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A bipartisan group of House negotiators said Thursday it has reached an “agreement in principle” on comprehensive immigration reform legislation. “We have an agreement in principle,” Rep. John Carter (R-Tex.) said as he and five other members of the group emerged from a two-hour meeting late Thursday afternoon.

A week ago, he noted on his Facebook page that his poll numbers after voting no on Toomey/Manchin put him somewhere south of “pond scum.” Today, this. He won’t face the voters again for five and a half years, but he shares a home state with Gabby Giffords and Mark Kelly. They can hurt him by campaigning against him in 2018 more than they can anyone else in the Senate. No wonder he’s looking for ways to flip: Republican Sen. Jeff Flake told CNN he is willing to reverse his opposition to expanding background checks for guns if the Senate...

<p>CHICAGO -- There are published reports Illinois GOP Chairman Pat Brady is planning to step down for personal reasons.</p> <p>The reports have Brady announcing his resignation on Tuesday.</p> <p>Republican State Rep. Jim Durkin told the Chicago Sun-Times Brady is "leaving on terms that he's imposed on himself." Durkin says Brady, who he calls a dear friend, wants to spend more time with his family.</p>

A battle within the Republican Party over same-sex marriage is unfolding on two fronts, in public, and behind the scenes. In the latter case, one of the most influential players is a billionaire hedge fund manager largely unknown to those who don’t work in finance or mix with political mega-donors. That man is Paul E. Singer, who over the years has used his wealth to spur Republicans to support gay marriage laws. Now, Singer is expanding his reach with the creation of an advocacy group which aims to spend millions influencing the legislative debate over same-sex marriage across the country.

As a Senate committee prepares to begin voting this week on far-reaching immigration legislation, advocates are watching warily to see whether opposition, thus far subdued, builds into the same kind of fierce backlash that shut down Congress’ last attempt to remake the nation's immigration system. That time around, in 2007, angry calls overwhelmed the Senate switchboard and lawmakers endured raging town hall meetings and threats from incensed constituents. The legislation ultimately collapsed on the Senate floor. “I’ve been through this battle, and it's ugly,” said former Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., who supported the bill. “My phones were jammed for three...

<p>Immigration reform opponents on the right have a tricky problem: So many of their conservative superstars support comprehensive reform that it’s hard to make it out to be a liberal scheme to snooker the public — well, unless you airbrush some people out of the picture.</p>

Why can’t Obama defeat the GOP already? That’s the question we keep hearing from pundits like the New York Times’ Maureen Dowd and National Journal’s Ron Fournier. They have pushed Obama to show more leadership and, somehow, overcome Republican opposition. … What’s really happening here, as the Daily Beast’s Michael Tomasky writes, is that the Republican Party has departed from traditional norms of political behavior. He notes that the GOP has become “a radical oppositionalist faction, way beyond the normal American parameters both in terms of ideology and tactics.” In other words, the GOP doesn’t behave like a party should—it...

In his weekly address, Pres. Obama threatened Americans with more sequester “pain” if they don’t convince Congress to pass his budget. First, Obama exploited the sequester’s effect on children, the elderly, and airline travelers … And, there’s more pain on the horizon, Obama warned: “These cuts are scheduled to keep falling across other parts of the government that provide vital services for the American people.” …

Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, popular with conservatives and libertarians in the GOP, said Wednesday he is considering a presidential campaign in 2016 but will not make a decision before next year. Paul said at a breakfast sponsored by The Christian Science Monitor that he wants to be part of the national debate and said that remaining open to a presidential bid would give him a broad audience on a number of policy issues. …

These are turbulent times for gay rights in America. The 2012 presidential election saw referendums approving same-sex marriage in Maine, Maryland, and Washington (bringing the number of states in which gay couples can marry to nine, plus Washington DC). Polls show public support for gay marriage hitting all-time highs, and the Supreme Court is currently deciding whether to extend federal benefits to married gay couples and strike down bans on same-sex marriage in California and beyond. But the most significant shifts—small in scale, but seismic in implication—are occurring where one least expects them: on the right. Indeed, when controversial Republican...

Liberal lawmakers from Congress and a coalition of like-minded groups rallied outside the White House on Tuesday, voicing frustration at the Democratic president they say has let them down by proposing cuts to Medicare and Social Security. One day before President Barack Obama was set to unveil his budget, organizers stacked nine file boxes in front of the White House that they said contained more than 2 million signatures on petitions telling Obama they won’t stand for cuts to entitlement programs cherished by the Democratic base. Their voices joined those of other liberal Democrats who are increasingly declaring their discontent...

