“Days before the March 1 deadline, Senate Republicans are circulating a draft bill that would cancel $85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts and instead turn over authority to President Barack Obama to achieve the same level of savings under a plan to be filed by March 8,” Politico reports. “The five- page document, which has the tacit support of Senate GOP leaders, represents a remarkable shift for the party. Having railed against Senate Democrats for not passing a budget, Republicans are now proposing that Congress surrender an important piece of its Constitutional ‘power of the purse’ for the last seven months of this fiscal year.”

Roll Call: “A split among Senate Republicans over what to propose as a substitute for the sequester has complicated plans for Senate votes this week on competing GOP and Democratic deficit reduction proposals. A GOP plan to grant federal agencies more flexibility to implement $85 billion in fiscal 2013 spending cuts worries some Republicans, who fear the White House would use the measure to circumvent congressional budgeting authority.”

“It’s seems like we’ve been here before,” Politico writes. “It’s midweek in Washington, a budget deadline looms on Friday that’s sure to cause some measure of havoc around the country and both sides are busy posturing in front of inanimate or human props. But this fight is different from other fights: There is no urgency to solve it.”

“They beat him up for months — in TV ads, in op-ed pages and in Congress, with delay after delay before his confirmation on Tuesday,” Politico reports. “But now that Chuck Hagel is set to take the top job at the Pentagon on Wednesday, many of his Senate opponents seemed ready to mend fences just hours after trying to derail him.” (The quotes from GOP senators are worth the read.)

Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX) just keeps saying stuff. The New York Daily News on a YouTube chat between him and Ted Nugent, who was his guest at the State of the Union. "Do you feel that the people that Obama have brought forward to hear his speech, do you feel like they are useful idiots or props in this?" Stockman asked of gun-violence victims. Nugent: "I'm sure it is a two-edged sword, cuz' our hearts go out to victims of crime. But it is never a result of lack of gun regulations."

So much for that fight, guys… Politico: “House Republicans seem to be resigned that their version of the Violence Against Women Act is a loser with their own members and are likely to pass the Senate bill this week without changes. The GOP leadership has set up a floor process that would allow the chamber to vote on the Senate bill if they cannot pass their own version of the domestic violence legislation.”

Roll Call: “The House is expected to give in to Democratic pressure Thursday and pass the Senate version of the Violence Against Women Act after failing to find a substitute that can garner the support of a majority of its members.”

GEORGIA: “The influential Club for Growth released a scorecard Tuesday showing how faithfully every member of Congress hewed to the group’s fiscally conservative views during votes in 2012,” Roll Call writes. “The club uses the scores as part of the process to judge whether they will endorse a candidate — a move that sometimes results in millions of independent expenditures on the candidate’s behalf. But the 2012 scores  — from one to 100 percent with 100 percent being the most ‘pro-growth’ — are particularly illuminating in states like Georgia, where a number of Republican House members are angling for potential Senate bids.”

ILLINOIS: “Democratic congressional candidate Robin Kelly, who centered her campaign heavily on calls for tougher gun control laws, emerged from a crowded field on Tuesday to clinch her party’s nomination for the Illinois House seat vacated by Jesse Jackson Jr.,” NBC’s Andrew Rafferty writes. “ ‘You sent a message that was heard around our state and around the nation,” Kelly said in her victory speech late Tuesday night. ‘A message that tells the NRA that their days of holding our country hostage are coming to an end.’ Her speech was focused almost solely on gun control, the issue that came to define the race in the Chicago-area district, an area of the country that has recently been at the epicenter of gun violence. Kelly skated to an easy victory, earning well over 50 percent of the votes with none of her competitors earning anywhere near that amount of support.”

“The newly-elected Democratic nominee to replace disgraced former U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. vowed to become a leader in the fight for federal gun control and directly challenged the National Rifle Association in her victory speech,” AP writes. “But it remains to be seen if Robin Kelly’s primary win Tuesday night in the Chicago-area district, aided by a $2 million ad campaign funded by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s super PAC, would fuel the national debate.”

NBC’s Kasie Hunt: “New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has a promise -- or a threat -- for congressional candidates: In advocating more gun control, he'll put his money where his mouth is. Just ask the House hopeful who faced over $2.2 million Bloomberg-funded ads -- or talk to the Democrats charged with trying to take back the House majority in 2014. The billionaire mayor spent the money attacking former Rep. Debbie Halvorson, a Democrat who had been favored to win a Chicago-area House seat, over her "A" rating from the National Rifle Association.”

Speaking of which, “Bloomberg will head to Washington, D.C., on Wednesday to meet with Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and ‘various Senators,’ including Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John McCain, R-Ariz., according to the mayor’s office,” Roll Call reports.

SOUTH CAROLINA: Teddy Turner Jr.’s out with a new provocative ad that’s a not-so-subtle shot at ex-Gov. Mark Sanford’s scandal.

Larry Grooms is out with a more traditional ad.

Remember, the primary’s March 19. A runoff would be held April 2. And the general election is May 7.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has a promise -- or a threat -- for congressional candidates: In advocating more gun control, he'll put his money where his mouth is. 

Just ask the House hopeful who faced over $2.2 million Bloomberg-funded ads -- or talk to the Democrats charged with trying to take back the House majority in 2014. 

The billionaire mayor spent the money attacking former Rep. Debbie Halvorson, a Democrat who had been favored to win a Chicago-area House seat, over her "A" rating from the National Rifle Association. On Tuesday, 75 days after 20 children and 6 adults were massacred at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, she lost decisively to former state Rep. Robin Kelly in the Democratic primary for disgraced Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.'s seat in Illinois' second congressional district. 

"This is an important victory for common sense leadership on gun violence, a problem that plagues the whole nation,” Bloomberg said in a Tuesday night statement -- commenting on a special election primary in a district nearly 800 miles from his home. As she conceded, Halvorson blamed Bloomberg's money for her failed campaign. 

Her loss is one of the first real data points to dot the political landscape facing President Barack Obama -- and the Democrats he'll need to stand with him -- as he pushes a package of new gun control laws in the wake of the Newtown shootings. The president wants to ban assault weapons like the gun used at Newtown, limit the number of rounds of ammunition in magazines, require universal background checks for gun buyers and make gun trafficking a federal crime. 

It would be all but impossible for an assault weapons ban to pass the Senate — and prospects for any new laws are even dimmer in the GOP-controlled House. But lawmakers from both parties say could support requiring anyone who buys a gun to get a criminal background check. Under current law, people who buy guns from private sellers aren't required to get that check. 

So why does Halvorson's race matter to the legislative and political fights? After all, skeptics note, gun control isn't a controversial issue in urban Chicago, a city plagued by gun violence and a high murder rate. Bloomberg's tactics would likely be much less effective in a rural swing district with an ingrained hunting culture.    

But going after every pro-gun Democrat isn't quite the point, advocates say. Instead, it's a way of reassuring lawmakers -- particularly in swing suburban areas -- that someone will have their back if they support new gun restrictions.  

And it's also about telling Republicans in similar situations -- like those who hail from suburban Philadelphia, New York and Denver -- that there's a new threat. 

"The NRA has been the only game in town. That's not going to be the way it is anymore, and races like Halvorson's...are intended to send that message," said Mark Glaze, executive director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the advocacy group that Bloomberg co-chairs. 

In the past, the NRA has aggressively targeted lawmakers who back new gun laws. After a Democratic Congress passed an assault weapons ban in 1994, Republicans swept back to power in the House. The ban was allowed to expire in 2004. This time around, the NRA is opposing universal background checks.

Now, though, Democrats insist Bloomberg's millions amplify a new reality: changing public attitudes in the wake of Newtown. Polls show support for new gun restrictions is higher than it's been in more than a decade. And gun control advocates have retooled their message, focusing on reducing gun violence instead of trying to litigate Second Amendment rights. It's a distinction some Democrats believe will help turn the tide on an issue they've historically struggled with -- one strategist compared it to focusing on raising taxes on the rich during the 2012 campaign, helping their party win on the broader tax issue, where Republicans had previously claimed the upper hand. 

There's already evidence that suburban Republicans are staking out support for some new gun laws -- a reality that GOP strategists were eager to point out.  

"I think the idea of background checks across the board, I'm not opposed to them," Rep. Joe Heck, R-Nev., told the Las Vegas Review Journal's editorial board. "I disagree with people who say that this is going to be the first step to gun registration, which leads to gun confiscation."

"I agree with the president that we can and should strengthen the nation's background-check system," Rep. Pat Meehan, R-Pa., said in January. Also supporting stronger checks is fellow Philadelphia-area Republican Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick.  

