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A push for gun rights including a stand your ground bill that drew a packed hearing at the Minnesota Legislature did not get a bill to the governors desk.

Both proponents and opponents of gun-rights bills expected strong backing this year, given that Republicans had just taken control of both houses.

But Republican leaders of key committees say they didnt want to push the bills when they were also working to craft a $46 billion budget for the state. They also anticipated strong opposition from DFL Gov. Mark Dayton, who has vetoed similar legislation in the past.

From a global perspective, the Senate didnt take it up, and the governor doesnt seem interested. Do you really want to take it up in a budget year? said Tony Cornish, a strong gun-rights advocate who chairs the Houses public safety committee.

The bills received a hearing in Cornishs public safety committee, but none in the Senate.

Why waste a lot of political capital on something that wont pass? asked Sen. Warren Limmer, R-Maple Grove, who chairs the Senate judiciary committee, through which a gun bill would likely have to pass. Dayton had vetoed bills like the ones lawmakers worked on this year in the past, and said this years measures would meet a similar fate.

The author of the gun-rights bills that received a hearing, Rep. Jim Nash, R-Waconia, said he was very disappointed that the Senate didnt move on the bill. Im just surprised that a duo Republican Legislature wouldnt move it at this time.

And Bryan Strawser of the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, which lobbies for gun rights, said there are a lot of people in House and Senate that have made campaign promises that will be held accountable in 2018.

Strawsers group endorsed Limmer in 2016, and gave him an A grade for his positions.

Hes been very disappointing when it comes to delivering. But prior to now, hes had an impeccable track record, Strawser said.

The Rev. Nancy Nord Bence, executive director of Protect Minnesota, a gun-control advocacy group, said her group mobilized its base eight times this year including four rallies.

She expressed exuberance that the bills hadnt made it to either full House or Senate votes in 2017, but quickly added, We have to remember theyre viable for another year.

And when it came to opposing legislation, Its also an utter defeat for the three gun-prevention bills that didnt even get a hearing.

The two bills that received a hearing this year include a constitutional carry bill, which would have eliminated the need for a gun permit on public property entirely in most cases, and the stand your ground bill, which would have expanded the types of incidents in which it is legal to take another persons life.

Current law allows a Minnesotan to use lethal force to stop a felony in their own homes. The stand your ground bill would have allowed lethal force to stop a variety of felonies, whether the potential victim was at home or not. In a home, a person could also have used deadly force in incidents they believed in good faith were required to succeed in defense.

Both bills received a hearing in Cornishs committee, but never got any further. Proponents of the stand your ground legislation were anticipating a floor vote of the entire House in the Legislatures final days, but that never materialized.

Legislation similar to the stand your ground bill reached the governors desk in 2012. At the time, Dayton said he opposed it due to strong concerns from the law enforcement community.

The hometown of Rep. Jim Nash has been corrected in this story.

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Minnesota gun rights legislation fails to get far, despite Republican legislative control - TwinCities.com-Pioneer Press

What conservative Republicans such as Paul Ryan, the House Speaker, dislike about Medicaid isnt just that its fiscally progressive. They also dislike that its working.CreditPHOTOGRAPH BY ALEX WONG / GETTY

Many people who dont use Medicaid think of it as a federal health-care program for the impoverished and destitute, but its much more than that. In the past couple of decades, as incomes have stagnated and health-care costs have accelerated, Medicaid has turned into an essential support mechanism for millions of Americans who cant be classed as poverty-stricken, strictly speaking, but who also cant afford to bear the costs of private health coverage.

The numbers involved are huge. In March of this year, according toofficial figures, 74.6 million people were enrolled in plans supported by Medicaid or its sibling, the Childrens Health Insurance Program. Thats more than one in five of the U.S. population. Since 2013, the number of Medicaid and CHIP enrollees has risen by almost twenty million. Thats largely because the Affordable Care Act of 2010 significantly increased the programs income-eligibility thresholds.