Having grown up in a family where the term “progressive” was not used by Republicans as a pejorative to describe their political opponents, Theodore Roosevelt IV tells Newsmax TV that he does not necessarily see today’s GOP spinning off a third party any time soon. “Our family’s been sort of kind of like a third party for a long time,” Roosevelt acknowledged in an exclusive interview on Tuesday. “Goes back to 1912. We’ve been waiting a long time. I’m not sure I see a third party emerging in the near future.” Roosevelt, the great grandson of President Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt,...

Rick Santorum appears to be eyeing the White House again, with the former Pennsylvania senator telling Newsmax TV’s Steve Malzberg that he may run for president in 2016. “I’m certainly leaving the door open for that,” Santorum revealed on “The Steve Malzberg Show” Wednesday afternoon. … “The same advisors who botched these last two campaigns are now saying, ‘Well, you know, since we can’t win with moderate Republicans, we have to now try to be liberal Republicans to win instead of standing up for the values that made our country great,’” he said. …

Speaker John Boehner told fellow House Republicans in an Easter week memo that his decision to allow the sequestration cuts to take effect has forced President Barack Obama and the Democrats to confront economic issues they have long been avoiding. “We forged a new tactical plan that focused on using our limited leverage to maximum effect in support of the reforms needed to support economic growth and job creation for all Americans,” Boehner wrote in the memo distributed to House Republicans on Thursday. … The memo noted that GOP efforts had forced Senate Democrats to produce their own budget plan...

President Barack Obama is keeping up his congressional charm offensive, with a second dinner with Senate Republicans planned for next month. Obama dined with a dozen GOP senators earlier this month at a hotel near the White House. …

On his March 19th show, Rush Limbaugh declared that amnesty for illegal aliens would be “a death sentence for the Republicans.” That’s because amnesty includes the ability to legally vote, Limbaugh reasoned. Citing poll data, Limbaugh said that 70 percent of Hispanics “say that they believe that government should be the primary source of prosperity.” Therefore, Rush says, “Let’s say you have ten million illegals: seven million of them are automatically gonna vote Democrat. Republican Party’s finished.” “It’s a mathematics conclusion. It’s not any more complicated than that. And there’s nothing that the Republicans can do,” Rush continued. …

GOP strategist Karl Rove says he can imagine a Republican candidate in the next presidential campaign supporting gay marriage. The statement from the former adviser to President George W. Bush appears to acknowledge that opposition to gay marriage has waned in some conservative circles. …

...First, and most important, is focusing on the economic concerns of working-and middle-class Americans, many of whom now regard the Republican Party as beholden to “millionaires and billionaires” and as wholly out of touch with ordinary Americans. This is a durable impression—witness Bill Clinton’s effective deployment of it more than 20 years ago and its continued resonance during the 2012 campaign when Team Obama portrayed Mitt Romney as a plutocrat who delighted in shutting down factories and moving jobs overseas. Sure enough, in November exit polls, 81 percent of voters said that Barack Obama “cared for people like me”; a...

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives is preparing to vote today on the Senate-approved continuing resolution to fund the government for the rest of this fiscal year that would give the Obama administration the discretion to slightly decrease the number of Border Patrol agents. That could make 2013 the second year in a row when the administration has decreased the size of the Border Patrol, according to official data released by the Border Patrol itself. In fiscal 2011, according to the Border Patrol, there were 21,444 Border Patrol agents. Of these, 232 were deployed along U.S. coastlines, 2,237 were deployed along...

Conservative legend Phyllis Schlafly told the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday that the Republican establishment had given America a series of losers as presidential candidates over the last two decades—and the last time they picked a winner, George W. Bush, he was a bigger spender than the Democrats. “Why is it that the establishment has given us this bunch of losers?” Schlafly said. “The establishment has given us a whole series of losers: Bob Dole and John McCain and Mitt Romney.” … Schlafly said the establishment wants candidates that “will only talk about economic issues” and not social or...

Donald Trump has slammed Karl Rove as “the most over-rated person in politics” claiming the Republican strategist’s attack ads on actress Ashley Judd have increased her chances of winning a senate seat. “This is the same mind that spent $400 million and didn’t win a race. He’s the most overrated person in politics,” Trump said during a press conference following his Friday morning speech at CPAC 2013. Judd is widely expected to launch a bid for the Democratic nomination for the senate seat in Kentucky where she would take on Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in 2014 if she was successful....

