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"We've all had an opportunity to get to know each other a little better," House Speaker John Boehner said of this week's Republican retreat in Hershey, Pa. Juana Summers/NPR hide caption

"We've all had an opportunity to get to know each other a little better," House Speaker John Boehner said of this week's Republican retreat in Hershey, Pa.

Republican lawmakers of the House and Senate emerged from a rare joint retreat in Hershey, Pa., a town known best for its chocolate, with little to show for it.

Unlike last year's House retreat where lawmakers unveiled their principles for an overhaul of the nation's immigration overhauls, there was little grand takeaway.

"The most positive thing is we've got a group of new Republican members in the Senate, a group of new Republican members in the House, and we've all had an opportunity to get to know each other a little better," House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, told reporters at a press conference Thursday, standing alongside Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

That much seemed to be true in conversations with nearly a dozen Republican lawmakers, each pointed to the opportunity to talk with members of the opposite chamber and hear their views.

But for all the talking, Republicans remain divided on how to best move forward to fund the Department of Homeland Security, a bill that has become inextricably linked with immigration.

The bill that passed the House earlier this week would roll back some of President Obama's actions on immigration and drew the opposition of even some moderate House Republicans like Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Calif.

Denham said that while President Obama had put "hurdles" in Congress' way, the bill that the House voted "sets us back on immigration reform" and "sends a mixed message to the American public."

"I think that by adding the deferred action amendment in here, it goes back to a situation where we've got kids that through no fault of their own ... now are going to be at the top of the list for ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] to deport if this were to become law," he said. "I think that sends the wrong message to the American public about what our overall goals for reform are."

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Republican Lawmakers Retreat Great For Face Time, But Divisions Remain

TIME Politics 2016 Election CNN's Wolf Blitzer speaks to the audience at the Republican presidential candidates debate in Jacksonville, Fla., Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya) Paul SancyaASSOCIATED PRESS

Get ready: The first Republican primary debate is just eight months away, the Republican National Committee announced Friday, along with the calendar for the first nine debates of the 2016 cycle.

Republican candidates participated in more than 20 debates in the 2012 election cycle, which the national party credited with weakening eventual Republican nominee Mitt Romney. After conversations with media partners and candidates, the party announced that it has decided on 12 debates for the 2016 cycle, the first in August in Ohio, likely in Cleveland, where the party will host its national convention on July 18-21, 2016.

After the first debate, the RNC is planning on one debate each month through January. After the Iowa Caucuses, the RNC plans for three more debates in February, with two more in March.

This schedule ensures we will have a robust discussion among our candidates while also allowing the candidates to focus their time engaging with Republican voters, RNC chairman Reince Priebus said in a statement. It is exciting that Republicans will have such a large bench of candidates to choose from, and the sanctioned debate process ensures voters will have a chance to gain a chance to hear them.

Under RNC rules adopted last year, Republican candidates will only be allowed to participate in the RNC-sanctioned debates if they forswear attending unsanctioned ones, ensuring there wont be a repeat of the 2012 process.

RNC Communications Director Sean Spicer, who has coordinated the effort for the RNC, said precise dates for the debates will be announced in due time, once negotiations with venues are completed. Spicer said that Republican candidates have been huge champions of the effort to curtail the frequency of debates, which require candidates to take time off the trail fundraising and meeting voters in order to prepare.

Spicer said the networks will have final say on the eligibility criteria for each debate, expected to be key factor with an expected crowded field of candidates, but said that the RNC stressed that the viability threshold for later debates will be tougher than those earlier in the process.

Spicer told reporters there would be conservative media partners and panelists for the debates, but said networks would retain editorial control over them. He wouldnt say whether conservative media participation was a prerequisite for hosting a debate, but said it was always the plan that an element of conservatism be brought into these debates in some shape or form.

The schedule:

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First Republican Presidential Debate Will Be in August

Draft net neutrality legislation released Friday by Republican leaders in the U.S. Congress would prohibit broadband providers from blocking or selectively slowing legal Web content, but it would allow them to engage in reasonable network management.

The proposal would give broadband providers wide latitude to engage in network management, with a management practice deemed reasonable if it is appropriate and tailored to achieving a legitimate network management purpose.

The draft legislation would also prohibit the U.S. Federal Communications Commission from reclassifying broadband as a regulated public utility, and it would stop the agency from creating any new net neutrality rules.

The draft legislation is a thoughtful path forward that protects consumers online, said Representative Fred Upton, a Michigan Republican. By clearly outlining the appropriate rules of the road, and leaving 20th century utility regulation behind, we can be sure that innovators continue full throttle in bringing remarkable new technologies to all Americans, Upton said in a statement. This is the right solution that everyone, if they are serious in standing up for consumers, should be able to get behind.

Under the proposals network management definition, broadband providers can take into account their particular network architecture and any technology and operational limitations when crafting network management practices, according to the text of the draft bill.

The entire definition of a reasonable network management practice, running about 45 words, is borrowed from the FCCs 2010 net neutrality rules that were later partially overturned by an appeals court. But many advocates of strong net neutrality rules protested a proposal earlier this year from FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler that would have allowed broadband providers to engage in commercially reasonable network management, saying it would give providers a wide exemption to the rules.

