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Unprompted, Hatch said he has a good relationship with Koskinen. It's an influential statement of support because Hatch serves as Senate president pro tem making him third in line to succeed the president. Hatch also led the Senate Finance Committee investigation of allegations the IRS targeted conservative groups for audits, and said Koskinen cooperated.

But Hatch's backing may not be enough to counter the ire against Koskinen from other Republicans, some of whom want him to step down before his five-year-term ends in November.

On Wednesday, 15 GOP members of the House Ways and Means Committee said trust in the IRS has hit rock bottom. They said that under Koskinen, the IRS destroyed evidence when Congress was investigating the tax agency for inappropriately singling out conservative groups for extra scrutiny.

"He also misled Congress in the process, intentionally degraded customer service at the agency, and has since lost the trust of the American people," the committee members wrote.

Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, pointedly said he would not be inviting Koskinen to testify about the tax filing season.

Despite the fact that Koskinen was not at the IRS during the scandal over conservative groups, he has become a favorite whipping boy of House Republicans. They complained that he was slow to comply with their requests for information, hauling him before congressional panels dozens of times sometimes just to berate him.

President Barack Obama appointed Koskinen to the aftermath of the scandal over conservative groups. Koskinen is a turnaround specialist with extensive experience in the public and private sectors.

He came in to overhaul mortgage buyer Freddie Mac after its near-collapse in the financial crisis at the end of President George W. Bush's administration. He also helped restructure the assets of the largest failed life insurance company in U.S. history, Mutual Benefit Life, and helped reorganize the Penn Central Transportation Company after it became the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history.

Koskinen said he has not heard from anyone in the Trump administration about stepping down.

But in tense exchange at Thursday's hearing, Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., asked Koskinen if he intends to finish his term.

"It gives me no pleasure and some degree of sadness," Roberts said. "I have been disappointed in your record at the agency."

Koskinen replied, "I regret that you're disappointed in the performance."

Koskinen went on to defend his record. He said the IRS has implemented every recommendation from every investigation into the IRS handling of conservative groups. He said no one at the tax agency hindered any of the investigations.

Tribune staff contributed to this report

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At least 1 top Republican in Congress really likes IRS head: Orrin Hatch - Salt Lake Tribune

Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who previously stopped short of saying how she would vote on the nuclear option, argued that both parties "will rue the day" that led to the likely rule change.

"If it's necessary in order to get him confirmed, I may have to vote that way, but I certainly don't want to," Collins told reporters Monday night.

The nuclear option would lower the threshold for breaking a filibuster of a Supreme Court nominee from 60 to 51, meaning the majority party could approve a nominee on a party line vote.

By permanently nixing the 60-vote threshold filibuster for Supreme Court nominees in the future, critics say it will give the party in power all the leverage and eliminate the Senate's tradition of needing at least some bipartisanship to advance nominees.

Collins said she was "very troubled" that Democrats "put us in the situation" and that they'll regret it one day because the rule change will make it easier for presidents to get more ideological justices approved for the Supreme Court down the road.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, should he proceed to the nuclear option, needs only a simple majority of 51 to vote for a change in rules. It's possible McConnell will have his whole party -- 52 votes -- behind him, but not all Republicans have explicitly said they will back him in the effort.

He can only afford to lose two Republican senators, in which case Vice President Mike Pence would be needed to break a tie. If McConnell loses more than three Republicans, the rule change would not pass.

Collins said Gorsuch deserves to be on the high court and that she's "committed" to making sure he gets confirmed. While she said she worked with Republican Sen. John McCain and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin to try and hammer out a deal between the two parties, she said it was "not successful" and doubts there is any other option left but to go nuclear.

"And I think that is truly tragic," she said. "It gets bad for the Senate as an institution, and I think it is bad for the court, as well."

Other moderate Republicans didn't want to directly confirm they would vote for the rule change, even as they suggested they would if it was needed to get Gorsuch confirmed.

"I'm going to vote for Judge Gorsuch," was all Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, would say when asked if she would vote for the change in rules.

Pressed again if that meant she would vote for the rule change, she would not directly answer the question. "Meaning I'm going to support Judge Gorsuch," Murkowski replied.