After Newtown, polls show support for stricter gun laws is increasing even among Republicans. A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll out Tuesday showed 61 percent of Americans think gun laws should be more strict, the highest percentage since 2000, after the Columbine shootings months earlier. That's up from 51 percent in January of 2011, the last time the poll question was asked prior to Newtown. The shift is largely due to Obama's coalition of Democrats, African Americans and Hispanics. But among Republicans, 37 percent now say gun laws should be stricter. Just 24 percent of Republicans said so in January 2011. 

Obama and Democrats want to act fast on gun measures to maintain that momentum. In the Senate, Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy wants to start the process of writing new gun laws on Thursday. Republicans could push that another week. 

In advance of the hearings, Democrats are scrambling to hash out a deal with Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla, on a background check bill. Coburn has been negotiating with Democrats for weeks, but talks have stalled in recent days over how to keep track of private gun sales so police can later track guns used in crimes. Democrats and gun control advocates say gun sellers need to keep a record or the law will be toothless, while Republicans argue that could lead to the federal government tracking gun owners. 

"There absolutely will not be record keeping on legitimate, law-abiding gun owners in this country," Coburn said on "Fox News Sunday."  

The slowed negotiations with Coburn have prompted Democrats, led by West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, to ratchet up what's been ongoing outreach to other moderate Republicans who might be willing to sign on. Sen. John McCain said Wednesday that he's been involved in working on legislation.   

Leahy's committee is also going to take up the likely doomed assault weapons ban, which California Sen. Dianne Feinstein is sponsoring. Democratic leaders have pledged a floor vote on the measure -- a move Obama urged at his State of the Union address, when supporters in the chamber erupted into chants of, "vote, vote, vote." 

Holding the vote is a significant part of the political calculus: It would allow Democrats in red states or swing districts to say they've opposed Obama's plan to ban weapons while still giving them an opportunity to tout support for other measures to reduce gun violence. 

"I want it on the floor," Feinstein told NBC News on Tuesday. 

NBC's Domenico Montanaro and Carrie Dann contributed to this report. 

Charles Rex Arbogast / AP

Robin Kelly celebrates her special primary election win for Illinois' 2nd Congressional District, once held by Jesse Jackson Jr., over Debbie Halvorson, and Anthony Beale Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2013, in Matteson, Ill.

Democratic congressional candidate Robin Kelly, who centered her campaign heavily on calls for tougher gun control laws, emerged from a crowded field on Tuesday to clinch her party’s nomination for the Illinois House seat vacated by Jesse Jackson Jr.  

“You sent a message that was heard around our state and around the nation,” Kelly said in her victory speech late Tuesday night. “A message that tells the NRA that their days of holding our country hostage are coming to an end."

Her speech was focused almost solely on gun control, the issue that came to define the race in the Chicago-area district, an area of the country that has recently been at the epicenter of gun violence. Kelly skated to an easy victory, earning well over 50 percent of the votes with none of her competitors earning anywhere near that amount of support.

The former Illinois state representative was aided greatly by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s super PAC, Independence USA, which endorsed Kelly and spent more than $2 million in the race.

The PAC focused on taking down opponents for supporting certain gun-rights policies, including chief rival Debbie Halvorson, a former member of Congress.

"In the race to replace Jesse Jackson, watch out for Debbie Halvorson. When she was in Congress before, Halvorson got an 'A' from the NRA," argued an Independence USA TV ad, adding: "Debbie Halvorson -- when it comes to preventing gun violence, she gets an 'F.'"

Bloomberg tweeted his congratulations, writing, "As Congress considers the President's gun package voters in IL have spoken: we need common sense gun legislation now."

Prominently featured on Kelly’s website is a list of her five-point plan to reduce gun deaths.

"In Congress, Kelly will keep taking on the NRA, fighting to ban assault weapons and outlaw high-capacity ammunition clips," said one of her TV ads.

Kelly will go on to face a Republican challenger in April, but is expected to win easily in the heavily Democratic district.

NBC's Mark Murray contributed to this report

With automatic, across-the-board spending cuts set to begin Friday, majorities of Americans believe that approach is not a good idea and also say the contentious budget negotiations make them less confident about the U.S. economy, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

Click here for full poll results (.pdf)

Despite those findings, a majority still supports Congress moving ahead with either the current cuts or a plan containing even more cuts as a way to reduce the deficit, suggesting the public’s general appetite for reducing spending.

But the poll also shows that as the nation’s political actors once again quarrel over these automatic cuts totaling $1.2 trillion over 10 years – commonly referred to as sequestration or the sequester – President Barack Obama finds himself in a much stronger position than his Republican adversaries. 

Related: NBC/WSJ poll: Public says GOP less interested in unity than Obama is

“If the president needs some tweaks and adjustments, the Republican Party is pretty much in need of a major makeover,” says Democratic pollster Fred Yang of Hart Research Associates, who conducted this survey with Republican pollster Bill McInturff. 

“The Republicans don’t need a silver lining; they need a whole new playbook,” Yang adds.

Cut a deal – or let the cuts take effect?
In the poll, 52 percent of respondents say the sequester cuts are a bad idea, versus just 21 percent who say they’re a good deal.

What’s more, 51 percent believe that the budget negotiations between Obama and congressional Republicans make them feel less confident about the economy, which is unchanged from when this question was first asked in last month’s poll.

Just 16 percent say the negotiations make them more confident about the economy.

But a combined 53 percent prefer that Congress move ahead with the current sequester cuts or a plan that contains even more cuts. Thirty-seven percent want a plan with fewer cuts.

And in a separate question, exactly half of respondents say that Obama and congressional Republicans should work together to avoid the sequester cuts from taking place, while 46 percent believe the cuts – while not perfect – should go into effect.

But the NBC/WSJ pollsters caution that all of these numbers could change if these sequester cuts take place and are as dire as critics say. “A month from now, we might find a very different dynamic at play,” Yang says. “When you feel [these cuts], that’s a different story.”

Obama’s brief honeymoon – but growing support for his top priorities
In addition to the budget debate, the poll shows that Obama’s rise in the polls – after his re-election, his inaugural speech and his State of the Union address – has ended for now.

His overall approval rating stands at a healthy 50 percent, 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 percent last month to 44 percent now.

And just 32 percent of Americans believe the country is headed in the right direction – down three points since January.

“The poll points to significant vulnerabilities for the president” heading in next year’s midterm elections, says McInturff, the GOP pollster. 

Alex Wong / Getty Images

President Barack Obama waves during a visit to Newport News Shipbuilding Feb. 26 in Newport News, Va.

Democratic pollster Yang adds: “The transition from campaigning to governing hasn’t brightened the public’s mood.”

That said, strong majorities support the broad outlines of Obama’s top domestic priorities – on immigration, gun control and raising the minimum wage. 

Fifty-four percent favor giving undocumented immigrants the ability to apply for legal status, which is up two points from last month’s NBC/WSJ poll. 

Also, 61 percent believe the laws covering the sale of firearms should be stricter, which is up five points since January.

And nearly six in 10 support Obama’s proposal from his State of the Union address to raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 per hour to $9.00.

Asked which of Obama’s proposals Republicans in Congress should offer a helping hand, 36 percent answer eliminating tax loopholes for the wealthy; 28 percent say expanding background checks for guns; 23 percent cite making preschool available for every child; 17 percent say giving illegal immigrants a path to legal status; and 11 percent say addressing climate change and global warming.

GOP’s poor standing with the public
While Obama has seen his poll numbers drop – albeit within the survey’s margin of error – his political standing remains significantly stronger than Republicans’.

Only 29 percent of respondents say they agree “with most” of what Republicans in Congress have proposed (versus 45 percent for Obama and 40 percent for congressional Democrats). 

An identical 29 percent have a favorable view of the Republican Party (compared with 49 percent for Obama and 41 percent for the Democratic Party).

And the public believes the GOP is more interested in partisanship than Obama is: 48 percent say Obama is pursuing a path on unifying the country in a bipartisan way, while 43 percent say he's taking a partisan approach that doesn't unify the country.

By comparison, 64 percent say Republicans are taking a partisan approach, versus 22 percent who say it's focused on unity.

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 points), reducing gun violence (15 points), Social Security (14 points), immigration (7 points) and even taxes (3 points) and the economy (2 points).

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 points). 

The NBC/WSJ poll was conducted Feb. 21-24 of 1,000 adults (including 300 cell phone-only respondents), and it has a margin of error of plus-minus 3.1 percentage points.

As the clock ticks down to the sequester, the State of our Union is -- mildly profane.

A round of political pottymouthing started this morning, when John Boehner told a closed-door meeting of Republicans – and then an open bank of microphones – that congressional action on a budget fix is jammed until “the Senate gets off their ass and begins to do something.”

The grammatically questionable demand from the House Speaker provided a welcome distraction for journalists weary of combing thesauruses for synonyms for “looming” and “across the board.”

