Landrum Taylor ousted as head of Senate Dem caucus

Arizona has a new top Democrat.

The Senate Democratic caucus overthrew its leadership team in a surprise move Tuesday, tossing the minority party into turmoil.

Sen. Leah Landrum Taylor of Phoenix, the state's highest-ranking Democrat, was ousted as Senate minority leader. She will be replaced by Sen. Anna Tovar of Tolleson.

Landrum Taylor, who is running for secretary of state next year, appeared stunned by developments and said she was furious with the decision.

"They said I could not possibly run for state office and serve as the leader in the Legislature," she said, adding that prior male leaders have done just that numerous times. "It's disgusting and degrading."

Landrum Taylor also alluded to possible racial motivations, saying some had alleged that she represents too small a percentage of Arizona voters. Landrum Taylor is the state's only African-American state lawmaker. Tovar is a Latina.

The Arizona Legislature's 13 Democratic senators had scheduled a caucus meeting to replace Assistant Minority Leader Linda Lopez of Tucson. Lopez had previously announced she was voluntarily stepping down from leadership to deal with new job responsibilities.

Tovar, the minority whip, was expected to move up into that spot but declined the nomination.

Sen. Steve Gallardo of Phoenix then nominated Tovar to be minority leader, replacing Landrum Taylor.

Tovar won the position by an 8-5 vote. Landrum Taylor and four of her supporters walked out of the meeting.

Sen. Lynne Pancrazi, D-Yuma, was then voted in as assistant minority leader, and Gallardo became the new minority whip.

Landrum Taylor said she may push for a revote, noting that members of the community are calling for the same.

"The community is outraged," she said.

When asked for a reason behind the move, Pancrazi said, "(The) caucus just decided to move in a new direction.

"We have a lot to do this session. Tovar is full of energy. She's very dynamic."

Tovar said she was saddened by allegations that the change was based on Landrum Taylor's race or gender.

"Many of our caucus is minority, and many of them are women," she said. "That is not a relative issue to why this transpired."

She said there were a "multitude of things that transpired" leading up to the vote.

"Each caucus member has their own perspective on why they came to this decision," she said. "As a whole, we chose to move forward in a positive direction."

Tovar said she looks forward to working with the entire caucus, including Landrum Taylor, next session. She said they will continue to focus on education, job creation and health care.

Gallardo said the move wasn't personal and was intended to take Democrats in a different direction for the 2014 election. "Personally, I'd like to see us be a bit more aggressive on many of these key issues," said Gallardo, who is among the most outspoken legislative Democrats.

He said the best way for the minority party to win on an issue is often by swaying public opinion. "It's about messaging," Gallardo added.

Sen. Olivia Cajero Bedford, D-Tucson, was among the lawmakers who walked out with Landrum Taylor.

"They talked about what a strong caucus we were last year and then said Leah could not run for state leadership and still be the legislative leader," she said. "The logic is a detriment to the Democratic Party. It was ridiculous."

She said she has lost respect for the members of her caucus behind the coup. "We'll see if they can produce any better than Leah did last year," Cajero Bedford said, alluding to successful efforts to unite with more moderate Republicans and pass Medicaid expansion.

Cajero Bedford said she fears the Senate Democrats next session may find themselves in a predicament similar to the Republicans this past session, with a massive split in the caucus that crippled their voting power.

"We've been gloating about what has been going on with the Republicans, and now look," she said. "It's a shame."

Pancrazi dismissed those concerns.

"Caucus decisions will be made as a whole, and I look forward to a wonderful caucus," she said. "Our goal is to get through this session and get good, strong people elected."

Tovar said there will likely be hurt feelings for a while, but she hopes the caucus can put the division behind them and focus on the state and their constituents.

The infighting quickly became campaign fodder for Republicans. Arizona Republican Party Chairman Robert Graham glommed onto the allegations of racism and sexism.

"Again we see the elites in the Democrat Party using gender and race criteria to drive people away from participation in their party's decisions," he said in a statement.

Conservative political consultant Constantin Querard wondered what the development means for Landrum Taylor's chances in the race for secretary of state.

"Fair to say that today's events show that Leah Landrum Taylor's run for #AZSOS will not enjoy a united Democrat base supporting her?" he said on Twitter.

Copyright 2013 The Arizona Republic|azcentral.com. All rights reserved.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

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Watched by his son Henry, Democratic Senate candidate Bob Kerrey delivers his concession speech at the Nebraska Democratic Party's election night gathering in La Vista.

U.S. Senate race in Hawaii pits opposing wings of Democratic Party

Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), who was appointed to continue the term of late Democratic Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, is facing a tough challenge from Inouye's protege, U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa (D-Hawaii). (Carolyn Kaster / Associated Press / December 27, 2012)

HONOLULU — In primaries across the country — in Idaho, Kentucky, Mississippi and other states — Republicans are locked in a heart-and-soul battle between purists and pragmatists clashing over what it means to represent the party, its philosophy and core values.

Here in Hawaii there's a similar fight over power and purpose, but this one is between Democrats. It's a fight for a U.S. Senate seat, a rare enough prize in a state that has elected just six people senator since statehood in 1959. But it is also a battle over age and gender, over ethnicity and identity, over old grudges and new tensions.

Rivalries and historical resentments often surface in Hawaii politics — sometimes years later, like a bottle cast to sea — and the fierce contest between appointed Sen. Brian Schatz and his fellow Democrat, Rep. Colleen Hanabusa, is no different: The two ran against each other in a 2006 congressional primary, and they both lost.

The latest contest arises from the death of Democratic Sen. Daniel K. Inouye in December 2012, less than a month shy of completing his 50th year in the Senate. Democratic Gov. Neil Abercrombie ignored what was presented as Inouye's dying wish, that the senator's protege, Hanabusa, be named his successor, and instead appointed Schatz, the lieutenant governor and a former head of the state party.

In choosing, Abercrombie cited seniority as an overriding factor. Schatz is 41 and Hanabusa is 62, which suggests — actuarially speaking — he could serve many more years and gain more clout for a state that has counted for decades on a generous ladling of federal largess, thanks to Inouye's power and longevity. After tourism, the U.S. military is Hawaii's biggest source of income.

"Go to Washington, bring federal dollars home," said Randy Perreira, head of the Hawaii Government Employees Assn., the state's largest and most powerful union, which has endorsed Schatz. "That's the game."

Abercrombie's mention of age led Hanabusa to accuse the governor of sexism, suggesting his comments insulted women who devote themselves to family and start their professional careers later in life. (Hanabusa has no children but practiced law for several years before launching her political career.) "We make choices," Hanabusa said in an interview. "We have to."

Another fault line is race and ethnicity. Asians make up the largest segment of the population, about 4 in 10 residents, followed by whites, at just over 25%. Nearly a quarter of the population identifies itself as being of two races.