When a reporter noted again that she had not actually answered the question, Murkowski responded: "I am working to get Judge Gorsuch confirmed to Supreme Court. That' s my interest," perhaps hinting that she would support nuclear option but perhaps not.

She's not the only Republican declining to directly answer the question.

Senators don't exactly want to go on the record saying they're in support of the rule change -- in fact, many of them personally aren't. Rather, they're only using language saying they'll confirm Gorsuch, one way or the other, and blaming Democrats for putting them in the situation.

Moderates are concerned about how voters in their states -- including Democrats, independents and moderate Republicans -- will react to them voting for the nuclear option.

Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tennessee, was equally vague when it came to saying if he would vote for the nuclear option. When a reporter asked why he was being coy, he denied it.

"I'm not being coy at all. Of course, I'm going to vote to confirm Judge Gorsuch. I'm absolutely outraged about what the Democrats are doing," Alexander said, again without directly answering the question. "I will vote to confirm Judge Gorsuch one way or another. One way or the other I'll vote for him. I've said everything I've got to say about it."

Conservative Republican Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi was part of bipartisan talks in 2013 to avert the nuclear option when Democrats were considering -- and ultimately used -- the rule change on lower court judges.

On Gorsuch, he says Republicans will do whatever it takes.

"The Senate will confirm Judge Gorsuch despite the filibuster," he told CNN.

Democrats, meanwhile, push back by saying Republicans launched the ultimate filibuster last year by blocking President Barack Obama's pick of Merrick Garland from getting a hearing or committee vote, keeping the seat vacant until a new president was sworn in.

Pressed by reporters on whether he will vote for the nuclear option, Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley refused to say yes. But he insisted that he is "going to do whatever it takes" to get Gorsuch on the Supreme Court.

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Frustrated Republicans prepare for the nuclear option - CNN

Good morning from Augusta, where Maine has its first real 2018 campaign with state Sen. Eric Brakey kicking off a steep underdog bid today to unseat independent U.S. Sen. Angus King.

We reported the 28-year-olds campaign launch last night, but there was more in the notebook from our Saturday interview with the Republican from Auburn. Heres what you should know.

Brakeys run will be deeply rooted in a small-government philosophy far different than Maines congressional delegation has championed. A libertarian-edged candidate running for federal office in Maine has to run up against a reality: The state is heavily dependent on federal funding.

Thats part of the reason why even Republicans in the congressional delegation have championed federal awards here, such as the millions of dollars in grants awarded last year to boost the flagging forest products industry.

In a general conversation about federal aid, Brakey decried the strings that come with federal aid and said that tax money would be better spent if returned to Mainers in the form of tax cuts.

So, I think if we were to move in a direction away from that, the Maine people would do much better, he said.

Brakey got his start in politics working for 2012 presidential candidate Ron Paul and is allies with his son, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, who have both advocated for cuts to defense spending.

In Maine, thats potentially another problem, since Bath Iron Works, which employs 6,000, is heavily dependent on Navy and Coast Guard contracts.

Brakey gave a qualified defense of the Bath shipyard, saying as long as the U.S. military needs ships, they should be built in Maine, but pushed Bath to also focus on commercial shipbuilding.

He wouldnt say who he voted for in the 2016 presidential election. That small-government philosophy has sometimes boxed Brakey in among his party. For instance, it separates him from President Donald Trump, who has melded socially conservative stances with big-government planks like sharp increases in defense and infrastructure spending.

When asked who he voted for in the election, Brakey took about 20 seconds in which he laughed, paused and thought before saying, I did not vote for Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee, saying the outcome was far better than if she won and that it showed people that they not the establishment in both parties control the process.

If elected, his path to the U.S. Senate would be far different than anyone Maine has ever sent. Its hard to say what past Maine campaign Brakeys bid resembles, given his youth and Kings status as a popular former two-term governor. Brakey will be 30 years old in August 2018, making him just old enough to assume the office under the Constitution. He would be Maines youngest U.S. senator ever, eclipsing the record held by Peleg Sprague, who was elected at age 35 in 1829.

