In a day of congressional testimony that once again found the Obama administration under fire, a trio of whistleblowers expressed frustration toward the government’s response to the Sept. 11, 2012 assault against a U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya, and its subsequent investigation into that incident.

The diplomatic officials appeared on Wednesday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to describe a hasty and chaotic response to the attack, which left four Americans – including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens – dead.

The witnesses said that the government was poorly prepared to weather the attack and was hesitant to respond, also contending that a subsequent review of the incident ordered by the State Department came up woefully short.

The testimony included new details from Gregory Hicks, a career foreign service officer who served as the deputy chief of mission in Libya at the time of the attacks.

He painstakingly recounted frenetic efforts to communicate between besieged individuals in Benghazi, and the governments of Libya and the United States. And he relayed the frustration of special forces who were told to stand down in Tripoli – Hicks said he did not know who gave the order – from deploying to Benghazi.

“They were furious,” Hicks told lawmakers on Capitol Hill. “I will quote Lt. Col. Gibson. He said, ‘This is the first time in my career that a diplomat has more balls than somebody in the military.’”

IN DEPTH: Official: US Special Forces team wasn't allowed to fly to Benghazi during attack

Hicks joined two other witnesses in a hearing driven primarily by Republicans, who have zealously pursued the Benghazi incident based on suspicions that President Barack Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had been caught flat-footed by the attack, or worse, orchestrated a cover-up about the attack to benefit the president’s re-election bid.

At no point did Hicks or his fellow witnesses – Mark Thompson, acting deputy assistant secretary for counterterrorism, and Eric Nordstrom, diplomatic security officer and former regional security officer in Libya – accuse the president or Clinton of having halted forces that might have assisted besieged diplomats in Benghazi. Democrats repeatedly pointed to testimony suggesting that reinforcements would have not have arrived in time, anyway.

But Republicans seized on several morsels of information, in particular Hicks’s incredulity toward the administration’s initial explanation, voiced by U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, that the attack was the spontaneous outgrowth of protests related to an anti-Islamic video.

“I was stunned. My jaw dropped, and I was embarrassed,” Hicks said of his reaction to Rice’s appearances on a series of Sunday talk shows following the attack. He further testified that there were no indications of protests in Libya, and that at no time did they suspect that the Benghazi attack was related to protests.

Republicans also homed in on suggestions by Hicks that a top Clinton aide had reacted angrily when Hicks agreed to speak privately with GOP investigators looking into the Benghazi attack. Hicks said that Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s chief of staff, called him “upset” about his conversation with the GOP lawmakers.

The witnesses also expressed their misgivings about the Accountability Review Board’s (ARB) findings in a subsequent investigation into the government’s response to the attacks. The ARB, the witnesses said, failed to interview senior enough leaders in the State Department.

The testimony prompted pointed responses from Ambassador Thomas Pickering, who co-authored the ARB, and allies of Clinton, the popular former secretary of state who’s seen as a potential presidential candidate in 2016.

“I believe the Accountability Review Board did its work well,” Pickering, a coauthor of the report, said Wednesday afternoon on MSNBC. “I think the notion, quote, of ‘a cover-up’ has the elements of Pulitzer Prize fiction attached to it.”

And Philippe Reines, a senior aide to Clinton, told NBC News that accusations that Mills interfered in an investigation into Benghazi “completely and utterly false.”

Indeed, Democrats headed into the hearing warning against politicization of the Benghazi incident.

“I am not questioning the motives of our witnesses,” said Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the committee, at the outset of the hearings. “I am questioning the motives of those who want to use their statements for political purposes.”

His admonition didn’t stop many Republicans from plowing ahead with their questions.

“It's one of great mysteries,” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, of questions as to why terror response forces were not ordered into action on Sept. 11. “Here we have this expertise, we've invested heavily in it, they tabletop it, they understand it, this is exactly what they train for and they were never asked to go into action.”

But while many Republicans appeared eager to keep Benghazi alive as a political issue, not all Republicans seemed as concerned about the issue, or the Obama administration’s forthcoming.

“I’ve been able to read all the cables, I’ve seen all the films. I feel like I know what happened in Benghazi; I’m fairly satisfied,” said Sen. Bob Corker, Tenn., the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on MSNBC. “I’m fairly satisfied.”

