medicare Advantage as an inefficient boon to private insurers at the expense of the government and other Medicare enrollees. But conservatives contend that seniors in Medicare Advantage are happy with their plans. And some critics -- including 60 Plus -- accuse AARP of having a conflict on the issue because the group makes money from endorsing Medigap policies, which would become more popular if Medicare Advantage is cut.

As for the ad's contention that the House bill will increase the deficit, the Congressional Budget Office actually concluded that the measure would reduce the federal deficit by $104 billion. But that does not include the cost, estimated at $240 billion over 10 years, of a separate proposal to adjust the Medicare payment formula for doctors. And conservatives believe the measure will end up becoming another expensive entitlement program as the years go on.

By Juliet Eilperin
One of the key Republican senators involved in the global warming debate on Capitol Hill said Tuesday the Senate will have to "start from scratch" in terms of crafting climate legislation.

Sen. Richard Lugar (Ind.), the top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, met Tuesday with United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, along with the panel's chairman, John Kerry (D-Mass.), and Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.), who are working to forge a bipartisan compromise on climate legislation.

Lugar said he welcomed the opportunity to discuss global warming, but he emphasized that his constituents are more focused on the economy and did not see the bill authored by Kerry and Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) as politically viable.

"I don't see any climate bill on the table right now that I can support," said Lugar, one of the half-dozen Republicans that Democrats are courting on the issue. "We really have to start from scratch again."

Democrats accuse Rep. Pete Hoekstra of playing politics with the Fort Hood investigation. (Freddie Lee/Fox News via Getty Images).

By Ben Pershing
The investigation into last week's deadly shooting at Fort Hood has driven a sharp split between Democrats and Republicans on the House intelligence committee, with each side drawing vastly different conclusions from the same information.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra (Mich.), the ranking Republican on the Intelligence panel, sees a suspect in the case, Maj. Nidal M. Hasan, with ties to Muslim extremists that should have been flagged, and the possibility of a cover-up by the Obama administration. And Democrats see a Republican -- and gubernatorial candidate -- playing politics and grabbing headlines.

The partisan divide on the Fort Hood probe broke open Saturday, when House members were still in Washington to vote on the health-care reform bill. Hoekstra sent a letter that day to Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair and the heads of the CIA, FBI and NSA, raising "the possibility that serious issues exist with respect to the performance of U.S. intelligence agencies," and asking that they preserve "all documents and materials connected with this matter."

In a statement released Monday, Hoekstra turned up the heat on the White House. "President Obama said people should not jump to conclusions about what happened at Fort Hood," Hoekstra said, "but the administration is in possession of critical information related to the attack that they are refusing to release to Congress or the American people."

House Democrats were dismissive of that charge. "That's ludicrous," said Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), a member of the intelligence panel.

Bill Clinton, joined by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), center, address the media as they head into the Senate Democratic Caucus luncheon Tuesday. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images).

By Shailagh Murray
Former president Bill Clinton urged Senate Democrats on Tuesday to overcome their differences and pass health-care reform as soon as possible, warning that politically and economically, "The worst thing to do is nothing."

Addressing the Democrats at their caucus luncheon, Clinton noted the grim consequences of his own failed reform effort in 1994: Democrats lost control of Congress in the November midterm elections, health-care costs skyrocketed, and the uninsured rate continued to rise. This time, Clinton told senators to be prepared to compromise for the sake of victory.

"It's not important to be perfect here. It's important to act, to move, to start the ball rolling," he told reporters after the meeting. "There will be amendments to this effort, whatever they pass, next year and the year after and the year after, and there should be. It's a big, complicated, organic thing. But the worst thing to do is nothing."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) invited Clinton "to share his insights" with the caucus, said Reid spokesman Jim Manley, on the eve of a Senate debate on the issue. Reid is awaiting an cost analysis from the Congressional Budget Office on the bill that he cobbled together from two committees' work. Senate Democratic leaders are now scrambling to unify the 60 members of their caucus, which must act unanimously to bring the bill to the floor.