Maine also hasnt sent someone straight to the U.S. Senate from the Maine Legislature since Eugene Hale in 1881, but Brakeys not really a fair comparison because Hale had served five terms in Congress before that. Were in uncharted territory here. Michael Shepherd, with research by the Maine Law and Legislative Library

The House and Senate convene at around 10 a.m. today and early on the House calendar is a LePage veto of LD 213, which seeks to provide access to medical facilities for military veterans whose state-issued drivers licenses are not compliant with federal Real ID laws. The bill, which would provide funding for Real ID-compliant passport cards, passed 110-8 in the House and unanimously in the Senate last month. LePage vetoed it because he doesnt believe the Legislature should provide carve-outs, but instead should enact a broader bill to comply with Real ID. Legislative leaders were still deciding whether to take up the veto override vote this morning.

In todays Senate Calendar, Sen. Geoff Gratwick, D-Bangor has proposed a joint order to create the Maine Health Advisory Committee to advise the Legislature regarding the interests of Maine citizens and businesses with respect to the delivery of health care in Maine. The panel would include five members of the Legislature, and people representing the insurance industry, Maine hospitals, hard-to-reach populations, health care providers, a health care advocacy group, a health economics group, and a health statistics, polling and data analysis organization.

On the committee schedule this afternoon are a number of work sessions. The Labor, Commerce, Research and Economic Development Committee will consider recommendations on a number of bills involving workplace safety and workers compensation laws. The Inland Fisheries and Wildlife committee will consider several bills related to Maines annual moose hunting season. The Health and Human Services Committee has a lengthy-looking afternoon scheduled, including a debate over a bill that would require the Maine Department of Health and Human Services to expend federal funds within a year of receiving them. This bill comes in the wake of reporting by the Bangor Daily News that some of those funds have been left unspent. Christopher Cousins

A bill from Rep. Heather Sirocki, R-Scarborough, that aimed to prohibit lying from everyone who testifies before a legislative committee was amended and endorsed by a committee on Monday to only apply to one group of people lobbyists.

In a 10-2 vote, the Legislatures State and Local Government Committee removed members of the public and state employees from the bill. Legislators, however, were never affected by Sirockis bill. It now goes to the floor.

The bill has been criticized by Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap for being unenforceable, though Sirocki has cited National Conference of State Legislatures data saying Maine is one of just nine states that doesnt address false testimony in law.

But in a statement, she said she hopes that in the future, the law will apply evenly to anyone who testifies in front of a legislative committee. Well see. Heres your soundtrack. Michael Shepherd

With tips, pitches, questions or feedback, email us at politics@bangordailynews.com. If youre reading The Daily Brief on the BDNs website or were forwarded it, click here to get Maines only newsletter on state politics and policy delivered via email every weekday morning.

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So, who is this young Republican who wants to unseat Angus King? - Bangor Daily News

Central to Donald Trumps presidential candidacy was the idea that the United States was beset by all manner of threats: terrorists pouring over the border, immigrants undercutting the economy and crime spiking. The first task for our new administration will be to liberate our citizens from the crime and terrorism and lawlessness that threatens their communities, Trump said during his convention speech and, despite deaths from terrorism being rare in the United States and the violent crime rate being lower now than it was when Barack Obama took office, the message clearly stuck.

Every two years, a national survey of political and social attitudes is conducted, called the General Social Survey. When it was conducted in 2014, 46 percent of respondents felt as thought the country was spending too little nationally on law enforcement. That figure had been trending downward since 2006. But in 2016, a spike back up, over the 50 percent mark.

Why? To some extent because of independents who indicated that they felt America should spend more on national law enforcement efforts. (Among independents, the figure topped 50 percent for the first time since the 1990s.) But mostly it was Republicans. The percent of Republicans saying that they felt as though too little was being spent on law enforcement surged 18 percentage points up 34 percent since the 2014 survey.

The figure in 2016 among Republicans was above the previous high-water mark, set in 1994.

In 1994, the national violent crime rate was 713.6 incidents per 100,000 residents. In 2015, the most recent year for which data is available, it was 372.6 just over half the 1994 rate.

How much of this is attributable to Trumps rhetoric isnt clear. Trump deftly seized upon issues that were already of concern to conservative Republicans over the course of his campaign, so he may have been trailing the trend, not leading it. Whats more, the issue of law enforcement became heavily politicized over the past two years, as high-profile incidents of police shooting criminal suspects and innocent people polarized the issue.

Interestingly, the number of people who want to spend more on law enforcement consistently trails the number interested in spending to fight crime. (The latter question has been asked for longer.)

