The Justice Department Thursday urged the US Supreme Court to uphold same-sex marriage in California and went even further, suggesting it is unconstitutional to block gay couples from getting married in half a dozen other states.

States violate the Constitution, the administration argued, if they offer civil unions to gay couples but deny them the right to marry.

While that position clearly applies to the legal dispute in California, it would also apply to at least seven other states -- Delaware, Hawaii Illinois, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, and Rhode Island. Each offers civil unions but not same-sex marriage.

And while the administration takes no position in its brief beyond those states, its reasoning would have even broader implications. 

If the administration's legal theory were ultimately accepted, no state could, under constitutional guarantees against discrimination, deny same sex couples the right to marry.

After first suggesting it would not get involved in the California case, the Obama administration late Thursday filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of the two gay couples who launched the fight over the issue four years ago.

In a statement, Attorney General Eric Holder said, "In our filing today in Hollingsworth v. Perry, the government seeks to vindicate the defining constitutional ideal of equal treatment under the law ... The issues before the Supreme Court in this case and the Defense of Marriage Act case are not just important to the tens of thousands Americans who are being denied equal benefits and rights under our laws, but to our Nation as a whole."

Related: 100 Republicans sign brief to the Supreme Court arguing that gays and lesbians should be allowed to legally wed

The Supreme Court hears oral argument in late March to decide the fate of Proposition 8, an amendment to the state constitution approved by 52 percent of California voters in 2008. It banned same-sex marriages in the state and went into effect after 18,000 gay couples were legally married earlier that year.

A federal judge declared the ban unconstitutional, and a federal appeals court last year upheld that ruling, though on narrower grounds that apply only to California. In December, the Supreme Court agreed to take up the issue.

The Justice Department is not directly involved in the case, because the gay couples that brought the lawsuit are challenging a state restriction, not a federal one.  But each side had urged the government to file a brief in support of its position.

After voters approved the measure stopping same-sex marriage, state officials in California declined to defend it in court.  That defense has been carried on by the original proponents of Prop 8.

The Obama administration last year signaled it would stay on the sidelines.  In May, when President Obama first said that "same-sex couples should be able to get married," he added that it was not a matter for the federal government.

"This is an issue that is going to be worked out at the local level because historically this has not been a federal issue. Different states are coming to different conclusions," he said in an interview with ABC News.

Related: Obama administration to express support for gay marriage before high court

But he appeared to express a different view in January, urging legal equality for same-sex couples during his inaugural address.

"Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law, for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well," he said.

In a separate case the administration is urging the Supreme Court to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act, known as DOMA, a law passed by Congress in 1996 that prohibits federal agencies from recognizing same-sex marriages in states where they are legal.  As a result, married gay couples are denied over 1,000 federal benefits available to traditional couples.

"The law denies to tens of thousands of same-sex couples who are legally married under state law an array of important federal benefits that are available to legally married opposite-sex couples," Solicitor General Verrelli wrote last week in urging the court to overturn DOMA.

The law is unconstitutional, he said, "because this discrimination cannot be justified as substantially furthering any important governmental interest."

Nine states currently permit same-sex couples to marry -- Connecticut, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Vermont, and Washington. It is also permitted in Washington, D.C.

This story was originally published on Thu Feb 28, 2013 6:38 PM EST

After roughly a year and a half after its expiration, the Violence Against Women Act passed the House Thursday by 286-138 vote and will soon be reauthorized once it garners the president’s signature.

Earlier this year, the Senate passed a five-year re-authorization of the act by a bipartisan 78-22 vote. The House initially objected to the legislation, citing constitutional concerns about the prosecution of non-Native Americans on tribal lands.  

The House vote was significant, because, for the third time this year, on a significant piece of legislation, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) showed a willingness to bring a bill to the floor without abiding by the unwritten, so-called “Hastert Rule."

The rule, named after former Republican Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois, says that a speaker only brings something to the House floor if it has the support of the majority of the majority.

In this case, three-fifths of Republicans voted against the legislation -- 138 against the bill with only 87 in support.

(The other two times Boehner has advanced a bill that won only a minority of the majority -- the fiscal cliff and Sandy relief.)

The vote also divided the House GOP leadership. Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) voted against the bill, whereas Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), House GOP Conference Chairwoman Cathy McMorris-Rodgers, and House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) voted for it.

When asked by NBC News why he declined to support the Senate version of the bill, Cantor did not directly answer, instead touting his support for the House GOP version, which failed.

"I voted for the Violence Against Women Act the way we presented it in the House," Cantor insisted. "This is a bill that provides relief to domestic abuse; it does it in a way that protects the Constitutional rights of all Americans, and it does it in a way that doesn't discriminate where aid goes to in terms of victims of domestic abuse."

Democrats claimed the House GOP bill did not do enough to protect illegal immigrants, gay men and women, or Native Americans.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who over the last few weeks hammered the GOP for inaction, celebrated the passage of the bill, tweeting: “We did it! Today’s House passage of strong VAWA bill was a hard fought victory to preserve and strengthen security of all American women.”

*** Editor's note *** A previous edition of this story incorrectly noted that the Hastert Rule had been avoided four times instead of the correct three.

Administration officials say the Justice Department will urge the U.S. Supreme Court to allow same-sex marriage to resume in California, wading into the protracted legal battle over Proposition 8 and giving gay-rights advocates a new court ally.

After first suggesting it would not get involved, the Obama administration will file a friend-of-the-court brief late today in support of the two gay couples who launched the fight over the issue four years ago, the officials said. Today is the last day for filing briefs in support of the couples' position.

The administration last year signaled it might stay on the sidelines. In May, when President Obama first said that "same-sex couples should be able to get married," he added that it was not a matter for the federal government.

Related: 100 Republicans sign brief to the Supreme Court arguing that gays and lesbians should be allowed to legally wed

But he appeared to express a different view in January during his inaugural address when he said, "Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law, for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well."

Recommended: Committee punts on gun laws until next week

The Supreme Court hears oral arguments in late March to decide the fate of Proposition 8, an amendment to the state constitution approved by 52 percent of California voters in 2008. It banned same-sex marriages in the state and went into effect after 18,000 gay couples were legally married earlier that year.

With less than 36 hours to go until the much-discussed 'sequestration' deadline, the Senate blocked a pair of competing bills to prevent the broad, automatic cuts from taking effect.

Neither measure was expected to reach the 60-vote threshold required to move a fix forward, with Republicans and Democrats taking up the legislation largely for show the day before the cuts are slated to kick in. 

The Republican sequester ‘replacement’ proposal -- which would have offered the administration more authority to allocate the spending cuts -- was killed with a vote of 38 to 62. The White House had threatened to veto that bill in the unlikely event that it passed.

A Democratic plan focused on closing tax loopholes and raising some taxes garnered 51 votes, short of the 60 necessary to move it forward. 

With both sides still deadlocked over how to address the deficit, congressional leaders will meet with the president at the White House tomorrow. 

President Barack Obama lambasted Senate Republicans in a statement, saying that GOP opposition to the Democrats' bill stood in the way of a solution. 

"Even though a majority of Senators support [the Democrats'] approach, Republicans have refused to allow it an up-or-down vote - threatening our economy with a series of arbitrary, automatic budget cuts that will cost us jobs and slow our recovery," he said.

"Instead of closing a single tax loophole that benefits the well-off and well-connected, they chose to cut vital services for children, seniors, our men and women in uniform and their families," the statement read. "They voted to let the entire burden of deficit reduction fall squarely on the middle class."
"

Earlier Thursday, competing press conferences, lawmakers from both parties continued to lay blame at each other's feet as they acknowledged that the across-the-board reductions to the nation's military and domestic spending programs are inevitable.

