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By Seung Min Kim (
mailto:skim@politico.com
skim@politico.com or @seungminkim)

HOW ABORTION POLITICS SCUTTLED A TRAFFICKING BILL - From Burgess Everett and me: "It's a cause any politician would have a hard time opposing: cracking down on human trafficking. Instead, in a breakdown sensational even by Senate standards, a bill to address the issue is set to go down in a partisan firefight. The cause of the row? Democrats didn't read the 68-page bill to discover its provisions dealing with abortion, and Republicans didn't disclose the abortion language when Democratic staffers asked them for a summary of the legislation."

--" 'What do you want me to tell you? We missed it!' said Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) ... The bill was approved unanimously by the judiciary panel [on Feb. 26]. And on Monday, a full two weeks later with still no ire over the abortion language, Democrats agreed to move ahead. 'It's a little perplexing, right? I assume that all of the Democrat senators have highly capable professional staff and that they actually read the bills. And that they advise their senator before they agree to cosponsor and before they agree to vote for it,' said [Texas Sen. John Cornyn, the chief GOP sponsor]. But by Monday night, staffers for Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Senate Democratic
leadership spotted the provision. And pro-abortion rights groups began putting heat on Democrats to oppose the legislation."
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=07c624f8ef556779a8066f1271287bdb2c652d27242179dc0ddc4bed19f0dcd3
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=07c624f8ef556779a8066f1271287bdb2c652d27242179dc0ddc4bed19f0dcd3

--More Durbin on missing the abortion language, from the AP: 'I asked my staff, the ones I was about to fire, and they said, 'No, it didn't say that explicitly.'"
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=07c624f8ef55677944d21cb7f70dda0a0019ec1987d357817e72f0f4e90fe842
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=07c624f8ef55677944d21cb7f70dda0a0019ec1987d357817e72f0f4e90fe842

--Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) filed cloture on the trafficking bill, setting up a sure-to-fail vote for next week:
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=07c624f8ef5567795291d5b1617a109f86fd42455ca368f9cc5b7fb55e0722eb
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=07c624f8ef5567795291d5b1617a109f86fd42455ca368f9cc5b7fb55e0722eb

--Though the abortion issue got the most attention during the trafficking fight this week, the issue of birthright citizenship also came into play, due to Sen. David Vitter's (R-La.) push to restrict it. National Journal's Lauren Fox asks the potential 2016 GOP candidates how they would vote: "Vitter is reimagining the 14th Amendment. His bill would only give automatic citizenship to babies born in the U.S. if they have a parent who was in the military, is a lawful permanent resident, or is a U.S. citizen. Sen. Rand Paul exemplifies the headache this is causing potential GOP candidates. He isn't exactly clear on where he stands on birthright citizenship-at least, where he stands today.
'I haven't seen it, but I'll look at it,' Paul said of Vitter's amendment after leaving a Republican luncheon Thursday."

--" 'Call our press office,' Cruz said after being asked about where he stood on the Vitter amendment. As of press time, Cruz's office had not returned a request for comment. Sen. Marco Rubio's office did not respond to a request about where the Florida Republican stood."
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=07c624f8ef55677931e59b7b59c886bb9641b0d130e09778cecd59fce00f8ba3
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=07c624f8ef55677931e59b7b59c886bb9641b0d130e09778cecd59fce00f8ba3

DONOR PROJECTS BOOST SCHOCK - From the Associated Press: "Illinois Rep. Aaron Schock, under scrutiny for lavishly redecorating his Capitol Hill office and flying aboard private planes owned by donors, has built his personal wealth off extensive business dealings with campaign contributors since entering politics more than a decade ago. Donors built, financed and later purchased a house Schock owned as an investment in a suburb of Peoria, Illinois. Schock owns a stake in a Peoria apartment complex involving other contributors. And he pushed for a federal appropriation that would have benefited a donor's development project, an Associated Press review found."