Theres no real difference on that question when it comes to politics; Republicans and Democrats both are about as likely to say were spending too little in that regard. (Notice the change to the vertical axis on this graph.) Theres been an upward trend among each political group for the past several surveys.

Where theres a split is on race. Black Americans are far more likely to say that we should spend more on fighting crime than are whites.

Yet they are no more likely to say that we should spend more on law enforcement.

Republicans are the only group to think were spending too little on law enforcement and on crime to the same extent. Among no group is the gulf of opinions on that spending wider than among black Americans, who are 26 percentage points more likely to say were spending too little on crime than on law enforcement.

That black Americans should be more skeptical of law enforcement two years after the advent of the Black Lives Matter movement isnt surprising. That said, the percentage of black Americans who think too little is spent on national law enforcement didnt decrease since 2014, but instead stayed flat.

Trump has apparently made his priority here clear. His recent budget proposal focuses on adding new national law enforcement in the form of Border Patrol agents. Funding for efforts to reduce crime through preventive measures were, like many other line items, slashed.

The General Social Survey was funded primarily by the National Science Foundation and conducted through in-person interviews with a random national sample of roughly 1,900 adults in the spring of 2016. Overall results carry a margin of sampling error of roughly 2.5 percentage points; the error margin for subgroups is larger.

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Republican interest in spending on law enforcement surged 34 percent from 2014 to 2016 - Washington Post

WASHINGTON On March 21, Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval (R) vetoed legislation that would have automatically registered eligible voters when they sought services from the Department of Motor Vehicles. The veto made Sandoval the third Republican governor to sink automatic voter registration legislation and all three of them have seats that will be up for grabs in the next two years.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) vetoed similar legislation twice once in 2015 and again in 2016. Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner (R) also vetoed legislation in 2016. Christie, the most unpopular governor in the country, is term-limited and will not be on the ballot again this year. Sandoval will be term-limited out of office in 2018, while Rauner is up for re-election next year.

Its not surprising that Republican governors in those states lack enthusiasm for automatic voter registration, which tends to benefit Democratic candidates. Hillary Clinton won all three of those states in the 2016 election, and Democrats see them as top targets for next years midterms. New Jersey will vote for a new governor this November, and Democratic candidate Phil Murphy, a Goldman Sachs banker who has endorsed automatic registration, is currently leading the polls.

The issue is also a priority for Democrats in states where they are looking to consolidate power in 2018. Thirty-eight Republican governorships are up for election next year, including six in states Clinton won last fall. Democrats hope that President Donald Trumps poll numbers will remain low and help drag down the partys candidates. In states like Washington, Democrats just need to win a small number of seats to get full control of the state legislature. While automatic voter registration may not be at the top of voters minds, Democrats will almost surely advance the issue anywhere they claim a governors house and legislature next year.

Of all the possible reforms meant to increase voter registration and participation, few have taken off in the past three years as dramatically as automatic voter registration. Since 2015, six states and the District of Columbia have enacted automatic voter registration. Oregons state legislature approved it first, followed by Californias just seven months later. In 2016, West Virginia, Vermont and Washington, D.C., enacted the reform through legislation as well, while Connecticut Secretary of State Denise Merrill worked out an agreement with the state DMVto begin automatically registering voters. Alaska voters approved a ballot initiative making registration automatic last November.

Bills have been introduced in at least 30 states in the past two years. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) introduced federal legislation in 2015 to mandate automatic registration nationwide, though that never went anywhere. Both Clinton and then-President Barack Obama endorsed the reform in 2016. And progressive policy groups like the State Innovation Exchange and the New York-based nonprofit Brennan Center for Justice are working to advance legislation across the country over the next two years.

Really, in two years time this has gone from nowhere to quite a few states, Jonathan Brater, counsel for the Brennan Centers Democracy Program, told The Huffington Post. And theres even more legislation on the horizon.

Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Illinois, despite Rauners previous veto, top the list of states where legislation could be passed and signed into law. In Nevada, the issue is still alive, as Sandovals veto means the legislation will go directly before state voters on the November 2018 ballot. Colorado, like Connecticut, has already started the administrative process of moving to automatic voter registration.

The rapid rise of automatic registration as a high-profile issue stems from both partisan politics and structural changes that previous voting reforms brought about.