But no sooner had news organizations decided how to handle the lawmaker’s anatomical illustration in their headlines than a response came from the primary, er, butt of Boehner’s jab.

“I was raised in a little town that had 13 brothels in it, so I'm used to some pretty salty language as you know," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid recalled to reporters at the Capitol.

Twice quoting Boehner's invocation of the gluteus maximus, Reid helpfully pointed out that Boehner's chosen metaphor was "quite interesting." 

"I think he should understand who is sitting on their posterior," he continued. "We're doing our best here to pass something. The speaker is doing nothing to try to pass anything over there." 

The PG-13 language hasn't been limited to lawmakers on the Hill in recent days. 

In a final press briefing, outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta heatedly directed his colleagues to find solutions rather than "sit here and bitch." 

And Secretary of State John Kerry brought a set of H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks overseas, expressing bewilderment in Berlin over the legislative state of affairs back home.  

"I know you sometimes scratch your heads - because I do it at home - and say what the hell are those guys doing or not doing as the case may be, and it's frustrating," he told embassy staff. 

And President Barack Obama – who has generally left the strongest non-legislative language to his vice president – implied to shipyard workers in Virginia today that perhaps it's the budget cuts themselves that should be classified as dirty words. 

"That's a pretty bad name, sequester," he said. "But the effects are even worse than the name."

With the automatic across-the-board spending cuts set to begin on Friday, Americans are split over whether President Barack Obama is emphasizing unifying the country or taking a partisan approach, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

But by nearly a 3-to-1 margin, respondents conclude that the Republican Party is emphasizing partisanship more than unity.

In the poll, 48 percent say Obama is pursuing a path to unify the country in a bipartisan way, while 43 percent say he's taking a partisan approach that doesn't unify the country.

Recommended: Boehner blasts Senate Democrats for inaction

By comparison, 64 percent say the Republican Party is taking a partisan approach, versus 22 percent who say it's focused on unity.

As for the Democratic Party, a plurality of respondents -- by a 49 percent to 37 percent margin -- think it is emphasizing partisanship more than unity.

The full NBC/WSJ poll -- which was conducted Feb. 21-24 of 1,000 adults, and which has a margin of error of plus-minus 3.1 percentage points -- comes out beginning at 6:30 pm ET.

The Senate voted to confirm former Sen. Chuck Hagel as President Barack Obama's next secretary of defense following weeks of dogged opposition by Republican senators to their erstwhile colleague.

The Senate voted 58 to 41 to formally confirm Hagel, on the heels of a procedural vote earlier in the day that cleared the way for Tuesday afternoon's final vote.

That earlier vote dispensed with a filibuster that Senate Republicans had waged for a week and a half against Hagel, whose confirmation was delayed by Republicans past the President's Day recess in order to allow for more time to dig into the former Nebraska senator's background.

A number of Republican detractors — including Sens. John McCain, Ariz., Lindsey Graham, S.C. and Kelly Ayotte, N.H. — reversed their votes on Monday in order to allow the Hagel nomination to move forward.

The Senate voted 71 to 27 to move forward with Hagel's nomination, clearing the 60-vote threshold needed to end the GOP filibuster. A handful of the Republicans who allowed Hagel's nomination to come to a final vote ultimately voted against confirmation.

In the end, Obama was able to win confirmation for Hagel, his choice to succeed outgoing Secretary Leon Panetta at the Pentagon. But not before Republicans were able to drag out the confirmation fight and, in the process, ding Hagel, their onetime GOP Senate colleague from the Cornhusker State.

Republicans had fought strenuously to defeat Hagel, accusing him at points of harboring hostilities toward Israel, and sympathies for the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

Tied into Hagel's nomination as well have been Republicans' long-running effort to ding Obama and his administration over their handling of the Sept. 11, 2012 attacks on a U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. 

Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

Former Senator Chuck Hagel testifies during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on his nomination to be Defense Secretary, on Capitol Hill in Washington, in this January 31, 2013, file photo.

"What has their filibuster gained my Republican colleagues?" Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., asked on the Senate floor. "Twelve days later, Senator Hagel's exemplary record of service to his country remains untarnished."

Reid added: "Senate Republicans have delayed for the better part of two weeks for one reason and one reason only: partisanship."

Hagel didn't necessarily help his cause during a combative confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Republicans aggressively questioned Hagel on a variety of matters during the Jan. 31 hearing. 

Even still, Democrats held firm in their backing for the former Nebraska senator, helping to move his nomination forward. Republicans, though, managed to buy themselves more time — they said, to more fully investigate Hagel's background — by waging a filibuster against the nomination on Feb. 14. 

Democrats angrily protested the delay, especially as current Defense Secretary Leon Panetta planned to leave the job, as dangerous and unprecedented. Republican opponents of Hagel, though, said at that time that they would drop their objections to holding a confirmation vote after last week's recess.

This story was originally published on Tue Feb 26, 2013 12:37 PM EST

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images, file

U.S. Supreme Court members (first row L-R) Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, Chief Justice John Roberts, Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy, Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, (back row L-R) Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice Stephen Breyer, Associate Justice Samuel Alito and Associate Justice Elena Kagan.

The U.S. Supreme Court this week will consider whether a landmark civil rights law, the Voting Rights Act, remains constitutionally valid, given the growth in the political power of minority voters and candidates.

Civil rights groups fear the court's conservatives are prepared to gut what the ACLU calls "the most important piece of civil rights legislation Congress has ever enacted."

The justices will hear oral arguments in the case Wednesday and rule sometime before the current court term ends in late June.

Passed by Congress in 1965 and renewed four times since then, most recently in 2006, a key provision of the law requires states with a history of discrimination at the polls to get federal permission before making any changes to their election procedures — from congressional redistricting to changing the locations of polling places.

The law was at the core of last year's successful efforts to block strict voter photo ID laws in Texas and South Carolina and to prevent Texas from redrawing its legislative and congressional boundaries in a manner that challengers claimed would have discriminated against minority voters.

"The last election vividly showed that voter suppression and voting discrimination are not just problems of the past. They continue to undermine our democratic process," says the ACLU's Steve Shapiro.

The challenge to the law comes from Shelby County, Alabama, a mostly white suburb south of Birmingham.  It argues that the pre-clearance requirement — which covers nine entire states and 66 counties or townships in seven others — is unconstitutional.

The areas covered by the law, it says, include some localities that have made substantial reforms but leave out other parts of the country that have failed to root out discrimination at the polls.

"Florida has been forced into pre-clearance litigation to prove that reducing early voting from 14 days to 8 is not discriminatory, when states such as Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Pennsylvania have no early voting at all," says Bert Rein of Washington, DC, the lawyer for the county.

While the history of blatant discrimination at the polls justified renewing the law in the past, Shelby County says, Congress failed to marshal enough evidence in 2006 to justify extending it for another 25 years.  "At most, the 2006 legislative record shows scattered and limited interference with voting rights, a level plainly insufficient" to sustain the pre-clearance requirement, Rein says.

Since 1990, adds Alabama’s Attorney General, Luther Strange, African Americans in the state have registered and voted in larger percentages than in states outside the South.

“African Americans hold seats in the legislature at percentages that are roughly commensurate with Alabama’s 26 percent African-American population,” Strange says.

But the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund says the current map is a close enough fit to cover the areas of greatest concern.  "Congress is not a surgeon with a scalpel when it acts to legislate across the fivty states, but it can reasonably attack discrimination where it finds it," the group says.

If the law were struck down, civil rights groups fear the areas covered by the law would revert to their old habits.

Warns the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human rights, “There is a significant risk of backsliding and a likelihood that millions of minority voters will face new barriers to the exercise of their most fundamental human right.”

President Obama expressed a similar sentiment in a radio interview last week. If covered jurisdictions no longer had to defend their electoral changes in advance, Obama said, civil rights groups would be forced to file lawsuits after voting changes were already in place.

“There are some parts of the country where obviously folks have been trying to make it harder for people to vote. So generally speaking, you’d see less protection before an election with respect to voting rights,” Mr. Obama said.

The Justice Department, which is defending the law before the Supreme Court, argues that the coverage formula is flexible, allowing local governments to bail out of the pre-clearance requirement if they can demonstrate they have not discriminated against minority voters for at least ten years.

During the past three decades, 38 bailouts have been granted, freeing 196 local jurisdictions of the preclearance requirement, the Justice Department says.  They include the first ever granted from parts of Alabama, Georgia, Texas, and Virginia, four of the states that are otherwise covered by the law.

Four years ago, the Supreme Court strongly suggested that several justices had doubts about its constitutionality, given recent electoral reforms. "Things have changed in the South," the court said in 2009.  "Blatantly discriminatory evasions of federal decrees are rare."

