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SCHUMER THE NEXT BANKING CHAIRMAN? - Manu Raju and Ben White report for the hometown paper: "Sen. Chuck Schumer swung by the 50th floor of Nasdaq's Wall Street headquarters last month to schmooze with deep-pocketed donors who poured thousands of dollars into the New York Democrat's campaign coffers. During the breakfast fundraiser there was one thing left unsaid, but something virtually everyone wanted to know: whether Schumer will seek the chairmanship of the Senate Banking Committee next Congress. It's an issue of intense interest in New York and Washington and one fraught with major implications for both Wall Street and the three-term Democrat's political future.

-- "The choice will signify whether Schumer is aiming to recast his political career as Capitol Hill's chief policymaker for his home-state industry - or is instead seeking to position himself as the next leader of a Senate Democratic Caucus that has railed against the excesses of Wall Street. And for the financial industry, it may mean having a chairman with a friendly ear - like Schumer - versus one who has gone to battle with the big banks, likely Sherrod Brown of Ohio. Schumer refuses to say what he will do, but Wall Street executives and their Washington lobbyists say the senator and his associates have privately signaled he is not interested in the Banking Committee chairmanship and
would not be receptive to pressure to take the job."
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ETHICS PANEL PROBING TOP IMMIGRATION BACKER GUTIERREZ - Fredreka Schouten reports for USA Today: "The House Ethics Committee launched a review Thursday of potential misconduct by Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., and his longtime employment of a Chicago lobbyist in his congressional office, disclosed last year by USA TODAY. In a statement, Gutierrez spokesman Douglas Rivlin said the review examines whether 'a long-standing contract' was permitted under House rules. The ethics committee review does not imply that Gutierrez has violated any rules, the panel noted in its statement. It has until May 5 to announce what action, if any, it will take. ... 'Rep. Gutierrez cooperated fully with the OCE
during its review and will continue to do so with the committee,' Rivlin said.

-- "In June, USA TODAY reported that Gutierrez had paid a Chicago lobbyist more than $500,000 in taxpayer funds to work side by side with his congressional staff for a decade. The lobbyist, Doug Scofield, earned several thousand dollars a month as a paid contractor to train staff and help craft news releases among other functions. Scofield, a former Gutierrez chief of staff, also continued to represent clients in his public affairs and lobbying practice. At the time, Rivlin said Scofield's contract had been reviewed many times by a House panel that oversees congressional spending without raising any alarms. A week later, however, Gutierrez ended the contract with Scofield. Rivlin said
at the time that neither the congressman nor Scofield had done anything wrong."
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RUSSIA SANCTIONS REID, BOEHNER, McCAIN - POLITICO's Edward-Isaac Dovere reports: "Responding to American sanctions and travel bans of President Vladimir Putin's inner circle, the Russian government announced its own list Thursday, in an indication of how the Kremlin views who holds the power in Washington. Heading up the list are three White House aides: senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer, and deputy national security advisers Ben Rhodes and Caroline Atkinson.

-- "Also targeted for sanctions are Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). ... Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Washington's most vocal Russia hawk and the leader of a Senate delegation to Ukraine last week, made the list, but Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who was the most prominent Democrat on the trip, did not. 'I guess this means my spring break in Siberia is off, my Gazprom stock is lost, and my secret bank account in Moscow is frozen,' McCain said, in a sarcastic statement released by his office. 'Nonetheless, I will never cease my efforts on behalf of the freedom, independence, and territorial integrity of Ukraine, including Crimea.'