Reporters asked Reid on Tuesday morning whether he expects to take health-care reform to the Senate floor next week, and whether the Senate and House could produce a final bill by Christmas. The Senate leader responded, "yes and yes."

Senate Democrats said they were wowed by Clinton's presentation.

The Senate convenes at 10:00 a.m. ET. Following morning business, the Senate will resume consideration of H.R. 3082, the Military Construction/VA Appropriations. Recess for caucus luncheons will be from 12:30 until 2:15 p.m. Former President Bill Clinton plans to attend the Democratic luncheon. There will be no roll call votes during Tuesday's session.

The House is not in session.

For a list of Congressional committee hearings, visit Today in Congress.

Visit our Votes Database for more information on the House and Senate, including vote history and member profiles.

By Juliet Eilperin
The Environmental Protection Agency has sent its final scientific finding on greenhouse gases to the White House, agency officials said Monday, a step that could trigger regulation of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases as pollutants under the Clean Air Act.

Sources said the document concludes the emissions pose a threat to the public's health and welfare. The agency did not release its finding, which was issued as a draft in April. The Office of Management and Budget now has 90 days to sign off on it.

Environmentalists embraced the move as a sign that the Obama administration is moving ahead on global warming policy less than a month before U.N.-sponsored climate talks begin in Copenhagen.

By Ben Pershing
Less than a week after the deadly shootings at Fort Hood, multiple congressional probes of the incident have already begun to take shape.

The House is out of session this week and the Senate is only in town Monday and Tuesday, so many of the details will have to wait until at least next week. But comments by several different lawmakers since Friday make clear that at least three different committees plan to probe the Fort Hood shooting on two separate tracks -- the motivations of the suspect, and the broader military system that failed to detect his intentions.

On Fox News Sunday, Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) said his committee would focus on the motives of the alleged gunman, Maj. Nidal M. Hasan, and his potential ties to extremists. "We don't know enough to say now, but there are very, very strong warning signs here that Dr. Hasan had become an Islamist extremist and, therefore, that this was a terrorist act," Lieberman said.

Asked Sunday to elaborate on Lieberman's investigative plans, Homeland Security panel spokeswoman Leslie Phillips said: "I expect this will be a continuation of the more than two years of work by the ... committee into the growing threat of homegrown terrorism. The terrorist threat keeps evolving and the senator will continue to work to understand that threat."

On the House side, a knowledgeable source said the Select Intelligence Committee would also probe Hasan's potential ties to extremist groups, though that investigation will take place behind closed doors. The House Armed Services Committee, meanwhile, is poised to act in full view of the public, though the angle that panel will take remains unclear.

Asked whether he will investigate Hasan's specific motives, Armed Services Chairman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) said on "Face the Nation" Sunday that he would reserve judgment until the Army and the FBI make progress on their own probes, "I'm going to wait and see what they do. If they are not thorough we will, of course, have additional hearings, briefings on this," Skelton said.

But even if Armed Services doesn't probe Hasan himself, the committee is likely to continue its examination of "stress factors and psychological preparedness as a major institutional concern" in the military, Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii), a senior member of the panel, said Friday. "We're already on that," he said.

"The difficulty here is that it's like trying to account for atoms in a physics course," Abercrombie said of the Ft. Hood incident. "You don't know what an individual atom is going to do."

Abercrombie and other lawmakers said Congress was all but certain to focus on how to spot troubled personnel like Hasan in the future.

"There will be inquiries," said Rep. Mac Thornberry (R), a Texan who sits on Armed Services. "When flags go up [about members of the military], when should there be action? What should merit further scrutiny?"

Rep. Susan Davis (D-Calif.), who chairs the Armed Services subcommittee on military personnel, said her panel would push forward with its ongoing efforts to highlight what she described as a key systemic deficiency in the military. "We know that, just like in the rest of the country, there are not enough mental health providers," she said.

By John Amick

The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs will seek to move forward on an investigation surrounding the mass shooting Thursday at Fort Hood Army base in Texas, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.), the committee's chairman, said today.

The chairman said the scope of the probe would address the motives of the alleged shooter Army Maj. Nidal M. Hasan and whether signs of "Islamic extremism" were apparent, but missed or ignored.