Invoking Ronald Reagan’s legacy, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz urged Republicans on Wednesday night to stick to their conservative principles no matter what in a keynote speech kicking off the annual Conservative Political Action Conference. … “I think 2014 has the potential to be a very, very good year at the ballot box,” he said, adding, “The number one way we could screw it up is if Republicans fail to stand for principle.” …

The Environmental Protection Agency is “erecting barriers” to making information available to the public, GOP members of Congress said in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, calling for an investigation into the agency. … Pointing specifically to the EPA Region 6, the three Republican lawmakers charged that the EPA may be violating the law and was at a minimum violating President Barack Obama’s stated goal of greater transparency, by not responding to information requests from the public. The letter from lawmakers quotes former EPA Region 6 Administrator Al Armendariz referring to public information requests as “FOIA nonsense.” Under the...

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted 267-151 on Wednesday to approve a $982-billion continuing resolution (CR) to fund the federal government through the rest of fiscal 2013 that fully funds the implementation of Obamacare during that period. The House Republican leaders turned aside requests from groups of conservative members to include language in the bill that would have withheld funding for implementation of all of Obamacare, or, alternatively, that would have withheld funding for the Obamacare regulation that requires health-plans to provide cost-free coverage for sterilizations, contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs. … The Roman Catholic bishops of the United States have...

Washington (CNN) -- Struggling again with an issue important to women and minority groups, House Republicans on Thursday failed to pass their version of a new Violence Against Women Act and then split over a Senate version that won approval with unanimous Democratic support. The votes reflected an emerging political reality in the GOP-led House, with a minority of Republicans joining Democrats to pass legislation supported by the public, including increasingly influential demographics such as Hispanic Americans. By a vote of 166-257, the GOP version failed to win a majority after almost 90 minutes of debate. The House then voted...

Provisions in the recently passed Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) that single out gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgenders (LGBT) put domestic violence among those groups at the center of the federal effort to address such violence nationwide. After it passed the Democrat-controlled Senate, the Republican leadership brought the bill up for a vote last week in the House and it passed. It has now been sent to President Obama for his signature. The new law does not provide a definition for transgender or bisexual. However, the American Psychological Association defines transgender as “an umbrella term for persons whose gender identity,...

GOP strategist Karl Rove said Saturday that rebuilding the Republican brand in California will be a tough task that will require them to diversify and create a strategy to spread their message to a wider audience. Referring to the state party’s deep losses in recent years, Rove said it needs to focus on larger themes of restoring jobs and reducing government spending. He also said the party must recruit candidates who reflect the diversity of the country, and in particular, California. By next year, Hispanics will overtake whites as the state’s largest demographic group. …

Many Republican governors who worked to thwart much of President Barack Obama’s first-term agenda are shifting gears and softening their rhetoric now that his run was extended for four more years and they’re facing their own re-election. These state leaders are offering greater cooperation on health care and skipping the tough talk on immigration, taking a cue from voters who in last November’s election expressed their opposition to partisan gridlock in Washington. For many governors, the new approach reflects not just the specific needs of their states but also the realities of the political calendar: Nearly two dozen GOP governors...

After weeks without talks on the U.S. budget crisis, President Barack Obama called Republican leaders on Thursday to discuss the harsh “sequestration” cuts to government spending due to begin in just over a week. In what might be just the start of long negotiations to prevent the $85 billion in cuts, Obama spoke to House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. The conversations were “good,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said, but he declined to provide details. A McConnell spokesman said it was the first outreach from Obama since the New Year’s Eve “fiscal cliff”...

During the 2012 election cycle, Tea Partiers were told by their supposed betters that their ignorance of everyday politics meant that they should take a back seat to the Republican Party establishment. Brandishing the so-called Buckley Rule with quasi-religious fervor -- the notion that Republicans should run the most conservative candidate who can win -- the establishment GOP proclaimed that the only presidential candidate who could win was Republican Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts. They suggested that four-term former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson was a shoe-in for the Senate. They explained that the Tea Party was responsible for failed Senate...