A generation of Japanese American World War II veterans, including Inouye, helped break down long-standing economic and social barriers that had once favored white plantation owners and businessmen and, with the help of organized labor, converted pre-statehood Hawaii from a Republican-leaning territory into today's Democratic stronghold.

Within the party, however, there has long been a divide between pragmatists and a smaller group of activists, typically younger, whiter and more ideological. For years, Inouye and Abercrombie represented those wings; now, it's Hanabusa and Schatz.

They took opposite sides in the bitter 2008 Democratic presidential contest: Hanabusa, like Inouye, backed Hillary Rodham Clinton. Schatz, like Abercrombie, was an early and ardent backer of native son Barack Obama and ran his successful Hawaii campaign.

Philosophically, though, the Senate contestants are largely in sync. The National Journal, which annually rates congressional members by ideology, has Schatz tied with two others this year as the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate. Hanabusa, who was elected to Congress in 2010 after serving as state Senate president, consistently ranks among the more liberal House members.

There are differences on some issues, among them Hanabusa's support for limited drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, reminiscent of Inouye's long alliance with Republican former Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, who pushed to open oil production there. Schatz opposes it.

Hanabusa also opposed forcing drug companies to pay the federal government a rebate for bulk purchases under the Medicare and Medicaid programs and voted to support the Simpson-Bowles commission, which, among its proposals, suggested raising the age for Social Security benefits to help cut the federal deficit.

Hanabusa said she opposed changes to Social Security but supported the commission's model as a starting point for discussion. Indeed, members of the Democratic House leadership also backed Simpson-Bowles.

Still, the Schatz campaign raises those examples to question Hanabusa's fealty to the Democratic Party's principles. His first TV ad featured the senator in a homey setting with his elderly father-in-law, vowing to protect Social Security. Hanabusa, who has raised only about half as much campaign cash as Schatz, has yet to begin her TV advertising.

Schatz said the race should be about performance, favorably comparing his year-plus in the Senate with Hanabusa's House record. He says his endorsement by President Obama — a rare intervention in a primary — and support from Senate Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, along with much of the rest of the party establishment, means he can deliver in ways the congresswoman cannot.

"That's what I want to make this election about," Schatz said in an interview.

Hanabusa said she would have "the same kinds of relationships and opportunities afforded to me as well" if elected to the Senate. Sounding a rare note of bipartisanship, she said it was important to work across the aisle, as Inouye did. "Times change and majority status changes," she said. "What doesn't change is relationships that are built."

Much of the drama surrounding the race so far has focused on a letter, ascribed to Inouye on his deathbed, seeking Hanabusa's selection. Abercrombie has questioned the authorship and said Inouye told him, privately, to use his best judgment in filling any vacancy.

"I wouldn't want the Senate race to get lost in this question of what Sen. Inouye wanted or didn't want," Abercrombie told The Times this month.

With so many cross-currents, there seems little chance of that. Polling is difficult in Hawaii, a state with one of the worst turnout rates in the country. But all sides agree the race is exceedingly close and will probably stay that way to the end.

The outcome probably won't affect the fight for control of the Senate. Whoever wins the Aug. 9 Democratic primary is overwhelmingly favored to win in November and serve the remainder of Inouye's term. Then, it is expected, the incumbent will seek a full six-year term in 2016.

mark.barabak@latimes.com

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Landrum Taylor ousted as head of Senate Dem caucus

Arizona has a new top Democrat.

The Senate Democratic caucus overthrew its leadership team in a surprise move Tuesday, tossing the minority party into turmoil.

Sen. Leah Landrum Taylor of Phoenix, the state's highest-ranking Democrat, was ousted as Senate minority leader. She will be replaced by Sen. Anna Tovar of Tolleson.

Landrum Taylor, who is running for secretary of state next year, appeared stunned by developments and said she was furious with the decision.

"They said I could not possibly run for state office and serve as the leader in the Legislature," she said, adding that prior male leaders have done just that numerous times. "It's disgusting and degrading."

Landrum Taylor also alluded to possible racial motivations, saying some had alleged that she represents too small a percentage of Arizona voters. Landrum Taylor is the state's only African-American state lawmaker. Tovar is a Latina.

The Arizona Legislature's 13 Democratic senators had scheduled a caucus meeting to replace Assistant Minority Leader Linda Lopez of Tucson. Lopez had previously announced she was voluntarily stepping down from leadership to deal with new job responsibilities.

Tovar, the minority whip, was expected to move up into that spot but declined the nomination.

Sen. Steve Gallardo of Phoenix then nominated Tovar to be minority leader, replacing Landrum Taylor.

Tovar won the position by an 8-5 vote. Landrum Taylor and four of her supporters walked out of the meeting.

Sen. Lynne Pancrazi, D-Yuma, was then voted in as assistant minority leader, and Gallardo became the new minority whip.

Landrum Taylor said she may push for a revote, noting that members of the community are calling for the same.

"The community is outraged," she said.

When asked for a reason behind the move, Pancrazi said, "(The) caucus just decided to move in a new direction.

"We have a lot to do this session. Tovar is full of energy. She's very dynamic."

Tovar said she was saddened by allegations that the change was based on Landrum Taylor's race or gender.

"Many of our caucus is minority, and many of them are women," she said. "That is not a relative issue to why this transpired."

She said there were a "multitude of things that transpired" leading up to the vote.

"Each caucus member has their own perspective on why they came to this decision," she said. "As a whole, we chose to move forward in a positive direction."

Tovar said she looks forward to working with the entire caucus, including Landrum Taylor, next session. She said they will continue to focus on education, job creation and health care.

Gallardo said the move wasn't personal and was intended to take Democrats in a different direction for the 2014 election. "Personally, I'd like to see us be a bit more aggressive on many of these key issues," said Gallardo, who is among the most outspoken legislative Democrats.

He said the best way for the minority party to win on an issue is often by swaying public opinion. "It's about messaging," Gallardo added.

Sen. Olivia Cajero Bedford, D-Tucson, was among the lawmakers who walked out with Landrum Taylor.

"They talked about what a strong caucus we were last year and then said Leah could not run for state leadership and still be the legislative leader," she said. "The logic is a detriment to the Democratic Party. It was ridiculous."

She said she has lost respect for the members of her caucus behind the coup. "We'll see if they can produce any better than Leah did last year," Cajero Bedford said, alluding to successful efforts to unite with more moderate Republicans and pass Medicaid expansion.

Cajero Bedford said she fears the Senate Democrats next session may find themselves in a predicament similar to the Republicans this past session, with a massive split in the caucus that crippled their voting power.

"We've been gloating about what has been going on with the Republicans, and now look," she said. "It's a shame."

Pancrazi dismissed those concerns.

"Caucus decisions will be made as a whole, and I look forward to a wonderful caucus," she said. "Our goal is to get through this session and get good, strong people elected."

Tovar said there will likely be hurt feelings for a while, but she hopes the caucus can put the division behind them and focus on the state and their constituents.

