Washington Wrap

Dotty Lynch, Douglas Kiker, Steve Chaggaris, Clothilde Ewing, Nicola Corless, Smita Kalokhe and Joanna Schubert of The CBS News Political Unit have the latest from the nation's capital.

Getting up early may be one way to make it into the inner circle of Bush money folks. "Everyone in town is trying to be a Pioneer or Ranger," Jack Abromowitz, a Republican lobbyist told The New York Times on Monday. Abromowitz said they prefer people with contacts outside Washington, which he has. "I really wanted to be a Ranger but I didn't make it," said Carolee Bionda, the chairwoman of Associated Builders and Contactors, a D.C.-based trade association. "But I still have a good shot at making it. It's fun."

Meanwhile, The Washington Post reports that House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, has found a number of creative ways for people to raise and give money to support his causes. Like the president, DeLay seems to have revolutionized the art of campaign fundraising. Along with his political aide, Jim Ellis, DeLay devised a fundraising scheme that would ultimately raise his profile both in Texas and, more importantly, in Washington.

Using the idea that "if you build it, they will come," DeLay has created at least ten different fundraising committees which have helped him raise a whopping $12.6 million to help further his own career and his party's majority. The public interest group Democracy 21, based in Washington, has released a comprehensive picture of how DeLay did this.

The group's analysis of DeLay's top 100 contributors shows that each donor gave to at least two political operations linked to the Texan, including either his re-election campaign; Texans for a Republican Majority (TRMPAC); the now-defunct Republican Majority Issues Committee; or his "leadership committee," Americans for a Republican Majority (ARMPAC), which had a non-federal arm that could collect unlimited soft money donations before the latest campaign finance laws took effect.

DeLay was also among the first to create independent 527 groups, which could raise and spend campaign money without disclosing their sources, before changes in campaign finance laws. He has also raised millions of dollars through state GOP organizations, which operate under less stringent rules than federal committees. And with thoughts of his party's majority in mind, he has demanded that senior Republican lawmakers raise $100,000 each and give the money to 10 vulnerable House incumbents.

With such astounding numbers, questions about DeLay's tactics have surfaced. Craig McDonald, director of the money and politics watchdog group Texans for Public Justice, told the Washington Post that DeLay is "using his access to special interests who want access to Congress, and he's leveraging that to control the politics and agenda of the Texas legislature."

Ellis denies this claim and companies interviewed by the Post stuck to the party line, saying they supported DeLay because they agreed with him ideologically, and because he helped achieve their companies' legislative priorities.

Gephardt Falls Into Line: Rep. Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., who surprised a number of Democrats last fall by appearing in the Rose Garden with President Bush in support of his Iraq policy, is now slamming the Bush administration's approach to foreign policy. In a broad-ranging speech in San Francisco on Tuesday, Gephhardt touches on the war against Iraq, the war on terror and the United States' contentious relationship with some of its longtime allies. Gephardt's comments are some of the harshest to date from the top-tier Democratic presidential candidates on the White House's foreign policy.

In prepared remarks, Gephardt said the president "has left us less safe and less secure than we were four years ago." The Bush administration's "bravado has left us isolated in the world – fracturing 50 years of alliances, calling into question our credibility, squandering the global goodwill that was showered on us after 9/11."

"No matter the surge of momentary machismo – gratifying as it may be for some – it's short-sighted and wrong to simply go it alone," Gephardt said. He said the Bush administration's lack of planning for post-war Iraq could mean U.S. troop spending "the next 50 years dodging bullets there."

"I submit to you today: we won the war in Iraq, but we're in serious danger of losing the peace," he said.

Gephardt took a swipe at Mr. Bush's appearance this spring aboard a U.S. aircraft carrier off the California coast where he declared the end of major hostilities in Iraq. "He chose the wrong backdrop for his photo-op. If you ask me, if he really wanted to show us the state of affairs in Iraq, he should have landed on a patch of quicksand," Gephardt said.

Gephardt got some good news in Iowa, where a new poll shows him with a healthy lead over his rivals. In a survey of "likely caucus goers," Gephardt had 32 percent, followed by Howard Dean at 19 percent, John Kerry at 12 percent, Joe Lieberman at 10 percent and John Edwards at 7 percent. The rest of the field had 12 percent combined and 7 percent remain undecided.

Recent poll numbers in Iowa have varied widely depending on who is surveyed. In a poll released early this month, Gephardt was statistically tied with Dean and Kerry among Democrats who took part in the 2000 caucuses. But, in another survey taken in early June – this time of "likely caucus goers" – Gephardt had 27 percent, followed by Kerry at 14 percent and Dean at 11 percent.

In California a new Field poll showed Gephardt running forth at only 7 percent, behind Dean at 16 percent, Kerry at 15 percent and Lieberman at 14 percent.