On the partisan side, Democrats feel the need to press reforms to make it easier to vote due to an earlier wave of Republican measures that sought to make it harder to vote, such as voter identification requirements, after the GOP won full control of 21 states in 2010.

If automatic voter registration leads to increased turnout, it would likely be a boon for Democrats in states with large numbers of unregistered eligible voters particularly younger people, Latinos and African-Americans, who tend to lean Democratic.

Brian Snyder / Reuters

When you expand the electorate, particularly when you expand the electorate among poor communities, communities of color, English as a second language speakers that tends to benefit progressive candidates, said Sam Munger, director of strategic engagement and senior adviser at the State Innovation Exchange.

Allegra Chapman, director of voting and elections at Common Cause, a nonpartisan election reform nonprofit, said, I think this is one of the ways that we ensure that instead of making it harder for people, trying to keep people who are eligible from voting, we really need to be offering greater access.

Advocates argue that automatic voter registration shouldnt be seen as a wholly partisan issue, pointing to its enactment in Republican-leaning Alaska and West Virginia, and the strong bipartisan support it has in the Illinois legislature.

The policy is also fairly easy to implement because it builds on previous voter registration reforms. The National Voter Registration Act of 1993, known popularly as the motor voter law, required all state DMVs to provide voter registration services for anyone coming in to get a new license, pay a ticket or receive any other service. And the Help America Vote Act, passed in 2002 after the Bush-Gore election debacle, provided funds for states to upgrade their voting infrastructure and create a centralized electronic voter database.

The changes made in response to those two laws have enabled most states to transfer an individuals registration information securely and electronically, which has made the process of moving to automatic voter registration much easier from a nuts-and-bolts perspective, Brater said.

Thats the main reason Oregon was able to implement the policy so rapidly after it passed in 2015, automatically registering 225,000 new votersin time for the 2016 election. Nearly 100,000 of those newly registered voters cast ballots in November.

But even states that dont have that infrastructure in place can still make advances. Connecticut, for example, never completed the Help America Vote Act reforms. When Merrill, Connecticuts secretary of state, began making changes to fulfill those old requirements in March 2016, state officials decided to go ahead and adopt automatic voter registration as part of that process.

Opposition to automatic voter registration has largely come from proponents of voter identification laws the same people who make unverified claims of widespread in-person voter fraud. Former Federal Election Commission memberHans von Spakovsky wrote in 2013 that automatic registration would threaten the integrity of elections and that it would violate [voters] basic right to choose whether they wish to participate in the U.S. political process.

Christie echoed this sentiment last year when he vetoed automatic voter registration legislation for the second time, calling it a cocktail of fraud. And when Rauner vetoed similar legislation in Illinois, he said the bill would inadvertently open the door to voter fraud.

Joe Raedle via Getty Images

Proponents argue that states can and do take steps to make sure non-eligible voters arent registered. In California, where undocumented immigrants can obtain drivers licenses, the state DMV already has a separate process to prevent non-eligible applicants from registering to vote. And residents who are not eligible to vote will be separated in advancewhen the state implements its automatic registration system.

Despite Rauners complaints of potential fraud, automatic registration proponents in Illinois think he will eventually sign legislation this session. A handful of Republican state legislators rolled out their own bill after Rauner vetoed the original legislation, and activist groups like Illinois Public Interest Research Group have decided to embrace the changes made in that replacement.

Illinois state Rep. Mike Fortner (R) explained in an op-edlast year that the new legislation would provide an upfront opt-out provision for anyone who does not want to be registered to vote (as is provided by every other state with automatic voter registration except Oregon). The new bill would also require voters to attest that they are indeed eligible to vote, as required by the National Voter Registration Act. Democrats have already passed a bill out of committee in the Illinois Senate that incorporates the new elements from the Republican bill.

Abe Scarr, the head of Illinois PIRG, says the main sticking point right now is whether automatic voter registration will be implemented before the 2018 election, as Democrats and supporting groups want, or whether it will begin in 2019, which is what Rauner and his fellow Republicans want.

Itll happen, Scarr said. The question is whether we are able to build enough support to get the governor on board before the end of the legislative session.

Read more:
Republican Governors Keep Vetoing Legislation That Would Make Voting Easier - Huffington Post