--"Schock declined through a spokesman to discuss his finances with the AP. He told a newspaper late Wednesday that his real estate investments occurred at arm's length from donors. 'It's no different from when I see an opportunity,' he told the Peoria Journal Star, noting that the transactions were disclosed in his public financial statements. 'I've been buying real estate since I was 18 years old.'"
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=07c624f8ef556779299344b6ed535e15d06b08226b14acd9cd78bffeb4737f98
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=07c624f8ef556779299344b6ed535e15d06b08226b14acd9cd78bffeb4737f98

GOP PLAYS IT SAFE ON DEFICIT REDUCTION - POLITICO's David Rogers: "For all the bold talk of balancing the budget, Republicans in Congress are playing it safe on how much deficit reduction can be accomplished this year under the expedited reconciliation process afforded to the majority. The House and Senate Budget Committees won't roll out their tax and spending plans until next week. But all indications are the savings target for reconciliation won't come close to the trillions needed to reach balance by 2025."

--"Part of this is practical politics given President Barack Obama's veto. But in a surprising twist, a lot also has to do with new, lower cost estimates for the law the GOP loves to hate: the Affordable Care Act. Just this past Monday, the Congressional Budget Office trimmed $209 billion from its prior January estimate for the 10-year cost of subsidies and related spending and revenues for the health exchanges. That's a 20 percent drop in the space of two months, and those are the same exchange subsidies threatened by a Republican-backed lawsuit before the Supreme Court. If the justices were to strike down the subsidies this summer, Republicans would be under pressure to come up with some
relief for the millions who would find it harder to keep their health coverage."
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=07c624f8ef556779f3dca0758e766541569f70cd45430d38f7d29ed5b08b4a32
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=07c624f8ef556779f3dca0758e766541569f70cd45430d38f7d29ed5b08b4a32

--The Wall Street Journal's Kristina Peterson reports that Senate Republicans are eyeing Medicaid, food stamps for savings in their budget: "While details of the document aren't final, Republicans would propose turning funding for those programs into something similar to a block grant, said Senate Budget Committee Member Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.). That approach would call for the federal government to pay states a lump sum, instead of a percentage of the program's costs. States would have more control over the program and would be responsible for footing the rest of the bill."
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=07c624f8ef5567793163f8515348ddb5f38588795076975c2dcdddf5afe67714
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=07c624f8ef5567793163f8515348ddb5f38588795076975c2dcdddf5afe67714

--Buzzfeed's Kate Nocera profiles Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), who wants to be the next Tom Coburn when it comes to spending: "[N]ow that Republicans have the majority in Congress, Flake is hoping that he'll be able to go back to being known for the thing that got him to Congress in the first place: federal spending. While he served in the House, the Club for Growth championed Flake, who was something of an earmark hipster - against them before it was cool. He rankled Republicans and Democrats alike during every appropriations season, spending hours on the floor trying to defund other lawmaker's projects funneling money home. Because of the emphasis, Flake got yelled at, a lot."

--"A bigger platform should be opening - Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has promised the Senate's return to regular order when it comes to the budget and appropriations. And that's where Flake vows to return to being the kind of pain in the ass he was in the House."

--QOTD, from Kate's story: "If I looked like Jeff Flake, I'd be president of the United States," John McCain said.
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=07c624f8ef556779bd27f0970f05df58900f5015c1eec539edd3d14a58f704a0
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=07c624f8ef556779bd27f0970f05df58900f5015c1eec539edd3d14a58f704a0

IT'S FRIDAY, MARCH 13, 2015 and welcome to The Huddle. Good luck to all the Hill denizens who are running the Rock 'n' Roll half/full marathon tomorrow - your Huddler just hopes to be able to finish. Lauren French will take over this newsletter next week, so please send your tips, suggestions, comments, complaints, and corrections to
mailto:lfrench@politico.com
lfrench@politico.com and please follow along on Twitter at @laurennfrench.

My new followers include @jdistaso and @EmilyAnne325.

TODAY IN CONGRESS - Quiet.

AROUND THE HILL - Same.

SPSA'S 2015 BOARD - Meghan Roh of Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) was elected this year's president of the Senate Press Secretaries Association. The rest of the executive board: Micah Johnson (Sen. Bob Corker), JP Freire (Sen. Orrin Hatch), Katie Niederee (Sen. Jerry Moran), Julia Krieger (Sen. Heidi Heitkamp), Neal Patel (Sen. Dean Heller), Monique Waters (Sen. Cory Booker), Ryan Taylor (Sen. Roger Wicker).