Hell Week: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who says she's fed up with the lack of Republican action on the Senate-passed child tax credit bill, has vowed to make life miserable for the GOP this week.

"I say this as a promise not a prediction: This will be a week from hell for Republicans," Pelosi said Monday. "We will be disruptive on the floor until we get a child tax credit."

The Democrats aren't showing their hand yet on how they'll "be disruptive" but Rules Committee ranking member Martin Frost told National Journal's CongressDailyAM: "There's a lot of things we can do. … Stay tuned."

The threats come as the House prepares to finish up work on several bills before they begin their five-week summer break at the end of the week. Republicans vow they're not going to let the Democrats cause that much of a ruckus. "The problem is that the Democrats are instigating these things because they want to throw us off message, and we're not going to let that happen," John Feehery, spokesman for House Speaker Dennis Hastert, told CQToday. "We were sent here to get work done and not play games, and that's what we're going to do."

Off the floor, supporters of the child tax credit bill are unveiling a TV ad today that will run in both English and Spanish language markets as middle- and upper-income families are beginning to receive their child tax credit checks in the mail. The ad from the Center for Community Change says: "The wealthy get a tax break. For the rest of us, the check is not in the mail."

In addition, Pelosi and her fellow Democrats are still fired up over the fracas during a Ways and Means Committee meeting on Friday that ended up with a lot of name-calling and the Capitol Police being summoned.

All but one Democrat walked out of the meeting after a new bill was introduced without their knowledge. As they objected, committee chairman Bill Thomas, R-Calif., called the police to retrieve the Democrats from the next room as they held out from the proceedings. Meantime, a war of words began between Democrat Pete Stark and Republican Scott McInnis that ended up with Stark calling McInnis a "fruitcake."

While McInnis would like an apology from Stark, the Democrats are looking for an apology from Thomas for calling the cops. After debating yesterday whether to file an ethics complaint against Thomas, the Democrats decided against it. Instead, Ways and Means ranking member Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., plans on reintroducing a resolution that would nullify Friday's meeting and would indicate their disapproval of the way Thomas conducted the meeting. A similar resolution was killed on the House floor after the fracas on Friday.

Catholics Need Not Apply: The Washington Post reports that newspaper ads in Maine and Rhode Island last weekend showed a sign hanging from the closed doors of judges' chambers that reads: "Catholics need not apply."

The ads refer to opposition in the Senate by some Democrats to President Bush's judicial nominations, and specifically to the Appeals Court nomination of Alabama Attorney General William Pryor, allegedly because he is a devout Catholic.

The ads ask the question: "Why is the U.S. Senate playing politics with religion?" and accuse some in the U.S. Senate of "attacking Bill Pryor for having 'deeply held' Catholic beliefs to prevent him from becoming a federal judge. Don't they know the Constitution expressly prohibits religious tests for public office?"

The Committee for Justice, chaired by Boyden Gray, White House counsel in the first Bush administration to help rally support for judicial nominees, paid for the ads. According to the Committee for Justice, "Minority Leader Daschle and Ranking Member Leahy have been stonewalling President Bush's nominees putting 'justice at risk in America.'" Included on the list of Democratic Senators blocking the nominations were Sen. Ted Kennedy, Sen. Joe Biden and 2004 presidential hopeful Sen. John Edwards. All but Edwards are Catholics themselves.

David Carle, spokesman for Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., called the group's charge "a false and detestable smear that's intended to chill debate" on Pryor's suitability for the bench. "The question in Mr. Pryor's case is not his religion, which in fact is shared by several members of the Judiciary Committee. It is whether he is capable of fairly and impartially applying the laws to everyone who comes into his courtroom, as he would be required to do as a federal judge," Carle said.

The Committee plans to follow the print ads with radio spots later this week.

Edwards Pure On Washington Lobbyists: The Edwards campaign squawked about last week's Charlotte Observer article implying that they were breaking their pledge and actually accepting money from those dastardly Washington lobbyists. In fact, Jennifer Palmieri points out that the pledge is a refusal to accept money from lobbyists registered in 2003. John Podesta, former the White House chief of staff has actually "de-registered" as a lobbyist in preparation for running a nonprofit 501 C3 "think tank," thus making his money acceptable. The others, Williams and Connelly lawyer Vickie Radd Rollins, former Ambassador Jim Rosapepe and lawyer, Abbe Lowell have been registered in the past but not in 2003.

Mr. Lowell who represented Rep. Gary Condit last year, told CBS News that he gave to John Edwards "as a friend" but that he has given to several other friends in the race including John Kerry, Dick Gephardt, Carol Moseley Braun and Joe Lieberman.

Quote of the Day: "I talked to him a couple of days ago -- he sounded like he was going to run to me." George Gorton, Arnold Schwarzenegger's consultant, saying that Arnold has already signed over power of attorney for others to fill out paperwork in his place to run for governor of California should he be out of the country when the election date is set. (Los Angeles Daily News)