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid olds a news conference at the U.S. Capitol on the eve of the budget sequester Feb. 28, 2013 in Washington, DC.

House Speaker John Boehner argued Thursday that the budget ball remains in Democrats' court, a case he says he will make again tomorrow in the meeting with Obama.

"My message at the White House will be the same that I'm telling you today,” he said. “It's time for them to do their job and to pass a bill."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid responded that Republican calls for Democratic action "take a lot of pizzazz."

"They've done nothing," Reid said, saying that House Republicans are hiding behind the lower chamber's now-expired passage of budget measures last year while failing to allow compromise legislation to come up for a vote.

The weariness over the sequester jockeying – which promises to drag on for weeks as the fight shifts to future deadlines for greenlighting federal funding -- even spilled over into the Senate chaplain’s opening prayer this morning.

Mentioning the cuts in his invocation, Senate Chaplain Rev. Barry Black prayed "Rise up, oh God, and save us from ourselves."

NBC's Mike Viqueira contributed to this report. 

This story was originally published on Thu Feb 28, 2013 1:41 PM EST

If Wednesday’s argument before the Supreme Court is any indication, a majority of the justices seemed inclined to strike down or curtail key sections of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.  Even if the court does move in that direction, election officials in some states will have more leeway to change some procedures, but voters in 2014 won’t suddenly wake up in 1964.   

Hearing a challenge brought by Shelby County, Ala., several justices voiced skepticism about the formula the law uses to decide which states and other jurisdictions are required to get permission, or “preclearance,” from the Justice Department or a federal court in Washington for any change in voting procedures that they seek to make.

In 2006 Congress reauthorized Section 5 of the law for another 25 years. The current formula uses election data from 1972 and earlier to determine which places section 5 applies to. Critics of the law say the formula is archaic and ought to be scrapped.

Currently nine states, mostly in the South, as well as 54 counties in New York, California, Florida, North Carolina and South Dakota and 12 townships in Michigan and New Hampshire, are covered by section 5.

What effect would a ruling which struck down or curbed section 5 have on elections in the United States?

Would parts of the country now covered by section 5 revert to the days of poll taxes, literacy tests, murders of voter registration workers, racial gerrymandering of districts, and other devices to negate the power of African-American, Latino and other minority voters?

The short answer is no, and that’s because a separate section of the Voting Rights Act, section 2 – which is a permanent part of the statute and need not be periodically renewed, as section 5 must be – bans voting procedures that discriminate on the basis of race, color, or membership in one of the language minority groups identified by the law, which includes not only Spanish, but Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean and several Native American and Alaska Native language groups.

In recent years, the Justice Department, under both Republican and Democratic presidential administrations, has brought section 2 voting discrimination cases against jurisdictions in Massachusetts, Montana, Illinois, California, South Carolina, and several other states.

For example, in 2009 the Justice Department took action against Salem County, New Jersey and the borough of Penns Grove, N.J. for allegedly discriminating against Puerto Rican voters.

The Department charged that local election officials had never translated the ballot into Spanish in any election held in Penns Grove, and thus “numerous voters of Puerto Rican descent who cannot understand the ballot in English have been unable to fully exercise their voting rights.”

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

With images of murdered Mississippi civil rights worker Medgar Evers, demonstrators rally in front of the U.S. Supreme Court February 27, 2013 in Washington, DC.

These kinds of enforcement actions will continue under section 2 no matter what the high court decides on section 5.

But the Solicitor General Donald Verrilli argued Wednesday that getting rid of section 5 – and its requirement that covered jurisdictions get pre-approval of their voting procedures – will make it more costly and time consuming for voters to challenge allegedly discriminatory practices. He said section 5 has a deterrent effect – blocking discriminatory practices before they’re ever implemented.

He said polling place changes are the most frequent type of election procedure submitted to the Justice Department under Section 5. “Changes in the polling places at the last minute before an election can be a source of great mischief,” he told the justices. 

He contended that “there is no way in the world you could use Section 2 to effectively police that kind of mischief.” Given the cost of litigation, he said, “The cost-benefit ratio is… going to tilt strongly against bringing these suits.”

Michael Pitts, an expert on the Voting Rights Act who is a professor at Indiana University School of Law and who worked on voting rights cases when he served as a trial attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, said, “There is certainly a possibility of more last-minute mischief with polling places if Section 5 were struck down.”

He said Section 5 enforcement actions “are rather simple. To attempt to get the same results using other provisions of the Voting Rights Act, such as Section 2, will be much harder.”

Responding to Justice Anthony Kennedy’s suggestion during Wednesday’s argument that some Justice Department attorneys who now are working on section 5 could shifted to section 2 enforcement, Pitts said, “The problem with Section 2 lawsuits is that at the very least, DOJ has to find out about the problem, then they have to conduct an extensive investigation before filing a lawsuit, and then they have to spend lots of time and resources to win the case.  Section 2 cases are not easy to win.”

University of Georgia political science professor Charles Bullock, an expert on the Voting Rights Act and Southern politics, said elimination of section 5 would “probably not” make a difference in voter registration or voting in places that are now covered by section 5.

He said in section 5 covered jurisdictions, black registration and turnout “is pretty much at the same level” as registration and turnout among white voters. He added, “Hispanic registration and participation rates are lower but that’s true whether you’re looking at section 5 states or looking at states which are not subject to section 5.”

Bullock said that when it comes to drawing new district line for state legislatures and for House seats that due to section 2, “there would still very much be a protection in place against actions which were found to be discriminatory even if section 5 were to be struck down.”

Bullock said one major change that came about as a result of section 2 was the elimination of at-large districts for school boards, county councils, etc. and the move to single-member districts. At-large districts had been used to dilute the power of minority voters.

If the court eliminates section 5, “Would they (local officials) go back to at-large elections?” He thinks not, because “politicians tend to like the system under which they have succeeded, and they think there’s less uncertainty in a system which they’ve already worked successfully. County council or school board members elected under a single-member district system would be reluctant to go back to at-large elections even if that was what was traditionally done until, say 20, years ago.”

Bullock said if section 5 is struck down he does expect some of the now-covered states would move to enact voter identification laws which the Justice Department has so far blocked from enacting.

One unknown is how Congress would react if the high court does strike down section 5. Would it devise an updated formula, perhaps based on 2012 data, for that tried to target jurisdictions with large disparities of minority and white voter turnout? Would it use some other metric? It’s too soon to know, but it’s worth recalling that in 2006 Congress chose to avoid the difficulty of writing a new coverage formula – one reason the Shelby County case reached the high court.

This story was originally published on Thu Feb 28, 2013 1:35 PM EST

The committee tackling early versions of gun control legislation will not act on the bills for another week. 

As expected, Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee took advantage of rules allowing a one-week delay or “hold over” in addressing the newly-introduced bills.  

The extra week gives Democrats more time to hash out a deal on background checks, the gun safety proposal widely viewed as the most likely to survive the legislative process and be signed into law this year.  

Two Democrats - Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Chuck Schumer of New York - have been negotiating with Oklahoma Republican Sen. Tom Coburn on the background check legislation.

Susan Walsh / AP

Senate Judiciary Committee member Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., gets help with a green ribbon pin for the victims of Sandy Hook Elementary School, from fellow committee member Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2013.

But the bipartisan talks have slowed over disagreements related to private sellers keeping records of their gun sales.

In a hearing Thursday, committee chairman Patrick Leahy also promised Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., that the panel will vote on her bill to ban assault weapons.

But that legislation has little chance of passing the Senate. 

The committee will begin debating and making changes to the assault weapons and background check proposals –- as well as gun trafficking and school safety measures -- starting next Thursday. 

Leahy warned of late nights for lawmakers next week, saying the sessions will go "as late as necessary" each day and continue into the following week if need be.  

NBC’s Carrie Dann contributed to this report.