The infighting quickly became campaign fodder for Republicans. Arizona Republican Party Chairman Robert Graham glommed onto the allegations of racism and sexism.

"Again we see the elites in the Democrat Party using gender and race criteria to drive people away from participation in their party's decisions," he said in a statement.

Conservative political consultant Constantin Querard wondered what the development means for Landrum Taylor's chances in the race for secretary of state.

"Fair to say that today's events show that Leah Landrum Taylor's run for #AZSOS will not enjoy a united Democrat base supporting her?" he said on Twitter.

Copyright 2013 The Arizona Republic|azcentral.com. All rights reserved.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

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Rep. Markey wins Senate race in Mass.

BOSTON — BOSTON Longtime Democratic U.S. Rep. Edward Markey defeated Republican political newcomer Gabriel Gomez in a special election on Tuesday for the state's U.S. Senate seat long held by John Kerry.

Gomez, a 47-year-old businessman and former Navy SEAL, positioned himself as a moderate and Washington outsider who would challenge partisan gridlock, contrasting himself with Markey, who was first elected to the U.S. House in 1976.

With almost all precincts reporting late Tuesday, Markey had 55percent, or about 629,000 votes, and Gomez had 45percent, or about 513,000 votes.

Markey, who declared victory two hours after the polls closed, ticked off a slew of legislative priorities. He said he wanted to help spark a "green energy revolution," protect seniors, boost job growth in Massachusetts and ensure young people can attend college without shouldering enormous debt.

Markey told voters he doesn't take the Senate race win lightly.

"I go there to stand for you. To speak for you. To seek change that lifts up your families and your future," he said.

Gomez said he called Markey to congratulate him and wished him "nothing but the best." He said he'd waged the campaign with honor and integrity but was heavily outspent by Democrats in the five-month election.

"Not every fight is a fair fight," Gomez said in his concession speech. "Sometimes you face overpowering force. We were massively overspent. We went up against literally the whole national Democratic Party. And all its allies."

Kerry left the Senate this year after being confirmed as U.S. secretary of state. Markey, 66, will serve for the remainder of Kerry's term, which expires in January 2015, meaning that another Senate election will be held a year from November.

Though Markey has a lengthy career in Congress, he will become the state's junior senator to Elizabeth Warren, who has been in office less than six months after defeating Brown in November.

Markey led in pre-election polls but said Tuesday when he voted with his wife in his hometown, Malden, that there was no overconfidence in his organization. He had said the campaign called or rang the doorbells of 3million prospective voters in the past several days.

"I have delivered a message on gun safety, on a woman's right to choose, on creating more jobs, and I think that message has been delivered and I feel very good about today," he said.

Gomez said while voting Tuesday in Cohasset, where he lives, that the election was about choosing the future over the past and what he called Markey's failure to take on the important issues despite 37 years in office.

"Where I come from, that is mission incomplete," he said.

In Cambridge, Lori Berenson, 51, said she voted for Markey, mainly because she was skeptical of one of Gomez's main campaign pitches: his request for just 17 months in office.

"He thinks in 17 months he's going to accomplish what Markey hasn't done in 37 years?" she said.

Copyright 2013 The Arizona Republic|azcentral.com. All rights reserved.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

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Senate Democrats Offer a Budget, Then the Amendments Fly

WASHINGTON — And on the 1,448th day without one, the Senate Democrats finally brought forth a budget, and Republicans saw that was good — but first, they made them pay.

After four years of hectoring Democrats to put their political and fiscal priorities to paper, Republicans got their wish on Friday and answered the effort with hundreds of amendments, some politically charged, others just odd, kicking off hours of laborious votes that sent the chamber into a marathon session just before spring recess.

There was the amendment thwarting regulations of greater and Gunnison sage grouse and eliminating funds to monitor the Utah prairie dog. In case a federal court ruling was not enough, Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, wanted to make sure money would be there to prevent the regulation of the size and quantity of food and beverage.

Senator David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana, stood vigil against any attempt by the United Nations to register American guns. Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, went one better, demanding that the United States withdraw from the United Nations. Another amendment demanded that President Obama buy his health coverage on the new insurance exchanges being created under the new law. Still another would withhold the pay of the president’s budget director if he was ever late again with a White House budget. It was approved by voice vote, without opposition.

And even if any of those were to be adopted, none of them would have any force of law. “We all know this will come to naught. The House will pass a budget. We’ll pass a budget, and we’ll never agree on it. There’s a lot of folderol about it,” said Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa.

“It’s a charade,” said Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona.

After all the complaints about Democratic irresponsibility on the budget front, what unfolded Friday boiled down to spectacle, hundreds of amendments, all advisory only, and more tailored to the next campaign than to actual governance.

Even the name of the session — the “vote-orama” — belied how seriously senators take the exercise. “Can’t hide from the vote-orama,” trumpeted a statement by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, pretty much showing the whole point of it.

In truth, a Congressional budget accomplishes far less than advertised. It sets top-line limits for the Appropriations Committees to live within as they work on the real, binding spending bills, and it sometimes sets up fast-track procedures to consider changes to tax and entitlement laws. Even those two functions can happen only if the Senate and House can reconcile their budget plans, a long shot this year.

Beyond that, all the details hung onto the document are largely meaningless, ignored by the committees that actually draft legislation.

“Are there political games being played? Yes, there always will be,” said Senator Tom Coburn,  Republican of Oklahoma, who had filed 66 amendments by evening.

Senators signaled widespread frustration on Friday night by adopting a nonbinding amendment, 68-31, to scrap the current budget process and start writing budgets every other year.

Most lawmakers expressed relief that finally, after so many years, the Senate was working on a budget. Its plan stands in stark contrast to the House plan that passed on Thursday. It includes $100 billion for an upfront job-creation and infrastructure program, instructions to expedite an overhaul of the tax code that would raise $975 billion over 10 years and could not be filibustered, and spending cuts and interest savings that total $975 billion, by Democratic calculations, and $646 billion in increases, by Republican accounting.

Even by Democratic estimates, the Senate plan would still leave a deficit of $566 billion in 2023, while adding $5.2 trillion to the federal debt over the next decade. The House plan ostensibly comes to balance that year.

That discrepancy did not dampen the enthusiasm.

“We’re doing our jobs. We’re doing the process,” said Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota. “Our constituents are just so happy we’re moving forward on a budget.”

But such big numbers seemed almost beyond the point Friday, buried in a blizzard of meaningless amendments. The term “vote-orama” officially entered the Senate lexicon in 1977, according to the Senate historian’s office. By 2009, it had become ridiculous enough to prompt a hearing to demand changes. At that time, Democratic and Republican Budget Committee leaders lamented a process that had gone off the rails. In 2006, senators submitted 87 amendments. In 2007, there were 91, in 2008, 113.

This year, there were more than 500.