This story was originally published on Wed May 8, 2013 11:02 AM EDT

Voters in South Carolina’s first congressional district head to the polls on Tuesday to decide whether to offer former Gov. Mark Sanford a chance at political redemption, or instead send the sister of comedian Stephen Colbert to Congress.

Sanford, the Republican former governor whose time in office ended in a scandal triggered by a nationally-publicized extramarital affair and subsequent divorce, is seeking to once again win the district that elected him to Congress for three terms. A special election was called for this solidly Republican seat following GOP Rep. Tim Scott’s resignation to become the state’s next senator.

Randall Hill / Reuters

Elizabeth Colbert Busch and Mark Sanford shake hands after the South Carolina 1st Congresional debate in Charleston on April 29, 2013.

But while Sanford entered the special election as a modest favorite, he’s run into stiff opposition from Elizabeth Colbert Busch, a Clemson University administrator whose famous sibling has helped elevate what might otherwise be a mundane congressional race into a national media spectacle.

Democrats have rallied behind Colbert Busch, who has leaned on her relationships with members of the Charleston-area district during the campaign, and stressed her interest in partnering with businesses. Her experience, combined with Sanford’s personal baggage, has transformed the campaign into a competitive contest in a district where a Democrat hasn’t won since the early 1980s.

Sanford, in turn, has cast his Democratic challenger as a handmaiden of national Democrats, particularly House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., a cardboard cutout of whom Sanford staged a debate with several weeks ago.

But the biggest unspoken variable in the campaign has undeniably been the affair that practically torpedoed Sanford’s political career, which, at the time, included presidential aspirations.

Sanford launched his campaign by acknowledging the mistakes he’d made in conducting an extramarital affair with Argentine woman Maria Belen Chapur (who is now Sanford’s fiancée). The affair was an undercurrent for much of this spring’s campaign until Jenny Sanford, the governor’s former wife, filed a lawsuit alleging Sanford of having trespassed on her property.

For his part, Sanford’s betting that stage of the campaign is behind him.

"I think that [voters] had largely moved past my personal life at the end of the runoff, because I would have never won that runoff if that was still the focus," Sanford told the Huffington Post. "I think that the whole trespassing, October surprise thing brought that all back into the forefront."

Nonetheless, the revelation shook up the campaign, prompting the National Republican Congressional Committee – the group charged with electing GOP-ers to the House – to withdraw its resources from the campaign. And Democrats, along with supportive super PACs, stepped forward to launch their own advertising blitz in support of Colbert Busch.

Those moves prompted speculation that Sanford’s bid at political redemption might come up short following today’s special election. But the former governor has sought to battle back in recent days by stampeding throughout the district (with a handful of national media members in tow) and hosting multiple events.

But Colbert Busch has also tried to sustain her momentum with the benefit of national Democrats working on her behalf, who are eager to peel a vote away from Republicans’ majority in the House.

This story was originally published on Tue May 7, 2013 5:09 AM EDT

Attention turns in Congress to immigration. The Senate Judiciary Committee will begin its mark up Thursday of the Gang of Eight’s bill.

“A Republican group that backs an immigration overhaul is shifting its advertising strategy as it prepares for the Senate to take up the debate when it returns from recess this week. The American Action Network, an issue-advocacy organization aligned with a super PAC and a Hispanic outreach arm, increased its current cable television ad buy from $300,000 to $500,000, the group confirmed to CQ Roll Call.”

“Senate immigration negotiators are targeting as many as two dozen Republicans for a show-of-force majority — which they believe may be the only way a reform bill will have the momentum to force the House to act,” Politico writes. “Reform proponents are looking for votes far beyond the usual moderate suspects to senators in conservative bastions such as Utah, Georgia and Wyoming. The senators landed on the list because they’re retiring, representing agricultural states, anxious to get the issue behind the party, important to persuading skittish House Republicans or all of the above.”

Roll Call: “The Keystone XL oil pipeline, Securities and Exchange Commission regulation, student loan rates and pediatric medical research will be among the first orders of legislative business in the House when Congress returns from a weeklong recess. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., issued a memo on Friday laying out the Republicans’ legislative agenda for May. Congress is expected to be busy during the three weeks it will be in session before members take another short recess the week of Memorial Day. Cantor also promised another vote to repeal Obamacare. Though Cantor doesn’t mention it in his memo, an immigration overhaul will no doubt dominate lawmakers’ attention as it moves forward in both the House and Senate.”