This story was originally published on Thu Feb 28, 2013 11:05 AM EST

This story was originally published on Thu Feb 28, 2013 10:37 AM EST

With the clock ticking until the sequester cuts, explaining how we got here… Failed assumptions, failed Grand Bargains… Boehner to appear on “Meet”… When does the sequester take effect? Answer: Anytime before 11:59 pm ET on March 1… Senate confirms Lew as Treasury secretary, while John Brennan gets bumped to next week… And why Iowa is so important to 2014.

*** How we got here: With Washington headed -- inexorably -- to Friday’s deadline when the automatic across-the-board spending cuts take effect, there’s a natural question to ask: How did we get here and why didn’t the sequester work as intended? Well, here’s our quick answer: First, Republicans, fueled by the Tea Party and their gains in the 2010 midterms on a message of cutting back the size of government, demanded that they would raise the debt limit only accompanied by equal spending cuts. (Prior to that, debt-ceiling increases had been fairly routine exercises for all past administrations.) Second, after agreeing to some spending cuts, the Obama White House and congressional Republicans couldn’t agree how to reduce the deficit by an additional $1.2 trillion over 10 years (to raise the debt limit by that much because the White House wanted to avoid another debt-ceiling showdown before Nov. 2012), so they created the sequester. That mechanism ($600 billion cuts in defense spending cuts that Republicans weren’t supposed to like; $600 billion in non-defense spending cuts that Democrats weren’t supposed to like) was intended to be so draconian that it would force the two parties to make a deal. As we know, it was the brainchild of Jack Lew, a veteran of the budget wars of the ‘80s, the first time the word “sequester” entered the Washington lexicon.

*** Failed assumptions, failed Grand Bargains: Third, the assumption that the cuts would force a compromise turned out to be incorrect. Whether it was during the Super Committee, the fiscal-cliff negotiations, or now, those spending cuts -- especially on defense -- weren’t enough to strike a deal. As it turns out, the deficit-hawk wing of the GOP got only larger in both the House and Senate. Fourth, all attempts for a Grand Bargain failed: In 2011, both sides retreated to let the election decide the fiscal fight. And at the end of 2012, they dealt only with the expiring Bush-era tax cuts (and not the sequester or increasing the debt ceiling again). Fifth and finally, that fiscal-cliff deal on the Bush tax cuts created a TREMENDOUS amount of intra-party blowback for House Speaker John Boehner, which only made resolving this sequester standoff even more difficult. (After all, remember that it wasn’t too long ago when the big discussion in DC was whether Boehner would lose his speakership.) And just as importantly, folks like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. John Cornyn -- who are both up for re-election next year and both have colleagues from their states who have become Tea Party stars (Rand Paul, Ted Cruz) – are probably more reluctant to make a deal than ever before. Bottom line: The Senate escape hatch that saved the day during the fiscal-cliff fight isn’t there right now.

*** Sequester is here to stay: So ultimately, the big miscalculation on the White House’s part on sequester was that defense spending would be a forcing mechanism. It is not and will not be. And, as things stand right now, they are wrong to believe the Republicans are going to break like they did at end of 2012. The law was on the president’s ideological side at the end of 2012. That’s why the GOP broke on taxes. In this case, the law is on the Republicans’ ideological side. It is easier for them to defend the sequester at home because they can say, “We said we’d cut spending and the size of government, the president tried to stop us but we wouldn’t let him.” A bad spending cut for many Republicans is easier to defend than any supposed fair tax hike on anyone. So if the White House really wants to stop the sequester, they might have to come up with their own set of $85 billion in spending cuts for this year to replace it. In this political environment, there is no way Boehner, McConnell and Cornyn can politically survive doing anything short of that. The president can still get more revenue down the road on tax reform, but he may have to fold on sequester if he wants a chance at winning in the long run. But that’s also a hard thing to ask a president who just won re-election on this very issue.

*** Boehner to appear on “Meet the Press”: Speaking of Boehner, the House GOP leader on Sunday will sit down for an exclusive interview with NBC’s David Gregory on “Meet the Press.”

*** When does the sequester take effect? By the way, when do the sequester cuts go into effect? As NBC’s Peter Alexander notes, we all know it happens this Friday, March 1. But when exactly does it take place? In simple terms, per Alexander, it doesn’t take place until the president signs the sequester order, which must happen anytime before 11:59 pm ET on Friday, March 1.

*** On the White House vs. Woodward dust-up: To be honest, we don’t have much more to say in the dust-up between the Obama White House and the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward, except for these three points. One, political reporters should always go out of their way NOT to become part of the story. Two, you shouldn’t pick fights with folks who can buy ink by the barrel (or in today’s age, have unlimited bandwidth) and have banked credibility over decades to earn the benefit of the doubt. And three, if you’ve been in this business long enough, you’ve probably received emails more incendiary and threatening than “I think you will regret staking out that claim.” In fact, the email exchange between Woodward and White House economic adviser Gene Sperling, has since become public, and it’s hard to conclude that Sperling was attempting to intimidate Woodward.

*** Lew confirmed, Brennan bumped until next week: Recapping yesterday’s activity in the Senate, former White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew won confirmation to be Treasury secretary by a 71-26 vote, per NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell. Meanwhile, NBC’s Kasie Hunt reports that the Senate Intelligence Committee moved a vote on John Brennan's nomination as CIA director until next Tuesday. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., the committee vice chairman, said Wednesday night that the panel had bumped the Brennan vote until next week.

*** Why Iowa is so important for 2014: The big 2014 news yesterday was Rep. Tom Latham (R-IA)’s decision NOT to run for the Senate, which potentially gives conservative Rep. Steve King (R-IA) a clearer shot to being the GOP nominee if he decides to run. Here’s why next year’s Iowa Senate race is so important: If you take this seat off the map for Republicans – and it’s very premature to do that – then they almost have to run the table on all their other Senate opportunities to win back the Senate. Remember, Republicans have to pick up six seats to take control of the upper chamber. If you give them West Virginia (Rockefeller retiring) and South Dakota (possible Tim Johnson retirement), then Republicans still needs to win four out of these five seats where Dems are probably running for re-election: Alaska (Begich), Arkansas (Pryor), Louisiana (Landrieu), Montana (Baucus), and North Carolina (Hagan). In other words, if Iowa is in play for Republicans, they don’t need to knock off as many Dem incumbents. If it isn’t in play, then they almost have to run the table. One other point here: King would probably have little chance of winning a Senate contest in a presidential year, but he does have a chance in a midterm cycle, so folks ought to be careful making assumptions.

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*** Thursday’s “Daily Rundown” line-up: Democratic candidate Elizabeth Colbert Busch on her bid for the open House seat in South Carolina… Mayor Anthony Foxx (D) of Charlotte, NC, and Mayor Robert Cluck (R) of Arlington, TX, on the SCOTUS consideration of a Voting Rights Act challenge and what big spending cuts mean for their cities… NBC’s Anne Thompson and George Weigel with the latest on Pope Benedict’s departure… Plus National Review’s Jim Geraghty, Politico’s Manu Raju and former Obama Admin. Communications Director Anita Dunn join the Gaggle.

*** Thursday’s “Jansing & Co.” line-up: MSNBC’s Chris Jansing interviews Rep. Diane Black, Chuck Loveless, Beth Reinhard and Ruth Marcus. Also: Carl Bernstein, Father Robert Barron, Father John Bartunek, and Liz Lev.

*** Thursday’s “MSNBC Live with Thomas Roberts” line-up: MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts anchors live coverage of Pope Benedict’s final moments as Pope and also will interview Father John Bartunek and Elizabeth Lev of Duquesne University, both from Rome… He’ll also interview Rev. Al Sharpton, Martin Luther King III, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), political strategist Angela Rye, MSNBC contributor and Republican strategist Susan Del Percio, and the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank.