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor apparently wants his Republican colleagues to pursue a “government can be good” approach to their politics rather than focusing so much on the size and voracious spending appetite of Washington. … Citing an unidentified congressional aide as its source, the (Wall Street) Journal said Cantor plans to touch on a host of existing policies and initiatives, from school choice to tax reform, to show how families nationwide would benefit more from Republican ideas rather than those offered by Democrats. …

The percentage of individuals who identify as conservative in 2012 outnumber those who identify as liberal in 47 out of the 50 states, in addition to the District of Columbia (D.C.) according to a Gallup poll released on Feb. 1. Nationally, the amount of self-identified conservatives (38 percent) still outnumbers liberals (23 percent). The disparity between conservatives and liberals has remained consistent since Gallup began its tracking in 2008. …

Leading Democratic and Republican senators said on Sunday there were encouraging signs in the push to overhaul U.S. immigration laws - a top priority for President Obama's second term - and they would introduce their plan this week. -snip- McCain said the political aspect of immigration reform should sway any Republicans who object to a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. "We are losing dramatically the Hispanic vote, which we think should be ours, for a variety of reasons, and we've got to understand that," he said. McCain said change also was needed because "we can't go on forever with...

Senators may be nearing an end to their partisan dispute over curbing unlimited delays called filibusters. … Senate aides say lawmakers could compromise as soon as Thursday on modest limits on filibusters, which a party in the minority uses to kill legislation. …

CHARLOTTE, N.C.—The Republican Party is looking for advice. To kick off this week's Republican National Committee's winter strategy session, which will focus in part on how to broaden the party's appeal to women and minority voters, the RNC on Thursday launched a website soliciting ideas and constructive criticism about what the party did wrong in 2012—and what it can do better over the next four years. The site, which is part of its "Growth and Opportunity Project" created to analyze the last election, includes a wide-ranging survey seeking input on things such as whether Republicans should spend more or less...

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said on Sunday that chances for a small “fiscal cliff” deal in the next 48 hours were “exceedingly good” and that President Barack Obama had won. “I think people don’t want to go over the cliff if we can avoid it,” Graham said on Fox News Sunday. … “This deal won’t affect the debt situation, it will be a political victory for the president and I hope we’ll have the courage of our convictions when it comes time to raise the debt ceiling to fight for what we believe as Republicans, but hats off to the...

It’s a truth that fire-breathing conservatives will have to handle: John Boehner isn’t going anywhere as speaker of the House. … When Boehner walks onto the House floor on Jan. 3, there’s an outside chance he‘ll see low double-digit defections—and those in and around his camp recognize it. The speaker’s fate has become a much-discussed topic as the fiscal cliff approaches and the Senate conducts last-minute talks this weekend—so far without a deal—to avoid across-the-board tax hikes. But even staunch conservatives admit what’s become abundantly clear within the House Republican Conference. “John Boehner is our speaker,” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz...

The Republican Party doesn’t have a leader who is looked upon favorably by a majority of Americans, according to a Politico/George Washington University poll. Defeated presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his running mate, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, each garnered only 47 percent approval, according to the poll. …

The GOP establishment and some conservative pundits, such as Ann Coulter, are in full defense mode, claiming that Romney is not responsible for losing to an incumbent responsible for perhaps the most damaging fiscal crises in our nation’s history. Don’t believe it. Romney IS responsible for wasting a billion dollars to carry out an issue-free campaign full of simple-minded platitudes. Indeed, Coulter is leading the charge with her recent column titled, Don’t Blame Romney. It’s sweet to watch Coulter defend her darling Romney, but let’s get real. The reality is that Romney was one of the worst GOP presidential candidates...

The Republican strategists who confidently predicted that their candidate, Mitt Romney, would win the 2012 election are already pontificating about what Republicans must do to win in 2016. After their disastrous defeat, strategy and policy mistakes and expensive super PAC advertising that failed to win votes, why should anybody take their advice again? The elitists now tell us that amnesty for illegal aliens, aka "immigration reform," is the key to future Republican nirvana. That's wrong-headed advice. Barack Obama sealed his victory in the battleground states: Ohio, Wisconsin, Virginia and New Hampshire, but those states have very few Hispanics, and...

WASHINGTON - Chris Chocola likes taking on his party's establishment and beating them at their own game. That's what he does for a living and he's helped pull off some big upsets. In 2007, the former two-term Indiana congressman took the reins of the Club for Growth, a free enterprise group that supports pro-growth candidates who favor low taxes, oppose job-killing government regulations, and seek fiscal policy reforms to expand and strengthen our economy. When Chocola, who has a business background, became its president, the Club was a relatively small organization, supported by about 35,000 contributing members. Under his leadership,...