More debt-ceiling shenanigans: Politico: “Now, momentum is building to tie a rewrite of the Tax Code to hiking the debt cap, which will need to be raised by the fall because the limit will technically be hit this month.”

CHARLESTON, S.C. -- Former South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, bidding for political redemption in a congressional race after a high-profile divorce that seemingly ended his aspirations, sought to challenge the notion that he has a problem among women voters by spending part of a visit to a small shopping street looking for, as he put it, “a woman who hates me.”

The question of Sanford's ability to win women voters, first raised by his 2009 high-profile affair and divorce, re-emerged after a recent legal dispute with his ex-wife. He further complicated matters during a debate last week, saying he had not heard his opponent when she asked a question about the affair and his use of public funds surrounding the episode.

On Saturday, after answering several questions about whether he thought a trespassing charge at his ex-wife’s home might compromise his standing with female voters, Sanford led reporters on a foray in downtown Summerville, S.C., stopping women to ask them their opinion of him, specifically referring to the question posed by a reporter for NBC News.

“No group’s vote is a monolith,” Sanford said, pointing out that he had recently received an endorsement for Tuesday’s special election from a group of Republican women who took an ad out in a local newspaper.  Sanford is running against Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch to fill the South Carolina congressional seat vacated by now-Sen. Tim Scott.

Sanford also noted that during his visit to the hot dog restaurant Perfectly Frank’s, where earlier that afternoon his campaign announced the endorsement of the Tea Party Express, patrons had not brought the issue up.

When the reporter noted that he was speaking to a crowd that included some people who had gone to the restaurant specifically for the campaign event, Sanford dismissed that context as “the case of any political venue." 

“If you’re a political figure, some people, because they hear you’re going to be at some place, they’re going to show up,” he said.

Sanford then walked across the street to begin his meet-and-greet, flanked by two campaign staffers and three reporters, telling the reporter who asked the questions about his status with women that he rejected the “premise” that women wouldn’t vote for him because of his personal life.

He then indicated he wanted to seek out women who “hated” him.

“Let’s go to this woman – does she look biased?” he asked as he crossed the street, the NBC reporter walking next to him. 

As a car whizzed by, he told the reporter, “Watch out, I don’t want you to get run over. Actually I kind of do, but that’s a different story.”

After Sanford caught up with the woman he had pointed out, she told him she was a big supporter and that she would be making phone calls for him on Tuesday.

A staffer, mimicking Sanford’s tongue-in-cheek approach, suggested that the woman had been planted.

A few shops down, he stopped in a women’s consignment store to chat with two shoppers who were visiting South Carolina from Arkansas, but who had seen some of his campaign ads and signs, which they said were “beautiful.”

“You look like you’re totally capable and we wish you luck,” one of the women told him.

Laughing, Sanford pointed to the two cameras in front of him, saying, “you hear that?”

Later, Sanford visited a women’s clothing store where the shopkeeper said she knew one of Sanford’s staffers, and that the staffer “knows I’m in your corner.”

“Oh good,” the former governor said. “[But] that defeats what I’m after.”

Pointing to the NBC reporter, he continued, “We were trying to find her a woman who hates me so she can use it in her TV show. She’s with NBC National.”

As Sanford wrapped up his hourlong canvas, he came across a couple, each of whom expressed their support for him.

After indicating, as he had previously, that the NBC reporter was looking to talk to women who didn’t support him because of his marital history, the woman, Patty Hulbard, responded, “I'm not your biggest fan. What you did I don't appreciate, but that should not influence my vote necessarily.”

 “You line up ideology with my thinking, so I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt,” she continued. 

“I appreciate that. Thank you,” Sanford said.

Turning to NBC’s camera, he pointed and said, “That’s pretty close to what you’re looking for. We’re getting somewhere, all right.” 

This story was originally published on Sun May 5, 2013 11:57 AM EDT

“Sen. Marco Rubio acknowledged Tuesday on a conservative radio talk show that the Gang of Eight’s comprehensive immigration reform bill won’t likely pass the Republican-led House,” Politico writes.

Said Rubio: “The bill that’s in place right now probably can’t pass the House. It will have to be adjusted, because people are very suspicious about the willingness of the government to enforce the laws now.”