The court then went on to reject a constitutional challenge to the pre-clearance requirement, but it strongly suggested Congress should update the coverage formula.  Because, however, no changes have since made, the court may prepared to go the rest of the way this time.

The Senate Finance Committee voted 19-5 on Tuesday to report Jack Lew's nomination as Treasury Secretary to the full Senate. 

Lew's nomination moved a step closer to final confirmation before the full Senate with the finance panel's approval, though a floor vote isn't scheduled yet.

Recommended: Increasing polarization in Washington

Five Republicans joined with all of the committee's Democrats in supporting Lew. Five Republicans opposed Lew.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, voted yes, but criticized the administration for being reluctant to answer questions about nominees. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, voted no, citing concerns about Lew's ties to Citigroup, which received federal bailout money.

As Republicans decry a White House "road show" and cabinet officials continue to sound the sequester alarm, President Barack Obama said Tuesday that - even if Congress gives him greater flexibility to target coming budget reductions - rapid cuts without new revenues will still inflict "pain" on the national economy.

"The problem is, when you're cutting 85 billion dollars in seven months, which represents over a 10 percent cut in the defense budget … there's no smart way to do that," he said in a speech in the ship-building community of Newport News, Va. 

Obama's address at a shipbuilding plant came hours after House Speaker John Boehner used blunt language to urge Senate action on a budget fix, saying the upper chamber's members should "get off their ass" to avert the sequester.

In Virginia, Obama warned that the current across-the-board cuts will be particularly damaging for jobs along the state's defense-industry-rich coastline. 

"These cuts are wrong, they're not smart, they're not fair," he said. "They're a self-inflicted wound that doesn't have to happen." 

The backdrop of Newport News Shipbuilding offered a visual aide for the president, who lamented how fiscal scuffles on the Hill have caused uncertainty in the private sector. 

The overhaul of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, which is currently docked nearby , has been put on hold due to economic uncertainty surrounding not only the cuts but also the funding of the government which is due to run out at the end of March.

Obama blamed the impasse on Republican unwillingness to compromise on tax reform measures that would raise additional revenue. 

"Too many Republicans in Congress right now refuse to compromise even an inch when it comes to closing tax loopholes and special interest tax breaks," he said. "And that's what holding things up right now."

The president was joined on the trip by the area's Rep. Scott Rigell, a Republican.  

Rigell told reporters aboard Air Force One en route to the event that -- although many in his party say the GOP should accept no more revenue-raising proposals from Democrats --  he has advised his Republican colleagues against resisting measures like closing tax loopholes. 

"I don't think that's a wise position and I don't hold that value," he said. 

The trip to Virginia -- a swing state -- comes amid complaints from the GOP that Obama is "campaigning" on the road rather than addressing the solution to the coming budget slashes.

"He has traveled over 5000 miles the last two weeks, and we challenge him travel a mile and half and come to Capitol Hill," said Rep. Cathy McMorris Rogers of Washington on Tuesday. "Sit down with Harry Reid and urge the Senate Democrats to take action."

In his comments Tuesday morning, Boehner placed blame squarely on Senate Democrats for failing to propose a fix.   "We have moved a bill in the House twice," Boehner said at a press conference. "We should not have to move a third bill before the Senate gets off their ass and begins to do something." 

Republicans also slammed the White House this week for "scaring" Americans by overstating the consequences of the cuts, which would total $1.2 trillion over 10 years.

That push from administration officials continued Tuesday, with Attorney General Eric Holder warning bluntly that the sequester will make the country "less safe." 

"We’ll do the best that we can to minimize the harm that actually occurs as result of the sequestration, but the reality is there is going to be harm. There is going to be pain," he told a meeting of state attorneys general in Washington D.C. "The American people are going to be less safe." 

Charles Dharapak / AP

President Barack Obama speaks about automatic defense budget cuts during a visit to Newport News Shipbuilding, a division of Huntington Ingalls Industries, Tuesday, Feb. 26, in Newport News, Va.

Newly-minted Secretary of State John Kerry, traveling on his first foreign trip in his new post, told embassy staff in Berlin that he sympathizes with their confusion about Washington's machinations. 

"We face tough budget choices, and I know you sometimes scratch your heads - because I do it at home - and say what the hell are those guys doing or not doing as the case may be, and it's frustrating," he said. "And I get it."

And Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano summed up her own feelings about the budgetary staring contest Tuesday with a literal slap to the forehead. 

"You know, I've been in government and public service a long time-- 20 years actually," she said, after burying her head in her hands. "I have never seen anything like this." 

NBC's Shawna Thomas and Frank Thorp contributed to this report. 

This story was originally published on Tue Feb 26, 2013 10:24 AM EST

Increasing polarization helps explain why we’re on our fifth -- and counting -- fiscal showdown… That said, GOP Rep. Scott Rigell (R-VA) joins Obama on his trip to Virginia to warn against the sequester cuts… Attention Bob Woodward: Cantor tells the New Yorker that it was their plan to let the 2012 election decide the spending/taxes debate… It’s NBC/WSJ poll day!!!... Second time the charm for Chuck Hagel? Senate to hold vote on his nomination around noon ET… Gun issue dominates today’s IL-2 special primary… Republicans vs. Republicans in Virginia… Chris Christie not invited to speak at CPAC… And Lone Star rising?

J. Scott Applewhite / AP

House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, responds to President Barack Obama's remarks to the nation's governors earlier today about how to fend off the impending automatic budget cuts, Monday, Feb. 25, 2013, on Capitol Hill.

*** Increasing polarization: This current political battle over the looming automatic budget cuts known as “sequester” has become the fifth fiscal showdown -- and counting -- between the Obama White House and congressional Republicans since 2011. Part of the reason for this conflict is due simply to divided government, with Democrats controlling the White House and Senate and with Republicans in charge of the House. (After all, it was divided government that produced the political showdowns of the late 1990s, as well as 2007-2008.) But there’s something else going on, too: increased political polarization in Congress, even in the U.S. Senate. According to National Journal’s 2012 vote ratings, for the third year a row, “no Republican member of the Senate had a more liberal voting record than any Democrat—just as no Democratic senator had a more conservative record than any Republican.” And in the House, only 10 Democrats had a more conservative score than the most liberal Republicans, while just five Republicans were more liberal than the most conservative House Democrat. In other words, there are few ideological crossovers (like liberal/moderate Republicans and conservative Democrats) anymore. Democrats are liberal; Republicans are conservatives; and there’s little ground in between. For over two decades, since National Journal started these rankings in 1982, it was the norm for there to be a handful of ideological crossovers in the Senate. Now, it’s the norm for there to be purity. 

*** Rigell, it, just a little bit: All of that said, President Obama has a surprise guest when he travels to Newport News, VA -- a huge shipbuilding community -- to warn of the sequester cuts at 1:05 pm ET, especially as it relates to the defense industry: local Republican Congressman Scott Rigell (R-VA). Also in attendance will be Navy Secretary Ray Mabus and Dem Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA). And today’s event won’t be the only bipartisan meeting. As NBC’s Mike Viqueira, Kasie Hunt, and Kelly O’Donnell report, GOP Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham will head to the White House this afternoon at 3:35 pm ET to discuss immigration with the president. But those examples are exceptions rather than the rule. By the way, there are NO talks scheduled before Friday’s sequester kicks in. Just a lot of media events designed to lay the groundwork for the negotiations in March. That said, don’t be surprised, if simply for appearances sake, there is a last minute meeting at the White House before Friday -- simply because both sides need to be seen as pretending to try to stop the sequester, even if there aren’t any serious proposals right now to do so.

*** Attention Bob Woodward: In his profile of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and the House GOP caucus, the New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza has this scoop, especially as it relates to the current sequester fight: Cantor admitted he talked House Speaker John Boehner out of accepting Obama’s grand-bargain deal during the debt-ceiling battle of 2011. “Cantor told me that it was a ‘fair assessment’ that he talked Boehner out of accepting Obama’s deal,” Lizza writes. “He said he told Boehner that it would be better, instead, to take the issues of taxes and spending to the voters and ‘have it out’ with Democrats in the election.” Lizza adds: “The bet failed spectacularly. Just as Cantor had urged, Obama and Romney spent much of the campaign debating tax and spending policies that the House Republicans had foisted on the Romney-Ryan ticket. What’s more, by scuttling the 2011 Grand Bargain negotiations, Cantor, more than any other politician, helped create the series of fiscal crises that have gripped Washington since Election Day.” So this reporting -- which Boehner’s and Cantor’s offices dispute, saying that they walked away from the 2011 talks after Obama asked for more revenue -- begs the question: If Cantor and Republicans decided to let the election determine the spending/budget debate, why are revenues off the table for them, even after the fiscal-cliff deal?