The network management definition in the draft bill could be a loophole for broadband providers, said John Bergmayer, senior staff attorney at Public Knowledge, a digital rights group advocating for strong net neutrality rules.

The Republican proposal prohibits broadband providers from blocking and selectively slowing Web content, applications and services, but thats subject to reasonable network management. The draft bill does prohibit broadband providers from entering into paid traffic prioritization deals with now allowance for reasonable network management, although the bill appears to allow middle-mile traffic deals, like ones Netflix has signed with major broadband providers, Bergmayer said.

The draft legislations prohibition of the FCC reclassifying broadband under Title II of the Telecommunications Act is the wrong approach, added Matt Wood, policy director at digital rights group Free Press. This bill would legalize any and every other form of discrimination that the ISPs could dream up, he said by email. It does that by stripping the FCC of rule-making authority and handcuffing the agencys ability to adapt to new circumstances.

The draft proposals prohibition against a net neutrality rule-making proceeding at the FCC may be the biggest of several problems, Bergmayer added. The proposal would require the FCC to act on net neutrality complaints filed by consumers or companies, and its unclear whether the FCC could set precedent by acting on a complaint, he said.

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Republican net neutrality bill allows 'reasonable' network management

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LAS CRUCES The historic 2014 Republican takeover of the New Mexico House hinged in part on three GOP Election Day breakthroughs in the states southern reaches, a largely rural border region in which personalities can outweigh politics.

The recently elected Republicans say their policy positions paved the way for victory, but a leading political analyst said its likely that other factors, including a prevailing national and state voting mood, also played a role.

Three of the five legislative seats that flipped from Democratic to Republican in Novembers election were contiguous, largely Hispanic and overwhelmingly Democratic districts that stretch across southern New Mexico, from Silver City to Alamogordo, down to Las Cruces and Chaparral.

In the other two seats, Republican challengers Sarah Maestas Barnes and Conrad James ousted well-funded Democratic incumbents in Albuquerque-area races.

The three men who won the southern New Mexico House Districts 36, 39 and 53 say voters of all stripes were united behind one priority the economy and voted for the party that bills itself as business-friendly.

The economy is the major issue, said Rick Little, the Republican who won District 53, which includes part of Alamogordo and extends to Chaparral near the Texas line. They think we can probably do something better with the economy and make things work where people can have jobs.

Longtime New Mexico political analyst Brian Sanderoff said the GOP election wins dont necessarily indicate a trend of southern New Mexico becoming more politically conservative.

Rather, he said, a driving factor in the 2014 election cycle a nonpresidential election year was a bigger-picture electoral phenomenon.

The biggest factor was the overall mood of the state and nation being a conservative one, Sanderoff said.

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Southern Republican wins helped change state House

TIME Politics 2016 Election Mitt Romney is seen in attendance as Charlie Baker was sworn in as the governor of Massachusetts at a ceremony inside the House Chamber at the State House on Jan. 8, 2015 in Boston. John TlumackiBoston Globe/Getty Images

Former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney sought to cast himself as a champion of the nations poor Friday, as he announced he is giving a third presidential campaign serious consideration.

Addressing the GOPs elite at the winter meeting of the Republican National Committee aboard the U.S.S. Midway, Romney premiered a brand new stump speech, laying out the themes of his proto-campaign and for the party in the post-Obama era.

First, we have to make the world safer, Romney said. Second, we have to make sure and provide opportunity for all Americans regardless of the neighborhood they live in. And finally, we have to lift people out of poverty. If we communicate those three things effectively, the American people are going to be with usbe with our nominee and with our candidates across the country.

Romney received a warm welcome from the members of the RNC in his first appearance with them since his Nov. 2012 loss to President Barack Obama. Its nice to appear with friends like this, I gotta tell ya, he said over the clamor of applause as he took the stage.

In strikingly personal terms for the famously wooden candidate, Romney spoke about his service as a pastor in the Mormon Church helping the poor, saying of his wife, Ann, Shes seen me work with people who are very poor to help them get help. Romney aides said that should he formally announce he would be more comfortable showing his warmer private persona in public.

Under President Obama, the rich have gotten richer, income inequality has gotten worse, and there are more people in poverty in America than ever before, Romney said. People want to see rising wages, and they deserve them, he added.

He argued that conservative principles would best address the problem.

The only policies that will reach into the hearts of American people and pull people out of poverty and break the cycle of poverty are Republican principles, conservative principles. They include family formation, and education and good jobs and were going to bring them to the American people and finally end the scourge of poverty in this great land.

The focus on poverty reflected a significant change of tune for Romney, a multimillionaire private equity executive who famously told a group of donors that 47 percent of Americans would never vote for him because they are dependent on government and believe that they are victims. Romneys 2012 campaign even prevented his running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan, from incorporating a discussion of poverty into his stump speech.

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Romney Seriously Considering 2016 Bid With Focus On Poverty