But that House is split and doesn’t know what it wants. Jake Sherman looks at infighting and “chaos” within the House GOP conference: “The GOP leadership is dealing with an unprecedented level of frustration in running the House, according to conversations with more than a dozen aides and lawmakers in and around leadership. Leadership is talking past each other. The conference is split by warring factions. And influential outside groups are fighting them. The chaos has led to a sense of stalemate for House Republicans, who have been in the majority since 2011.”

NBC’s Kasie Hunt from Warren, N.H. – “Bringing the national gun debate to a tiny New England town on Tuesday, the daughter of the slain principal of Sandy Hook Elementary confronted Sen. Kelly Ayotte at the lawmaker’s first town hall meeting since she voted against expanded background checks on all commercial gun sales.”

Politico: In the aftermath of the Senate’s failed vote two weeks ago to expand background checks, New Hampshire has suddenly emerged as ground zero in the national battle over gun control, with Ayotte now stuck at the center of the fight.

Frank Thorp / NBC News

Erica Lafferty, daughter of Sandyh Hook Elementary School victim Dawn Hochsprung, attends a town hall meeting with Senator Kelly Ayotte in Warren, N.H., on Tuesday.

WARREN, N.H. – Bringing the national gun debate to a tiny New England town on Tuesday, the daughter of the slain principal of Sandy Hook Elementary confronted Sen. Kelly Ayotte at the lawmaker’s first town hall meeting since she voted against expanded background checks on all commercial gun sales.

Erica Lafferty, who first met with the Republican senator in Washington earlier this month after she opposed the compromise negotiated by Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Pat Toomey, R-Pa., was visibly angry as she spoke into the microphone at the meeting, which drew more than 100 people who came to condemn or support Ayotte’s vote.

"You had mentioned that day the burden on owners of gun stores that the expanded background checks would harm. I am just wondering why the burden of my mother being gunned down in the halls of her elementary school isn't more important than that," said Lafferty, whose mother Dawn Hochsprung was gunned down by Newtown shooter Adam Lanza.

Ayotte responded at the Warren, N.H., meeting: "Erica, I, certainly let me just say -- I'm obviously so sorry."

"And, um, I think that ultimately when we look at what happened in Sandy Hook, I understand that's what drove this whole discussion -- all of us want to make sure that doesn't happen again," Ayotte said.

More tension followed at a larger event in Tilton, N.H., later in the day.

"Let the senator finish please!" said the moderator at the Tilton event as gun control advocates shouted from the crowd and waved signs which said "demand action to end gun violence," from Mayors Against Illegal Guns, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's gun control advocacy group.

Ayotte is one of a handful of senators -- others include Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., Dean Heller, R-Nev., Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., and Max Baucus, D-Mont. -- who are facing withering criticism from both sides of the debate.

Gun control proponents want the Senate to reconsider new gun laws, and pro-gun rights groups want the issue kept off the table. And they’re using ads, lobbying, and organizing at events like Ayotte’s town halls to get their points across.

Keeping center stage are the Newtown families, many of whom were on Capitol Hill for the failed gun vote, who have pledged to continue the fight for new regulations on firearms.

The senator's staff were prepared for the onslaught. Ayotte defended her vote at the top of her remarks in both towns, pointing to her background as a prosecutor. “Where we are right now, my focus has been on wanting to improve our current background check system,” she said. “Frankly, we have fallen down on actually prosecuting gun crimes and violations of our current background check system.”

She said that addressing mental health and keeping guns out of the hands of the mentally ill were important going forward.

Outside groups are focusing on Ayotte and others from swing states where polls show background checks are popular. From the TV and radio ads to these small events, both sides are mobilizing like it's a political campaign --  Bloomberg's group circulated printed signs reading "#ShameOnYou" at both town meetings, while Ayotte supporters held the kind of mass-hand-drawn signs often spotted at presidential events.

Poll data is also a focus -- and a point of contention. Some automated polls, which NBC News does not rely on, have shown surveys claiming dropping numbers for people who voted against expanding background checks.

But in the Granite State, Ayotte's supporters are pointing to a recent survey from the University of New Hampshire that shows just the opposite: high approval ratings in the wake of the vote.

Some Republican defenders in the state say that the controversy isn't real and say it won't matter in 2016, when Ayotte is up for reelection to the Senate.

"To the extent it's a controversial issue it's a manufactured one," said Fergus Cullen, a former chairman of the state Republican Party.