*** NBC/WSJ poll day! How do Americans view the current political debate over the sequester? What are their impressions of President Obama and the Republican Party? What do they think about immigration and gun control? Beginning at 6:30 pm ET, we’ll have answers from our brand-new NBC/WSJ poll.

*** Second time a charm for Hagel? At noon ET, the U.S. Senate is expected to reconsider Chuck Hagel’s nomination to be President Obama’s defense secretary, according to a top Democratic Senate aide. If he gets 60 votes -- which he was unable to get earlier this month, becoming the first cabinet secretary pick to be successfully blocked by a filibuster -- final passage would occur either today or tomorrow. As we wrote on Friday, all signs are pointing to Hagel getting 60-plus votes. And here are the five lessons we’ve learned from the Hagel fight: 1) political betrayal is a worse sin than being a member of the opposing party; 2) getting 60 votes remains the standard in the Senate; 3) confirmation hearings, while maybe not decisive, do matter; 4) Benghazi has become a catch-all Republican fallback, with McCain and Lindsey Graham earlier saying they wanted more answers on the subject before they support moving Hagel’s nomination along; and 5) Hagel has been wounded by the entire process. Here’s a sixth point worth making, as we’ve done before: The extra week-plus that Republicans got after filibustering Hagel seems to have revealed only that a bogus group like Friends of Hamas never existed.

*** Gun issue dominates today’s IL-2 special primary: On this VERY busy day (sequester, poll, Hagel), there’s an additional story worth paying attention today -- the Democratic primary in the race to fill Jesse Jackson Jr.’s Chicago-area congressional seat. In this multi-candidate field, Cook County Chief Administrative Officer Robin Kelly appears to be the front-runner, thanks in large part to the issue of guns, especially after Newtown and the gun violence in Chicago. (See the TV ads here, here, and here.) As one of us wrote last week, this special primary has highlighted three points: One, the NRA has become anathema to many Democratic donors (hence the TV ads blasting Kelly’s opponents, like former Rep. Debbie Halvorson, for getting an “A” with NRA). Two, Michael Bloomberg’s organizations have become a countervailing force (see the $2 million-plus they’ve spent in this race). And three, do these things apply outside of urban areas like Chicago (that’s the big question moving forward after today if Kelly wins, and it’s something that Jessica Taylor of the Rothenberg Political Report questions). Polls close at 8:00 pm ET.

*** Republicans vs. Republicans in Virginia: The state of Virginia is in today’s political news beyond President Obama’s trip to Newport News, VA today. For starters, conservative pundit Erick Erickson is heavily criticizing Virginia Bob McDonnell for raising taxes in the state’s bipartisan transportation deal. “On Friday, March 15, 2013, at 8:00 a.m. Bob McDonnell will go to CPAC and address the Faith & Freedom Coalition Prayer Breakfast. For those of you who attend this event, you will be sitting staring at a liar,” Erickson writes. By the way, McDonnell will be on MSNBC’s “Daily Rundown” today.  In addition, Politico’s Martin writes that GOP business leaders aren’t all that pleased with Republican gubernatorial nominee Ken Cuccinelli. “Two prominent northern Virginia business leaders got into a heated exchange with Virginia Republican gubernatorial hopeful Ken Cuccinelli in front of a few hundred top GOP donors at a closed-door meeting Friday.” These two stories highlight the current fight within the GOP between the pragmatic conservatives and the ideologues.

*** Christie not invited to CPAC: We mentioned this last week, and it’s getting more pickup after another First Read piece noted it: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie wasn’t invited to speak at CPAC.

*** Lone Star rising? And finally at 11:00 am ET, a group of top field strategists who worked for the Obama campaign will hold a conference call announcing the effort -- called Battleground Texas -- to try to turn the Lone Star purple in future years. (San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro will be on this call.) As Politico wrote last month, the organization “plans to engage the state’s rapidly growing Latino population, as well as African-American voters and other Democratic-leaning constituencies that have been underrepresented at the ballot box in recent cycles. Two sources said the contemplated budget would run into the tens of millions of dollars over several years - a project Democrats hope has enough heft to help turn what has long been an electoral pipe dream into reality.”

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*** Tuesday’s “Daily Rundown” line-up: Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-VA) on sequester and the states, President Obama’s Virginia visit today and the tough talk within his own party in the race to replace him… Former Obama 2012 field director Jeremy Bird with a Deep Dive on the Democrats’ desire to turn Texas blue… And National Review’s Ramesh Ponnuru, former Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) and one of us (!!!) join the Gaggle.

*** Tuesday’s “Jansing & Co.” line-up: MSNBC’s Chris Jansing interviews Rep. Rob Wittman/(R) Virginia, Ed O’Keefe and Andy Kroll on the impending sequestration, Col. Jack Jacobs on the toll sequestration will take on military readiness as well as today’s expected vote on Chuck Hagel as Defense Secretary, Former Senator Byron Dorgan and Jonathan Collegio on the GOP and Gay Marriage after dozens of prominent Republicans signed a letter supporting gay marriage, Robin Morgan and Letty Pogrebin on “The Makers” new PBS documentary series premiering tonight highlighting stories of groundbreaking women, and Father John Bartunek and Father John Bambrick on this week’s departure of Pope Benedict and the upcoming conclave to choose a new Pope.

*** Tuesday’s “MSNBC Live with Thomas Roberts” line-up: MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts interviews Navy Secretary Ray Mabus on the impact of the sequester cuts.  Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) discusses the vote on Chuck Hagel.  GOProud Exec. Dir. Jimmy LaSilvia joins to discuss a groundbreaking legal brief signed by 75 prominent Republicans supporting marriage equality.  Today's Power Panel includes:  The Washington Post's Nia Malika Henderson, MSNBC Contributor Ron Reagan, and Michelle Bernard of the Bernard Center for Women.

*** Tuesday’s “NOW with Alex Wagner” line-up: Alex Wagner’s guests include Fortune’s Leigh Gallagher, former PA Gov. Ed Rendell (D), Dem strategist Bill Burton, Georgetown Professor Michael Eric Dyson, and Democracy 21’s Fred Wertheimer.

*** Tuesday’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” line-up: NBC’s Chuck Todd, filling in for Andrea Mitchell, interviews Politico’s Jonathan Martin, the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza, NBC’s Pete Williams, Anne Thompson and Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense President Sherrilyn Ifill.

*** Tuesday’s “News Nation with Tamron Hall” line-up: On the one year anniversary of Trayvon Martin’s death, MSNBC’s Tamron Hall interviews the Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart, The Grio’s Joy Ann Reid, Former Florida Federal Prosecutor Kendall Coffey, and Kevin Cunningham, the man who started the online petition that helped bring national attention to the case.  Also on the show: Senator Chris Coons and Rep. Karen Bass who both just returned from Mali, The Chicago Sun Time’s Lynn Sweet and Democratic strategist Blake Zeff.

The AP: “President Barack Obama is arguing that looming government-wide spending cuts could idle military resources like naval aircraft carriers, while Republicans are criticizing the president for taking his arguments outside Washington instead of staying to work out a plan before Friday's deadline. The president planned to appear Tuesday at Virginia's largest industrial employer, Newport News Shipbuilding, which would be affected by cuts to naval spending.”

(Obama will also meet with Republicans John McCain and Lindsey Graham about immigration today.)

At today’s event in Virginia, “The president will again call on Republicans to sign off on a new debt reduction plan, one that includes both budget cuts and higher tax revenues through the closing of loopholes and deductions,” USA Today writes.

Pew: “More continue to say Republicans in Congress (45%), rather than President Obama (32%), would be more to blame if an agreement to prevent automatic spending cuts is not reached before the deadline; 13% volunteer that they think both would be equally to blame.”

Politico sees a divide-and-conquer strategy to Obama’s approach on the sequester and Republicans: “Obama’s trying to speed this result, by releasing state by state details of the pain and suffering the sequester will cause, all meant to get Republicans to cave. And he’s got the biggest megaphone, hammering this message over and over in a way the divided Republican party cannot. Except that message could cut both ways. What if the public agrees that yes, there is a lot of pain and suffering – and turns to Obama wondering, why didn’t you do more to prevent it? That’s what makes some Democrats nervous about the White House’s supreme level of confidence.”

Charlie Cook also warns of the potential fallout for President Obama: “In the end, though, it’s not the politics that matters; it is the hardship for real people. It’s the nonelected who are the innocent collateral damage in such a partisan fight. They are the ones hurt by the standoff—people who had no say in the decisions not to reach a compromise before it is too late. And that is the group President Obama and Democrats, the 2012 election victors, should think about. How many of these people who voted for the president and his party, thinking they would be protected from gridlock, might now feel let down, concluding that maybe “all of those people in Washington are the problem”? That’s why the rather cavalier attitude that some Democratic operatives seem to have—relishing this fight, anxious to score yet another win over Republicans—could be risky. Hubris is never a good thing.”