*** Thursday’s “NOW with Alex Wagner” line-up: Alex Wagner’s guests include the New Yorker’s Rick Hertzberg, Dem strategist Karen Finney, MSNBC.com’s Richard Wolffe, Bloomberg’s Josh Green, the Brady Campaign’s Colin Goddard, and the Washington Post’s EJ Dionne

*** Thursday’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” line-up: NBC’s Andrea Mitchell Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY), Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA), Ambassador Nicholas Burns, Ambassador Christopher Hill, Secretary Shaun Donovan,  NBC’s Ayman Mohyeldin and Anne Thompson, and The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza.

*** Thursday’s “News Nation with Tamron Hall” line-up: MSNBC’s Tamron Hall interviews writer Elizabeth Lev, James Salt from Catholics United, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD), the Atlantic’s Molly Ball, and Democratic strategist Chris Kofinis.

Today’s the deadline for the Obama administration to file a friend of the court brief to the Supreme Court urging it to overturn California’s gay marriage ban.

“The White House on Wednesday said it did not approve the release this week of hundreds of illegal immigrants being held in detention centers, as Republicans turned up the heat on the budget-cutting move ahead of the sequester,” The Hill writes.

Chuck Hagel said in his first speech as defense secretary, per The Hill: “We can't dictate to the world, but we must engage in the world. We must lead with our allies. Allies are, as everyone in this room knows, particularly important. No nation — as great as America is — can do any of this alone.”

Bloomberg: “Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of the late President John F. Kennedy, is a leading candidate to become President Barack Obama’s nominee as U.S. ambassador to Japan, according to two people familiar with the matter.”

“The National Republican Senatorial Committee is launching a parody web site Thursday that accuses President Barack Obama of hypocrisy for allowing Organizing for Action to sell access to him,” Politico writes. “WhiteHouseVIP.com features videos, tweet generators and an online petition on a site that looks vaguely like the White House’s.”

“House Republican leaders seem to have averted a potential rift in the conference, garnering wide support for a continuing resolution that will move as soon as next week,” Roll Call reports. “GOP leaders called a Wednesday afternoon meeting to brief members on the strategy for the CR, where Speaker John A. Boehner urged members to continue fighting in unison, on Capitol Hill and in their districts, to keep the sequester’s spending cuts in effect.”

And check out this quote. Boehner said this to the group, per Roll Call: “We’re on the side of the angels.”

“The Senate is expected to defeat Thursday competing Democratic and Republican alternatives to the $85.3 billion in automatic spending cuts scheduled to begin Friday,” Roll Call writes.

David Rogers: “Washington’s Great Sequester pregame show ends in the Senate on Thursday with Republicans still divided over how to disarm the doomsday budget machine they built in the previous Congress with Democrats and President Barack Obama. Obama will be waiting at the White House on Friday to meet with House and Senate leaders, even as his Office of Management and Budget works next door toward meeting the midnight March 1 deadline to put the cuts in motion.”

Some Democrats want a $10.10 minimum wage, not the $9 President Obama called for. Sen. Tom Harkin to The Hill: “Well, we’re going to introduce our own bill on it. I’m going to be in discussions with them because I think they missed the mark, but people make mistakes.”

Legislating from the bench? Antonin Scalia yesterday on why the Voting Rights Act continues to pass and be reauthorized: “This last enactment, not a single vote in the Senate against it. And the House is pretty much  the same. Now, I don't think that's attributable to the fact that it is so much clearer now that we need this. I think it is attributable, very likely attributable, to a phenomenon that is called perpetuation of racial entitlement. It's been written about. Whenever a society adopts racial entitlements, it is very difficult to get out of them through the normal political processes. I don't think there is anything to be gained by any Senator to vote against continuation of this act. And I am fairly confident it will be reenacted in perpetuity unless -- unless a court can say it does not comport with the Constitution.”

Here’s the transcript.

Civil rights legend Rep. John Lewis didn’t take too kindly to Scalia’s comments. Lewis said on MSNBC: “It was unreal, unbelievable, almost shocking, for a member of the court to use certain language. I can see politicians and even members of Congress — but it is just appalling to me.”

“While Republican leaders continue to talk – and talk – about how best to update the party’s hard-line image, one of the country’s most prominent conservative outside groups is ready to put real money into the effort,” Politico writes. “The American Action Network is poised to launch a major advocacy campaign aimed at winning support for immigration reform on the right – the first significant effort within the Republican coalition to create an atmosphere in which it is safe for GOP lawmakers to support an immigration bill.”

Mark Shields, the veteran political analyst for PBS, yesterday asked Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), House Judiciary chairman, whether the problem with his party was the “pizza” or the “box.” As First Read reported, Goodlatte responded this way: “It’s primarily our inability to communicate our message in a variety of ways. … Our message still resonates with a lot of people; we have to figure out how to get it to resonate with more.”

Translation: It’s the box.

It’s a view held by many in the party. But Rich Lowry today says it’s the pizza, too. “Republicans should prepare for more discontent,” because they have no leader and it’s the message – not just the messaging – that’s the problem: “At times, it seems as if “we have a $16 trillion debt” is the sum total of the party’s argumentation. When party leaders say that they have to become the party of growth again, the policy they invariably advance to that end … is reducing the $16 trillion debt. This necessary, but hardly sufficient message is almost all we hear from Republicans in Congress, where their majority in the House gives them responsibility without decisive influence.”

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg claimed yesterday that the Illinois special election, in which he spent $2.5 million to defeat a Democrat with ties to the NRA: "Is it a harbinger of what's to come? I think so."

But Stu Rothenberg’s unimpressed, dismissing the win as one in a heavily Democratic district.

What’s with all the butt talk this week? Karl Rove on why he started a group to take out fringe conservatives: “My posterior was shredded a little bit by donors wondering why we are writing checks for people who then turn around a run such lousy campaigns.”

And this kind of thing just keeps on happening to the GOP: Minnesota state Rep Glenn Gruenhagen (R) said this of being gay: "It's an unhealthy, sexual addiction."

And this: Louie Gohmert (R-TX): "Slavery and abortion are the two most horrendous things this country has done but when you think about the immorality of wild, lavish spending on our generation and forcing future generations to do without essentials just so we can live lavishly now, it's pretty immoral."

ARKANSAS: “The Club for Growth will launch a television advertisement in Arkansas on Friday targeting Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor, who is up for re-election in 2014,” Roll Call writes.

MASSACHUSETTS: Five candidates qualified for the ballot in the April 30 Senate special election – two Democrats and three Republicans. “According to the Central Voter Registry at the secretary of state’s office, Democratic US Representative Edward M. Markey led the field by day’s end, with 33,799, followed by his rival for the party nomination, US Representative Stephen P. Lynch, whose tally was at 25,104,” the Boston Globe writes. “Former US Attorney Michael Sullivan, using only volunteers, led the Republican field, with 18,812, followed by Cohasset businessman Gabriel E. Gomez, whose count was at 16,937, and state Representative Daniel B. Winslow, at 13,406. Winslow and Gomez paid signature-gathering firms to help their signature drive.”

NEW JERSEY: Ex-Sen. Scott Brown’s holding a fundraiser for Chris Christie in Boston Friday.

Mandel Ngan / AFP - Getty Images, file

Jack Lew testifies before the Senate Finance Committee on Feb. 13.

The Senate has confirmed Jack Lew, a former budget director and chief of staff to the president, as the next secretary of the treasury.

The vote was 71 to 26.

Lew's critics said he failed to adequately explain why he received a hefty severance package when he voluntarily left his job as an executive vice president at New York University.

Lew left the school in 2006 to take a position at Citigroup Inc., a post that some said made him too cozy with big banks. 