There's evidence to support the claim that some groups are using the issue to raise their profiles. In a yard nearby the Warren event, a local resident had placed a large, staked lawn sign with the handwritten message, "Thank You Senator Ayotte." Atop one corner was the Tea Party's preferred flag, the yellow snake with the words "Don't Tread On Me."

But others say it was a difficult decision that could have repercussions down the road.

"I think it was a tough vote. And it was a principled vote," said Jim Merrill, a longtime New Hampshire Republican strategist who worked on Mitt Romney's presidential campaign. "And I think she understood that there would be some blowback for it. Let's just remember it wasn't just Republicans who voted against it."

Ayotte is clearly feeling the pressure, refusing to answer questions from national reporters at the meetings. Aides working on the gun issue on Capitol Hill say she's made it clear that she doesn't want to vote on it again any time soon.

And the atmosphere back home was a big change from Ayotte's typical town meetings -- generally staid affairs that begin with a PowerPoint presentation on the budget. (She does a lot of them, as she's pledged to hold a town hall in each New Hampshire county.)

She stuck with the PowerPoint at Tuesday's meetings, but this time, the opening slides had statistics defending her gun vote.

Alex Wong / Getty Images

Members of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America enter the office of Sen. Kelly Ayotte on April 17 in Washington, D.C.

At town halls, Ayotte typically receives notecards with the name of each questioner and their pre-submitted topic of interest. A selected moderator chooses and reads them. This time, though, that caused a stir. Right before Erica Lafferty spoke in Warren, Eric Knuffke, of Wentworth, N.H., stood and demanded to be allowed a question.

"You can't deny people the right to speak because they haven't filled out a card. I have a question," Knuffke shouted. Supporters of Ayotte shouted back at him.

As Knuffke yelled, Lafferty was sitting in the front row with her hand raised.

"Let Erica speak," said one attendee. "There's a Sandy Hook survivor here," said another.

She had submitted a question in the pile, and Ayotte made sure to let her speak. Lafferty thanked Ayotte for meeting with her the day after senators took the vote on the Manchin-Toomey before challenging her for her vote. After her exchange with Ayotte, Lafferty stood and stormed out of the town hall.

Asked afterward why she had done so, Lafferty said: "I had had enough." 

 NBC's Frank Thorp contributed to this report. 

This story was originally published on Tue Apr 30, 2013 4:05 PM EDT

Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford meets the Democrat looking to end his bid for political redemption, Elizabeth Colbert Busch, in a high-profile debate Monday evening, just one week before the May 7 special election that will send one of them to Congress.

Colbert Busch and Sanford will share a stage for their first and only debate ahead of next Tuesday's special election to fill the vacancy that occurred following then-Rep. Tim Scott's, R, appointment to the U.S. Senate earlier this year.

Mic Smith / AP

Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford speaks with reporters at Hay Tire & Automotive in Mount Pleasant, S.C., on Monday, April 22, 2013.

The campaign has attracted an intense amount of coverage in the national media because of the two candidates involved. Sanford, the former governor whose term ended in ignominy following an extramarital affair that resulted in his divorce and an ethics rebuke, is seeking a chance at political redemption. Standing in his way is Colbert Busch, the Clemson University administrator whose candidacy has been aided by the fame of her brother — political satirist Stephen Colbert of Comedy Central. 

While Sanford entered the showdown with an upper hand over Colbert Busch in this traditionally Republican district, the race was thrown into turmoil in recent weeks by Jenny Sanford, the former governor's ex-wife. She filed court documents accusing Sanford of trespassing on her property, thereby reviving some of the ugly, public 2009 divorce that ended the former two-term governor's possible aspirations to run for president. 

In the days following that revelation, Democrats and their allies went on the attack with television ads attacking Sanford. Republicans, meanwhile, retreated, forcing Sanford to fend for himself in the campaign when the National Republican Congressional Committee announced it would not run ads in the race. (The most recent poll, which was conducted by automated phone interviews, suggested Colbert Busch had the advantage over Sanford; NBC News does not officially recognize those polls.) Sanford has responded to his perceived slide by casting Colbert Busch as a handmaiden of Democrats' relatively unpopular leaders in Washington. Sanford went so far as to debate a cardboard cutout of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to illustrate his point.

Still, Monday's debate might offer the candidates their best chance to affect the trajectory of the race before voters head to the poll. Perhaps in a reflection of which way things are going, Sanford's demanded more debates — that is, more opportunities to ding Colbert Busch in public. The showdown will be broadcast on C-SPAN.