Rigell it, just a little bit… “President Obama finally has a Republican standing with him on the sequester: Virginia Rep. Scott Rigell, who will travel with him Tuesday to Newport News, a White House official said,” per Politico. “Rigell, a former car dealer whose Hampton Roads district is thick with military personnel, told Politico last week that it was not ‘a wise position’ to demand that sequester deals that prohibit new tax revenues.”

The Virginian-Pilot: “After strongly criticizing President Barack Obama on Monday for failing to produce a written plan to avoid automatic defense cuts, U.S. Rep. Scott Rigell is expected to travel with the president this morning to Newport News.”

Obama yesterday to governors on House Republicans: "At some point, we've got to do some governing. And, certainly, we can't keep careening from manufactured crisis to manufactured crisis."

As First Read has warned… “Senate action on two of President Barack Obama’s top priorities this year — gun violence and immigration — will likely be delayed until April at the earliest, as budget issues yet again consume all of Washington’s political oxygen and capital,” Roll Call writes.

AP: “Asked Monday whether there was a price tag to see the president, White House press secretary Jay Carney said emphatically that there was not. But he wouldn’t directly address reports that donors who give or raise $500,000 will be invited to quarterly meetings with Obama. ‘Administration officials routinely interact with outside advocacy organizations,’ Carney said. ‘This has been true in prior administrations and it is true in this one.’”

The Boston Globe: “Mass. congressional delegation says sequester cuts would hurt children, the elderly, and the poor.”

If anyone’s noticed a difference in President Obama in the last four years, just check out the difference in his official photos. His 2013 picture is resolute, yet smiling. In 2009, he was determinedly serious.

USA Today: “It's going to be a lot easier to tell if a recipe is pretty nutritious or a diet disaster. First lady Michelle Obama is unveiling a plan today that will flag thousands of healthy recipes that align with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's guidance for healthy eating and the MyPlate icon (choosemyplate.gov). Five media companies — Condé Nast Magazines, Hearst Magazines, Meredith, Food Network and Time Inc. with 18 cooking websites, from AllRecipes.com to FoodNetwork.com to GoodHousekeeping.com — are working with the first lady's Let's Move! (letsmove.gov) campaign to identify the MyPlate-worthy recipes. More than 3,000 recipes will be featured on a new Pinterest page.”

“House Speaker John Boehner has dug in,” Politico writes. “If the let-the-cuts-happen approach on the sequester seems risky — especially with President Barack Obama blaming Republicans for everything from kids not getting vaccines to long lines at the airport — the alternative for Boehner is worse. Jump-start negotiations with Obama, and he would be slammed for engaging in out-of-sight, secret talks with a president his party doesn’t trust. Raise taxes, and Boehner’s courting trouble in his conference and endangering his speakership. Both are simply nonstarters.”

Boehner accused Obama yesterday of using the troops as “props.”

Members of Congress won’t have their pay affected by the sequester, but “Congress will feel the pain in other ways,” USA Today writes. “Members' office budgets, committee staff and leadership offices will all see the same across-the-board cuts as any other discretionary , non-defense spending. Other legislative branch functions — the Capitol Visitor Center, the Library of Congress's Books for the Blind program, even the Capitol Police — would take cuts of about 9%, according to a report from the Office of Management and Budget.”

Hey, you know it’s gotta be true, right? The NRA goes after Chuck Schumer in a new video, claiming that “universal background checks” really means “universal registration.”

House Majority Whip dubbed President Obama the “road-show president.”

Republican Walter Jones of North Carolina said Dick Cheney’s going to hell, the Huffington Post writes of a Jones speech: "Congress will not hold anyone to blame. Lyndon Johnson's probably rotting in hell right now because of the Vietnam War, and he probably needs to move over for Dick Cheney." (h/t Political Wire.)

“Filmmaker Phelim McAleer’s campaign against those warning about the dangers of fracking continues Tuesday on Capitol Hill,” Politico writes. “McAleer will screen his film ‘FrackNation’ at ‘an event for the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, Subcommittee on Environment,’ according to an email from McAleer.

Stu Rothenberg notes that Democrats will have a tough time winning back the House in 2014: “Going back to the election of 1862, the only time the president’s party gained as many as 10 seats was, well, never. Even in 1934, the best showing by the president’s party in House elections since the Civil War, the president’s party gained only nine seats. In 1998, Democrats gained a handful of seats during Bill Clinton’s second midterm (five), and Republicans gained a somewhat larger handful during George W. Bush’s first midterm (eight). But in each case, unusual circumstances — post-impeachment fallout in 1996 and political fallout from the attacks of 9/11 (plus redistricting) in 2002 — help account for the atypical results.”

ILLINOIS: Polls close at 8:00 pm ET in the race to replace disgraced former congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. The front-runner is Robin Kelly, the Cook County administrative officer. Also expected to be in contention: former Rep. Debbie Halvorson, who has been the subject of a more than $2 million campaign against her run by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s PAC because of her ties to the NRA; and Alderman Anthony Beale.

The Chicago Tribune: “Today's voting follows weeks of candidate forums, an accelerated campaign schedule and a flurry of TV ads from the mayor of New York. While the top-tier candidates among the 14 Democrats vying for the primary nomination are known — former state Rep. Robin Kelly, former U.S. Rep. Debbie Halvorson and Chicago 9th Ward Ald. Anthony Beale — there also are some big unknowns. Voter turnout, already anticipated to be very low, could be exacerbated by nasty weather.”

The Chicago Sun-Times: “Candidates vying to replace disgraced former U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. crisscrossed the vast, diverse South Side and south suburban 2nd Congressional District Monday, giving last-minute pitches to turn voters their way. Low voter turnout is already expected in the special election, but a forecast of snow for Tuesday had candidates working even harder to persuade their supporters go to the polls.”

“Guns and ethics were on the minds of voters, and both were main issues on the campaign trail, particularly as Jackson’s legal saga played out in federal court,” AP writes.

Here’s Politico’s guide to the race.

And Jessica Taylor warns that the gun issue might not have staying power outside of this race.

MASSACHUSETTS: “US Representatives Edward J. Markey and Stephen F. Lynch have agreed to debate each other six times in their battle for the Democratic nomination for the special election to fill former US Senator John F. Kerry’s seat,” the Boston Globe writes.

VIRGINIA: Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling is the most obvious third choice in the Virginia governor’s race, but Politico notes, “Business leaders have also approached moderate former Rep. Tom Davis to gauge his interest in the race. The former Fairfax congressman has rebuffed their entreaties so far, at least in part because his wife is currently running for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor.

But hope persists that Davis might be drawn into the race if former state legislator Jeannemarie Devolites Davis fails to win her party’s nomination at a May convention.”

Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

Former Senator Chuck Hagel.

Chuck Hagel’s seven-week struggle to win confirmation as secretary of defense appears near the end with an expected Senate vote Tuesday on his nomination.

President Barack Obama’s choice to run the Pentagon is expected to win confirmation since a few Republicans announced that they’ll join Senate Democrats in voting for him.

The vote would put an end to a rocky nomination process that came after Hagel’s GOP foes succeeded in delaying the confirmation.

Lead opponent, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, insinuated two weeks ago that Hagel might have given as-yet undisclosed speeches to “extreme or radical groups” or received money from foreign sources or from defense contractors in 2008, 2009 and 2010.

But Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., rebuked the latter saying Hagel complied with the committee’s financial disclosure requirements and deserved confirmation.

Last week 15 GOP senators asked Obama to withdraw Hagel’s nomination, but it was clear that not enough Republican senators would vote to further delay Hagel’s confirmation by extended debate or filibuster.

The former Nebraska Republican senator turned against his party by campaigning for Democratic Senate candidate Bob Kerrey in Nebraska last year.

He’d also harshly criticized President George W. Bush after the Iraq war became unpopular in 2006, suggesting at one point that Bush might be impeached. These remarks made him popular with Democrats but something of a pariah in his own party.

Recommended: Obama tells govs to push Congress to avert automatic cuts

The antagonism of Cruz and several other Republican senators turned to disdain once Hagel testified before the Armed Services Committee last month. Hagel was forced to amend or retract comments he’d made about Iran, Israel and other matters.

At one point during his confirmation hearing, when discussing U.S. policy toward Iran’s efforts to build nuclear weapons, Hagel said, “I’ve just been handed a note that I misspoke and said I supported the president’s position on ‘containment.’ If I said that, I meant to say that obviously – his position on containment – we don’t have a position on containment.”

Levin intervened: “Just to make sure your correction is clear, we do have a position on containment – which is we do not favor containment.”

