Subject: POLITICO Huddle: HOUSE TO WRAP NDAA -- SENATE SKED UP IN AIR -- Boehner’s bashes ‘stupid’ train Q -- McCain’s Gitmo compromise
From: "POLITICO Huddle" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 May 2015 05:39:14 -0600

By Burgess Everett (@burgessev or 
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NDAA TO COME TO A CLOSE: For House Republican leaders, it looks like the worst of it is over for after they stripped out nonbinding immigration language from the National Defense Authorization Act last night, which puts the bill back on track for potential passage today. Hey, Emma Dumain, take it away: "A 221-202 vote on an amendment, offered by Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., stripped a provision in the underlying bill encouraging the Pentagon to study options for enlisting undocumented immigrants into the military in exchange for a pathway to legal status. All 182 Democrats voted 'no,' joined by 20 Republicans. Passage of the Brooks amendment will prompt a sigh of relief from GOP leaders, who
 feared its failure would put the entire NDAA bill in jeopardy - at least 25 House Republicans said their support for the measure was contingent upon removal of the amendment." 
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STATES OF PLAY: The Senate is out today, meaning next week is going to be a pivotal one for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his two "musts" and his one "want." Highway laws and the key PATRIOT Act provisions expire at end of the month, so Congress must renew them before leaving for Memorial Day break (the House has passed an NSA reform law that McConnell hates). And McConnell and President Barack Obama really want the Senate to finish the fast-track trade package. Before we get into the specifics, here's the on-the-record state of play from two of the world's closest friends.

Reid spox Adam Jentleson: "Sen. McConnell has written more checks than he can cash on the schedule. Something's gotta give, it's just not clear what."

McConnell spox Don Stewart: "Sen. Reid is stalling the bill and blocking amendments. But Adam is previewing next week's arguments where they'll complain about...wait for it...not having enough time or amendments."

THE SENATE'S TRADESMEN: McConnell's goal is to finish the trade bill by next week, and we know that's going to be a challenge given how painful it was to open up the amendment process on the Iran legislation and simply finish a bipartisan human trafficking bill. Two amendment votes are lined up for Monday, and after that look for the anti-trade Democrats to make a lot of procedural arguments and look to do all they can to throw sand in the gears. The goal, they say, is to wound the legislation before it goes to the House. "The handwriting's on the wall," Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said of the prospects of beating the bill in the Senate. But, he said: "There's real opportunity in the House
 to defeat it." "We're going to work as hard as we can to defeat this legislation," added Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in an interview Thursday. "Time is on our side. The longer we keep it on the floor, the more the American people understand what a disastrous agreement this is, the better it is for us." My story: 
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NO ONE HAS AN IDEA HOW NSA LAWS PLAY OUT: The only thing that would make the debate over surveillance in the Senate any more heated is if it were called the New England Patriot Act. Seung Min Kim and Kate Tummarello: "Crucial parts of the PATRIOT Act, including a provision authorizing the government's controversial bulk collection of American phone records, first revealed by Edward Snowden, are due to lapse May 31. That means Congress has barely a week to figure out a fix before before lawmakers leave town for Memorial Day recess at the end of the next week.The prospects of a deal look grim: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday night proposed just a two-month extension of
 expiring PATRIOT Act provisions to give the two sides more time to negotiate, but even that was immediately dismissed by critics of the program.I'm going to filibuster. I'm going to do everything it takes to block a short-term extension," said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). 
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ORRIN HATCH'S ADVICE: Just keep the Senate in until it's all finished. "I'd rather stay here and get it done," he told me. Brown said that's fine with him: "If McConnell wants to keep us in, late nights and all, I'm fine. I want to make sure we get these amendments out there."

BERNIE SANDERS DEMOCRATIC REGISTRATION UPDATE: It does not appear anything has yet changed. "Have I registered? I will obey all of the rules in the primaries of every state to participate in the process. My state you can't do that (register). There are 20 states where you can't do that and Vermont is one."

Friday comes but once a week, so please enjoy yourselves. And welcome to the Huddle, your play-by-play guide to everything Capitol Hill, where the birds are singing and the whips are counting votes. Please send tips to 
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TODAY IN CONGRESS - The House is in at 9 a.m. and will wrap up consideration of the NDAA this morning. The Senate is out today.