The main function of the vote-orama is to put senators on record on hot-button issues sure to show up in campaigns next year. Some votes were substantive, if nonbinding. On Friday evening, 62 senators — Republican and Democratic — voted in favor of building the Keystone XL pipeline. Democrats forced Republicans to vote on women’s access to employer-provided contraceptive coverage and to state whether they supported turning Medicare into a program that hands out vouchers for the purchase of private insurance. Republicans put almost all Democrats on the record opposing an amendment to block a carbon tax.

And though advisers to the Republican senatorial committee helped coordinate some of the amendments, the chairman of the campaign committee, Senator Jerry Moran of Kansas, was not at all sure the votes would make a bit of political difference.

“I think voting records matter,” he said. “But I also know the public hears explanations about votes from Republicans and Democrats, and it’s hard to sort out what it really means. In the world of all this political activity and buzz, voters throw up their hands, shake their heads and say: ‘All these people in Washington, D.C., are a bunch of politicians. I don’t know what to believe.’ ”

Jennifer Steinhauer contributed reporting.

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Senate Democrats Finally Take a Stand

It’s been four years since the Democrats who control the Senate produced a budget. That has meant four missed opportunities to demonstrate what they stand for, in hard numbers and clear spending priorities. On Wednesday, the chamber’s leaders stiffened their spines and issued a 2014 budget. If the result isn’t quite a courageous resistance to political winds, it at least makes most of the right choices and is a solid rebuttal to the heartless collection of obsolete dogmas that is the House budget.

For Op-Ed, follow @nytopinion and to hear from the editorial page editor, Andrew Rosenthal, follow @andyrNYT.

The plan, assembled by Senator Patty Murray of Washington, would raise nearly a $1 trillion in new revenue over a decade by eliminating tax loopholes and breaks that benefit wealthy taxpayers and corporations. It recommends either limiting the overall itemized deductions of the top 2 percent of taxpayers or eliminating individual loopholes like the favorable tax rates given to hedge-fund managers. Corporations would no longer be able to avoid taxation by hiding money overseas.

At the same time, this budget cuts an equal amount of spending, $975 billion, in a way that avoids the reckless damage to vital programs and to the poor in the budget favored by the House. Nearly a third of the reductions come from new efficiencies in Medicare and Medicaid, building on the reforms in the Affordable Care Act. The rest comes from defense cuts after American troops withdraw from Afghanistan, along with cuts to wasteful programs like agriculture supports.

These cuts and revenue increases would replace the arbitrary reductions of the sequester, which does not distinguish between good and bad programs or pay attention to the heavy damage it would inflict on the economy, destroying up to a million jobs.

Ms. Murray’s plan, recognizing that government has to play a role in accelerating the recovery, would devote $100 billion to new job-creating investments: $50 billion for transportation projects, $10 billion for fixing dams and ports, $20 billion for repairing schools and $10 billion for an infrastructure bank for big projects.

The proposal could have gone further. Under pressure from the false Washington “consensus” that the deficit is an immediate problem, the plan fails to spend enough on education or even on President Obama’s proposal for universal preschool. Unlike the budget from the Congressional Progressive Caucus, it does not call for higher tax rates on the rich, or for a bigger estate tax, or for taxing capital gains as ordinary income.

But it rejects the hard-right insistence that the budget must be balanced in the short term, the destructive goal of Paul Ryan’s House version. As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities noted on Friday, Mr. Ryan’s budget gets at least two-thirds of its $5 trillion in nondefense cuts from programs that benefit low- and moderate-income people. While providing the rich with a tax cut, it would cut trillions from Medicaid, food stamps, school lunches, nutrition aid and Pell Grants.

The Senate now needs to make a strong defense of the principles it has, at last, put on paper.

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Senate Passes $3.7 Trillion Budget, Setting Up Contentious Negotiations

The 50-to-49 vote in the Senate, which is controlled by Democrats, sets up contentious — and potentially fruitless — negotiations with the Republican-controlled House in April to reconcile two vastly different plans for dealing with the nation’s economic and budgetary problems. No Republicans voted for the Senate plan, and four Democrats opposed it: Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Mark Begich of Alaska and Max Baucus of Montana. All four are from red states and are up for re-election in 2014.

“The Senate has passed a budget,” Senator Patty Murray of Washington, the Senate Budget Committee chairwoman, declared at 4:56 a.m.

The House plan ostensibly brings the government’s taxes and spending into balance by 2023 with cuts to domestic spending even below the levels of automatic across-the-board cuts roiling federal programs now, and it orders up dramatic and controversial changes to Medicare and the tax code.

The Senate plan, by contrast, includes $100 billion in upfront infrastructure spending to bolster the economy and calls for special fast-track rules to overhaul the tax code and raise $975 billion over 10 years in legislation that could not be filibustered. Even with that tax increase and prescribed spending cuts, the Senate plan would leave the government with a $566 billion annual deficit in 10 years, and $5.2 trillion in additional debt over that window.

“The first priority of the Senate budget is creating jobs and economic growth from the middle out, not the top down,” Ms. Murray said. “With an unemployment rate that remains stubbornly high, and a middle class that has seen their wages stagnate for far too long, we simply cannot afford any threats to our fragile recovery.”

Republicans were harshly dismissive of the Democrats’ priorities. “Honest people can disagree on policy, but where there can be no honest disagreement is the need to change our nation’s debt course,” said Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the committee’s ranking Republican. “The singular truth that no one can escape is that the House budget changes our debt course while the Senate budget does not.”

Passage of the competing spending plans does advance a more orderly budget process after nearly three years of crises and brinkmanship. If House and Senate negotiators can agree on a framework for overhauling the tax code and entitlement programs like Medicare, Congress’s committees could go to work on detailed legislation, possibly under special rules that protect the bills from a Senate filibuster.

If the negotiations prove fruitless, the next budget crisis looms this summer when Congress must again raise the government’s statutory borrowing limit or risk defaulting on the federal debt. On Thursday, House Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio revived a rule — breached in January — that any increase in the debt ceiling must be accompanied by equivalent spending cuts.

Final passage of the Senate budget was upstaged by the process that got the senators to it, a marathon session known since 1977 as the budget “vote-a-rama.” More than 500 amendments were filed, and 70 were voted on. Those numbers dwarf previous marathon voting sessions, reflecting pent-up Republican demand for votes and a new, uncompromising view of procedure on the part of Tea Party-backed senators.

The amendments were advisory only, but they put the Senate on record on a dizzying variety of subjects, including limiting the regulation of sage grouse, preventing the United Nations from infringing on Americans’ right to bear arms, repealing a tax on medical devices that helps finance the president’s health care law and building the Keystone XL pipeline.

By 4 a.m., the senators were sitting quietly in their seats, plowing through amendments like sleepy schoolchildren, breaking only to give the Senate pages a standing ovation and to grumble when a senator demanded a roll-call vote if a voice vote would suffice. As the senators recorded their final votes, they hastily left for a two-week spring recess.