“It was the most unimpressive performance that I have seen in watching many nominees who came before the committee,” said Republican Arizona Sen. John McCain, a Hagel opponent.

Related: What problems will Hagel inherit at Department of Defense?

But Democrats on the panel repeatedly praised Hagel for having served in combat in Vietnam.

From the beginning, Obama portrayed Hagel as a man who was ideally qualified to head the Defense Department because, as the president said when announcing the nomination, he “knows that war is not an abstraction. He understands that sending young Americans to fight and bleed in the dirt and mud, that’s something we only do when it’s absolutely necessary.”

In presenting Hagel as his pick, Obama declared that “Chuck represents the bipartisan tradition that we need more of in Washington.”

Obama said that he was courageous and independent in his views “and that’s exactly the spirit I want on my national security team, a recognition that when it comes to the defense of our country, we are not Democrats or Republicans; we are Americans.”

But Republicans such as Cruz said Hagel was not up to the job of running the Pentagon. Cruz went so far as to argue that Hagel, if confirmed, would “make military conflict in the next four years substantially more likely” because his views on negotiating with Tehran would encourage the Iranians to accelerate their nuclear weapons development program.

This story was originally published on Tue Feb 26, 2013 4:10 AM EST

With less than five days to go before the so-called sequester forces across-the-board federal budget cuts, members of the president’s cabinet warned how cuts to their departments would affect Americans’ everyday lives.

Monday’s distress signals from Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano came a day after two other cabinet leaders admonished Congress for some of the most high-profile consequences of the sequester, like cuts to education and air traffic control.

Salazar warned that the department would not be able to hire the seasonal workers needed to maintain national parks through the peak summer tourism season, meaning some favorite destinations might be off-limits.

“The public should be prepared for reduced hours and services not only in national parks but across all of the facilities which are managed by the Department of the Interior,” he said in a conference call with reporters. He added, “This will include reduced hours of operation for visitor centers, shorter seasons and closing of campgrounds, hiking trails and other recreational areas."

Like Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood Friday, Napolitano appeared in the White House Briefing Room, where she responded to the question of whether the country would be "less safe after the sequester."

"I don't think we can maintain the same level of security at all places around the country with sequester as without sequester," she said.

She stressed that cuts to her department would mean longer airport delays. “If you're traveling by air, you're going to have to start getting to the airport earlier. And if you're trying to make a connecting flight, you're going to have to make your arrangements to give you greater time with which to do that."

The former Arizona governor also warned of furloughed border protection officers, which would “affect our ability to keep out illegal migrants” and the government’s diminished ability to respond to national emergencies.

“Threats from terrorism and the need to respond and recover from natural disasters do not diminish because of budget cuts,” she said.

LaHood and Education Secretary Arne Duncan were dispatched to the Sunday talk shows to criticize Congress for the cuts scheduled to hit their departments.

The nation’s capital was enveloped in a familiar kind of gridlock late Monday, as Republicans again demanded that President Barack Obama and Senate Democrats act first to put off $85 billion in automatic cuts slated to take effect on Friday.

“The president says we have to have another tax increase to avoid the sequester,” House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said of the hefty and indiscriminate spending cuts. “Well, Mr. President, you got your tax increase. It's time to cut spending.”

Related: Obama to govs: Push Congress to avert cuts

As Congress returned to work following a weeklong recess, the Obama administration and lawmakers appeared no closer to resolving the automatic spending cuts before their Friday deadline. While both Democrats and Republicans bemoan the cuts as potentially catastrophic for the economy and the national defense, both sides have been locked in a virtual staring match over the sequester.

The end result is that the cuts seem likely to take effect, if only for some limited period of time, come Friday. Both sides spent Monday posturing rather than working toward a solution.

For their part, the House GOP is content to rest upon the two bills they had passed in the last Congress meant to offset the $85 billion in spending cuts with a series of additional, alternative cuts. Democrats, led by Obama, had rejected that alternative as “unbalanced” because it did not include some measure of new tax revenue.

But, buoyed by stronger approval ratings than congressional Republicans, the president has also been generally unwilling to budge from his stance that a sequester replacement would have to include new tax revenue – likely through closing loopholes and deductions – in addition to other spending cuts.

“Unfortunately, in just four days Congress is poised to allow a series of arbitrary, automatic budget cuts to kick in that will slow our economy, eliminate good jobs, and leave a lot of folks who are already pretty thinly stretched scrambling to figure out what to do,” Obama told a bipartisan group of governors at the White House this morning.

The president leaned on the governors to pressure their respective states' congressional delegations to support a compromise agreement.

Obama has relied increasingly on these public events to make his arguments to the public, pursuing a sort of "outside" strategy meant to rally pressure on lawmakers to strike deals on a range of issues. For instance, Obama will travel to Newport News, Va., on Tuesday to highlight the negative toll the sequester would take on that region's defense industry.

For their part, Republicans have derided the president as spending more time on campaigning against the GOP than working toward a deal.

"Instead of using our military men and women as campaign props, if the president was serious, he'd sit down with Harry Reid and begin to address our problems," Boehner said Monday, referencing the dire warnings of furloughed workers and potential pay cuts for some employees involved with the nation's defenses.

Boehner and the rest of the House GOP appeared no closer to relenting on their demand that any final compromise originate in the Senate. After a roller-coaster past two years in the House, in which conservative lawmakers often threatened to upset delicate agreements Boehner had struck with Obama, the speaker has adopted a strategy of deferring to the Senate on many top legislative matters.

Before the recess, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and the rest of the Democratic leadership unveiled a sequester proposal that would offset the impending cuts with new taxes on corporations and the ultrawealthy, more modest defense cuts and additional cuts in discretionary spending.

"Congress has the power to prevent these self-inflicted wounds," Reid said Monday on the Senate floor. "We have the power to turn off the sequester."

J. Scott Applewhite / AP

House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio responds to President Barack Obama's remarks to the nation's governors earlier today about how to fend off the impending automatic budget cuts, Monday, Feb. 25 on Capitol Hill in Washington.

Amid the pessimism about the prospects for a deal, Boehner half-heartedly told reporters that "hope springs eternal" that an agreement could be reached by Friday.

"The president can sit down with Harry Reid tonight and work with Senate Democrats, who have the majority in the Senate to move a bill. It's time for them to act. I've made this clear for months now, and yet we've seen nothing," he said.

This story was originally published on Mon Feb 25, 2013 4:18 PM EST

Just months after their losses in the 2012 election, Republicans and conservatives are setting a vibrant -- and crowded -- stage at next month’s closely watched political cattle call.

The three-day gathering of the Conservative Political Action Committee, which begins March 14th just outside Washington, is expected to feature more than two dozen high-profile Republicans, including former Gov. Mitt Romney.

At least eight potential presidential contenders will be speaking at CPAC: Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, and Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania. 

There will also be five former presidential candidates attending: Romney, Perry, Santorum, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich of Georgia, and former Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin of Alaska.

It will be Romney’s first public speech since his loss last November. He said in a statement that he looks “forward to saying thank you to the many friends and supporters who were instrumental in helping” his campaign.

One potential 2016 hopeful who won't be there, however -- New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Despite being the keynote speaker at the Republican National Convention and having a sky-high approval rating in the Garden State, CPAC officials told First Read Christie was not invited.

Christie rankled some on the right with his public support for President Obama's handling of Hurricane Sandy in the weeks leading up to the 2012 election.

The 37 featured speakers include five former or current congressmen, nine senators and six governors representing 13 states.

Karl Rove, however, might want to stay away. There are more than 30 panels scheduled for the three-day period, including one titled, “Should We Shoot all the Consultants Now?”

If participants are looking to further vent their 2012 frustration, they can attend “Fight Club 2013: A Liberal & A Conservative Duke it Out” or “Stop THIS: Threats, Harassment, Intimidation, Slander, Bullying from the Obama Administration.”

The NRA is also expected to have a large presence at CPAC. Both Chief Executive Wayne LaPierre and President David Keene are confirmed to speak at the event, and there will be an NRA University Saturday to educate participants about the organization, the Second Amendment, and the gun control debate. Keene served from 1984 to 2011 as Chairman of the American Conservative Union, the group that organizes CPAC.

The conference traditionally ends with a straw poll to pick an early favorite for the Republican presidential nomination. Romney picked up the title last year, and Rep. Ron Paul won it in 2011 and 2010. After all, there are only 1351 days until the next presidential election.

The White House today pushed back on accusations that donors to a pro-Obama organization can “buy” access to the president if they’re able to cough up a check for a cool half-million.

“Administration officials routinely interact with outside advocacy organizations, and this has been true in prior administrations, and it is true in this one,” said White House Press Secretary Jay Carney during a lengthy back-and-forth at a daily briefing with reporters.