The expansion under Obamacare focussed on working families with incomes just above the official poverty line. But many Medicaid beneficiaries are elderlyand infirm individuals living in nursing homes. In fact, about sixty per cent of all nursing-home residents now receive some sort of assistance from Medicaid. Kids are also big beneficiaries: Medicaid and CHIP now help to provide medical coverage for about a third of all the children in America.

Some of the families who benefit from Medicaid might not even realize they are receiving federal aid. Take New York States Child Health Plus program, which provides medical insurance for the children of low- to middle-income families who dont qualify for regular Medicaid. The program is partially funded by New York taxpayers, but it also receives matching funds from CHIP. Other states have similar programs.

Many Republican-run states have refused to accept Obamacares expansion of Medicaid, but someincluding Arizona, Iowa, Ohio, and Pennsylvaniahave agreed to participate. Although the detailsdiffer from place to place, the common thread is that Republican governors and legislatures in these states have seized the opportunity get more of their citizens health-care coverage.

At the national level, however, the Republican Party remains implacably opposed to Medicaid expansion. As the House Republicans health-care-reform bill, called the American Health Care Act, makes clear, the Party doesnt merely want to roll back the Obamacare reforms; it wants to shrink the entire program, transferring it to the states and imposing tight caps on the payments they receive from the federal government.

That is the blueprint for Medicaid laid out in the latest version of the A.H.C.A., which Paul Ryan, the House Speaker, and his colleagues voted through, earlier this month.According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Offices scoring of the A.H.C.A., which it released on Wednesday, the bill would reduce over-all federal spending on health care by about $1.1 trillion over ten years. Of that, eight hundred and thirty-four billion dollarsfully three-quarters of the savingswould come from cuts to Medicaid.

The political battle over the A.H.C.A., and much of the media coverage, has focussed on the individual-insurance marketand the bill would have alarming consequences there, such as forcing much higher premiums onpeople with prexisting conditionsandold people of modest means. But,in terms of over-all money spent and numbers of people affected, the bigger story lies elsewhere. From a financial and human perspective, the Republican bill is, above all else, an assault on Medicaid.

The C.B.O. estimates that by 2026, if the A.H.C.A. were enacted, spending on Medicaid would be reduced by a quarter compared to current spending. In the same time period, the number of people covered by Medicaid and CHIP would fall by about fourteen millionaccounting for almost two-thirds of the total decrease of twenty-three million predicted by the C.B.O.

Why is the Republican Party so hostile toward Medicaid? It cant simply be reflecting the wishes, and interests, of its voters, many of whom are now beneficiaries of the program. Donald Trump appeared to understand this when, from the beginning of his campaign, he promised not to cut Medicaid. (Of course, this pledge turned out to be worth about as much as a marketing flyer for Trump University.)

The two keys to the Republican attitude are money and ideology. If you view the modern G.O.P. as basically a mechanism to protect the wealthy, Medicaid is an obvious target for the Party. The program caters to low- and middle-income people, and its recent expansion was financed partly by an increase in taxes on the richest households in the country.

Under the Affordable Care Act, households with taxable incomes of more than a quarter of a million dollars a year were obliged to pay a 3.8-per-cent tax on their investment incomemoney from things like stock dividends and interest payments on bondsand a 0.9-per-cent surtax on their other earnings. TheA.H.C.A. would abolish these taxes, providing significant handouts to families in the top one per cent. From a fiscal perspective, the cuts to Medicaid pay for these handouts.

Some analysts would leave it there and say that you dont need to get into the nature of conservative ideology; that ideology is merely a pretext for taking from the poor and giving to the rich. I have some sympathy for this view, but I dont think its the whole story.

What conservative Republicans like Ryan dislike about Medicaid isnt just that its fiscally progressive. They also dislike that its working.As medical costs have risen and the private sector has failed to cover an increasing number of Americans, the Medicaid and CHIP programs have filled some of the coverage gap, and have done so relatively cheaply. (Studies show that covering people with private insurance plans costs somewhere between a quarter and a thirdmore than Medicaid.)