THURSDAY'S MOST CLICKED: Good lord do people like looking at pictures of Michael Steel.

TRAIN ARGUMENT CRANKS UP: House Speaker John Boehner says it's "stupid" to even ask a question about whether budget cuts for nation's rails were appropriate a day after an Amtrak crash killed eight people in Philly. "The train was going twice the speed limit. Adequate funds are there, no money's been cut from rail safety and the House passed a bill earlier this spring to reauthorize Amtrak, and authorize a lot of these programs. And it's hard for me to imagine that people take the bait on some of the nonsense that gets spewed around here," Boehner said when asked. You know who didn't like that? A certain Sen. Chuck Schumer, perhaps mass transit's most vocal defender in the Capitol. "Speaker
 Boehner's comments are patently false ... Experts have made clear that positive train control [technology] could have prevented the tragedy in Philadelphia." Jake and Rachael: 
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@GingerGibson: "Oh, the week isn&#39;t complete unless John Boehner yells at you for asking about Amtrak funding ... Speaker Boehner said it was 'stupid' for me to ask about Amtrak funding."

IRAN SAGA COMES TO BRIEF CLOSE: Oh, it'll be back in June when and if the president strikes a final nuclear deal with Iran. But for now the many months-long drama of Congress setting up a process to exert itself will go to the back-burner after an anti-climactic conclusion in the House. Cristina Marcos of the Hill: 
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THE MATTER OF MALE MEMBERS AND FEMALE STAFFERS: It's an unspoken norm that many male members of Congress limit their one-on-one time traveling with female congressional aides for fear of creating poor optics. But the problem goes deeper than that, explains Sarah Mimms of National Journal, who delves into a taboo issue on the Hill. "'Even though my boss is like a second dad to me, our office was always worried about any negative assumptions that might be made. This has made and makes my job significantly harder to do,' one female staffer told National Journal. Another reported that in twelve years working for her previous boss, he 'never took a closed door meeting with me. ... This made
 sensitive and strategic discussions extremely difficult.' Male staffers said they&#39;d also seen some female aides barred from solo meetings with the boss, and that they benefited in some instances from the exclusion of their female colleagues in high-level meetings, at receptions with major Washington powerbrokers, and just in earning a little more face time with their bosses. 
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FEINGOLD/JOHNSON, THE SEQUEL:Former Sen. Russ Feingold is taking on current Sen. Ron Johnson for the Wisconsin Senate seat, and if early indications prove true, this could be the ugliest Senate race of 2016. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: "Feingold was first elected to the Senate in 1992 and served three terms until Johnson defeated him 52% to 47% in the Republican wave of 2010. Since his defeat, Feingold has written a book, been a visiting professor at several law schools and served for 18 months as a U.S. envoy to the troubled Great Lakes region of Africa. Feingold left that temporary assignment in March, amid broad speculation that he would mount another Senate campaign. He is teaching
 a course on central Africa to law and graduate students at Stanford University in California that ends early next month. Senate rematches are a rarity. Wisconsin has never had one. It&#39;s also rare for a senator to return to the chamber after losing office." 
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From my interview with Johnson yesterday: "I mean it's going to be a tough race, no doubt about it ... I'm not scared. Do I look scared?" For the record, no, he did not look scared.

REACHING OUT: Defense One's Molly O'Toole reports that John McCain is actually making an attempt to tango, rather than tangle, with President Obama on Gitmo. "McCain's markup of the annual defense authorization bill, or NDAA, includes a bipartisan compromise that could grant President Obama the authority to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. But it comes with a very large asterisk: Congress first would have to approve the president's plan for closing the facility and dispatching its 122 detainees." 
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CONGRESS IS RIDICULOUS: Via Floor Charts, a photo of Rep. Jackie Speier alongside her floor chat of a lesser prairie chicken armed to the teeth. 
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THURSDAY'S TRIVIA WINNER - We'll have two winners since technically D.C.'s retrocession to Virginia occurred over years, 1846-1847. The winners: Rob Placek and John Clark.

TODAY'S TRIVIA - Rob has today's question to wrap up my turn at Huddle: D.C. doesn&#39;t have Senate representation, but what two D.C. officials have floor privileges in the Senate? The first person to correctly answer gets a mention in the next day's Huddle. Email me at 
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