This story was originally published on Mon Apr 29, 2013 3:44 PM EDT

NBCNews.com’s Michael O’Brien: “A seemingly mundane vote on Wednesday intended to help Republicans soften their image on the health care issue laid bare some of the still-raw divisions between the GOP’s pragmatists and the party’s more obstinate ideologues. House Republican leaders were forced to pull a vote on legislation designed as a prime opportunity to fuse conservative priorities with a proposal easily grasped by voters: improving coverage for Americans with pre-existing conditions. Conservative lawmakers fretted that the proposal would perpetuate an element of ‘Obamacare,’ and once again balked at supporting Republican leaders. The situation illustrated, again, the party leaders’ difficulty in managing some of the GOP’s most unruly conservatives.”

“The House of Representatives will spend 15% less on its own operations this year than it did three years ago under a cost-cutting effort launched by Speaker John Boehner that is on pace to have saved taxpayers more than $400 million by the end of this year,” USA Today says. “When Republicans took control of the House in January 2011, Boehner, the new speaker, said cutting House spending would be a priority. Since then, House lawmakers have seen a nearly 20% decrease in their office budgets. Three years ago, the average lawmaker had an annual $1.5 million budget, which is down to $1.2 million. Those budgets — which vary by office — cover everything from staff salaries to district office rent and bottled water.”

“With Congress and the flying public up in arms over airline delays caused by Federal Aviation Administration furloughs, lawmakers seem somehow caught off guard by the extent of the problem caused by the sequester,” Roll Call reports.

At 9:00 am ET, Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform joins others to unveil a new Winston Group (R) poll showing support for comprehensive immigration reform.

A seemingly mundane vote on Wednesday intended to help Republicans soften their image on the health care issue laid bare some of the still-raw divisions between the GOP’s pragmatists and the party’s more obstinate ideologues.

House Republican leaders were forced to pull a vote on legislation designed as a prime opportunity to fuse conservative priorities with a proposal easily grasped by voters: improving coverage for Americans with pre-existing conditions. Conservative lawmakers fretted that the proposal would perpetuate an element of “Obamacare,” and once again balked at supporting Republican leaders. The situation illustrated, again, the party leaders’ difficulty in managing some of the GOP’s most unruly conservatives.

Alex Wong / Getty Images file photo

House Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA)

Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Va., the No. 2 Republican in the House, was the chief proponent of the now-shelved legislation, which would have reallocated money from the program’s prevention fund in order to beef up the insurance pool established for high-risk patients under “Obamacare.”

“We, in the House, remain committed to putting our conservative principles first to help people first,” Cantor said at a press conference with fellow Republican leaders.

Though President Barack Obama had threatened to veto the legislation, Republicans pursued it nonetheless to notch a positive, campaign-friendly vote for House lawmakers.

But Cantor’s office, which sets the schedule for the House floor, was forced to reverse course by Wednesday afternoon, and cancel a planned vote on the legislation when it became apparent that they would lack the necessary votes to advance the bill. (Most, if not all, Democrats intended to oppose the bill, meaning GOP leaders could afford to suffer few defections in their own ranks.

“We had good conversations with our members and made a lot of solid progress,” said Erica Elliot, a spokeswoman for House Whip Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., who explained many House Republicans were set to leave town to attend the dedication of the George W. Bush presidential library on Thursday.

Doug Heye, a spokesman for Cantor, said: “We intend to bring the bill back up when Congress returns in May.”

The Virginia Republican’s proposal had enjoyed the high-profile support of conservative organizations like Americans for Tax Reform and Independent Women’s Voice, along with several other prominent conservative voices.

But the proposal angered conservatives, who complained that Cantor’s legislation would perpetuate an expensive part of the health reform law, and do nothing to halt the underlying legislation. The influential Club for Growth, which opposes the bill, said it would include lawmakers’ vote on its annual scorecard. Brent Bozell, a conservative figurehead who’s clashed often with the GOP establishment, dubbed the proposal “CantorCare.”

“It fixes part of Obamacare that the Democrats designed,” wrote Erick Erickson, editor of the influential conservative blog RedState. “It makes Obamacare less bad, more palatable, and more likely to stick around instead of collapsing under its own weight as Paul Ryan and others have kept saying it would.”