"It's premature to reach conclusions about what motivated Hasan," Lieberman said on "Fox News Sunday" this morning. "But it's clear that he was, one, under personal stress and, two, if the reports that we're receiving of various statements he made, acts he took, are valid, he had turned to Islamist extremism."

Lieberman said if the shootings were fueled by such viewpoints it was the worst act of terrorism in America since the attacks of September 11, 2001.

"Therefore, if that is true, the murder of these 13 people was a terrorist act and, in fact, it was the most destructive terrorist act to be committed on American soil since 9/11."

The committee's investigation would work in collusion with any federal investigation by the Army or FBI, Lieberman said.

By Paul Kane
The House has officially begun debate on President Obama's massive health-care proposal, with a final vote likely to come some time after 8 p.m. Several key moments have already occured, while a few more are in the offing, providing a glimpse of what the outcome will look like once all the votes are tallied. With not a single Republican expected to support the legislation, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) needs at least 218 of the 258 Democrats -- about 85 percent of the caucus -- to vote yes to reach victory.

Here's an insider's guide to the day's big moments:

* Opening Gavel: Democratic leaders had hoped the day's session to begin around 9 a.m. Saturday, about an hour earlier than most legislative sessions start, but they first took up a few non-controversial, unrelated pieces of legislation. According The Post's Sketch maven Dana Milbank, the formal health-care debate kicked off at 10:42 a.m. That was the preliminary debate on the bill, overseen by Reps. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) and Pete Sessions (R-Texas), the chairman and a senior Republican on the Rules Committee.

* Rules of Debate: The first hour or so of debate on the nearly 2,000-page legislation focused on what is known as "the rule." Slaughter's committee establishes the rules governing the debate for every key piece of legislation -- how long each side gets, how many amendments can be offered, which amendments can be offered. In addition, the Rules Committee makes last-minute changes to the overall bill, and this time around Slaughter inserted language designed to be a compromise on abortion. A bloc of two dozen Democrats, many of them anti-abortion Catholics, held out support because they believed the original draft would open the door to federal funding of abortions. The "rule" vote is routinely party line, but 15 Democrats voted against the rule because they either did not support the abortion compromise or opposed the overall legislation. This vote occured shortly after 1 p.m., winning approval on a 242-192 vote. All Republicans voted no, and Pelosi -- as is often the custom with the House speaker on non-controversial matters -- did not vote. Do the math: This means all 435 members of the House are here.

Updated 1:29 a.m.
By Lori Montgomery
House Democratic leaders agreed Friday night to settle an impasse over abortion by letting the entire House vote on a proposed solution, a risky decision that could determine the fate of their trillion-dollar overhaul of the nation's health care system.

Under the agreement, anti-abortion Democrats will be permitted to offer an amendment on the House floor to the health-care overhaul bill. The amendment would prohibit a new government-run insurance plan created by the health-care bill from offering to cover abortion services, congressional sources said. It would also block people who received federal subsidies for the purchase of health insurance from buying policies that offered coverage for abortions.

The deal clears the way for the dozens of Democratic lawmakers who oppose abortion to lend their support to the health care package, the most dramatic expansion of health coverage in more than 40 years. It also satisfies the demands of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which had threatened to oppose the House bill.

If the amendment from Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) passes, said Richard Doerflinger, associate director of the bishops conference, "we become enthusiastic advocates for moving forward with health care reform."

The amendment is expected to pass with the combined support of more than 40 anti-abortion Democrats and virtually every House Republican. That likelihood meant that leaders of the much larger group of Democrats who support abortion rights were not happy to learn of the deal.

"There will be no abortion, not just with public funds, but with private funds under the public option, and that's not acceptable," said Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.).

House leaders met with that bloc of Democrats late Friday to try to quell their frustration., but the agreement makes clear that they believe abortion-rights Democrats will find it difficult to vote against the health-care bill even with such a restriction attached to it.

"This is a small facet of the bill that's very important to a lot of people," said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), adding that the greater goal is to pass legislation that makes health care "affordable and accessible to all Americans."