-- "Senate Foreign Relations Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Mary Landrieu (D-La.) also drew Russia's attention, as did Indiana Republican Sen. Dan Coats."
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-- "Russia's Sanctions List: The Hottest List in Washington?" By National Journal's Sara Sorcher:
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WILL WHITE HOUSE DITCH BLACKBERRY? - "The White House is testing smartphones from Samsung Electronics Corp. and LG Electronics Inc. for internal use, a person familiar with the matter said, threatening one of the last and most high-profile strongholds of BlackBerry Ltd. ..." reports the Wall Street Journal's Will Connors. "There is no indication that Mr. Obama himself is switching from a BlackBerry. ... Mr. Obama has said that he uses an Apple iPad for reading, but iPhones aren't part of the testing program, according to the person familiar with the matter."
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'HAPPY' JOHN LEWIS: CIVIL RIGHTS ICON, YOUTUBE SENSATION - "Rep. John Lewis took the Internet by storm Thursday when a video of him dancing to the hit Pharrell song 'Happy' surfaced on YouTube," writes POLITICO's Tal Kopan. "In the video, the 74-year-old Georgia Democrat taps, twists, claps and sings along to the popular song, laughing as the person behind the camera urges him on. 'Sing the song, Congressman,' the woman says. 'Now break it down.' As he dances, Lewis laughs along. 'This is my song,' he says. ... According to Lewis's office, the video was recorded for International Day of Happiness, which was decreed as Thursday by the United Nations. Pharrell Williams partnered with the U.N.
Foundation to highlight the event through videos of his song, 'Happy.'"
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REID ORDERS PROBE IN CIA VS. SENATE SPAT - Burgess Everett and Josh Gerstein report for POLITICO: "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid disclosed Thursday that he has ordered the Senate's sergeant-at-arms to conduct an investigation into how Senate staffers obtained copies of internal CIA records that officials at the spy agency had not authorized for release to Congress. ... In two letters revealing the probe, Reid repeatedly described as 'absurd' allegations that Senate staff hacked into classified CIA networks to obtain reports that are part of an internal review of the agency's Bush-era interrogation practices.

-- "'You have alleged that Senate committee staff illicitly accessed classified CIA networks to obtain a document,' Reid said in a letter to CIA Director John Brennan dated Wednesday. 'To my knowledge, the CIA has produced no evidence to support its claims that Senate committee staff who have no technical training somehow hacked into the CIA's highly secure classified networks, an allegation that appears on its face to be patently absurd.'"
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-- IT'S UNCLEAR IF SENATE SERGEANT AT ARMS TERRY GAINER will be the one investigating. He's leaving this spring, having held that post longer than anyone since World War II, National Journal's Billy House reports. Drew Willison, now deputy sergeant at arms and a former Senate Appropriations staffer, will replace Gainer. "The announcement came Thursday from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who noted that Gainer, 66, served as chief of the Capitol Police prior to becoming sergeant at arms in 2007. An Illinois native, Gainer's career prior to Washington included an unsuccessful 1988 run as a Republican candidate for Cook County state's attorney. In all, he spent 47 years in law
enforcement. Reid said he is leaving to spend time with his family and to pursue private-sector opportunities."
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GOOD FRIDAY MORNING, MARCH 21, 2014, and welcome to The Huddle, your play-by-play preview of all the action on Capitol Hill. Send tips, suggestions, comments, complaints and corrections to
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TODAY IN CONGRESS - Both the House and Senate are out today and back next week. RNC Chairman Reince Priebus, NRSC Chairman Jerry Moran and NRCC Chairman Greg Walden hold a conference call on the 4th anniversary of Obamacare, at 1:45 p.m. today.

UDALL CAMPAIGN HIT WITH TAX LIEN - Lynn Bartels reports for the Denver Post: "Republicans had a field day today with news that U.S. Sen. Mark Udall's campaign was hit with a tax lien for failing to pay unemployment insurance to the state of Colorado. The Denver Business Journal reported that Mark Udall for Colorado Inc. owed $458. The lien was filed on Feb. 4, recorded on Feb. 10 and lifted on Valentine's Day, according to the campaign. 'Due to a miscommunication, we mistakenly paid the state less than was owed,' campaign spokesman Chris Harris said. 'Once we were made aware of the error, we immediately ensured it was rectified.' 'We?' No doubt, the campaign farms out its payroll activity
to a private firm but is taking a bullet on this one. And shots were fired instantly by a variety of conservative groups both local and national."
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GROUND GAME UP FOR GRABS IN NORTH CAROLINA - POLITICO's Anna Palmer files this dispatch from Raleigh, N.C.: "Flip on TV and prepare to hear an ad attacking Democrat Sen. Kay Hagan - evidence of the multimillion-dollar air war launched months ago by Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group backed by the billionaire Koch brothers. But don't be fooled to see barely a yard sign in the state capital. The fight on the ground for Hagan's seat might be cheaper, but it'll be just as fierce - and both sides are already gearing up for it.