But the sleepy bonhomie did not bridge the divide between the parties. Senate Republicans and Democrats could not even agree on what was in the Democratic budget. Ms. Murray said the plan matched its $975 billion in revenue increases with cuts and interest savings of equal size. But Republicans said it did not, since it reversed $1 trillion in across-the-board cuts but did not count that against their spending cuts.

Those differences did not lend themselves to much optimism about the coming budget negotiations. “The only good news is that the fiscal path the Democrats laid out in their budget resolution won’t become law,” said Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader.

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Senate Democrats, Accusing G.O.P. of Obstruction, Try to Force Hagel Vote

Mr. Hagel’s nomination was endorsed by the Senate Armed Services Committee along party lines on Tuesday. But with Republicans demanding more information before allowing a vote on Mr. Hagel by the full Senate, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, took procedural steps to limit floor debate on his nomination and bring the partisan clash to a head by Saturday.

“This is the first time in the history of our country that a presidential nominee for secretary of defense has been filibustered,” Mr. Reid said on the Senate floor. “What a shame. But that’s the way it is.”

Republicans, sensitive to the accusation that they were filibustering Mr. Hagel, tried to draw a distinction between a filibuster and delaying the vote because of unanswered questions.

“There’s nothing unusual about this,” said Senator James M. Inhofe, the senior Republican on the Armed Services Committee, who on Tuesday suggested without evidence that Mr. Hagel was “cozy” with Iran, an accusation that caused the committee meeting to erupt with Democratic outrage. “There’s not a filibuster,” he added.

Even if Republicans succeeded in dragging out the vote into the weekend, Democrats said they remained confident that he would be confirmed by Saturday because Republicans did not appear to have the 40 votes necessary to block the nomination. Such a move would be an extraordinary step, and one that Republicans seem wary of taking should they find themselves in the White House four years from now.

Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, meanwhile, said on Wednesday that he intended to try to block the nomination of John O. Brennan, Mr. Obama’s choice to be director of the C.I.A., until Mr. Brennan provides answers to questions he had on the scope and legality of the Obama administration’s drone operations. Democrats have also sought to extract more information from the White House about those operations.

Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, the Intelligence Committee chairwoman, said she expected to schedule a committee vote on Mr. Brennan’s nomination when the Senate returned from recess the week after next. She said that Mr. Brennan would make a “strong and capable C.I.A. director.”

According to the Senate’s historian, Donald A. Ritchie, only 5 percent of presidential cabinet nominees have been blocked or rejected by the Senate. Only twice since 1917, when the Senate’s modern filibuster rules were created, has a cabinet-level nominee been subject to a supermajority vote of 60, as Republicans are forcing with Mr. Hagel.

In the case of Mr. Hagel, a former Republican senator from Nebraska, the opposition is especially striking because senators have traditionally afforded their former colleagues a high level of courtesy. But many Republicans still nurse a grievance against Mr. Hagel for his opposition to the war in Iraq, and others have sought to make an issue of statements he has made on Israel and Iran. Senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John McCain of Arizona want the Obama administration to provide information about the timeline of its actions on the day of the attack on the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, an episode that has become a point of conservative ire against the president.

When Mr. Hagel testified before the Armed Services Committee he was pummeled.

As Mr. Obama’s counterterrorism adviser, Mr. Brennan has been the chief architect of the administration’s drone policy, and his nomination has focused new attention on it. In his State of the Union address on Tuesday, Mr. Obama said that he planned in the coming months to work with lawmakers to “ensure not only that our targeting, detention and prosecution of terrorists remain consistent with our laws and system of checks and balances, but that our efforts are even more transparent to the American people and to the world.”

White House officials on Wednesday did not give any details about Mr. Obama’s plans for more transparency about the targeted killing program, which has long been shrouded in secrecy.

Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee have expressed frustration that the White House has not allowed lawmakers to read the legal memos, written by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, which provide the justification for the targeted killing operations in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere and that have been expanded during the Obama administration.

The committee said that the Justice Department had written 11 secret legal memorandums related to the targeted killing of terrorism suspects but said the Obama administration had shown the committee only four of them.

Senator Feinstein did, however, provide new details about the extent to which her committee has been briefed by the administration about drone strikes.

“The committee has devoted significant time and attention to targeted killings by drones,” she said in a statement. “The committee receives notifications with key details of each strike shortly after it occurs, and the committee holds regular briefings and hearings on these operations” to review their basis and effectiveness.

She added that Intelligence Committee staff members had held 35 monthly oversight meetings with government officials “to review strike records (including video footage) and question every aspect of the program.”

Charlie Savage contributed reporting.

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Senate Democrats Offer a Proposal to Head Off Automatic Cuts

The Democratic proposal would establish a 30-percent minimum tax rate on incomes over $1 million to raise about $54 billion over 10 years. It would raise $1 billion more by subjecting tar sands oil to a tax to pay for oil-spill cleanups and by ending a business tax deduction for the cost of moving equipment overseas.

The remaining $55 billion would come from $27.5 billion in defense cuts from 2015 to 2021 and $27.5 billion in farm-subsidy cuts.

The legislation is more a bargaining position than a solution. Republicans have said they will not accept any new taxes in a deal to head off the so-called sequester — across-the-board cuts to defense and domestic programs of 5 percent to 8 percent and totaling about $1 trillion over 10 years. But Senate Democratic leaders said Thursday that their party must rally support around an alternative to try to move negotiations forward.

“This bill is an important chess piece,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, the No. 3 Democrat in the Senate.

Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio on Thursday repeated his demand that the Senate take the first steps to replace the spending cuts before the House considers its move, but no one predicted that the Senate Democrats’ proposal would rally the bipartisan support needed to overcome a near-certain Republican filibuster and reach the House.

“I would hope that we can get to 51 votes, and that majority would rule,” said Senator Barbara Mikulski, Democrat of Maryland, the chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. “I’m confident we will have the majority — if not the totality — of the Democratic caucus.”

Senate Democrats emerged from a protracted lunch meeting over the plan voicing only grudging support. Senator Max Baucus of Montana, the chairman of the tax-writing Finance Committee, said he worried that wringing savings from farm subsidies now instead of in a broad farm bill would make it harder to pass an overhaul of agricultural programs that has been stalled for nearly a year.

Senators Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa, and Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, denounced the 50-50 mix of cuts and taxes, after Democrats have swallowed far more spending cuts than tax increases over two years of deficit-reduction efforts.

Republicans dismissed the proposal as a worthless gimmick.

“This is not a solution — even they know it can’t pass; that’s the idea,” said Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader. “It’s a political stunt.”

The White House praised the package. Jay Carney, the press secretary, called it a “balanced plan to avoid across-the-board budget cuts that will hurt kids, seniors, and our men and women in uniform.”