But the entire ordeal illustrated Republicans’ continued difficulties in finding the sweet spot between conservative consistency and the process of governing – a phenomenon within the GOP that extends well beyond Capitol Hill.

This story was originally published on Wed Apr 24, 2013 4:24 PM EDT

The pro-gun control group founded by former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., and her husband, Mark Kelly, launched new radio ads Wednesday against two GOP senators who voted last week to block legislation expanding background checks for gun sales.

Americans for Responsible Solutions (ARS), the group founded by Giffords and her husband, unveiled new ads that accuse Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., of opposing "common sense" measures to "keep guns out of the hands of criminals."

The ads are significant because they represent the first real effort by a pro-gun control group to inflict some measure of political damage against its detractors following last week's bipartisan vote to block a bipartisan compromise on background checks from moving forward. ARS said it had received over 24,000 donations since the Senate vote, and would be introducing additional targets of advertising later this week.

McConnell is up for re-election in 2014, but in Republican-leaning Kentucky; he hasn't yet attracted a major Democratic opponent. Ayotte doesn't face re-election until 2016, though her race in swing-state New Hampshire will be much tougher.

Proponents of stricter gun laws are counting on public opinion -- which, right now, largely favors expanded background checks for gun sales -- to persist, and allow them to inflict some political damage on those senators who blocked the legislation.

Other groups, like Mayors Against Illegal Guns, which is backed by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, have also vowed political retribution for lawmakers who oppose tighter gun measures.

To that end, a new Pew Research Center/Washington Post poll released Wednesday found that 47 percent of Americans were either "disappointed" or "angry" at last week's Senate vote; 39 percent said they were "relieved" or "very happy" at the largely-GOP push to block the background checks legislation.

That poll was conducted April 18-21, and has a 3.7 percent margin of error.

This story was originally published on Wed Apr 24, 2013 11:04 AM EDT

With the defeat of gun control legislation in the Senate and prospects for a grand bargain on the budget an iffy prospect at best, President Barack Obama's second-term agenda is facing an inflection point on another of his top priorities -- immigration reform.

The carefully choreographed, broad bipartisan agreement by the Senate's so-called "Gang of Eight" has been months in the making, and there are fresh concerns about its course forward in the wake of last week's terror attacks in Boston.

The marathon bombings have at least partly refocused the debate on the risk of would-be terrorists entering the United States. On Tuesday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on border security, with fresh questions being asked about who is allowed into the country and why.

The same committee produced fireworks during a Monday hearing, when the panel's chairman, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., suggested that some unnamed opponents of the bipartisan immigration overhaul are using the Boston attack to sidetrack the bill. 

"Let no one be so cruel as to try to use the heinous acts of these two young men last week to derail the dreams and futures of millions of hard-working people," Leahy said.  

At one point in the hearing, ranking Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa reacted angrily to what he thought were suggestions from Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., that he might be using the Boston bombings to try to delay or kill the bill.

Grassley snapped, "I never said that," before being reassured the comment was not directed at him.

Reform opponents have argued that the Boston attack is one reason to at least slow down the process, but the overall impact on immigration remains uncertain.  

Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky voiced such concerns in a letter to Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, saying that Congress should not proceed with the bill "until we understand the specific failures of our immigration system."  

Senate aides say privately that it’s too early to tell how the aftermath of the bombings will affect pending legislation on Capitol Hill.

There’s likely to be some focus on why the FBI didn’t more carefully track bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev after he returned from a trip to Russia.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., called for hearings on the subject -- but he said the problem could be with the law, not with the actions the FBI took.

On Tuesday, Napolitano is likely to face some questions that she wouldn’t have fielded prior to the attacks which killed three people and injured more than 200.

Naturalized U.S. citizen Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, whose family was given asylum, was charged Monday with using a weapon of mass destruction for his alleged role in the bombings.

Among the questions Napolitano may face:

• Do the rules on granting asylum and refugee status to people need to be re-examined?
• What’s the right balance to strike between granting asylum to people who fear that they’ll be the victims of persecution in their home country and keeping out of the United States people who pose a risk of committing terrorist acts?
• Are changes needed to the avenues through which foreigners who are intent on terrorist plots enter the country, such as student visas which the Sept. 11 hijackers used?

Napolitano delivered her testimony last week before the Senate Homeland Security and Government Operations Committee before the suspects in the Boston bombings had been identified.