-- "Unions are tapping into the networks of community groups. Planned Parenthood has promised to repeat the same successful game plan it played against Ken Cuccinelli in Virginia this year. And the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and Hagan are promising boots on the ground. Conservative groups, meanwhile, say they will do more than air ads. They're promising a more sophisticated ground game than they've ever run - an attempt to match the strength of the turnout operations of unions and other liberal groups. The two-front war in North Carolina - on the air and on the ground - is sure to make the race one of the hardest fought in 2014."
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NANCY PELOSI called Obamacare "a winner" for Democrats this fall, leaving Republicans incredulous. POLITICO's Paige Winfield Cunningham:
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KOCH BROTHERS HONE ATTACK ON BIG GOVERNMENT - Carl Hulse and Ashley Parker write on A1 of the NYT: "Americans for Prosperity - the group backed by David H. and Charles G. Koch that has been pouring millions of dollars into competitive Senate races to the rising alarm of Democrats - was also among the politically active groups on the ground in this month's special House election on Florida's Gulf Coast. But its agenda had little to do with the fate of David Jolly, the Republican candidate who won that race. The group's ground troops - including those who knocked on doors, ran phone banks and reached out through social media to gauge ways to motivate voters - were part of a much greater
project, with a prize much larger than a congressional seat.

-- "Americans for Prosperity turned the Florida contest into its personal electoral laboratory to fine-tune get-out-the-vote tools and messaging for future elections as it pursues its overarching goal of convincing Americans that big government is bad government."
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OBAMA'S TRIP TO MALAYSIA GETS TRICKY -- Barack Obama is set to become the first sitting U.S. president in nearly 50 years to visit Malaysia, but the plans are now complicated by the international uproar over the nation's uneven response to the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370. The long-planned trip, part of a week-long Asia swing in late April, is aimed at broadening U.S. ties with a country that Obama praised last fall as an emerging economic hub and a tolerant majority-Muslim nation. But then came Flight MH370, which appeared to drop off the face of the Earth on March 8 and has not been located despite an intense multinational hunt. Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak's
government has delivered incomplete and conflicting information during the search and, at times, has rebuffed U.S. offers of help."
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BUSTED BRACKETS - "So you were confident in your bracket, hoping to win the office pool, maybe get lucky and take down that $1 billion prize Warren Buffett is offering for a perfect run of picks. One game in and ... done. Way to go, Dayton. Thanks for piling on, Harvard. And North Dakota State - you've got to be kidding," John Marshall, AP's hoops writer, reports from San Diego.

-- 'The first full day of the NCAA tournament got off to what has become its usual scream-at-the-TV start on Thursday, opening with three upsets that sent a wave of crumpled brackets - at least 95 percent missed at least one game before the tournament was 12 hours old - flying from Buffalo to San Diego. By the end of the night, fewer than 1 percent of brackets remained unblemished in contests by ESPN and CBSSports.com."
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-- What your Huddle host will be watching around 10 tonight: No. 4 UCLA vs. No. 13 Tulsa. Go Bruins! (cc: @emkryder, @DavidMDrucker , @michaelpfalcone)
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THURSDAY'S TRIVIA WINNER - We had a three-way tie: Shelby Boxenbaum, Ben Goodman and Jonathan Orr all correctly answered within seconds of each other that Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first U.S. president to travel on official business by airplane. He flew to Casablanca in North Africa on Jan. 14, 1943.

-- We're also giving a shout out to Todd Hauptli, who heads the American Association of Airport Executives. He says he was playing Huddle trivia while flying at "39,000 feet between DFW and DCA!"

TODAY'S TRIVIA - Shelby Boxenbaum has today's question as we continue to celebrate Women's History Month: Who was the first woman mayor in the U.S. and what was the city? The first person to correctly answer gets a mention in the next day's Huddle. Email me at
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