But foes failed to muster enough opposition to prevent the wonky former Office of Management and Budget chief from ascending to the Treasury Department job -- one that sits at the center of debate over the nation's spending and debt.

By a vote of 19 to 5, the Senate Finance Committee voted Tuesday to recommend Lew for a full Senate vote.

All five of the votes against him came from Republican committee members; six Republicans on the committee supported him.

Lew, a native of New York City, began his career in Washington in 1973 serving as a legislative aide. He went on to spend nine years as chief domestic policy adviser to House Speaker Tip O'Neill.

He most recently served as the president's chief of staff, a post he took in January 2012.

Lew accumulated minor Twitter fame for his cartoonishly illegible signature, which by law will appear on U.S. bills.

The president himself poked fun at Lew's penmanship upon making the nomination, saying that his pick had promised to make at least one letter of his signature legible "in order not to debase our currency."

This story was originally published on Wed Feb 27, 2013 6:09 PM EST

As the country gets closer and closer to Friday's deadline before the automatic "sequester" spending cuts take effect, the Obama White House has issued dire warnings -- like 10,000 teachers could be laid off, and "2,100 fewer food inspections could occur." 

Over the weekend, in fact, the White House went so far as to break down the cuts by state.

Speaking at the White House briefing on Wednesday, Education Secretary Arne Duncan noted that most of the effects of the sequester on education funding -- which could mean up to 40,000 lost jobs -- won't be felt until later in the year. 

But Duncan said that, in some school districts with particularly early budgeting processes, teachers are already receiving pink slips. 

"It's Title I teachers and Head Start teachers. So it's these funding sources that are going to get cut. Whether it's all sequester related, I don't know. But these are teachers who are getting pink slips now."

Duncan singled out Kanawha County in West Virginia as a school system where Head Start and Title I teachers are already on the chopping block.

Indeed, NBC News spoke with Karen Williams, the director of Head Start in the Kanawha County School system, who admitted that the possible layoffs in her country have more to do with funding grant applications and bureaucracy -- and less to do with the impending cuts.

Right now, Ms. Williams is waiting to see if her Head Start grant will be approved and if the program will get funded for the next school year. She's also waiting for a date of when they'll know if they're approved or not. At first, the Region III office of the Department of Education said the school system would hear a grant decision by December, and then it was shifted to some unknown date in the spring. 

"I can't get anyone to make a decision," Williams said.

Because of West Virginia state laws, the uncertainty over the $2.7 million in Head Start funding this district relies on has caused Williams herself, Head Start teachers, teacher’s aides and administrative staff to receive what’s known as RIF -- or Reduction in Force -- and transfer letters.

One transfer letter states: “The Kanawha County Schools Head Start grant has not yet been approved, therefore it is necessary to recommend you for transfer and subsequent
assignment.”

The letter itself doesn’t necessarily mean certain unemployment. If the money doesn’t come through, a teacher or staffer with seniority could be reassigned. But people at the bottom of the totem pole will lose their jobs.

The county's Head Start grant employs 39 people, and it serves about 530 children. Both Williams and the school system's Head Start coordinator, Diane Young, said the federal funding waiting game isn't business as usual. "I've been the director for nine years, and this is the first time it's happened," Williams said.

"I am so stressed out. I don't sleep. I take my job very very seriously," Williams added.

Rep. Tom Latham (R-IA) released a letter on Wednesday signaling that he would not run for Iowa's open Senate seat in 2014, which was vacated by retiring Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA).

"The opportunity to serve Iowa in the U.S. Senate is appealing to this farm kid who grew up here, raised a family here, and helped grow a family business in Iowa. I love Iowa," Latham wrote.

"However, only 56 days ago I took an oath to 'faithfully discharge the duties' of an office with which the people of Iowa's Third Congressional District entrusted to me. I cannot in good conscience launch a two-year statewide campaign that will detract from the commitment I made to the people who elected me, at a time when our nation desperately needs less campaigning and more leadership."

With Latham not running, that would potentially give fellow Iowa Congressman Steve King a clear shot to win the GOP nomination, if he decides to mount a Senate bid.

Several weeks ago, the Karl Rove-backed American Crossroads operation said it was creating an additional outside group -- called the Conservative Victory Project -- in an effort to help the GOP nominate more electable Senate candidates.

One of the chief examples the organization cited: making sure the conservative King didn't become Iowa's GOP Senate nominee.

"We're concerned about Steve King's Todd Akin problem," Steve Law, president of American Crossroads, told the New York Times. "This is an example of candidate discipline and how it would play in a general election. All of the things he's said are going to be hung around his neck."

King is known for his right-wing positions and statements, and Latham's decision potentially increases the chances for Democrats to hold the Senate seat. However, King last year won a competitive House contest against Christie Vilsack, wife of Agriculture Secretary and former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack.

It's also possible that other Republicans might decide to run for the vacated Senate seat. One name that has surfaced: Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds.

“Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds is very serious about running,” an Iowa source tells NBC News.

Video edited by NBC"s Natalie Cucchiara

Vice President Joe Biden argued Wednesday that Democratic voters in yesterday’s special Democratic congressional primary in Illinois illustrated that there is a larger national mandate for tighter gun restrictions.

“The voters sent a message last night, not just to the NRA but to the politicians all around the country by electing Robin Kelly, who stood up and stood strong for gun safety totally consistent with our Second Amendment rights,” Biden told a gathering of state attorneys general in Washington D.C.

Kelly, a former state representative, won decisively over U.S. Rep. Debbie Halvorson, a Democrat who at one time had been favored to win the Chicago-area seat. But Halvorson faced over two million dollars’ worth of negative advertising funded by pro-gun control billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who attacked her for an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association.

The congressional district, which is heavily Democratic, includes some of Chicago's South Side neighborhoods as well as suburban areas south of the city.

Biden said Kelly’s decisive victory sent an “unequivocal signal” in the first major electoral contest since the shootings at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.

“The message is there will be a moral price as well as a political price to be paid for inaction,” he said.

After meeting with Biden today, Bloomberg said he believed the race showed that support for stricter gun laws won't hurt candidates.

Bloomberg said the White House should reach out to members of Congress to explain "why their vote could make a difference and why all the polls show that they will not be disadvantaged the next time they run."

"Quite the contrary," he added. "They will have this as a feather in their cap and be able to say next time they run ‘when the going was tough, I stood up for you.’”

NBC's Kasie Hunt contributed to this report. 

Central parts of an election law dating back to the civil rights struggles of the 1960s, the Voting Rights Act, appeared to be in jeopardy Wednesday after the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a challenge to them.

NBC’s Pete Williams reported after the oral argument that key provisions of the 1965 law “are in big trouble. The question is how far will the Supreme Court go” in striking down parts of the law?

The justices were weighing an appeal from Shelby County, Ala., asking the court to find that Congress exceeded its power when it renewed the two key sections of the law in 2006. A decision is expected before the court ends its current term this coming June or July.

Under Section 5 of the law, nine states, mostly in the South, but also including Alaska and Arizona, as well as dozens of counties, townships, cities, and elected boards in other states, must get permission, or “preclearance,” from the Justice Department or a federal court in Washington for any change in voting procedures, no matter how small, that they seek to make.

The formula used to determine which states and other jurisdictions are covered by the preclearance requirement is set forth in section 4 of the law.

“It’s pretty safe to say that there at least five votes to strike down” either section 4 or section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, “either the coverage formula or preclearance totally,” Williams reported.

Williams added what seemed to concern a majority of the justices was “the fact that the law is too backward looking.”

Shelby County’s lawyer Bert Rein argued that Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act – which Congress renewed for another 25 years in 2006 – is unconstitutional because the formula used to determine which states are covered is outdated – based on voter turnout and registration data from 1972.

