House Republicans are taking their push to cut federal spending to a new level: On Wednesday, they’ll unveil a project that lets the public rank its priorities for showdowns over “wasteful or unnecessary spending.”

The “You Cut” program is one part election-year gimmick, one part direct democracy, and it’s intended to spotlight the spending side of the federal deficit problem.

Each week, House Republicans will post online five spending targets. Whichever gets the most votes online or by cell phone, lawmakers will try to force Congress to eliminate the following week.

Citizens will also be invited to suggest cuts. The lawmakers behind the effort, led by Minority Whip Eric Cantor of Virginia, call themselves the “House Economic Recovery Working Group.”

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Texas Sen. John Cornyn sharply criticized Supreme Court nominee Solicitor General Elena Kagan today — hinting strongly that her lack of judicial experience, privileged background and role in Harvard’s efforts to bar military recruiters make it unlikely he will support her confirmation.

“The president says he wants to appoint somebody who will understand how the court’s decisions will impact regular people,” said Cornyn, a Republican who sits on the Judiciary Committee that will first consider Kagan’s nomination. “I don’t see how Ms. Kagan meets the president’s own standard. Her lack of experience as a practicing lawyer and a practicing judge are things that do not argue in her favor.”

Kagan is the administration’s top appellate attorney, and was the first female dean of the Harvard Law School. She has never served as a judge and had never argued a case before the Supreme Court before President Barack Obama tapped her last year as solicitor general.

“We really don’t know anything about how Ms. Kagan would perform as a judge if she was confirmed because she has no record,” Cornyn said.

Cornyn said Monday that a lack of judicial experience doesn’t automatically disqualify a person from serving on the Supreme Court. But his dwelling on the issue stands in contrast to his comments when President George W. Bush selected his former aide, Harriet Miers, for a court seat in 2005. Miers had also never been a judge, but Cornyn wrote a column in The Dallas Morning News that extolled Miers’ credentials – including her lack of judicial experience.

“Although she has no prior judicial experience, this was true for nearly 40 percent of the men and women who have served as Supreme Court justices,” he wrote of Miers, whose nomination was ultimately withdrawn amid stiff political opposition. “Indeed, rather than make her nomination less desirable, many of us believe that her long career in private practice will be to her credit.”

Democrats pounced on the Cornyn shift, accusing him of political hypocrisy.

Cornyn, who also heads the GOP’s Senate campaign committee, voted against Kagan’s confirmation as solicitor general in March 2009. He maintained that he is keeping an open mind on her nomination to succeed Justice John Paul Stevens, even as he raised questions about her judicial philosophy and temperament.

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President Barack Obama’s first choice for a Texas federal prosecutor withdrew from consideration Thursday after lengthy delays in the appointment process.

John B. Stevens Jr., a state judge in Beaumont, was the president’s pick to oversee prosecutions in Texas’ Eastern District, which stretches from Plano and Tyler to the Gulf Coast. Stevens said the protracted confirmation process and his impending November re-election forced him to re-evaluate.

“When it’s gotten this far along and there is no end in sight and no prediction about when it will be completed, I have to think about my family, me and my political future,” said Stevens, who was nominated in late February.

The selection process for federal judges and U.S. marshals has pitted Texas’ 12 House Democrats against its two Republican senators. Stevens was one of the few candidates both sides agreed upon, and he was Obama’s only nominee thus far for one of the state’s four U.S. attorney slots.

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President Barack Obama called Texas Sen. John Cornyn on Thursday to discuss the impending Supreme Court nomination.

Neither floated any names, a Cornyn spokesman said. But the Republican senator offered assurances that hearings on Obama’s choice to replace Justice John Paul Stevens, who plans to step down from the court in June, will be “dignified and civil,” spokesman Kevin McLaughlin said. Cornyn is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will hold confirmation hearings.

Obama met Wednesday to discuss the vacancy with the four senators most central in the process: Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and the panel’s top Republican, Jeff Sessions of Alabama. The call to Cornyn suggests a widening outreach aimed at smoothing the path for the eventual nominee.

Neither floated any names, a Cornyn spokesman said. But the Republican senator offered assurances that hearings on Obama’s choice to replace Justice John Paul Stevens, who plans to step down from the court in June, will be “dignified and civil,” spokesman Kevin McLaughlin said. Cornyn is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will hold confirmation hearings.

Obama met Wednesday to discuss the vacancy with the four senators most central in the process: Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and the panel’s top Republican, Jeff Sessions of Alabama. The call to Cornyn suggests a widening outreach aimed at smoothing the path for the eventual nominee.

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Flag-waving tea party activists gathered at tax-day rallies around Texas on Thursday, denouncing big government while cheering on former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich and other politicians.

Gov. Rick Perry wasn’t set to address any of the rallies where thousands were expected from El Paso to Tyler, but he did warn organizers to watch their backs for liberals trying to make them look bad.

About 300 turned out to hear Gingrich and watch him sign a tea party pledge at an Austin hotel — chanting “Newt!” when a moderator asked about his political plans. Gingrich dodged the moderator’s question but later told reporters he didn’t know if he’d run for president 2012.

Gingrich, well-known for his support of the Contract With America that helped Republicans recapture Congress in 1994, drew loud applause and hoots when he signed a pledge called the Contract From America, in which tea partyists ask those seeking elected office to adhere to 10 core conservative principles.

Gingrich praised the movement as crucial to conservatives’ chances of taking back Congess and the White House.