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Nev.) said Monday he “still has a very high opinion of Chief Justice John Roberts," despite Roberts opinion upholding the individual mandate in Obamacare as constitutional. Hatch, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee and a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, had been one of the earliest and most forceful voices in the Senate speaking out against the constitutionality of the individual mandate when it was first proposed in 2009. On Monday, however, Hatch told CNSNews.com that Roberts “certainly had the right” to rule that the mandate is constitutional as a tax. “Naturally, I...

Now that the State Primaries are almost completed, it is important to ask if Moderate Mitt from Mass. has proven himself to be able to beat unqualified, incompetent, arrogant, Marxist Obama? The RNC made the Primary Campaign rules, and so the RNC can change those same rules. No Federal Regulator will be involved, 'I guarantee it.' IF Romney has only a slight chance to win in November, THEN it is incumbent upon the RNC to DUMP Romney and choose a stellar Dark Horse, such as Rep. Allen West from Florida. Nominee Allen West would nullify Obama's race card, attack Obama"care"...

You know you’re running a lousy presidential campaign when you get bitten by a penguin. Newt Gingrich, still in the race only because a deep-pocket casino magnate is funding his pathetic run, was campaigning last week for the zoo-animal vote in St. Louis — on a private tour, of course — and got nipped by a Magellanic penguin. Oh, if only he’d taken a jaunt through Big Cat Country or fed the crocodiles in the Herpetarium: Perhaps we’d all be out of our misery now. The Newt’s presidential campaign has got to be one of the worst ever run in...

A Republican congressman disenchanted with his party's stance on women's issues urged attendees at a rally to give money to Democrats to send a message to the GOP. "I think these are very precarious times for women, it seems. So many of your rights are under assault," Rep. Richard Hanna (R-N.Y.) told a crowd at a rally in Washington, D.C., for the Equal Rights Amendment, according to the Huffington Post. "I'll tell you this: Contribute your money to people who speak out on your behalf, because the other side — my side — has a lot of it. And you...

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) said today that Republican presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney doesn’t have to prove his conservative bona fides to him and hinted that it might be time for former Speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.) and former Sen. Rick Santorum (Pa.) to consider exiting the race. DeMint, who endorsed Romney in 2008, stopped short of backing the former Massachusetts governor in this year’s GOP primary. But in an interview following a morning closed-door meeting with Romney in Washington, D.C., DeMint said the former governor impressed him with his commitments to fiscal reform and to repealing President Barack Obama’s health care...

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Saturday shows that 25% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty-four percent (44%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -19 (see trends). Looking at Tuesday's upcoming primaries, the GOP race in Alabama is essentially a three-way tie, while Mitt Romney leads by eight in Mississippi. Nationally, Romney now leads Rick Santorum by 12 points. Regardless of who they want to win, 80% of Republican Primary Voters nationwide believe Romney will be the party's nominee. With the...

In a potentially ominous Super Tuesday setback for Rick Santorum, a campaign filing mishap in Ohio could leave him ineligible to be awarded 18 Buckeye State district delegates -- more than a quarter of the total at stake there, ABC News reported Friday. Ohio has 66 delegates total, with 63 at stake on Tuesday. Santorum failed to qualify for any district delegates in three Ohio congressional districts representing nine delegates because he didn't turn in names there. ABC News reported that in six other congressional districts, the former Pennsylvania senator's campaign submitted fewer names than required to be eligible for...

DETROIT, Feb. 28 (UPI) -- Mitt Romney was a double winner Tuesday, capturing the Michigan and Arizona Republican presidential primaries, results showed. The Detroit Free Press declared Romney the victor over his GOP rivals in Michigan. With about 74 percent of the precincts counted, Romney had 317,258 votes (41 percent) to Rick Santorum's 286,530 (37 percent), results posted by the Free Press showed. Ron Paul was third with 88,521 votes (12 percent) and Newt Gingrich followed with 50,726 votes (7 percent). Another 2 percent voted "uncommitted" and a handful of votes went to several other Republicans who are no longer...

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is the top choice of Republicans if the party nominates its presidential candidate at a "brokered" convention this summer, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll released Wednesday. Mr. Christie is favored by 32 percent of Republicans, followed by former Govs. Sarah Palin of Alaska and Jeb Bush of Florida with 20 percent each, the poll found. Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels is fourth at 15 percent. Some conservatives are contemplating a so-called brokered Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., in August, in which none of the current candidates would have gained enough delegates to win...