Photograph by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

A tourist takes cover underneath an umbrella while snapping a photo of the U.S. Capitol as snow and rain falls on March 6, 2013.

First it’s dinner with Republican senators at a Washington hotel.

That’s on President Barack Obama’s calendar this evening.

Then it’s meetings at the Capitol with members of both parties.

That’s on the calendar for next week.

“The President will travel to Capitol Hill and meet separately with the Democratic and Republican caucuses in both the House and Senate,” White House press secretary Jay Carney announced this afternoon, after word of the venture already had gotten out around the Capitol. “The President asked for the opportunity to speak to the caucuses about the priorities on his legislative agenda.”

One more event like this, and it’s going to sound like a new attempt at outreach by a president accused of too little of that.

House Speaker John Boehner, for his part, can’t help but noting that Obama won’t be the only visitor to the Capitol next week. While the White House suspends public tours of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue because of the budget sequestration, the speaker wants people to know that his place is open for tourism:

The @uscapitol will continue welcoming visitors for public tours: j.mp/XWy8tb Go to visitthecapitol.gov to schedule yours

— Speaker John Boehner (@SpeakerBoehner) March 6, 2013

Original post is Obama Heading to the Hill Next Week by Political Capital.

Photograph by Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Attorney General Eric Holder during a news conference at the Justice Department in this file photo.

Attorney General Eric Holder has a message for the Republicans and Democrats who voted to hold him in contempt in 2012: You get no respect.

Holder, who has never made a secret of his displeasure with the 255 lawmakers who made him the first Cabinet member ever held in contempt by a chamber of Congress, said this week that the event actually didn’t faze him.

“I have to tell you that for me to really be affected by what happened, I’d have to have respect for the people who voted in that way,” Holder said in an interview with ABC News. “And I didn’t, so it didn’t have that huge an impact on me.”

It didn’t take long for some on Capitol Hill to take offense to the broadside.

Rep. Darrell Issa, the California Republican who led the investigation into the botched federal gun probe known as “Fast and Furious”  that got Holder into hot water, said the attorney general is among the “highly partisan figures” in Washington “who are arrogantly dismissive of those who question them and demand transparency.”

“Attorney General Holder’s admission that he does not respect the Democratic and Republican Members of Congress who voted to hold him in contempt offers a window into why Washington is so dysfunctional,” Issa, whose committee has sued Holder for access to documents related to Fast and Furious, said in a statement.

Holder, who was cleared of any involvement in the bungled gun operation, probably could have timed his comments a little better. He testifies on Capitol Hill next week.

Original post is Holder to Congress: No Respect by Political Capital.

Photograph by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Senate Judiciary Committee member Sen. Lindsey Graham during a hearing about gun control on Capitol Hill on Jan. 30, 2013.

Some Republican senators say that today’s  Judiciary Committee  hearing on gun control would have been better with some show-and-tell.

South Carolina’s Sen. Lindsey Graham and Sen. Ted Cruz  of Texas fired off a letter to Judiciary Chairman Patrick  Leahy of Vermont complaining about being unable to bring various firearms to the hearing to help their colleagues learn before they legislate, as reported by Bloomberg Government’s Congress Tracker.

In the letter, the senators say they were foiled by what they called onerous gun restrictions. Among them: the District of Columbia’s ban on assault rifles.

“Our goal is simple — to educate fellow senators and members of the public how and why firearms are used by millions of law-abiding Americans in self-defense, hunting and sporting purposes,” they wrote. “We also want to shatter the mistaken belief that guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens are a danger to society.”

They complained the rules are “so impractical as to be unworkable” and urged Leahy to work with law-enforcement officials so that “at future hearings senators can request, and law enforcement will timely provide, various firearms for display and discussion purposes.”

The newly elected senator from Texas had some other thoughts today as well:

We need a serious debate about the Second Amendment. Here are my thoughts from hearing earlier today: youtube.com/watch?v=fiMYIQ…

— Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) January 30, 2013

For the record, it’s not impossible to carry assault weapons to an event into the Capitol complex.

California Democrat Dianne Feinstein brought almost a dozen samples to her news conference last week unveiling her proposed ban on the weapons, something she was only able to do with lots of planning. They had to be brought into the Capitol by D.C. police, inspected by the Senate’s Sergeant at Arms as well as the U.S. Capitol Police and also have trigger locks, according to Brian Weiss, a spokesman for the senator.
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Original post is Gun-Control Hearing: No Show and Tell by Political Capital.

