As the Senate Judiciary Committee commences debate on proposed immigration legislation today, its proponents have to grapple with a flood of amendments that could tank its chances of passing.

John McCain (R – NV), one member of the bipartisan “Gang of Eight” backing the bill, said he is “guardedly optimistic” but warned against “efforts made to destroy that delicate compromise.”

By Tuesday’s deadline, 300 amendments had been filed, two-thirds of which came from the Republican Party. The majority came from two Republican senators: 77 from Charles Grassley (R – IA) and 49 from Jeff Sessions (R – AL).

Democrats have also proposed controversial amendments, however: Patrick Leahy (D – VT) is pushing for gay citizens to be able to sponsor the green card applications of foreign partners and spouses.

Senator Charles Schumer (D – NY), another member of the “Gang of Eight” and a long-time gay rights supporter, expressed ambivalence over Leahy’s amendment.

“I would very much like to see it in the bill,” Schumer told reporters. “But we have to have a bill that has support to get [it] passed. That’s the conundrum.”

Schumer said the four Republicans in the bipartisan Gang of Eight have expressed an aversion to the amendment that would grant gay couples the same green card rights as heterosexual spouses and fiances.

“Our four Republican colleagues feel very strongly that if this is in the bill they would not be able to support it,” Schumer said.

It still remains to be seen whether Leahy will even push for a vote on the amendment during the committee debate, postpone it under the floor debate, or drop it altogether.

Follow Danielle Tcholakian on Twitter @danielleiat

The post Schumer ambivalent on possible gay rights amendment to immigration bill appeared first on Metro.us.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo and state legislative leaders announced early Friday morning the passage of a $135 billion state budget for the 2013-2014 fiscal year.

The budget closes a $1.3 billion budget gap with no new taxes or fees, according to the governor’s office.

Some major elements of the budget include tax cuts for middle class families over three years, $800 million in tax cuts for businesses, $5 million for a new job training program, an additional $1 billion in school aid, and more aid for SUNY and CUNY schools.

It also includes a minimum wage increase that will be phased in over the next three years, reaching $9 by the end of 2015.

“This is a business-friendly and family-friendly budget that keeps spending within a self-imposed 2 percent cap, and emphasizes Senate Republican priorities to help businesses create new jobs and provide tax relief to struggling middle-class families,” said Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said the budget “makes the critical investments in public education, public health and affordable housing while honoring the moral obligation to preserve the social safety net.”

The budget is the third straight on-time budget passed by lawmakers.

The post State lawmakers pass budget appeared first on Metro.us.

New York State Senator Diane Savino introduced a bill today that would legalize medical marijuana in New York state. 

Under the Compassionate Care Act, doctors will be authorized to give out certifications for marijuana use for patients with serious medical conditions.

Certified patients or designated caregivers will be allowed to possess up to two-and-a-half ounces of marijuana.

People with medical marijuana certifications would be issued registry identification cards by the Department of Health.

The authorizing document is a certification, not a prescription, because “prescription” is a federal Drug Enforcement Agency term, so it legally cannot be prescribed until it is no longer classified as a Schedule 1 drug, according to Evan Nison at the New York Cannabis Alliance.

Nisan said that “advocates feel confident that this might be the year New York finally joins the other 18 states around the country that have medical marijuana laws.”

Adam Scavone, president of the New York Cannabis Alliance, has worked with veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and says that researchers are increasingly having success using marijuana to treat Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

“In this country, 22 veterans per day are committing suicide, a 20 percent increase from just five years ago,” Scavone said. “We know cannabis is useful in treating PTSD and we can save veterans lives, by passing this law.”

According to Scavone, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists around the country are laying the groundwork for a market that could reach $1.5 billion in legal sales in 2013 alone.

The equivalent Assembly bill was introduced today as well. They Assembly has passed similar legislation previously, so advocates don’t anticipate any problems in that chamber, Nison said.

It will likely be two to three months before there is a vote, however, as the bill makes its way through the committee process.

Governor Andrew Cuomo has previously expressed opposition to legalizing marijuana for medical use.

When asked if the governor would veto the bill if it was passed by the legislature, his office responded, “We will review the bill if it passes the Legislature.”

Follow Danielle Tcholakian on Twitter @danielleiat

The post Medical marijuana bill goes to Senate appeared first on Metro.us.

The Senate on Saturday narrowly passed its first federal budget in four years, a move that will usher in a relative lull in Washington’s fiscal wars until an anticipated summer showdown over raising the debt ceiling.

The budget plan was passed by a 50-49 vote in the Democratic-controlled chamber. Four Democratic senators facing tough re-election campaigns in 2014 joined all the Senate Republicans in opposing the measure, which seeks to raise nearly $1 trillion in new tax revenues by closing some tax breaks for the wealthy.