“I would be very concerned if the tea party movement drifted into a third party because if we split our side, we re-elect Pelosi and Obama,” he said to cheers. He drew applause from the crowd when he predicted a balanced budget amendment would emerge as a major issue this summer and when he repeatedly called for the repeal of President Barack Obama’s health care legislation.

Gingrich got a rock star greeting at the event, drawing a prolonged standing ovation and repeated applause throughout his speech. As the event concluded, throngs of people followed him out of the room, seeking his autograph and snapping pictures.

Although Republicans are ideological allies of many tea partiers — and GOP operatives are involved in some of the organizations — they are also part of the establishment that many in the movement want to upend.

At other tea party rallies across the country, Republican participation drew opposition. In Wisconsin, a half dozen tea party groups from around the state decided to boycott Thursday’s rally in Madison because former Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson was among the speakers.

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Texas Gov. Rick Perry is heading a delegation of state and business leaders traveling to China in June.

First Lady Anita Perry will join the governor in representing the state at the “Salute to Texas Week” June 13-19 at the Shanghai World Expo 2010. The governor’s office announced the trip Thursday.

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Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX, Dallas) issued the following statement on Friday, March 26 in response to the week’s events regarding the passage of the ObamaCare bill.

“Before I get on the plane this morning heading back home to Texas and – thankfully – away from Washington DC, I wanted to write you this quick note about recent events in Congress.

“As Americans, our freedoms took a setback this week with the misguided passage of ObamaCare by the Democrats in Congress. Led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the House, Democrats passed this monstrosity of a bill despite the fact that it was widely opposed by the American public and every Republican Member of Congress. Even more unfortunate, I believe most of the Democrats who voted for it neither fully understood the bill nor thought too much about what it will do when it is completely implemented. Instead, most Democrats cut their deals with the Speaker for political and parochial reasons.

“The Democrats and Nancy Pelosi now own the final outcome of their health care bill. I will fight to hold them accountable.

“Democrats’ claims about ObamaCare were wildly exaggerated. Here are just a few of the statements made that will come back to haunt them:

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Rep. Randy Neugebauer is out to prove that bad behavior can become good politics.

The Lubbock Republican, who apologized on Monday for yelling “baby killer” during the heated debate over health reform a day earlier, has launched a new fundraising ad promising to continue to speak out against abortion.

In a video posted on his campaign Web site, Neugebauer appears with his wife, Dana, and says he’ll continue to crusade against abortion.

“I will continue to speak with the same passion that I spoke last night,” he said in the video taped Monday. “Maybe in a little bit different form, but still with the same intensity.”

The outburst came during remarks by anti-abortion Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., who was speaking against Republican attempts to scuttle the reform plan. Stupak’s vote, along with those of other anti-abortion Democrats, had assured the bill’s passage after he negotiated a deal with the Obama administration for the president to issue an executive order restating that federal funds would not be used for abortions.

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Sessions, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, announced that the committee raised $4.5 million in January and now has $4.1 million in the bank. That’s up from $2.6 million at the end of 2009, the committee’s worst year in a decade for fundraising.

“We believe that we are turning the corner,” Sessions said in his first briefing for reporters in his 14-month tenure as chairman. “We intend to be prepared for winning back the majority.”

The group’s Democratic counterpart raised nearly $20 million more last year – $55.6 million to $36.2 million. With $16.7 million in the bank as of Jan. 1, the Democrats are in a far better position to help their candidates.

Sessions spoke both of “incremental progress” and a shift in momentum reflected in GOP wins in Virginia and New Jersey governor races in November, and in a special Senate election in Massachusetts a few weeks ago.

That upset for Edward Kennedy’s seat was especially traumatic for Democrats and uplifting for Republicans, and since then, Sessions said, “we’ve had a number of very good days” in terms of fundraising.

He made no mention of the mistrust expressed by some conservative Tea Party activists, or the fact that dozens of GOP incumbents – including him and 10 others in Texas – face primary challenges, albeit from little-known and poorly funded candidates.

“We believe that the wind is at our backs in a significant way. Conversely, I don’t think the Democrats are going to have enough money when they see what’s going to be happening to them in November,” Sessions said.

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What Democrat didn’t shudder? What Republican didn’t dream of tapping that mojo?

From GOP operatives, the talking point was that “every Democrat is vulnerable” in House, Senate and gubernatorial contests nationwide.

Hyperbole, perhaps, but not far from the assessment offered by Sen. Barbara Boxer, who is struggling to prolong her career in California: “Every state is now in play.”

It will take a few months to see how the forces that cost Democrats the seat Edward Kennedy held for most of the last half-century, along with their Senate supermajority, translate in Texas.

We can take a few educated guesses, though.

For top-of-that-ballot Democrats such as Bill White and possibly John Sharp, who hope to become governor and senator, the message was clear enough: This is not a good year to try to snap the party’s long statewide losing streak.

In the GOP governor’s race, the implications are fuzzier, and both sides had reason to take heart.

Rick Perry “seems to be tapping into the anti-Washington backlash that we saw manifest in Massachusetts, and which we can all feel everywhere,” said Sen. John Cornyn, who remains neutral in the governor’s race. On the other hand, he said, Kay Bailey Hutchison has made the case “that she’s been an agent in opposition to some of the big-government policies like the government health care takeover and the like. It’s fascinating.”

On Friday, the first President George Bush and his first lady, Barbara Bush, endorsed Hutchison. They helped build the Texas GOP way back when. (They also dragged Perry across the finish line against Sharp in the 1998 lieutenant governor race, paving the way for Gov. George W. Bush to run for president.)

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