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By Lauren French | 03/23/2016 07:36 AM EDT


By Lauren French (lfrench@politico.com or @LaurenNFrench)

RYAN WILL PUSH FOR A POLICY FOCUS. Jennifer Steinhauer reports for the New York Times, "Mr. Ryan, who insists he will not run for president even though a lot of Republicans seem to want him to, will give a speech on Wednesday, urging his party once again to focus on policy ideas, preferably those of House Republicans, in the race for the White House. 'Looking around at what's taking place in politics today, it is easy to get disheartened,' Mr. Ryan is expected to say, according to remarks prepared for a speech he is scheduled to deliver in his old digs in the hearing room of the Ways and Means Committee. 'How many of you find yourself just shaking your head at what you see from both sides?'
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=49442e366ed81bfe1ea0450660bef26272bffcb04bd9923cd5df1e3ebd572b57

HOUSE MOVES FORWARD WITH SPENDING BILLS THAT MAY GO NOWHERE. Kelsey Snell with the Washington Post, "House Republicans are moving forward this week with plans to write spending bills even if, for now, it looks like they're headed straight down a dead-end street. A House Appropriations subcommittee on Wednesday is scheduled to consider the first spending bill of the year, a popular measure that funds veterans programs, despite an ongoing budget battle with conservatives over spending levels. Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wisc.) told reporters Tuesday that he doesn't plan to hold floor votes on the appropriations bills until the budget standoff is resolved.... Failing to adopt a budget, which lays
the groundwork for the year's spending and tax policy legislation, means that it will be nearly impossible for the House to vote before the fiscal year ends Sept. 30 on the detailed bills that stipulate exactly how federal agencies are funded." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=49442e366ed81bfe4c3752f3077d7c93c2756db9c5f73f08d1c2e293d327f32d

OVERSIGHT PLANS TO QUESTION GARLAND. Rachael Bade and John Bresnahan reports, "President Barack Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, recused himself from a recent judicial complaint against a judge under his purview who was accused of raping a 16-year-old murder witness decades ago. But now a House committee is preparing to ask questions about the timeline of who in the federal court bureaucracy and at the Justice Department knew about the allegations against Richard Roberts, the retiring chief judge of U.S. District Court in Washington, and when they knew it. Garland is likely to be among those questioned, a source on the committee said. However, a spokeswoman for Garland told
Politico on Tuesday that he wasn't aware of the allegations against Roberts until a little more than a week ago." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=49442e366ed81bfe478b2539cdf12d36df5a81e5ce2e001a237a776e48be116f

HAPPY WEDNESDAY, March 23, 2016 and welcome to the Huddle. Happy congressional Friday! You can find me at lfrench@politico.com and @laurennfrench on Twitter.

TODAY IN CONGRESS: The Senate is still out. The House will vote early this morning on a resolution condemning the Brussels attacks before leaving for a three-week recess.

AROUND THE HILL: Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) will deliver an address on the state of American politics at 11 a.m. in the Ways and Means Committee Room. Interns and media only. - Members of the New York delegation will hold a press conference opposing the Trans-Pacific at 11 a.m. at the House Triangle. - Rep. Duncan Hunter will participate in a panel discussion on what it means to have women serving on the frontlines in Rayburn House Office Building 2255 at 1 p.m. - Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Caucus will hold an event celebrating the sixth-year anniversary of Obamacare at 10 a.m. at the East Front Steps.

ON THE MOVE. Mike Reynard, communications director with Rep. Marsha Blackburn, is switching roles for the congresswoman and will know be the lead press contact for the subcommittee on Energy and Commerce investigating Planned Parenthood. Stefanie Wheeler has joined Blackburn's personal office as communications director with the move. -- Emily Benavides has joined Sen. Rob Portman's office as press secretary. She previously worked for Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, Mitt Romney's presidential campaign and Rep. Robert Aderholt.

