Free Republic

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) believes the country's illegal immigrants should be given work visas and be allowed to remain in the United States. The potential 2016 presidential contender spoke at the Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago on Tuesday and told David Axelrod, President Barack Obama's former top adviser who now heads the institute, that he did not vote for the Senate's comprehensive immigration reform bill. He did not do so because it did not grant enough work visas in the agricultural and construction industries. The Congressional Budget Office determined that bill would lower the wages of American...

Some Republicans are pushing for their party to drop its opposition to same-sex marriage as public opinion on the issue shifts rapidly and the party tries to woo younger voters more supportive of gay unions. […] But social conservatives warn that Republicans could lose loyal voters by softening their stance. A majority of Republicans still oppose gay marriage. …

The GOP is making a bold play for a U.S. Senate seat in reliably Democratic Oregon, where a Republican hasn’t been elected to a statewide office in more than a decade. Republicans back in Washington think they’ve found the right candidate in Monica Wehby, a children’s brain surgeon who’s raised more than $1 million and put her early opposition to President Barack Obama’s health care law at the center of her campaign. […] Wehby faces four other Republicans, most notably state Rep. Jason Conger of Bend, a lawyer who’s promoting his conservative credentials and his experience representing a district that,...

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) is "hellbent" on passing amnesty legislation, and other GOP leaders are signaling to donors and lobbyists that they also want to pass legislation this Congress, even though attempting to do so would depress the GOP base and create divisions within the party ahead of 2014's midterm elections that could give Republicans control of Congress.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie delivered a message to his fellow members of the Republican Party on Thursday: being pro-life means reforming America’s drug laws and criminal sentencing procedures. Christie has long advocated for drug treatment programs as a means of reforming the country’s prison system, but Christie took a new tactic on Thursday when he framed that advocacy as a pro-life argument. “I’m pro-life, and I believe strongly in the sanctity of life,” Christie told an audience in Jersey City on Thursday. Addressing his fellow Republican governors, Christie said that “it’s great to be pro-life, but you need to...

GOP presidential hopefuls are largely steering clear of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy’s fight with the federal government. The showdown, which left armed militia members and feds staring each other down last week, has captivated talk radio and cable news shows, turning Bundy into a conservative cause célèbre. Yet Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Mike Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor and 2008 presidential candidate, are the only big-name Republicans to have spoken out on the dispute so far. Tea Party favorite Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has been silent, and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) have also not...

Amid raucous debate, Nevada Republican Party conventioneers on Saturday stripped opposition to gay marriage and abortion from the party platform and endorsed Gov. Brian Sandoval for governor in the June 10 primary despite misgivings by conservatives, his criticism of the process and his absence from the meeting. The convention also backed Sue Lowden for lieutenant governor over state Sen. Mark Hutchison, R-Las Vegas, who was endorsed by Sandoval and who also spurned the party’s move to endorse candidates before the primary. A nominating committee proposed more than three dozen pre-primary endorsements, although the panel decided against recommending anybody in the...

After months on the defensive over his health law, a more combative President Barack Obama has emerged to fight about gender politics, leading to an election-year competition with Republicans for support from women. No single group will be more important to Democrats’ fortunes, say White House advisers, than unmarried women, who are likely to go Democratic—if they vote, and that’s far from certain when trust in Washington is low. The president is trying to convince women that Democrats are more concerned about improving their financial standing in difficult economic times, and he charges Republicans with standing in the way. “Republicans...

… Take a look at how Republican National Committee Rule No. 40(b) read before the 2012 convention changes:Each candidate for nomination for President of the United States and Vice President of the United States shall demonstrate the support of a plurality of the delegates from each of five (5) or more states, severally, prior to the presentation of the name of that candidate for nomination.Simply put, the rule meant that any candidate for the GOP presidential nomination who showed up at the convention with the largest number of delegates in five states—or was able to twist enough arms at the...

Vance McAllister, the Louisiana Republican who got elected to Congress on Saturday after being endorsed by Duck Dynasty's Willie Robertson, supports amnesty for all of the country's illegal immigrants. “We have to secure the borders, but (citizenship) has to be attainable for those people already here,” he told Thetowntalk.com before the election. “It has to be a tough path, but it has to be attainable.”