CAMP TO PRICEWATERHOUSE - The Hill: "The former chairman of the powerful tax panel, ex-Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), is the latest to join K Street. PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) announced on Thursday that Camp would become a senior policy advisor within the firm's Washington national tax services practice. He retired at the end of the last congressional session, after serving 12 terms."
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=07c624f8ef55677922d421b15883878cabf6f9fd5c693eb8542010e2f299bb53
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=07c624f8ef55677922d421b15883878cabf6f9fd5c693eb8542010e2f299bb53

SENATE PASSES CYBERSECURITY BILL - The Wall Street Journal: "The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence easily passed a bill that encourages-but doesn't require-companies to share information about cyberattacks with each other and the federal government, responding to a growing prevalence of data breaches at large U.S. companies. The 14-1 vote was the first step in what is likely to be a lengthy battle this year over how to prod firms, many of which are skeptical of government data collection, to collaborate more with federal officials to deter attacks."

--" 'It is the first leg of a very long race,' the panel's chairman, Sen. Richard Burr (R., N.C.), told reporters after the vote ... The Senate intelligence panel vote, per custom, was held behind closed doors so the public wasn't privy to debate or discussion. Sen. Ron Wyden (D., Ore.) was the only lawmaker to vote against the bill, issuing a statement that said the measure 'lacks adequate protections for the privacy rights of American consumers, and that it will have a limited impact on U.S. cybersecurity.'"
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=07c624f8ef556779c6ac443081552f47a77303bcd97ee0792de7f48388b71840
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=07c624f8ef556779c6ac443081552f47a77303bcd97ee0792de7f48388b71840

HOUSE GOP SEEKS WOMEN CHAIRS - Scott Wong and Cristina Marcos for The Hill: "When House Administration Committee Chairwoman Candice Miller retires and hands over her gavel next year, GOP leaders will be facing a familiar quandary: finding another female lawmaker to lead a committee. Miller, a Michigan Republican, is the only woman among the 21 GOP committee chairs. And leadership - cognizant of the poor optics of a potential all-white, male lineup - will be scrambling to replace her."

--House Republican Conference Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington tells The Hill: "While we will certainly miss Candice's leadership on the House Administration Committee, I have no doubt that her service will encourage more women to seek chairmanships in the future ... House Republicans are proud to have half of our elected leadership positions filled by women, and we're looking forward to watching that number grow in the next Congress and beyond."
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=07c624f8ef5567794463a15168c30a18c4b1b99312edc22af13ae8b2bf64ac34
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=07c624f8ef5567794463a15168c30a18c4b1b99312edc22af13ae8b2bf64ac34

BARNEY FRANK: MY LIFE AS A GAY CONGRESSMAN - Huddle hasn't had a chance to read this completely through, so she's bookmarking this longread for the weekend. But here's a snippet from this first-person piece by former Rep. Barney Frank, when he recalls the conversation when he told former Speaker Tip O'Neill he was gay: "I approached him on the floor of the House, as we were watching a majority vote doom our effort to curtail President Ronald Reagan's aid to the Nicaraguan contras. I knew this was an inauspicious moment, but I couldn't stand the suspense of not knowing what his reaction would be. 'Tip,' I said, 'Bob Bauman has just written a book that says I'm gay.' 'Aw, Barney,' he consoled
me, 'don't pay any attention. People are always spreading shit about us.'"

--" 'But, Tip,' I said, 'the problem is that it's true.' He looked stricken, though he immediately made clear it was not my sexuality that troubled him but the negative impact its disclosure would have on my career. 'I'm sorry to hear it,' he said. 'I thought you might become the first Jewish speaker.' As upset as I was at the prospect of a premature outing, the fact that a man I respected so much had said such a flattering thing made me feel better."
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=07c624f8ef5567790ac86bdd40db8a1e2902ebde62855bc11ad95eacfff06de0
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=07c624f8ef5567790ac86bdd40db8a1e2902ebde62855bc11ad95eacfff06de0

THURSDAY'S TRIVIA WINNER - Mo Pasternak was the first person to correctly answer that there are three senators who were on Time magazine's list in 2006 of America's 10 best senators who are still in the Senate today: Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Thad Cochran (R-Miss.).

TODAY'S TRIVIA - What member of Congress found a historical inaccuracy in "Lincoln"? Name the congressman and also identify the error. The first person to correctly answer gets a mention in the next day's Huddle. Email
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