Photograph by Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

Worker Kevin Foste installs a U.S. Chamber of Commerce sign at the Union Station Metro stop in Washington.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its affiliate pushing for limits on lawsuits doubled its lobbying spending to $135.5 million in 2012, newly released figures show.

The chamber and its Institute for Legal Reform reported spending $65.8 million in 2011.

The largest U.S. business lobby spent a record $144.2 million in 2009.

The group also spent $33 million on independent expenditures in the 2012 congressional elections, losing 36 of the 50 races where it ran campaign ads.

Since 1998, the chamber has spent close to $1 billion on lobbying, more than any other group, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based research group that tracks lobbying. That’s three times more than any other trade association, interest group or corporation.

Original post is U.S. Chamber Doubled Lobby Spending by Political Capital.

The lame ducks are quacking their way back to Washington for today’s votes on the fiscal cliff.

Yesterday, Rep. Todd Akin cast his first vote in the House since Nov. 29. Akin, a Missouri Republican, lost a bid for the Senate on Nov. 6 .

Rep. Jerry Costello, a retiring Illinois Democrat who hadn’t voted since Dec. 4, voted yesterday.

Expect an almost-full House for tonight’s vote. Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, a New Mexico Democrat, is flying back to Washington today to make the votes, said Andrew Stoddard, a spokesman. Lujan’s father, the speaker of the state House of Representatives, died yesterday.

Other members who won’t be returning in 2013 haven’t been around much, if at all, since the election. Mike Pence, a Republican who was elected governor of Indiana, hasn’t voted since Sept. 21. Republican Roscoe Bartlett, who was defeated, hasn’t voted since Nov. 30.

There are three vacant seats in the 435-member House, all of which had been held by Democrats.

Former Rep. Dennis Cardoza of California resigned earlier this year. Former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr of Illinois resigned after suffering health problems and Former Rep. Bob Filner left office after being elected mayor of San Diego.

Original post is Cliff: Make Way for Lame-Ducklings by Political Capital.

Photograph by Lana Harris/AP Photo

Sen. Daniel Inouye holds up a photo of himself on July 31, 1987 in Washington.

That’s how many days the late Senator Daniel K. Inouye, a Hawaii Democrat who died Dec. 17, served in Congress.

Inouye entered the House of Representatives when Hawaii achieved statehood in 1959. He was elected to the Senate in 1962 and re-elected eight times, most recently in 2010.

Only Robert C. Byrd, a West Virginia Democrat who died in 2010, served longer in the Senate than Inouye. And only Byrd, Michigan Democrat John D. Dingell and the late Arizona Democratic Sen. Carl Hayden served longer in Congress. Dingell was first elected to the House in 1955 and was re-elected Nov. 6.

Inouye’s body will lie in state today in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol, an honor that’s been extended to about 30 individuals, including former presidents. Henry Clay, a former senator and House speaker, was the first person so honored, in 1852.

Original post is Bloomberg by the Numbers: 19,478 by Political Capital.

Photograph by Alex Wong/Getty Images

An engineer removes loose stones from the Washington Monument as two U.S. Park Police officers pass.

The Washington Monument stands for a lot of things.

In this case, in the aftermath of a rare earthquake, the glacial pace of bureaucracy?

It has been almost a year and four months since a temblor with a magnitude of 5.8 on the Richter Scale rocked the Washington area, leaving millions of dollars of damage at the National Cathedral and cracks in the Washington Monument.

It was centered in Mineral, Virginia, 38 miles northwest of Richmond, on Aug. 23, 2001.

Today, the most notable reminders of that quake are the signs posted on the National Mall explaining why the monument at the center is closed to the public.

Lately, an additional ring of fences has gone up around the sidewalk ringing the lawn surrounding the obelisk as Washington prepares for President Barack Obama’s inauguration for a second term. The audience for the swearing-in at the front of the Capitol will stretch across the mall to the monument and possibly beyond.

And Today, Hill International, “the global leader in managing construction risk,” announced a joint venture with The Louis Berger Group, Inc. in a contract with the National Park Service for construction management in the repair of earthquake damage to the monument.

Original post is Washington Monument: Contracted for Repairs 16 Months After Quake by Political Capital.

Photograph by Win McNamee/Getty Images

Capitol Hill police check Santa Claus with a metal detector as he enters the U.S. Capitol on his way to Speaker of the House John Boehner's office on Dec. 12, 2012. The man was working with the group Catholics United, and wanted to urge Speaker of the House John Boehner to pass pending 'fiscal cliff' legislation before Christmas.

