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03/14/2016 08:39 AM EDT


By Rachael Bade (Rbade@politico.com or @RachaelMBade)

DRIVING THE WEEK - "Hill Republicans on the hot seat." Lauren sums up the news driving both chambers this week. Part I: "Congressional Republicans return to work this week facing two distinct and daunting challenges, one an act of will and another a test of defiance. In the House, GOP leaders are struggling to break a months-long impasse over passing a new budget, a top priority this year for new Speaker Paul Ryan. There's been no significant progress in forging a spending plan that passes conservative muster, even as senior Republicans spent a week-long recess fielding proposals and ideas from lawmakers."

Part II: "Across the Capitol, senators are awaiting President Barack Obama's pick to fill the late Antonin Scalia's seat on the Supreme Court. An announcement could come as soon as Monday. The nomination will attach a face to the back-and-forth over the Supreme Court vacancy and transform what's been a somewhat abstract confrontation between the two parties since Scalia's death a month ago. Republicans will have to oppose not just the idea of allowing President Barack Obama to install a new judge in his final year an office, but an actual person with a presumably strong judicial record." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=647ce87692197e1c5973f18d193f2a2de8fd60f6990d1666b7c0255295a717d5

BREAKING IT DOWN -

BUDGET BATTLE LINES DRAWN: "House GOP makes one more big push to get a budget," my former tax team colleague Kelsey Snell with the deets for the Post: "House Republicans are running out of time to adopt a budget and their leaders plan to make a major push this week to rally members behind a spending plan. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wisc.) has been working for weeks with House Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price (R-Ga.) to convince hardline conservatives to back a budget that includes $30 billion in new spending agreed to last year as part of a bipartisan deal... Key to the sales pitch is a plan to offset the cost ... by slashing funding or finding savings elsewhere in the budget, such as
in Medicaid and social services grant programs. Several House committees will consider legislation this week that would make these cuts." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=647ce87692197e1c3bb95a190702a7e16856e7111808f7180036d223c5043282

WHITE HOUSE PLAYBOOK: "W.H. preps Supreme Court battle plan," a team effort from our White House reporter Edward-Isaac Dovere and in-house legal brain Josh Gerstein: "As soon as President Barack Obama announces a Supreme Court nominee from his short list - which is now set - the White House and its allies will unleash a coordinated media and political blitz aimed at weakening GOP resistance to confirming the president's pick. Administration allies have already started putting a ground game in place. Obama campaign veterans have been contracted in six states - New Hampshire, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where GOP incumbents are most vulnerable, plus Senate Judiciary Chairman
Chuck Grassley's Iowa. With Republicans flatly refusing even courtesy meetings with a nominee, let alone confirmation hearings, they're also looking into photo ops with Senate Democrats, and could pursue mock hearings or other events meant to highlight GOP intransigence, according to sources familiar with the planning. Obama is expected to announce a nominee as early as this week." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=647ce87692197e1c36b4808daca69ad3fb6b0c724b50e9d7388aa0edc09f07ae

"For Harry Reid, the Supreme Court Vacancy Offers One Last Fight," per David Herszenhorn with the N.Y. Times: "Instead of cruising to retirement after securing a two-year budget deal last fall and essentially bequeathing his leader's suite to Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, Mr. Reid, Democrat of Nevada, is waging war with Republicans over the Supreme Court vacancy left by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. Though the battle is decidedly uphill, it is one that supporters of Mr. Reid, 76 and in his 30th and last year in the Senate, say he is well suited to wage. Win or lose, it will be a fitting capstone to a career that included eight years as majority leader, and countless bitter
feuds, during one of the most rankly partisan periods in Senate history." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=647ce87692197e1cba1f175781aea5885bded4d6a662861ffec27e02dcd1166c

COFFEE, PLEASE. It's March 14, 2016 and you're reading the one, the only POLITICO Huddle, where spring-forward has us enviously glaring at our two cats still sleeping at the foot of the bed. Bring on the caffeine this morning. And email me at rbade@politico.com or tweet me @RachaelMBade if you need to reach me.

TODAY IN CONGRESS. House returns at 6:30 p.m. for a series of suspenders. The Senate returns in the afternoon and votes at 5:30 p.m. on John King of New York to be Secretary of Education.

AROUND THE HILL. House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer holds a pen-and-pad at 2 p.m.