The blatant racial intimidation and discrimination in voting procedures that prevailed in states such as Alabama when the law was written in 1965 and renewed in 1970, 1975, and 1982, no longer exist, the county says.

Overshadowing Wednesday’s argument was the Supreme Court’s decision in a 2009 Texas case, Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One vs. Holder. In that decision, the court expressed doubts about the continued need for Section 5, noting that “voter turnout and registration rates now approach parity” between whites and blacks in the states covered by section 5.

Evan Vucci / AP

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif.,speaks during a rally outside the Supreme Court in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2013, before arguments in the Shelby County, Ala., v. Holder voting rights case. The justices are hearing arguments in a challenge to the part of the Voting Rights Act that forces places with a history of discrimination, mainly in the Deep South, to get approval before they make any change in the way elections are held. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Solicitor General Donald Verrilli said the justices should defer to the judgment that Congress made in 2006 that the coverage formula was “rational and effective.” To that Justice Anthony Kennedy replied, “Well, the (1947) Marshall Plan was very good, too, the (1862) Morrill Act, the (1787) Northwest Ordinance, but times change.”

Kennedy suggested that the law had the effect of denying some states of their right to self-government -- in effect putting them “under the trusteeship of the United States Government.”

Related: Landmark civil rights law faces critical Supreme Court test

Addressing the question of why Congress had extended Section 5 in 2006 with no opposition at all in the Senate, Justice Antonin Scalia said it was “very likely attributable, to a phenomenon that is called perpetuation of racial entitlement. It's been written about. Whenever a society adopts racial entitlements, it is very difficult to get out of them through the normal political processes.”

He said for most members of Congress there’s little to be gained by voting against continuation of the key sections of the law. “I am fairly confident it will be reenacted in perpetuity unless a court can say it does not comport with the Constitution.”

But the liberal justices were quick to defend the sections of the law which Shelby County is challenging.

The court’s newest member, Justice Elena Kagan, appointed by President Barack Obama in 2010, said Alabama still deserved to be singled out for coverage under section 5.

She said section 5 “seems to work pretty well” in targeting the places where there are the most successful lawsuits under a separate section of the Voting Rights Act, section 2.

That part of the law, which isn’t being challenged in the Shelby County case, bans all voting procedures that discriminate on the basis of race, color, or membership in a language minority group. Unlike Sections 4 and 5 of the law, Section 2 covers all 50 states.

“If Congress were to write a formula that looked to the number of successful Section 2 suits per million residents, Alabama would be the number one state on the list,” Kagan told Rein.

Kagan said that “under any formula that Congress could devise” Alabama would still be a targeted state.

Another liberal justice who defended section 5, Justice Stephen Breyer compared racially discriminatory voting procedures to a disease. “It's an old disease, it's gotten a lot better, a lot better, but it's still there,” he said. “So if you had a remedy that really helped it work, but it (discrimination) wasn't totally over, wouldn't you keep that remedy?”

But Rein argued that the high court ought to “remove the stigma” of preclearance from the states “and the unequal application based on data that has no better history than 1972.”

Justice Samuel Alito suggested to Verrilli that “maybe the whole country should be covered” by section 5 or “maybe certain parts of the country should be covered based on a formula that is grounded in up-to-date statistics.”

When Verrilli defended the section 5 of the law, Chief Justice John Roberts asked him, “Do you know which state has the worst ratio of white voter turnout to African American voter turnout?”

Verrilli said he did not, to which Roberts replied: “Massachusetts. Do you know what has the best, where African American turnout actually exceeds white turnout? Mississippi.”

Roberts then asked Verrilli which state has the greatest disparity in registration between whites and African Americans, and again Verrilli did not know.

Again Roberts answered Massachusetts. He added that in Mississippi, “the African American registration rate is higher than the white registration rate.”

Verrilli argued Wednesday that “changes in the polling places at the last minute before an election can be a source of great mischief. Closing polling places, moving them to inconvenient locations, et cetera.” He explained that Section 5 requires “those kinds of changes to be pre-cleared and on a 60-day calendar which effectively prevents that kind of mischief. And there is no way in the world you could use Section 2 to effectively police that kind of mischief.”

He argued in the Justice Department brief that Section 2 isn’t an adequate barrier against discrimination in voting partly because it places the burden of proof on plaintiffs who challenge allegedly discriminatory procedures, while Section 5 places the burden of proof on the states or counties to show that their procedures aren’t discriminatory.

This story was originally published on Wed Feb 27, 2013 12:12 PM EST

More Americans say they are now in favor of stricter gun laws than at any time since 2000, after the Columbine shooting, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

Sixty-one percent said so, a nine-point jump from before the December 2012 Newtown shootings. The last time the question was asked before the shooting was in January 2011. Then, 52 percent said guns laws should be "more strict." 

What’s responsible?

The shift is largely due to the Obama coalition of city-dwellers, African Americans, Hispanics, and Democrats, groups that also said they do not own as many guns as rural and white respondents. But there are shifts with most other groups as well. And even though only a minority of Republicans -- 37 percent -- support stricter gun laws, that's a 13-point jump from 2011. 

In the latest poll, 86 percent of African Americans, 82 percent of Democrats, 72 percent of Hispanics, and 71 percent of urban respondents said they were in favor of stricter gun laws, all up double-digits from 2011.

Urban: 71% (Feb. 2013) - 55% (Jan. 2011). Net change: +16
African Americans: 86% (Feb. 2013) - 71% (Jan. 2011) Net change: +15
Republicans: 37% (Feb. 2013) - 24% (Jan. 2011). Net change: +13
Hispanics: 72% (Feb. 2013) - 60% (Jan. 2011). Net change: +12
Democrats: 82% (Feb. 2013) - 71% (Jan. 2011). Net change: +11
Men: 51% (Feb. 2013) - 42% (Jan. 2011). Net change: +9
Women: 69% (Feb. 2013) - 61% (Jan. 2011). Net change: +8
Suburban: 59% (Feb. 2013) - 51% (Jan. 2011). Net change: +8
Whites: 55% (Feb. 2013) - 48% (Jan. 2011). Net change: +7
Rural: 48% (Feb. 2013) - 41% (Jan. 2011). Net change: +7
Independents: 49% (Feb. 2013) - 48% (Jan. 2011). Net change: +1 

SOURCE: NBC/WSJ poll

There has been virtually no change with independents. In the current poll, 49 percent say gun laws should be stricter, just a one-point increase from January 2011.

Whether or not someone owns a gun in the household is the biggest factor in supporting or opposing stricter gun laws.

Among those who do not own a gun in the household, 75 percent support stricter laws. Among those who do, just 45 percent support stricter laws.

Overall, 42 percent said someone in their household owns a gun.

So who are they?

There’s a gender split, with more men saying they own one (48 percent) than women (36 percent).

It also varies, of course, by region. There are more gun owners in the South (50 percent) than anywhere else. The Northeast has the fewest (28 percent).

There’s also an urban-rural split. Just 34 percent of those who live in cities said they own a gun, but six-in-10 rural respondents do (59 percent). (Just 41 percent of those who live in the suburbs do.)

And there’s a Democratic-Republican split as well – just 30 percent of Democrats say they own a gun, while 55 percent of Republicans do. Forty-nine percent of independents said so.

Reflecting that divide, just 34 percent of Obama voters said someone in their home owns one versus 57 percent of Romney voters.

By race, whites own more guns than minorities. Nearly half of whites (47 percent) said they own a gun. Just one-in-five African Americans said so (20 percent) and just 28 percent of Hispanics.

Gun ownership does not vary much by age, but younger voters (18 to 34) are the least likely to own a gun (39 percent).