For any politician who loathes government interventions in the economy, and whose real goal is to head off socialized medicine, the expansion of Medicaid represents a serious threat. Here is an embryonic single-payer system that is growing fast and could befurther expanded pretty easily. That means it has to be crippled now, before it gets more firmly established. Hence, the A.H.C.A.

Of course, the A.H.C.A.isnt yet law. The measure now goes to the Republican-controlled Senate, where attention will again focus on premiums and coverage in the individual market. These are important issues, to be sure. But also keep a keen eye on what happens to the Medicaid provisions of the bill. If you want to know where todays G.O.P. ultimately stands, that will be the biggest tell.

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The Republicans' War on Medicaid - The New Yorker

On a Saturday night in Lewiston, Maine, in the fall 0f 1973, a first-term Republican was seeking a moment of refuge from congressional duties. But during the intermission of the hockey game Rep. William Cohen was watching, a local reporter showed up to ask about the resignation of the United States attorney general. After realizing the news was true, Cohen also realized something else: that his life in Congress, and the nations history, were about to take a sharp turn.

I knew at that moment that this was going to be one of the most serious challenges I, and the nation, would ever face, Cohen recalled of Richard M. Nixons Saturday Night Massacre in an interview this week.

Long before he became the secretary of defense, well before his 18 years in the Senate, Cohen was a 33-year-old freshman on the House Judiciary Committee grappling with the impeachment of President Richard M. Nixon. Cohen believes that todays members of Congress must dedicate themselves in similar fashion to the task of learning what happened in the 2016 election and whether any crimes, or high crimes, were committed by Donald Trumps campaign with Russian operatives.

You have a higher duty, said Cohen, who was one of just seven Republicans to cast votes supporting Nixons impeachment. Just follow the facts.

As a senator in the late 1980s, Cohen served on the committee that investigated the Iran-contra scandal, co-authoring a book, Men of Zeal, with his fellow senator from Maine, George Mitchell (D), who also served on the panel.

One of their lessons, rejecting an idea some are calling for today, was that it was a mistake to create a select Iran-contra committee with members of the House and Senate. They come from very different cultures and traditions, Cohen said.

Mitchell and Cohen discovered the power of the cult of personality in the infancy of cable news coverage of major congressional investigations. Their star witness, Oliver North, the National Security Council aide who helped orchestrate arms sales to Iran, turned himself into a conservative icon with testimony that was built on showmanship.

With Oliver North, Cohen and Mitchell wrote, television had a torrid love affair.

How dangerous are the cracks emerging in Trumps wall of support?

Fast forward 30 years, when a different personality rode his love affair with mass communications, from cable TV to social media, all the way to the White House. The single biggest difference between the Nixon impeachment and todays environment, according to Cohen, is how social media has devalued major TV personalities and news organizations in delivering important messages to the public.

We still believed in Uncle Walter, Cohen said, referring to the legendary CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite. That no longer exists. The Twitter world has changed that, and the president has changed that.

The three-term senator from Maine, who now runs an international lobbying and consulting firm, believes it is too soon to talk about an impeachment trial for Trump. He said that the special counsel appointment of Robert S. Mueller III was critical because the former FBI director has such credibility among Republicans and Democrats giving Mueller a dual role of leading the investigation and also reassuring the public that it is a credible probe.

(Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)

Cohen backed several other Republicans in last years GOP primary and eventually endorsed Democrat Hillary Clinton, refusing to support Trump the moment he attacked the war-hero credentials of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) early in the campaign. Cohen served in McCains and his wife Cindys wedding party.

Surviving West Wing constitutional crises often requires major course corrections sometimes on policy, sometimes on personnel, sometimes both. Before the Iran-contra hearings began in 1987, President Ronald Reagan delivered a prime-time speech admitting some mistakes. He also orchestrated a major staff shake-up.