FUN NEWS: MANCHIN HELPS STUDENT SCORE A PROM DATE: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=49442e366ed81bfe3be43cae6928e515afb347d0044a03398a7e4d6dbe6c1c9a

GARLAND MOVES AHEAD WITH SENATE MEETINGS. Reuters' Richard Cowman reports, "President Barack Obama's Supreme Court selection Merrick Garland on Tuesday resumed meetings with senators in a push to convince Republicans who have vowed to block the nomination to reverse course and hold confirmation hearings this year. 'It's crystal clear after talking to him that Judge Garland has both a brilliant legal mind and a heart of gold,' New York Senator Chuck Schumer, the Senate's second-ranking Democrat, told reporters after huddling with the nominee. Those qualities, Schumer predicted, will convince Republicans to launch the confirmation process required to elevate Garland, an appellate judge and
former prosecutor, to the Supreme Court." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=49442e366ed81bfefbc7bfcb9c7a7dc4995477f0ecbffec76444fad394d0562a

MCCAIN ON BRUSSELS: ATTACKS LIKELY IF ISIS REMAINS IN RAQQAH. Sen. John McCain told MSNBC, "There will be further acts of terror in Europe and in the United States of America because this president has no strategy to defeat ISIS. And ISIS a product, not of a tsunami or a hurricane, but because of a failed foreign policy that pulled all of our troops out of Iraq. Al Qaeda metastasized into ISIS, and we did not go after them, and the beat goes on, and now we are faced with the dimensions of a threat that we are going to be with for a long time."

CAMPAIGN RALLY VIOLENCE AND BRUSSELS HEIGHTENS CONVENTION SECURITY. Anna Palmer reports, "The campaign headlines alone - featuring tense protests and fistfights, and a front-runner warning of riots - are cause enough for concern. Add two major terrorist attacks abroad in four months into the cauldron, including Tuesday's bombings in Brussels, and it's not hard to imagine the potential for chaos at the Republican National Convention this summer. Still, convention organizers and security officials say they're ready to execute a plan that was in the works before fisticuffs broke out regularly at Donald Trump's rallies." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=49442e366ed81bfee795200040f09a3b2cbf4d36faf09e2ba7c3e15c42c507b3

ANOTHER FUN CLICK: THE BELLY-DANCING CONGRESSMAN. Kat Vecchio with Atlas Obscura, "The bombastic copy on the dust jacket of Sol Bloom's 1948 autobiography proclaims him "one of the world's most distinguished and influential citizens" and "a great American." Bloom was indeed an influential citizen, as well as a 14-term United States congressman, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and delegate to the conference that established the United Nations. But Bloom's most lasting contribution to American society had nothing to do with politics. He holds the curious distinction of being the person who introduced belly dance to American audiences."
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=49442e366ed81bfed75a28f984591e2ecd69b82a0c198d7049fcc0c3ed025d72

2016 PITSTOP:

- Sanders scrambles to keep pace with Clinton - By Gabriel Debenedetti: "Climbing off the mat after five morale-busting losses last week, Bernie Sanders won the Democrats Abroad primary on Monday and followed that up by taking two of the three Democratic contests Tuesday...Still, the revolution remains stalled: Even under the best case scenario where he pulls out a tough win in Hawaii, carries Alaska and wins by a big margin in Washington this weekend, his trajectory isn't steep enough to get him within striking distance of Hillary Clinton, who came into Tuesday with a lead of more than 300 pledged delegates. His problem isn't that he's not winning enough states. It's that when he wins,
it's not by large enough margins and it's not in large enough states." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=49442e366ed81bfe496d76756a404b634c7e98619553ee0da91e1b3023b1b722

- Trump and Cruz shift to trench warfare - Via Shane Goldmacher: "The Republican primary shifted to a new phase - trench warfare - as Donald Trump and Ted Cruz each won one state in Tuesday's contests and dug in for an increasingly ugly battle that will now likely drag through the final primary in California, if not beyond. Trump won Arizona and its 58 delegates. Cruz scored a victory in Utah and appeared poised to win all of its 40 delegates by winning more than 50 percent of the vote there. But the dueling results only underscored how far the GOP is from unifying behind Trump, who extended his delegate lead and cemented his frontrunner status."
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=49442e366ed81bfe30a4f9d0efbd5b4b0967b1cde68335bef9343c7ec46a6b37

TUESDAY'S TRIVIA WINNER - Patrick Pfingsten correctly named February 12 as the date in 2008 when Barack Obama took the lead in total delegates, both pledged and unpledged combined.

TODAY'S TRIVIA - Patrick has today's question. Indiana is known as the "Mother of Vice Presidents," as five elected Vice Presidents have come from the state. Name them. The first person to correctly answer gets a mention in the next day's Huddle. E-mail lfrench@politico.com

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