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Home , Jeff Sessions, Politico, Tea Party Caucus

VOL. 4 NO. 104 POLITItuesday, juLy 20, 2010 CO www..cOm Levin opens goP Leaders His Wallet Leery of tea In a Bid to Keep gavel Party Caucus By Jonathan allen and JaKe sherman By simmi auJla With the official formation of Thanks to Rep. ’s a congressional Tea Party Cau- scandals, Rep. has cus, Rep. has been the accidental chairman of thrust an existential question be- the Ways and Means Committee, fore House Republican leaders: enjoying the powerful perch with- Are you in or are you out? out having to fight anyone for it. Indiana’s , chairman But he’s making an aggressive of the Republican Conference, AP Photos move to lock onto that gavel, dou- Rep. Michele was adamant. “You betcha,” he bling his fundraising this elec- Bachmann said, deploying a catch- tion cycle and phrase. spreading his But Minority Leader John Boeh- money to key ner won’t have his name on the D e m o c r a t i c caucus list. constituencies. And Rep. For ’s and his chief deputy, Rep. Kevin Levin, never McCarthy of — known thought of as a as “Young Guns” for the GOP — john shinkle — power hitter in AP are undecided. Politico the Democratic Republicans say sen. injected gender politics into the nominee debate. Rep. Mike Minnesota’s Bachmann, a fa- Rep. Sander Caucus, the Pence vorite of the , Levin chairmanship is a chance to See tEa Party on Page 19 show not only that he can make tax policy but also that he can be Leahy: GOP Males It In a financial powerhouse for Demo- cratic campaigns. The timing of his fundraising Republicans complain of gender politics Will Infighting surge is critical: Levin is also about to get his national close-up, By senator who chairs the Judiciary as the Ways and Means Commit- Committee, has used a “these women” Spoil the Party? tee will be the center of debate Sen. Patrick Leahy has repeatedly versus “those men” construct several By Kenneth P. VoGel over extending the Bush admin- referred to the gender of President times in speeches that tout nominee istration income tax cuts, a politi- ’s Supreme Court nom- and Associate Justice When a group called the National Tea Party Fed- cally perilous debate staged in the inees, suggesting that more than just , injecting a sharper eration took it upon itself to read California radio run-up to November. partisan politics may be driving the tone into the Supreme Court fight and host Mark Williams and the out Levin has targeted three Demo- GOP opposition. irking his GOP colleagues, who think of the insurgent movement because of Williams’s cratic groups — politically vulner- “When a Republican president nom- he’s playing the gender card. mocking and racially tinged attack on the NAACP, able junior lawmakers, candidates inated a man to the Supreme Court, “If a nominee is being objected to the media seized on the episode as evidence of the in Michigan and the Democratic the schedule was fine,” Leahy thun- who happens to be a woman, he raises tea party movement’s struggle to purge racism from Congressional Campaign Com- dered on the Senate floor recently. the issue that somehow this indicates its ranks. mittee, which gets him noticed by “When a Democratic president nomi- a bias against women,” Sen. But for tea party organizers, who for months have Speaker . nated women to the Supreme Court , ranking Republican on grappled with what they contend are false allega- In the second quarter of the with exactly the same schedule, sud- the committee, told POLITICO. “If you tions of racism, the incident highlighted a problem year, Levin has done 12 fundrais- denly it’s not a fair schedule.” they believe is a more serious threat to the tea par- Leahy, the six-term Democratic See LEaHy on Page 14 See LEvIn on Page 13 See FIgHt on Page 19

Richard Land Churches Eye Immigration’s Upside (left) of the southern Some evangelicals acknowledge top leaders acknowledge another important reason: Baptist conven- Latino immigrants, legal and illegal, represent fer- tion talks with migrants could grow their flocks tile prospects for proselytizing. Bishop gerald “First and foremost, it’s a kingdom issue, and, sec- Kicanas, Archdi- By Josh Gerstein and ond, it’s a moral issue,” Richard Land, the president ocese of tucson, of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the at a congressio- Evangelical groups in recent weeks have become Southern Baptist Convention, told POLITICO. “We nal hearing last key players in the Obama administration’s efforts have hundreds of thousands of Hispanic Southern week. to get immigration reform moving in Congress. And Baptists and many of them are undocumented. ... It’s while they have largely couched their arguments in AP moral terms or with references to biblical teachings, See ImmIgratIon on Page 17

iNside Politico 44 simon says Politics Rep. arena digest allen Boyd ’s “single most successful causes grief for Allen Boyd spends big to hold off vs. Washington elites john shinkle leader”? It isn’t Barack Obama. Democrats in . threats from the right and the left. — Politico on a mosque at ground zero. Page 3 Page 4 Page 21 Page 25