Reagan made changes and he accepted responsibility, Cohen said.

Todays investigations are rooted in the House and Senate intelligence committees, panels that were created in Watergates wake. There were early signs of sharp partisanship, but each panel remains optimistic about meeting the challenge.

There are members in both parties and both houses who will follow the facts. Right now we dont know where the facts are going to lead, said Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), a longtime friend of Cohen. King was a Democratic staffer in the Senate during Watergate and now serves on the Intelligence Committee.

I dont think you can say that things have changed so much that there arent thoughtful, serious, responsible people. There are such people, he said.

Believe it or not, Senates Russia investigation is moving faster than its Watergate counterpart 44 years ago

Cohen recalls key impeachment meetings as if they took place last month. The fight over securing the secret tapes of Nixons White House discussions served as his breaking point. A senior Republican on the Judiciary Committee asked for a show of hands who would join their partisan stand opposing Democratic requests for a letter demanding the full tapes.

I left the room, Cohen said.

He called the chairman, Peter Rodino (D-N.J.), and began negotiating with Democrats, culminating in a meeting with two southern conservative Democrats and a handful of Republicans.

They formed the critical bloc that would determine Nixons fate. Over coffee and bagels, Rep. Walter Flowers (D-Ala.) told the group they needed to shake things up and not leave until they settled on which articles of impeachment they would support.

Two articles won the backing of the group, the two that passed on 27-to-11 votes in committee in late July 1974. Less than two weeks later, Nixon resigned.

Throughout 1974, conservatives in northern Maine backed away from Cohen as a traitor, making his general election against a Democrat who had been a prisoner of war in Vietnam seem like a lost cause. I started to get lots of hate mail, he said, believing his career would likely end after a single term. I was planning on not coming back.

Once Nixon resigned, Republicans rallied around Cohen, as did most independents. He won in a landslide and went on to the Senate in 1979 and the Pentagon in 1997.

While others have lost faith entirely in Congress, Cohen still has faith in people like King. Theyll do the right thing.

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Echoes of 1973: One longtime Republican lawmaker recalls the challenge of bucking his own party's president - Washington Post

Sen. Lamar Alexander has found himself in an uncommon position for most Republicans this year: Trying to save the shaky insurance markets created by the 2010 health care lawbefore attending to a major overhaul of the law.

The opinions of the Tennessees senior senator carry significant weight among his colleagues. He is a close confidant of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and also chairs the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

And while Alexander has been a near constant critic of former President Barack Obamas signature domestic achievement, he is now one of the leading voices in the chamber for saving it, at least for 2018 and 2019.

We might have to do some things and authorize some things in those two years that we wouldnt do long-term, he saidlast week. And then in 2020, we would hope to have our long-term solution for the people that dont have the insurance.

Republicans are employing a budget tool known as reconciliation to push forward legislation to repeal large portions of the law. The method requires only a simple majority to pass the Senate. That means the GOP, which holds 52 seats in the chamber, can advancethe measure with only Republican support. The House passed its own repeal bill earlier this month in a narrow 217-213 vote.

But now, Alexander is trying to sell his colleagues on a two-step process that includes using the fiscal 2017 reconciliation instructions to pass short-term market stabilization measures, effectively delaying any major repeal efforts. He recognizes, however, that obtaining support for such an approach could be an uphill battle.

Theres a strong bias towards taking both steps at the one time because the urgency of what might happen in 2018 and 2019 gives us an incentive to pass the long-term plan, too, he said. We need to do something immediately to help the 2018 and 19, but I hope its connected to a long-term solution.

A GOP aide said this years reconciliation measure is being looked at for several purposes outside of strictly repealing the health care law, including stabilizing the insurance markets and putting Medicaid on a budget.