“Republicans in Congress face a simple choice,” he added. “Do they protect investments in education, health care and national defense, or do they continue to prioritize and protect tax loopholes that benefit the very few at the expense of middle- and working-class Americans?”

As the cuts approach, warnings of disaster are growing increasingly dire. The Senate Appropriations Committee released a barrage of letters from agencies spelling out how the cuts would be meted out: 600,000 low-income women and children dropped from federal nutrition programs; meat and poultry plants forced to close because of furloughed federal inspectors; deep cuts to the poor school systems that rely most heavily on federal assistance; delayed permits for oil and gas production; and shorter seasons, reduced operating hours and possible park closings in the national park system. Job losses could reach 750,000 this year, said Representative Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland.

While Republicans and Democrats agree the cuts would be destructive, neither side seems ready to negotiate a solution. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, reached out to Mr. Boehner on Thursday. Mr. Boehner said he told Mr. Reid what he has been saying publicly: The House will look at what the Senate can produce.

“This sequester was the president’s idea,” Mr. Boehner said. “His party needs to follow through on their plans to replace it.”

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Democrats’ Man for Battles Will Lead New Senate Charge

Then his old boss, Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado, reluctantly took the helm of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, looking at another brutal map for Democrats eager to stay in control of Congress’s upper chamber. He had one demand: Keep Guy Cecil aboard.

“It was critically important that Guy stay in the job,” said Mr. Bennet, now reunited with Mr. Cecil, the former chief of staff who spent the last months of his 2010 campaign sleeping in the senator’s Colorado basement. “He is just excellent at what he does.”

Mr. Cecil’s return as executive director of the committee is notable in a city accustomed to political consultants cashing in for big money “downtown” — at lobbying firms and with influence peddlers off Capitol Hill. In 2010, Mr. Cecil helped engineer Mr. Bennet’s successful defense of his seat, one of the unexpected wins that kept Democrats in control of the Senate even as the party suffered a historic defeat in the House. Most assumed Democrats would lose the Senate as the 2012 season began. With Mr. Cecil directing forces, the party gained two seats.

But do not tell the reigning Democratic political wunderkind that he has a tough job. That only gets him started.

At 23, he was a Southern Baptist minister in Miami. Then he came out as gay, left a conservative church that would not accept him and went to Boston because it seemed diametrically opposite of the world he had fled. His first job was in retail, paying $19,990 a year.

His grandmother had started the family’s hard-knock cycle, running from an abusive marriage in Ohio to Miami, where she raised five children as a waitress for 40 years. His father is a boat mechanic in South Florida. His brother, born with a malignant neuroblastoma, was not supposed to walk, if he survived his first birthday. He is 32 now, with chronic health problems — and two children.

“I really have no need to complain about how hard my job is,” Mr. Cecil, 38, said with a shrug.

Which is a good thing, because he could have a lot to complain about.

After the struggles of 2010 and 2012, the road ahead for Senate Democrats does not look much smoother. Incumbents are likely to face tough races in the red states of Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana, Montana and North Carolina. Democratic retirements in Iowa and West Virginia have opened new fronts for Republicans eager to avoid a third strike in their quest to regain Senate control. Both parties are awaiting a decision by Senator Tim Johnson, a Democrat, about whether to run again in South Dakota.

Beyond that, freshman Democrats, swept to power in the Obama wave of 2008, face their first re-election campaigns in the swing states of Colorado, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Oregon. Only once in 75 years has the president’s party not lost seats in the midterm election of his second term.

Mr. Cecil’s goal: “To hold the majority, that’s it,” he says.

Rob Jesmer, who in 2012 was Mr. Cecil’s opposite number at the National Republican Senatorial Committee, called him “smart and relentless.”

“I’ve got a lot of respect for him,” he said.

Mr. Cecil’s approach to Senate elections goes back to the vicious 1998 re-election campaign of South Carolina’s Ernest Hollings, the last Democratic Senate victory in that state, and 2000, when he helped former Gov. Mel Carnahan of Missouri defeat John Ashcroft, a Republican, despite the fact that Mr. Carnahan had died in a plane crash three weeks before Election Day.

Mr. Cecil tries to resist national political winds and tailor each campaign to the particular candidates and the states they are running in. Republican campaigns tend to ride national waves, running on broad national issues like the size and scope of government, the level of taxation and the defense of the homeland. Mr. Cecil had different ideas for different Democratic candidates.

For instance, Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota ran on “North Dakota values,” a languishing farm bill and essential air service to rural America. Sherrod Brown, practically buried under an avalanche of Republican advertising, ran as David against Goliath, even if he was the incumbent in Ohio.

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Democrat Ekes Out Senate Win

They expected that George A. Amedore Jr., a state assemblyman whose family has a successful home-building business in the capital region, would have no trouble making the jump to the Legislature’s upper house. Democrats sued to block the creation of the seat, but failed.

Yet on Friday, 73 days after Election Day, Mr. Amedore conceded defeat to a little-known opponent: Cecilia F. Tkaczyk, a Democrat who, in addition to serving as vice president of the local school board, is also the vice president of the Golden Fleece Spinners and Weavers Guild.

Ms. Tkaczyk (pronounced KAT-chik) was ahead by 18 votes — out of more than 126,000 cast — after a batch of contested ballots was counted in Ulster and Albany Counties. (Another uncounted ballot was found in Montgomery County, but it remains unclear whether it will be counted.)

“No one believed our campaign had a chance in a district hand-carved by Republicans,” she said, “and yet the power of good ideas and a strong campaign proved itself.”

Ms. Tkaczyk, from Schenectady County, is a third-generation farmer, and among her hobbies is spinning wool from her flock of Jacob sheep. She, unlike Mr. Amedore, also favors putting in place a system of public financing for state elections; supporters of election reform, including Jonathan Soros, a son of the billionaire financier George Soros, poured money into an independent-expenditure campaign supporting her.

“She ran a great race and was a great candidate,” Jonathan Soros said. “Voters want this reform, and they’re actually willing to vote on it.”

The race was for a seahorse-shaped district that stretches from the Mohawk Valley to the Hudson Valley. Ms. Tkaczyk, by trade a housing policy expert, emerged from Election Day with a narrow lead, but Mr. Amedore overtook her during a court-supervised counting of paper ballots, and a judge declared him the winner in late December.

But an appeals court ruled last week that 99 additional disputed ballots should be tallied, and on Wednesday, the state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, declined to hear an appeal, allowing the ballot-counting to proceed.

“It was especially gratifying for the school board member and farmer to defeat the exceedingly wealthy assemblyman for whom the district was tailor-made,” said Dan Cantor, the executive director of the Working Families Party, which backed Ms. Tkaczyk. “David beat Goliath on this one, and that’s always a satisfying feeling for everyone involved.”

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‘North Dakota Nice’ Plays Well in Senate Race

Dan Koeck for The New York TimesHeidi Heitkamp, the Democratic Senate candidate in North Dakota, visited Perry Benton of Minot while campaigning last week.