House Speaker John Boehner has warned his troops not to make any plans after Christmas.

Then again, every day is like Christmas, the speaker says — so long as people are playing with hypothetical solutions to the year-end fiscal talks that have ensnared him and President Barack Obama.  He said so in a brief question and answer session with reporters today pressing the Ohio Republican on what he might accept.

“Ifs, ands and buts are like candy and nuts,” Boehnner said. “If that were the case, every day would be Christmas.”

Original post is Boehner: Christmas Every Day — `Like Candy and Nuts’ in the Capitol by Political Capital.

Photograph by Olivier Douliery-Pool/Getty Images

Speaker of the House John Boehner listens as President Barack Obama speaks during a meeting with bipartisan group of congressional leaders about deficit reduction before the tax increases and automatic spending cuts go into affect in the new year.

Updated with McConnell comments at 1:15 pm EST

House Speaker John Boehner says the White House’s actions aren’t matching its rhetoric in the fiscal cliff talks.

“The White House has to get serious,” Boehner, an Ohio Republican, told reporters this m0rning after meeting with Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, the administration’s emissary in the cliff talks. “I’m disappointed with where we are… but going over the fiscal cliff is serious business, and I’m here trying to resolve it, and I would hope the White House would get serious. ”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell voiced the same sentiment after his own meeting with Geithner today.

President Barack Obama has said this week that he wants a “fair and balanced” approach to the talks — packaging spending cuts with tax increases for the wealthiest Americans. Obama telephoned Boehner last night.

“Despite the claims that the president supports a balanced approach, the Democrats have yet to get serious about spending cuts,” Boehner said this morning, calling his frustration a result of what he heard both from the president last night and the treasury secretary this morning.

“We’ve put real concessions on the line, by putting revenue on the table up front,” said Boehner, who opened these talks after the presidential election saying he’d accept some new revenue in the talks — contingent on spending cuts.  “Without spending cuts and entitlement reform, it’s going to be impossible to address our” deficit.

“It’s well past time for the administration to get serious about solving problems created by years of trillion-dollar deficits and kicking the can down the road,” McConnell said. “While Republicans have made a good-faith effort to move out of our comfort zones and find real solutions, the administration has yet to provide any realistic alternatives. We have a hard deadline here and the only reason we will go over the cliff is if the White House continues to fail to show the leadership necessary.”

Boehner, like Kentucky’s McConnell several days ago, also had some pointed words today for Obama’s plans to travel to Pennsylvania tomorrow to muster public support for his plans at a toy factory.

“This is not a game,” Boehner said. “Jobs are on the line. The American economy is on the line…. Campaign-style politics are not the way to get things done in Washington… Right now, all eyes are on the White House. The country doesn’t need a victory lap. It needs leadership.”

Original post is Boehner: White House, `Get Serious’ — McConnell Echoes Speaker by Political Capital.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from California, in 2011. Photograph by Scott Eells/Bloomberg

Updated at 10:15 am EST

“A picture is worth 1,000 words,” Nancy Pelosi said today, standing alongside several women elected anew to the House of Representatives. This picture, she said, is worth millions of votes.

“I come here with my sisters,” Pelosi said. “When I came to Congress 25 years ago, there were 23 members who were women….. Today we have over 60 House Democratic women… Very good, not enough — we want more.”

The California congresswoman, former speaker of the House when Democrats ruled and minority leader since Republicans took charge, told her party’s caucus today that she will continue to seek their support as leader.

Maryland Democrat Elijah Cummings reports big applause inside the closed-door caucus room when Pelosi reported that she intends to remain as Democratic leader. Her actual re-election by the caucus will come after Thanksgiving.

“I am delighted Nancy Pelosi decided to stay,” California Democrat Henry Waxman told reporters. He called her “the most effective speaker” he had served under.

Pelosi, deposed as speaker after the 2010 mid-term elections delivered House control to Republicans, had refused to reveal her plans until she met today with fellow House Democrats. She held a morning news conference to make her announcement.

Her decision to remain as minority leader follows the second consecutive election in which Democrats won a minority of seats in the 435-seat House. In January, the House will seat as many as 200 Democrats, with the number uncertain in contests still unsettled.

Pelosi also announced that New York Rep. Steve Israel will seek another term as chair of the House Democratic campaign effort.

“Why is it important for us to make this statement about the importance of women?” Pelosi said at her appearance — because they represent the hopes of American families. “The point is, that if America is going to reach its fulfillment as a nation, we must have the full empowerment of women.”

Original post is Pelosi Holds on to House Democrats by Political Capital.