Such a move would have a dramatic impact on the GOPs legislative agenda and could be a tough sell among some members of the conference. Passing a package of stabilization measures would require Republicans to essentially support, at least in the short term, a law members spent the past seven years criticizing. It could also make a tax overhaul, the next major legislative item on the GOP agenda, more difficult and push some substantial work on health care until an election year, a notoriously difficult time for passing major legislation.

Some members, however, expressed early support forthe proposal.

It sounds like a pretty decent idea. If we are going to lower premiums, we better start soon, Louisiana GOP Sen. Bill Cassidysaid. Its more important to get it right than to get it sooner, so I just want to get it right because theres a lot of lives at stake.

Several GOP members said they would need to see more details on what exactly would be proposed.

Hes looking for ideas that make the transition work. So the idea is to transition from what we have to repeal and replace, North Dakota Sen. John Hoevensaid. Were working on a number of different ways to make transition.

The topic has come up during semiweeklymeetings of a health care working group initially charged with writing the bill. GOP lawmakers leaving a meeting last week said the group was looking at legislative solutions, as well as actions that can be taken unilaterally by the executive branch.

This is merely a short-term stabilization. Weve got to do that because those markets are collapsing, Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnsonsaid. Then, I think, weve got to take a look at what the long term is.

Johnson has been discussing a two-part strategy of stabilize and repeal as well.

I dont think we are going to be able to come to a conclusion quickly enough to stabilize these markets, he said Tuesday, acknowledging the tricky politics of shoring up the exchanges created by a law the GOP has excoriated for years. The way you sell it to members is [to] get the reality out on the table, that premiums arent going up because of Republicans. Premiums are going up because Obamacare is collapsing these markets.

While Alexander did not provide many specifics on what exactly he would propose as part of the stabilization efforts, he suggested funding in 2018 and 2019 the laws so-called cost-sharing subsidies, which help lower out-of-pocket costs for lower income individuals, as an initial step.

The Trump administration on Monday asked for another 90-day delay in a case brought by the House of Representatives in 2014 against the Obama administration that questioned the constitutionality of those payments. Insurance companies have expressed their dismay at the lack of clarity regarding the payments, which they need to understand in order to formulate insurance policies.

Alexander has also been pushing a bill he sponsored along with fellow Tennessee RepublicanBob Corkerthat would allow individuals in counties with no insurer on the individual market to use the laws tax credits on noncompliant plans.

Erin Mershon contributed to this report.

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Republican Senator Seeks to Save Obamacare Before Dismantling It - Roll Call

Former Miami Dade School Board member Raquel Regalado announced her candidacy for outgoing Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinensseat in Florida's 27th Congressional District in 2018.

Ros-Lehtinen announced she would not seek re-electionlast month, creating an opening for Democrats to pick up a seat in a district that voted overwhelmingly for Hillary Clinton in 2016.

But Regalado, who calls herself a compassionate Republican, told the Miami Herald she thinks she is the type of moderate who could hold onto the district.

I think the majority of people believe it will be better to have a Republican in the room than a Democrat out in the hall, Regalado said.

Regalado campaigned for Democratic candidate Alex Sink for governor in 2010 as opposed to Republican Gov. Rick Scott, and neither shenor her father voted for President Donald Trump.

Im a moderate voice and Im not shying away from that,she said.

Regalado is the daughter of Miami Mayor Tomas Pedro Regalado and has two children on the autism spectrum.

We need to find jobs and opportunities for autistic adults after the age of 22, and I can do that work in Washington, she said.

So far Miami Dade Commissioner Bruno Barriero is the only other Republican to announce his candidacy, but Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera is also a potential candidate.

Democratic candidates include businessman Scott Fuhrman, who lost to Ros-Lehtinen last year, Michael A. Hepburn, Mark Anthony Person, and Miami Beach CommissionerKristen Rosen Gonzalez.

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'Compassionate Republican' Announces Run for Ros-Lehtinen's Seat - Roll Call