She told that committee last week, “We are greatly encouraged” by the bill that was introduced by the group of eight senators, led by Schumer and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., which she said “embraces the principles the president has enunciated.”

Evan Vucci / AP

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, April 18, 2013.

She said “comprehensive immigration reform will help us continue to build on” the Obama administration’s border security efforts and enable her department “to further focus existing resources on criminals, on human smugglers and traffickers and national security threats.”

But she got into a sharp exchange with McCain when he asked her why her department had no measurement or index of whether U.S. borders were being made more secure.

McCain told her, “One of the big problems we have is that you abandoned the metric of operational control and you have not given us a border security index.”

She told McCain, “There are so many ways to measure” border security and “that's a much more difficult question to answer than it is to ask.”

She added, “The notion that there's some magic number out there that answers the question, I wish I could tell you there is, but we haven't found it yet.”

NBC's Kasie Hunt and Vaughn Ververs contributed to this report.

This story was originally published on Tue Apr 23, 2013 4:31 AM EDT

Jason Reed / Reuters

Senator Chuck Schumer, part of the U.S. Senate's "Gang on Eight", speaks during a news briefing on Capitol Hill, April 18, 2013.

The Boston Marathon bombing and subsequent manhunt for suspects has already become part of the debate over immigration reform in Washington, with one high ranking Republican questioning the screening process that allows immigrants into the United States.

The Senate Judiciary Committee was scheduled to hear testimony from Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano on the bipartisan immigration overhaul introduced by a group of eight senators, but she had to postpone due to ongoing developments in the search.

A ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said at the outset of the committee’s hearing, “Given the events of this week, it’s important for us to understand the gaps and loopholes in our immigration system. While we don’t yet know the immigration status of the people who have terrorized the communities in Massachusetts, when we find out it will help shed light on the weaknesses of our system.” 

Grassley asked, “How can individuals evade authorities and plan such attacks on our soil? How can we beef up security checks on people who wish to enter the United States? How do we ensure that people who wish to do us harm are not eligible for benefits under the immigration laws, including this new bill before us?”

But a few minutes later, Sen. Charles Schumer, D- N.Y. the chief sponsor of the bipartisan immigration overhaul, in an apparent response to Grassley, said one shouldn’t jump to conclusions about the events in Boston “or try to conflate those events with this legislation. In general, we’re a safer country when law enforcement knows who is here – has their fingerprints, photos, et cetera – has conducted background checks and no longer needs to look at needles in haystacks. In addition, both the refugee program and the asylum program have been significantly strengthened in the past five years such that we are much more careful about screening people and determining who should and should not be coming into the country. If there are any changes our homeland security experts tell us need to be made (in his bill), I’m committed to making them….”

In a statement Friday, Frank Sharry, head of America’s Voice Education Fund and a veteran campaigner for an immigration overhaul which would allow a path to legal residence for some of those in the country illegally, said, "It’s premature to jump to final conclusions about the attackers. And it’s shameful that some on the far right are politicizing and demagoguing this issue.” Sharry said some -- whom he did not identify -- are "exploiting this tragedy in hopes of derailing immigration reform."

The Senate will likely debate the bipartisan “Gang of Eight” immigration overhaul next month, but Grassley stressed that the bill ought to be fully debated in committee and open to amendments on the Senate floor.

Referring to the 1986 Simpson-Mazzoli immigration overhaul which was supposed to end illegal immigration and prevent any future amnesty, Grassley said, “We screwed up – and we can’t afford to screw up again.”

The committee was hearing Friday from two witnesses, conservative attorney Peter Kirsanow – who indicated his opposition to the bipartisan bill because he said it would lower wages for U.S. low-skill workers -- and former director of Congressional Budget Office Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who supported the bill.

Related links:

Suspects to carjack victim: We are the bombers 

Who are the brothers accused of the Boston Marathon bombing? 

An empty metropolis: Photos show deserted streets of Boston  

What we know: Timeline of terror hunt

‘Dedicated officer’ gunned down by Boston Marathon suspects at MIT

Slideshow: Bombings at Boston Marathon

Boston bombing spurs Senate debate on tighter immigration screening 

Photos from Bostonians locked down amid terror hunt 

Tweeting police chatter creates confusion over Boston suspect

This story was originally published on Fri Apr 19, 2013 11:47 AM EDT