"WHY THE GOP FANTASY TO NOMINATE PAUL RYAN IS LIKELY TO FIZZLE." Kristina Peterson for the Wall Street Journal: "A group called the Committee to Draft Speaker Ryan has been compiling signatures on an online petition urging Mr. Ryan to enter the race. The GOP's 2012 vice-presidential nominee, Mr. Ryan has already said he has no intention of running for president this year. But some hope that a potentially chaotic GOP convention in Cleveland this July could end up with delegates coalescing around Mr. Ryan. It's an extremely unlikely scenario, but not impossible - at least not yet." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=647ce87692197e1c46336f3031a867211c6a0c863523ce5df92a6ffc4d3e5e45

THOSE OTHER ELECTIONS. "For favored Republican vets in Congress, an anxious day looms." Paul Kane for The Washington Post: "The next set of canaries will be sent into the coal mine Tuesday. That's when another clutch of veteran congressional Republicans will find themselves in primary contests they're favored to win, but they are still anxious about them because of the anti-Washington turbulence in the GOP embodied by Donald Trump's presidential campaign. Among others, there's Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), chairman of the Intelligence Committee; Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.), a nearly 20-year veteran who's also angling for one of the most coveted gavels in Congress; and, in a highly symbolic
race that doesn't involve incumbents, a tea party bid to claim the seat left vacant by the retirement of former House speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio)." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=55383d15c419316351a8b710a7e13b67de39d54b7030e4ba882bc9264252c5a3

ICYMI SUNDAY: "Republican candidates run against ghost of John Boehner." He may be gone, but the ex-Speaker is still a favorite punching bag for the far-right. Scott Wong with the read on The Hill Sunday rooster: "Rep. Marlin Stutzman, running for an open Senate seat in Indiana, is out with a new TV ad touting his 2015 vote to oust Boehner from the Speaker's office. It's a not-so-subtle jab at his primary opponent, fellow Rep. Todd Young, who backed Boehner. Former Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.) came out swinging in his challenge to GOP Rep. Doug Collins last week, saying Collins has the 'values of Paul Ryan, John Boehner and the Washington establishment.'"

"Even in Tuesday's crowded, 15-man primary race to fill Boehner's vacant southwest Ohio seat, some candidates are accusing opponents of being another Boehner clone, even though the former Speaker consistently won reelection to his House seat by large margins. Though he resigned from Congress back in October, the unpopular former Speaker's name and likeness are still cropping up on the campaign trail in some of the fiercest congressional primary contests. And given that outsiders like Donald Trump and Ted Cruz are dominating the GOP presidential primary, it's no surprise why some Republicans are trying to tie their primary opponents to a longtime Capitol Hill insider who came to embody the
D.C. establishment." http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=55383d15c4193163cdf83276304c1a2fcd997cc907d69dd77a5479c3fe53adc5

Also this: "Boehner endorses Kasich days before primary," per Keith Biery Golick for the Cincinnati Enquirer: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=55383d15c4193163ad6b75e1d9c6f98daee9ab3524b1833827a125e0cb70ac37

EMILY'S LIST DOMINATES MARYLAND SENATE PRIMARY. Pro Campaigns' Kevin Robillard reports: "EMILY's List is spending record sums to elect Rep. Donna Edwards to the Senate - and, by extension, halt the political career of a longtime male ally whose supporters can't wrap their heads around the decision. Baffled backers of Rep. Chris Van Hollen cannot believe how much money ($2.5 million) the Democratic women's group is planning to spend for Edwards ahead of a general election filled with other House and Senate priorities, not to mention the presidential race. It's the most EMILY's List has ever directed into a Democratic primary. And it's going against a candidate with a solid abortion-rights
record who worked with EMILY's List candidates for years at House Democrats' campaign committee." Behind our paywall, but: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=55383d15c41931637e6dffb6f1bddd2710c9ac5abbcc5f35d253cdfb1f691f1b

MOVING ON. Rep. Nita Lowey's press secretary Matt Wojtkun celebrated his last day with the office on Friday, making the move back to Powell Tate to become vice president of the public affairs firm after two years with Lowey. Rep. Carolyn Maloney's deputy chief and coms director Mike Morosi is also moving on, leaving Mike Iger, her chief, to take over for press communications until late March, when a new press secretary is expected to be named. So, too, is Meghan Roh in Sen. Tammy Baldwin's office. She said "farewell, Capitol Hill" in an email after almost seven years working for Congress. She starts as coms director for the HHS Department's office of the national coordinator for health
information technology.

FRIDAY'S TRIVIA WINNER: Michael Toulouza was the first to name the three government jobs that Teddy Roosevelt and Franklin Delano Roosevelt both had at one point in each of their careers: Governor of New York, assistant secretary of the Navy and, of course, President of the United States. (Shout to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who also got this one right - though a few minutes too late!)

TODAY'S TRIVIA: Comes from our winner Michael: The 23rd Ohio Infantry served in the Civil War. Two of its members like became President - name them. Email me: rbade@politico.com

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