And gun owners are more affluent. Those making more than $75,000 a year are the most likely to own a gun (50 percent) – even though professionals (40 percent) and white-collar workers (40 percent) are among the least likely to own one.

This story was originally published on Wed Feb 27, 2013 11:44 AM EST

After weeks of argument over the sequester, bipartisan congressional leaders will meet with the president at the White House on Friday -- the same day that automatic federal spending cuts are scheduled to go into effect. 

President Barack Obama will meet with House Speaker John Boehner, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to discuss the across-the-board budget reductions to federal agencies, aides told NBC News.

Republicans were quick to question why the White House would schedule the meeting only on the final day of the belabored back-and-forth over the cuts.

"If the President is serious about stopping the sequester, why did he schedule a meeting on Tuesday for Friday when the sequester hits at midnight on Thursday?" a Republican aide told NBC. "Either someone needs to buy the White House a calendar, or this is just a - belated - farce.  They ought to at least pretend to try."

White House spokesman Jay Carney said that Obama also spoke briefly with congressional leaders Wednesday when he attended the unveiling of a statue of civil rights icon Rosa Parks at the Capitol. 

Asked why the longer White House meeting is not happening today, Carney told reporters that "the Senate is still yet to vote, hopefully will vote tomorrow, on a proposal that achieves the kind of postponement of the sequester deadline that would allow Congress to move forward on balanced deficit reduction in a sensible, no-drama fashion that would avoid these unnecessary impacts across the economy and the country." 

That measure has very little chance of passing both chambers.

Carney also disputed the assumption that the sequester goes into effect at midnight on Thursday night. By law, the president must execute the cuts on March 1st, meaning that they can be averted until 11:59 ET on Friday, he said. 

The sequester's origins -- and mechanisms to stop the self-executing cuts -- have been the subject of finger-pointing between both parties. The president has blamed Republicans for refusing a compromise that would include the closure of tax loopholes, while the GOP has blamed Senate Democrats for failing to propose a legislative fix.

McConnell described the meeting Friday as an opportunity to discuss spending reductions more broadly. 

"The meeting Friday is an opportunity for us to visit with the President about how we can all keep our commitment to reduce Washington spending," he said in a statement. "With a $16.6 trillion national debt, and a promise to the American people to address it, one thing is perfectly clear: we will cut Washington spending. We can either secure those reductions more intelligently, or we can do it the President's way with across-the board cuts. But one thing Americans simply will not accept is another tax increase to replace spending reductions we already agreed to."

NBC's Kristen Welker contributed to this report. 

This story was originally published on Wed Feb 27, 2013 10:06 AM EST

The man who could be a pivotal player on immigration in the House called for a “guest-worker” program and path to “legal status,” but not citizenship.

“We should focus on common ground on legal status,” House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) told a group of reporters at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast Wednesday morning. “Once you have that status, you can qualify like everyone else.”

Goodlatte did not rule out a path to citizenship eventually, but not in this round.

“There are large number of people here unlawfully,” Goodlatte said. “It’s not a good thing to have them operating in the shadows.” 

But he said that does not mean they should get to the front of the line, so to speak, and become citizens. He called the immigration system “broken,” but “rather than get bogged down in semantics, we should try to find common ground to pass legislation.” 

Goodlatte said he has had discussions with Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (R) and has respect for what he and the Gang of Eight in the Senate are trying to accomplish on immigration, but he said he had “some concerns” about some of the proposals laid out. But he declined to say specifically what those concerns are.

“I wont be able to write the bill in the room with you,” he said.

He also called for bills to be passed with “regular order,” meaning the House pass legislation, the Senate pass its version and then the two chambers conference to find “common ground.”

Despite what was an overwhelming victory by President Obama with Hispanics during the 2012 election – he won 71 percent of Latinos – there is still staunch opposition in many GOP corners on immigration reform. Goodlatte seemed to tacitly acknowledge that. 

“We’d like to see what they produce,” he said of the Senate. But, he added, it was necessary to “take the temperature” of members of his committee and the wider body of Republicans in the House to “see what can produce common ground.”

Asked by longtime political reporter Mark Shields of PBS, whether the Republican Party’s problems were the “pizza” or “the box,” in other words the substance or the packaging, Goodlatte said it was the box.

“It’s primarily our inability to communicate our message in a variety of ways,” Goodlatte argued, adding, “Our message still resonates with a lot of people; we have to figure out how to get it to resonate with more.”

Sequester fight already taking a toll -- on the American public, on Obama (whose numbers dipped in our new NBC/WSJ poll), and on the GOP (which is about as popular as Carnival Cruise Lines right now)… On CPAC not inviting the most popular Republican in the country… Mr. Secretary: Hagel wins confirmation (but by smallest margin in history for a defense secretary)… John & Lindsey’s Excellent Meeting… GOP denounces racially charged tweet directed at Mitch McConnell’s wife… And Teddy Turner’s -- shall we say -- provocative TV ad against Mark Sanford.

*** Sequester fight already taking a toll… : With Washington now knee-deep in its fifth contentious fiscal fight in two years, it’s hard not to look at our latest NBC/WSJ poll and see the toll it’s taking on everyone, including the American public. Per the poll, 32% believe the country is headed in the right direction, which is down three points from last month and nine points since the election. A majority of respondents (51%) believe the budget negotiations between President Obama and congressional Republicans make them feel less confident about economy, versus just 16% who feel more confident. (That has a DIRECT impact on consumer confidence, folks.) And then look at these headlines from some of the nation’s largest newspapers. The New York Times: “Austerity Kills Government Jobs as Cuts to Budgets Loom.” The Washington Post: “Sequester will sock a vulnerable economy.” By the way, here are the developments in the sequester debate worth noting. One, if there is any movement for a potential compromise, it’s over legislation that would give President Obama the flexibility to make these sequester cuts. But Obama himself said yesterday he doesn’t like this approach, and some Republicans are wary this gives him too much power. And two, it’s Wednesday -- just two days before the sequester cuts are supposed to go into effect -- and there isn’t a single meeting scheduled between the president and congressional Republicans.

*** … on the GOP: Speaking of taking tolls, there’s a sliver of good news for Republicans in our new poll, and there’s also A LOT of bad news. The good news: A majority of Americans (53%) prefer that Congress move ahead with the current sequester cuts or a plan that contains even more cuts, suggesting the public’s general appetite for reducing spending. But here’s the bad news: everything else. In fact, the party is about as popular as Carnival Cruise Lines right now. Only 29% say they agree “with most” of what Republicans in Congress have proposed (versus 45% for Obama and 40% for congressional Democrats). An identical 29% have a favorable view of the GOP (compared with 49% for Obama and 41% for the Dem Party).And the public believes the Republican Party is more interested in partisanship than Obama is. What’s more, the polls shows the Democratic Party beats the Republican Party on almost every issue -- looking out for middle class (by 22 points), Medicare (by 18 points), health care (16), reducing gun violence (15), Social Security (14), immigration (7) and even taxes (3) and the economy (2). The only issues where the GOP holds the advantage in the survey are reducing the federal deficit (by 6 points), controlling government spending (16 points) and ensuring a strong national defense (26). More importantly, in the dozen issues we tested, the GOP’s numbers dropped in most of them even as the Dem number didn’t budge. This is about a party LOSING ground, not about Democrats gaining it.

Brendan Smialowski / AFP - Getty Images

President Barack Obama speaks about automatic budget cuts set to take effect Friday during an event at Newport News Shipbuilding Feb. 26, 2013 in Newport News, Va.