The New York Times (as well as the L.A. Times) reported that the primary fundraising body supporting the president’s re-election –- now rebooted into an advocacy group called Organizing for Action -- will offer quarterly meetings with Obama for members of its “national advisory board.” The board is expected to be made up of donors who have given at least $500,000 towards OFA’s efforts, the Times reported.

The articles have prompted critics to allege OFA and the White House of participating in a pay-to-play scheme that offers deep-pocketed supporters a direct audience with a president who has publicly decried the influence of money in Washington.

Carney responded that members of outside groups frequently come to the White House to meet with administration officials, including the president.

“There are a variety of rules governing interaction between administration officials and outside groups, and administration officials follow those rules,” Carney said.

Carney also pointed out that Organizing for Action has said that it will disclose its donors and that -- while administration officials may appear at OFA events -- they will not be permitted to raise money for the group.

As both congressional Republicans and the Obama White House continue to blame one another in the sequester debate, it is more likely the automatic spending cuts will go into effect later this week, NBC's Mark Murray and Domenico Montanaro report.

What the sequester debate has turned into: all posturing and rhetoric -- but no action… The debate also has turned into about what Bob Woodward wrote over the weekend… GOP message on sequester is all over the place… What a busy week it will be -- Obama to VA, Hagel confirmation vote, IL-2 special, NBC/WSJ poll, and sequester deadline… And Team Obama promises additional access for big donors, contradicting a key message from ’07-’08.

*** All posturing and rhetoric -- but no action How do we know that the looming automatic cuts set to take place on Friday probably will go into effect, at least in the short term? The answer: Everything right now in this debate over the so-called “sequester” has been reduced to rhetoric and posturing -- but not action. While both the Obama White House and congressional Republicans have warned about the dangers associated with these cuts, and have blamed one another for their creation, this weekend saw no new plans of compromise, no new meetings, and no real work as Congress stayed on its recess. Nothing, and we mean nothing, seems to be imminent on even a deal to start TALKING about a deal. So this lack of urgency belies the rhetoric and posturing. If these cuts are so drastic or so ill-considered, why weren’t House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell over at the White House this weekend? Where was President Obama’s compromise offer? But here’s what’s really going on: Both sides are laying the groundwork to see who bleeds the most after March 1 once the spending cuts take effect as a way to see who holds the negotiating upper hand. Yet here’s also the stark reality: No side has a real end game or knows how this will play out. And for now, congressional Republicans are content with status quo, which means the White House has to be willing to change the calculus during the budget talks at the end of the month. Can they?

*** Debating Bob Woodward: Another example of how the sequester fight has been reduced to rhetoric and posturing is that the central argument over the weekend was what a political reporter -- namely the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward -- wrote on Friday night. Woodward, who wrote a book about the 2011 debt-ceiling standoff, penned a WaPo op-ed contending (as he’s done before) that the sequester was the White House’s idea. But he made this (new) additional charge: that the White House is moving the goal posts, because getting revenue was never part of the sequester. Republicans gleefully circulated the Woodward piece, while the White House and liberals fought back. Our take is that Woodward is on solid footing in asserting that the sequester was the White House’s idea to deal with the GOP’s demand for spending cuts to raise the debt ceiling. But Woodward is on much shakier ground when he insists that the White House never wanted revenue to replace the sequester. After all, the whole point of the sequester and the creation of the Super Committee was the INABILITY of getting a deal on taxes. All that said, it’s never a good day when one side is debating a political reporter, no matter the ground on which that reporter is standing.

*** GOP message is all over the place: But it’s also not a good place when one side’s message is all over the place, and that’s the situation where Republicans currently find themselves in this sequester debate. In his Wall Street Journal op-ed last week, Boehner called the spending cuts “dramatic,” arguing that they threatened “U.S. national security, thousands of jobs, and more.” But then when the Obama White House began its campaign noting how deep these cuts would be, Republicans countered that the White House was trying to scare the public. And then over the weekend, Republican governors were contradicting that message. “The uncertainty of sequestration is really harming our states and our national economy,” said Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin (R). Added Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R): “We've got Raytheon [in Arizona], and we don't know exactly what that's going to do, but it's going to cost a lot of job results.” And Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R): “I think there should be limited government, but I don't like random changes. If you look at my budget, I didn't do across the board cuts. A lot of times politicians talk about 10% across the board, I didn't do that.” So here’s the GOP’s muddled message: First, these cuts could cost jobs and money; second, the Obama administration is trying to scare the American people about these cuts; and third, these cuts could cost jobs and money. What’s happening here: Congressional GOPers are split. Some of the old guard of the GOP (and the leadership) believe sequester is bad and will hurt the economy and hurt the government. Some of the Tea Party types and other conservatives are so frustrated by the inability of Washington to EVER cut spending, they’d take sequester over nothing. This also explains why Boehner has not been able to put together a new sequester replacement bill.

Charles Dharapak / AP

President Barack Obama answers a question from a reporter during his meeting with Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Friday, Feb. 22, 2013, in the Oval Office of the White House.

*** What a week that’s coming up: It’s worth noting that the debate over the sequester isn’t the only political story that will be taking place this week. As NBC’s Mike O’Brien writes, the nation’s capital “is bracing for a politically consequential week ahead,” and here are the events we’ll be watching:

Monday, Feb. 25: Obama’s remarks to the National Governors Association beginning at 11:05 am ET.
Tuesday, Feb. 26: Obama travels to Virginia to warn about the looming cuts… Our new national NBC/WSJ poll comes out… The Senate is expected to vote on Chuck Hagel’s nomination to be defense secretary… And the special Democratic primary to fill Jesse Jackson Jr.’s (D-IL) vacated congressional seat takes place.
Wednesday, Feb. 27: The Supreme Court hears oral arguments in the challenge to the Voting Rights Act
Thursday, Feb. 28: Pope Benedict XVI holds his final day as pope
Friday, March 1: Sequester cuts take effect.

*** Team Obama promises additional access for big money to OFA: When he first announced his presidential bid in Springfield, IL six years ago, Obama stressed the need to curb the influence of special interests in Washington. "The cynics, and the lobbyists, and the special interests [have] turned our government into a game only they can play,” he said. “They write the checks and you get stuck with the bills. They get the access, while you get to write a letter. They think they own this government, but we're here to take it back." But the New York Times report over the weekend -- that donors who contribute and raise $500,000 to Obama’s Organizing for Action will get special access to the president -- runs counter to that ’07 promise. If you’re a big business wanting additional contact with the president (lobbyists and PACs are precluded from donating), you’re going to pony up $500,000-plus. The Obama folks can rationalize this all they want (you’ll be disclosing the donors, you’ll also be accepting small-donor money, this is the campaign-finance world we live in after Citizens United), but offering this kind of access to big donors was PRECISELY what Obama was campaigning against in 2007-2008. Every political strategist involved in the 2012 presidential campaign on BOTH sides of the aisle believes the campaign-finance system is a mess. And yet we continue to see a perpetuation of the so-called flawed system. This is how a bad system becomes worse. Wonder what Candidate Obama would say about this?

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*** Monday’s “Daily Rundown” line-up: The politics behind bipartisan backing for new housing help with former Clinton Admin. HUD Secy. Henry Cisneros and former Bush Admin. HUD Secy. Mel Martinez… A Deep Dive into the importance of SCOTUS tackling another campaign finance case with former FEC Chair Michael Toner and NBC’s Pete Williams… Plus former DNC spokeswoman/msnbc’s Karen Finney, CNS’ Terry Jeffrey and USA Today’s Susan Page join the Gaggle.

*** Monday’s “Jansing & Co.” line-up: MSNBC’s Chris Jansing interviews Rep. Chris Van Hollen, Carrie Budoff Brown and Alex Roarty on the impending sequester. She talks to Mickey McCarter, about the implications it could have on air travel. Also, George Weigel with the lastest Vatican news. And, strategists Jason Stanford and Rich Galen discuss the gun debate.

*** Monday’s “NOW with Alex Wagner” line-up: Alex Wagner’s guests include Rolling Stone’s Eric Bates, former RNC Chair Michael Steele, NYC Deputy Mayor Howard Wolfson, theGrio’s Joy Reid, and Slate’s Jacob Weisberg.

*** Monday’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” line-up: NBC’s Andrea Mitchell interviews Sen. Dianne Feinsten (D-CA), Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah, Foreign Policy Magazine CEO David Rothkopf, The Atlantic’s Steven Clemons and the Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart and Nia-Malika Henderson.

*** Monday’s “News Nation with Tamron Hall” line-up: MSNBC’s Tamron Hall interviews Rep. Gwen Moore (D-WI) and James Clyburn (D-SC), Politico’s Carrie Budoff Brown, Dem strategist Chris Kofinis, and Catholic United executive director James Salt.