The Senate budget, which reflects Democratic priorities of boosting near-term job growth and preserving social safety net programs, will square off in coming months against a Republican-focused budget passed by the Republican-dominated House of Representatives.

Neither of the non-binding blueprints has a chance of passage in the opposing chamber, leaving Congress no closer to resolving deep differences over how to shrink U.S. deficits and grow the economy. But they give each party a platform from which to tout their respective fiscal visions.

The Democrats’ plan from Senate Budget Committee Chairman Patty Murray aims to reduce deficits by $1.85 trillion over 10 years through an equal mix of tax increases and spending cuts.

The Republican plan from House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan seeks $4.6 trillion in savings over the same period without raising new taxes. It aims to reach a small surplus by 2023 through deep cuts to health care and social programs that aid the poor.

Murray said after the vote that she would try to work with Ryan on a path toward compromise.

“While it is clear that the policies, values, and priorities of the Senate budget are very different than those articulated in the House budget, I know the American people are expecting us to work together to end the gridlock and find common ground, and I plan to continue doing exactly that.”

SHUTDOWN THREAT

Passage of a stop-gap government funding measure on Thursday lowered the temperature in the budget debate by eliminating the threat of a government shutdown next week.

“We’re going to get a breather here. Congress will let things cool off a bit and there’ll be other issues that come to the forefront in the spring,” said Greg Valliere, chief political strategist at Potomac Research Group, a firm that advises institutional investors on Washington politics.

These issues include legislation on gun control, immigration reform and initial work on simplifying the tax code, which is particularly important to Republicans.

Joining Republicans in opposing the Democratic budget were Democratic senators from conservative-leaning states: Max Baucus of Montana, Mark Begich of Alaska, Kay Hagan of North Carolina and Mark Pryor of Arkansas. Voting for a budget that raises tax revenues could increase their vulnerability in congressional elections next year and put Democrats’ thin majority at risk.

In the lead-up to the Senate vote early on Saturday morning, the body considered more than 100 largely symbolic, non-binding amendments to the budget aimed at scoring political points and staking out positions.

Among notable amendments, the Senate signaled strong support for allowing states more authority to collect sales taxes on Internet purchases [ID:nL1N0CEERE], for approval of the controversial Canada-to-Texas Keystone XL oil pipeline [ID:nL1N0CEE57] and for repealing a tax on medical devices imposed by President Barack Obama’s health care reform law.

The Senate also voted 99-0 to end policies that subsidized large banks considered “too big to fail” but came out against imposing taxes on industrial carbon emissions.

Ryan’s plan aims to reach a small surplus with no tax increases by 2023 through deep cuts to social safety net programs. This enables Republicans to claim that they are more responsible by balancing the budget.

“The House budget changes our debt course, while the Senate budget does not,” said Senator Jeff Sessions, the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee.

BATTLE OVER “BALANCE”

In a taste of the ideological debates to come, Murray claimed that the Senate budget was more “balanced” because it emphasized job growth and offered an equal amount of revenue increases and spending cuts.

The Senate had not passed a budget resolution since 2009 because of fiscal policy disputes with House Republicans that forced Congress to turn to numerous stop-gap spending measures to avoid government shutdowns.

To protect their thin Senate majority, Democrats avoided exposing their members to potentially damaging votes to raise taxes ahead of 2012 elections, arguing that a 2011 budget deal set spending levels for several years and made the non-binding budget legislation unnecessary.

But this year, under the February debt limit increase law, members of both the House and Senate faced pay suspensions if their chamber had failed to pass a budget by April 15.

Although lawmakers in both parties have called for a return to normal budgeting procedures after years of stop-gap spending bills and high-pressure deadlines, there is little chance that they can work out differences between the two budgets.

“The idea of conferencing them is kind of a joke. You would expect that if there were a chance of success, they wouldn’t have planted flags on completely different planets,” said Sean West, U.S. policy director at Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy.

Ultimately, it may take another 11th-hour deal between Obama and congressional Republicans to set a fiscal path forward as part of a deal to raise the debt ceiling, he said. The Treasury is expected to exhaust its borrowing capacity around late July or early August.

In 2011, a similar fight over the debt limit shook financial markets and cost the United States its top-tier credit rating.

The post Senate passes budget for first time in four years appeared first on Metro.us.

The Senate voted to confirm Chuck Hagel on Tuesday as President Barack Obama’s new secretary of defense.

Senators backed the nomination by a 57-41 vote, as voting continued, with only about four Republicans joining Democrats in support of Hagel, a Republican former U.S. senator from Nebraska.

Hagel needed only 51 votes to be confirmed as the new civilian leader at the Pentagon.

The post Senate confirms Hagel as secretary of defense appeared first on Metro.us.