MINOT, N.D. — Heidi Heitkamp, a Democratic Senate candidate, called Leonard Rademacher a few weeks ago looking for his vote, but Mr. Rademacher, a 74-year-old retiree, was feeling ill, so Ms. Heitkamp called him back.

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Representative Rick Berg, the Republican candidate, campaigning at a business in Fargo.

“I said: ‘Heidi, save your breath. I’m voting for you,’ ” Mr. Rademacher recalled, marveling at her personal attention. “I don’t necessarily agree with her, but I trust her.”

Gary Volk backed Ms. Heitkamp, a former state attorney general, after she sat for four hours on a slab of concrete next to what was once his house, listening to his struggles to recover from catastrophic flooding last year. Larry Windus’s mind was made up by an encounter with her opponent, Representative Rick Berg, a Republican, that ended with the candidate turning his back on him.

“He’s not very personable,” said Mr. Windus, 55, a dishwasher at Charlie’s Main Street Cafe here.

Senate Republicans considered the state in their column when Senator Kent Conrad, a veteran Democrat, announced his retirement last year. But with shoe leather, calibrated attacks and likability — an intangible that goes far in North Dakota — Ms. Heitkamp has made this a real fight. Though North Dakota is deeply conservative and is on no one’s presidential map as a question mark, this race could be one of the biggest surprises of the 2012 contests. And, like all close races this year, it could help decide control of the Senate.

Even the National Republican Senatorial Committee conceded in its most recent attack ad here that Ms. Heitkamp is making headway. “Heidi Heitkamp: You might like her, but on the issues she’s wrong for North Dakota,” it said.

The contest — the state’s first competitive one since 1986 and probably its nastiest in modern history — features two very different politicians with very different styles: the rumpled Democrat against the well-turned-out Republican, the longtime denizen of state government against the affluent businessman. Ms. Heitkamp hugs her way through a room. Mr. Berg approached a table of women in Fargo on Wednesday and then sheepishly backed off, saying: “We won’t bug you. We’ll just keep going.”

Ms. Heitkamp sees the Senate as a platform to help North Dakotans, with air service, veterans’ health care, flood control, wind energy production and agricultural assistance. Mr. Berg wants North Dakota to help the nation.

“We’ve gone from a state that has kind of been in the bottom half of the country in terms of our economics and business to really the envy of the nation,” he said at Butler Industries, a heavy-equipment dealer in Fargo that is booming along with North Dakota’s energy and agriculture sectors. “My passion is taking what we’ve done in North Dakota — if you will, the North Dakota way — and applying it nationally. If we do that, we can reignite America’s economic engine.”

Ms. Heitkamp, surveying the slow rebuilding after the flooding in Minot, offered a different sentiment. “You stand here, and you say this should not be,” she said.

In short, the campaign is a contest between North Dakota Nice and the national strategy of the Republican Party.

“Everyone’s pretty likable,” Mr. Berg said with a shrug. “The issue is not about a personality contest. This whole thing kind of boils down to, do you want someone who’s going to fight against President Obama.”

Tight Senate races in Arizona, Connecticut, Indiana, Massachusetts and North Dakota all feature one candidate who must count on voters going one way in the presidential race and another down the ballot to prevail. But in North Dakota, voters have been splitting their tickets for decades. The seat up for grabs here has been in Democratic hands for 52 years. Only once in that span, in 1964, has the state voted for a Democratic presidential candidate.

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In Missouri Senate Race, Ads Beset Incumbent Democrat

As the three Republican candidates have battled it out, Ms. McCaskill has had to buckle down as well. Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS, David and Charles Koch’s Americans For Prosperity, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the 60 Plus Association have dumped as much as $15 million into the state since July 2011 to keep her on her heels.

In their advertisements, Ms. McCaskill’s face is sometimes bloated, sometimes goofy, sometimes exhausted. She is usually joined at the hip with President Obama. And she is always almost single-handedly to blame for Missouri’s economic travails, the nation’s skyrocketing debt, the Democrats’ health care law and a scandalous level of duplicity.

“As one guy said to me in rural Missouri, ‘Don’t worry, they’re trying to tenderize you before they pick a candidate,’ ” Ms. McCaskill said Thursday.

The sustained campaign could become a textbook for future efforts in a new era of anything-goes campaign financing, both Ms. McCaskill and her opponents say.

Most of the spending is coming from tax-exempt 501(c)(4) organizations like Crossroads GPS, which may accept large corporate and individual donations without disclosing donors’ identities. And the outcome could show that third-party advertising from these organizations and from “super PACs” — like Now or Never, which works on behalf of Sarah Steelman, one of the Republican candidates — could tip the balance to a larger degree in a statewide or Congressional race than in the presidential contest.

In other states with contested Republican primaries, like Arizona, Indiana and Wisconsin, outside money flowed in to take sides in the primaries themselves, leaving the Republican contenders wounded and the Democrat in better shape. In Missouri, it flowed in largely to take down the Democrat, providing vital air cover while the Republicans fought each other below the radar.

The three Republican candidates may be lesser known and less dynamic than Ms. McCaskill, a mainstay of Missouri politics, but she is possibly the most endangered incumbent in the Senate. A Mason-Dixon poll published on July 28 in The St. Louis Post-Dispatch found her trailing all three of her potential opponents, John Brunner, a businessman; Ms. Steelman, a former state treasurer; and Representative Todd Akin.

“When you have a late primary like in Missouri’s, the ability to keep a sustained message-fire on the incumbent is going to be important to whoever the nominee is going to be,” said Kenneth Goldstein, president of the Campaign Media Analysis Group, which tracks campaign television spending.

Republicans are reluctant to give the outside groups too much credit. They say Ms. McCaskill’s uphill climb to a second term is due to her fealty to Mr. Obama’s legislative agenda in a state where he is unpopular.

“Certainly the outside spending has reminded voters why they might not like her much,” said Todd Abrajano, an aide to Mr. Brunner. “But if there was no outside money, she’d still be in the predicament she is in today.”

But when pushed, Republicans do not deny that the groups have helped.

“They are keeping the pressure on McCaskill,” Mr. Akin said. “And that’s making any of us think, ‘We can do it, we can do it.’ ”

Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, allowed, “I can’t deny it’s had some impact.”

The Missouri Senate race has drawn outside money from more than a half-dozen groups: two Democratic outfits, the Majority PAC and Patriot Majority USA; and five Republican allies. The Campaign Media Analysis Group tallied $5.2 million in ads since June 1, compared with $4.8 million in Ohio, $2.9 million in Florida, $1.5 million in Montana and $1.1 million in North Dakota, where other contested Senate campaigns have drawn outside attention.

The Majority PAC has spent $722,000 since June to help Ms. McCaskill. Crossroads GPS has spent $857,000 against her, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce $190,000.