Jeb Bush and Bobby Jindal appear in a commercial that will air Sunday to promote NewRepublican.org, a project focused on outlining a positive GOP agenda for the future. The former Florida governor and the current Louisiana governor, both potential 2016 presidential candidates, support a super PAC that is the brainchild of Republican strategist Alex Castellanos. “If you believe that every parent ought to be able to choose their child’s school, and that the economy should be driven from the bottom up, not the top down from Washington, then you’re thinking like a New Republican,” Bush says to the camera at...

WASHINGTON – Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said the future of the Republican Party depends on what the Republicans do to expand its appeal among Hispanic voters and show them that the GOP is not “just the party of deportation.” “I’ve been saying over and over that the Republican Party cannot win until it’s more diverse, until it looks like the rest of America,” he said. During a Tuesday symposium hosted by the Media Research Center (MRC) and the American Principles Project (APP), the Kentucky Republican and potential 2016 presidential candidate said that if the GOP wants to appeal to minority...

en. Rand Paul on Tuesday argued that the Republican Party needs to get “beyond deportation” in order to break through to Hispanic voters. The Kentucky Republican and likely 2016 contender argued that before the GOP can make its case to the Latino community, which voted overwhelmingly for Democrats in 2012, the party needs to make clear it is open to a more welcoming approach to immigration. Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/04/rand-paul-gop-must-get-beyond-deportation-105241.html#ixzz2xeJfopZK

COLUMBUS, Ga. — Republicans, poised for strong gains in the midterm elections, are offering starkly conflicting messages about President Obama to rally their voters. In one moment, they say the president is feckless and weak. But in the next, they say Mr. Obama is presiding over an “imperial presidency” that is exercising power that verges on dictatorial. So far, they are succeeding in having it both ways. Representative Paul Broun, Republican of Georgia, who has criticized Mr. Obama for “leading from behind” on foreign policy, stood before a gathering of Republican women here recently, his voice loud and deliberate, as...

At the California Republican Party’s convention earlier this month, chairman Jim Brulte announced 2014 would be the year of “pushing the party outside of its comfort zone,” and introduced four candidates vying to take on incumbent Gov. Jerry Brown in November.

More than five years after U.S. governors began a bipartisan effort to set new standards in American schools, the Common Core initiative has morphed into a political tempest fueling division among Republicans. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce leads establishment voices—such as possible presidential contender Jeb Bush—who hail the standards as a way to improve student performance and, over the long term, competitiveness of American workers. Many archconservatives—tea party heroes Rand Paul and Ted Cruz among them—decry the system as a top-down takeover of local schools. The standards were developed and are being implemented by states, though Common Core opponents argue...

When FiveThirtyEight last issued a U.S. Senate forecast—way back in July—we concluded the race for Senate control was a toss-up. That was a little ahead of the conventional wisdom at the time, which characterized the Democrats as vulnerable but more likely than not to retain the chamber. Our new forecast goes a half-step further: We think the Republicans are now slight favorites to win at least six seats and capture the chamber. The Democrats’ position has deteriorated somewhat since last summer, with President Obama’s approval ratings down to 42 or 43 percent from an average of about 45 percent before....

A supporter of a bill to protect reporters and the news media from having to reveal confidential sources said Friday the measure has the backing of the Obama administration and the support of enough senators to move ahead this year. Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the No. 3 Democrat in the Senate, spoke optimistically about prospects for the measure, identifying five Republicans who would join with Democrats and independents on a bill that he said would address a constitutional oversight. While the first amendment protects freedom of the press, “there is no first amendment right for gathering information,” Schumer...

Two things happened over the weekend in the race for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination. 1. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul led the field in a national poll conducted by CNN/ORC International. 2. Paul won the straw poll at the Northeast Republican Leadership Conference. 3. Those two events come just a week after Paul cruised to another 2016 straw poll victory at the Conservative Political Action Conference. Add those things up and it's quite clear that Paul is the candidate of the moment on the Republican side. There's no one -- not even Ted Cruz or Jeb Bush -- who has...

<p>Planned changes to the Republican Party's presidential selection process are part of a rebuilding process that will strengthen the GOP brand and hopefully make its presidential nominee more competitive in 2016, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus told California Republicans on Friday, calling the GOP's current primary process "a complete disaster."</p>