*** … and even on Obama: But the current debate seems have taken a toll on Obama, too. His overall approval rating stands at a healthy 50%, but that’s down two points since January and three points since December. The percentage approving of the president’s handling of the economy has dropped five points, from 49% last month to 44% now. (It hasn’t been that low since before the 2012 political conventions.) If you saw these numbers isolation, you might say, “This isn’t good news for Obama.” But when you compare them with the Republican numbers, Obama looks like the tall guy attending a short-guy convention. And that perfectly sums up the current political environment (and it also pretty much sums up the 2012 election). That said, while Obama’s numbers have dipped somewhat – albeit within the poll’s margin of error -- strong majorities in the NBC/WSJ poll support the broad outlines of Obama’s top domestic priorities: 54% favor giving undocumented immigrants the ability to apply for legal status (up two points from last month); 61% believe the laws covering the sale of firearms should be stricter (up five points since January!!!); and nearly six in 10 support Obama’s proposal to raise the federal minimum wage. In particular, the gun-control numbers are pretty striking, and our pollsters say they reflect how presidential leadership can move the needle on issues. And as we found out last night in that special Dem Illinois primary, the issue of guns can win you a race (at least in a deep-blue urban district where there isn’t much evidence of a gun culture, but we digress).

*** On CPAC not inviting the most popular Republican in the country: Want another reason why the Republican Party is having problems right now? Look no farther than the Republicans and conservatives who decided not to invite New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) to next month’s Conservative Political Action Conference -- due in part to his advocacy for Hurricane Sandy relief as well as his support for some gun-control measures. In our NBC/WSJ poll, no politician has more crossover appeal than Christie does. His overall fav/unfav is 36%-12%; among Republicans, it’s 39%-9%; among Dems, it’s 36%-14%; among indies, 32%-17%; among conservatives, 34%-12%; among Tea Party supporters, 44%-13%; and among liberals, it’s even 33%-17%. Our poll also measured GOP Sen. Marco Rubio, who is more popular than Christie among Republicans (47%-7%), conservatives (41%-7%), and Tea Party types (52%-8%). But Rubio’s overall score is lower than Christie’s, 24%-17%. Explaining his group's snub of Christie, American Conservative Union Chairman Al Cardenas said, “CPAC is like the all-star game for professional athletes; you get invited when you have had an outstanding year.” Umm, then why are Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, Sarah Palin, Allen West, and even Mia Love all speaking at CPAC? Does losing elections = outstanding years?

*** Meet Secretary Hagel: Christie’s big sin among the CPAC conservatives? He’s extended a welcoming hand to Obama (on Sandy, gun control). And that brings us to another Republican who extended a welcoming hand to the president and more -- Chuck Hagel. Yesterday, the U.S. Senate confirmed Hagel by a 58-41 vote (the smallest margin ever for a defense secretary), and that came after his nomination beat back a GOP filibuster by a 71-27 vote. Per NBC’s Courtney Kube and Jim Miklaszewski, Hagel has already arrived at the Pentagon for his first day on the job. On his agenda is getting sworn in (official photos only), a senior staff meeting, and then an address to Pentagon staff (which appears to be open to the press).

*** John & Lindsey’s Excellent Meeting: Why does immigration reform still look like the best opportunity for a big legislative item to pass through Congress this year? Just note this statement from GOP Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham after yesterday’s meeting with President Obama. "We had an excellent meeting with the president and the vice president … during which we discussed a variety of issues, including our effort to pass comprehensive immigration reform legislation this year. We were pleased to hear the president state his firm commitment that he will do whatever is necessary to accomplish this important goal." Of course, getting immigration reform through the House – not Senate – will be the chief obstacle, but first things first. Interesting that the statement only mentioned immigration, because we also have learned the sequester standoff also came up.

*** GOP denounces racially charged tweet against McConnell’s wife: NBC's Kasie Hunt notes that a progressive group in Kentucky took heat yesterday from Republicans for a racially charged attack on Sen. Mitch McConnell's wife -- former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao. "This woman has the ear of @McConnellPress -- she's his #wife. May explain why your job moved to #China!," the group ProgressKY wrote on Twitter on Feb. 14. The tweet links to a website that alleges Chao, who is the daughter of Taiwanese immigrants, discriminated against American workers when she served as Secretary of Labor. Republicans denounced the tweet, and the organization eventually apologized. The attack also prompted a tweet from actress Ashley Judd, who is considering a run against McConnell. "Whatever the intention, whatever the venue, whomever the person, attacks or comments on anyone's ethnicity are wrong & patently unacceptable," Judd wrote Tuesday afternoon, per Hunt.

*** Teddy Turner’s -- shall we say -- provocative ad against Mark Sanford: Lastly, don’t miss this new TV ad that Teddy Turner is airing against Mark Sanford in that South Carolina congressional GOP primary. Wow.

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*** Wednesday’s “Daily Rundown” line-up: Breaking down the NBC/WSJ numbers with pollsters Fred Yang and Micah Roberts… NBC’s David Gregory on today’s SCOTUS hearing on voting rights and the sequester countdown… Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) – Congress’ only physicist – with a Deep Dive on Russia’s run-in with a meteorite and whether we’re ready for the next hit… Plus AP’s Liz Sidoti, the Grio’s Perry Bacon Jr., and NBC’s Mike Viqueira join the Gaggle.

*** Wednesday’s “MSNBC Live with Thomas Roberts” line-up: MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts interviews NAACP’s Ben Jealous, lawyer Patricia Ann Millett  who’s argued 28 cases before the Supreme Court, MSNBC Contributor Goldie Taylor, Republican strategist Alice Stewart, Democratic strategist Doug Thornell, Politico’s Ken Vogel, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL), Rep. Luis Guitterez (D-IL) and Mark Glaze from Mayors Against Illegal Guns, and Fr. John Bartunek

*** Wednesday’s “NOW with Alex Wagner” line-up: Alex Wagner’s guests include New York Magazine’s Jonathan Chait, Mother Jones’ David Corn, Politico’s Maggie Haberman, CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin, the National Urban League’s Marc Morial, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), and Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO).

*** Wednesday’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” line-up: NBC’s Andrea Mitchell interviews former WH Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), the Altantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, NAACP Legal Defense President Sherrilyn Ifill and the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza.

*** Wednesday’s “News Nation with Tamron Hall” line-up: MSNBC’s Tamron Hall interviews Rep. Adam Smith, Politico’s Roger Simon, Democratic strategist Jonathan Prince, and Michael Smerconish.

“When President Obama makes his first official trip to Israel in three weeks, he should expect both a welcome and a warning,” USA Today writes of an interview with the Israeli ambassador to the U.S. "We're delighted that he's coming now," Michael Oren said, adding, "Keep in mind that President Bush didn't come until the last six months of his second term," the ambassador said. "President Reagan didn't come at all."

He also said sanctions can work but: “I think there's time, but there's not much time. There's a window for diplomacy, but the window is closing. … We know that given the centrifuges that they have now, they will pass a red line. That's the point where we will no longer be able to prevent them from making a nuclear weapon, and that line is coming up in the summer. If they install the next generation of centrifuges — and they're installing them right now — (and) if those centrifuges begin to spin, then the time will be even shorter."

USA Today raises the curtain on gun makers.

“John F. Kerry has done town hall meetings in Manchester, N.H. He’s fielded questions about corn subsidies from voters in Des Moines, and stumped in cities across Massachusetts,” the Boston Globe writes. “But on Tuesday, the new secretary of state brought those political skills to Germany, holding a town hall meeting here with students in the foreign country where Kerry himself spent time as a child. He cracked jokes, often at his own expense. It was, as he made clear on this third day of a whirlwind tour of European and Middle Eastern capitals, an emotional journey. Kerry had returned to a city he knows well. Everywhere he stopped on Tuesday – the US embassy, the town hall, and meetings with German leaders – Kerry mentioned his personal connections to the city. He told tales of his boyhood in the city in the 1950s, when his father was a foreign service officer advising US officials about a variety of legal actions.”