Democratic strategists say those numbers understate the impact. Crossroads GPS’s first ads ran in early July 2011, and since then, nine separate ads have come in a rolling barrage. When Crossroads GPS eased up in June, the chamber peaked in July. By the Democrats’ count, anti-McCaskill spending has already reached $15.2 million, with an additional $18 million in advertising slots reserved for the fall.

“People will look back at Missouri and look back at the money that’s been spent by outside forces and say this is an election that shows whether or not these anonymous masters of the universe can buy these elections,” Ms. McCaskill said. “If it works in Missouri, then I think we’re in for a rough ride in this country.”

Her opponents dismiss that. Since Ms. McCaskill’s narrow Senate victory in 2006, her state has drifted right. Mr. Obama lost Missouri in 2008 by fewer than 4,000 votes out of nearly three million cast. But in a 2010 Senate race, Roy Blunt, then a Republican representative, crushed Robin Carnahan, a Democratic scion of Missouri political royalty, by nearly 14 percentage points.

Some Missouri Republican strategists said the outside groups knew that Ms. McCaskill could not win and flooded the state to claim a scalp to take to their donors. Others said they saw her weakness and decided they could not forgive themselves if they let her off the mat.

For her part, Ms. McCaskill has made the outside money the main opponent of the campaign.

One McCaskill advertisement says: “They just keep coming back. Secret money attacking Claire McCaskill. These big oil and insurance companies don’t want you to know who they are.” As a stream of televisions showing her competitors’ ads moves across the screen, it continues: “Claire McCaskill will fight them. Always has, always will.”

Republicans say her effort has proved to be a major strategic error. Ms. McCaskill’s focus on the money has only intensified awareness of the campaign’s national importance, made her look defensive and increased the resolve of the outside groups to stay in, they say.

But Ms. McCaskill said that once her opponent was chosen, she could shift gears and try to move the race from a referendum on her to a choice between her and her opponent.

“I’ve had to tread water,” she said, “while they have been pounding me with certainly more per capita than anybody else in the country.”

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Senate Leaders Agree on Bill to Extend Student Loans

The $6.7 billion agreement would extend the current 3.4 percent rate on Stafford loans for one year, with about $700 million extra for deficit reduction, according to Senate leadership aides. The bulk of that — $5.5 billion — would come from two pension measures. One would change how private pension interest payments are calculated, smoothing the fluctuations for businesses even as the total cost rises slightly. The other would come from higher premiums for companies participating in the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.

Another $1.2 billion would come from limiting how long a student could receive Stafford loans to 150 percent of the average time it takes to complete a degree. Currently there are no limits.

“We’re pleased that the Senate has reached a deal to keep rates low and continue offering hard-working students a fair shot at affordable education,” said the White House press secretary, Jay Carney.

Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, the minority leader, said the White House was not involved in reaching the compromise.

Attention will now shift to House Republicans, who already passed a loan extension, paid for by a preventive care fund from the health care law that Democrats had declared unacceptable.

House Republicans huddled with Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio on Tuesday evening, trying to find a way to link the loan deal with a measure extending federal highway and transit programs. The goal, aides said, was to be able to take a final vote on Friday, ahead of the July 4 recess.

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Senate Move to Reverse Mercury Rule Fails

A Senate resolution seeking to reverse federal regulations limiting emissions of mercury and other toxic substances from coal-burning power plants failed to win passage on Wednesday. The resolution, introduced by Senator James M. Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican, won support from 46 senators; 53 voted against it.

Associated PressSenator James M. Inhofe

The Environmental Protection Agency rules, issued late last year, have been criticized by some utilities, coal producers, Congressional Republicans and other foes as overly broad and potentially harmful to the economy. The Obama administration has defended the new regulations as critical to protecting public health.

Mr. Inhofe argued that the regulations amounted to a “war on coal” that would result in job losses and higher energy prices. Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has also opposed the rule on economic grounds.

But President Obama cited the rule limiting emissions from power plants as a signal achievement in his State of the Union address in January, and the White House warned this week that he would veto the resolution if it landed on his desk.

Opposition from the Senate’s Democratic majority ensured that it wouldn’t come to that: only five Democratic senators supported the resolution, including Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia.

West Virginia’s other senator, Jay Rockefeller, also a Democrat, voted against the measure, saying it “moves us backward, not forward.”

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Senate Primary Over, New Battle Begins in Indiana

Democrats were casting the general election fight as a referendum on whether moderates should still have a place in Washington, while Tea Party organizers said it would be seen as a national test of the movement’s enduring strength.

Democratic leaders, who had doubted their odds against Mr. Lugar, a Republican so moderate that even the leaders admitted that plenty of Democrats liked him, sounded giddy about their November opponent: Richard E. Mourdock, a Tea Party-supported Republican who seized a remarkable 61 percent of the vote in part by denouncing bipartisanship and pledging to an unwavering conservative approach.

“Democratic donors across the country are going to see this as a prime pickup opportunity,” said Matt Canter, a spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, who added that the Indiana seat would fall among five top Republican-held seats being targeted in the fight for control of the Senate.

Labor leaders, too, said they saw an opportunity now in Indiana. “We’re all ramping up our plans as we speak,” said Nancy J. Guyott, president of the Indiana A.F.L.-C.I.O.

National conservative groups, some of which had poured more than $3 million to benefit Mr. Mourdock in the primary, were poised to send still more if needed. The number of such outside groups also appeared likely to grow if the contest here, against Representative Joe Donnelly, a Democrat, appears truly competitive — a notion some conservative leaders remained skeptical about, given Indiana’s Republican leanings.

“It’s a big race because a lot hinges on our success,” said Brendan Steinhauser, director of federal and state campaigns at FreedomWorks, which trains Tea Party members and which spent about $850,000 in Mr. Mourdock’s victory and plans to be similarly involved in the general election.

“If Mourdock were not to win,” Mr. Steinhauser said, the gloating would come not just from Democrats but establishment Republicans, pointing to the Tea Party. “They would want to blame that on us — ‘See, we told you so,’ ” he said.

By Wednesday, the outlines of a new political battle were emerging, with Democrats trying to paint Mr. Mourdock as a far-right candidate with little appeal for independents or moderate Republicans, and conservatives portraying Mr. Donnelly as a typical Democrat.

The Club for Growth, which had spent money on television and radio commercials against Mr. Lugar in the primary and said it would contribute more, if needed, in the general election, said Mr. Donnelly was “an economic liberal who votes in lock-step” with Democratic leaders.

Mr. Donnelly, who was elected in 2006 to represent a northern Indiana district, described himself as among the most conservative Democrats in the House in a moment when, he said, voters are looking for something different than they were in 2010. “Right now, it’s not about fire and brimstone,” he said. “It’s about jobs and the opportunity for your family to succeed.”

Although President Obama won Indiana in 2008, the state has long been a place where Republicans do well, and Mr. Obama is considered unlikely to win here again. None of it would seem to be fertile ground for a Democratic Senate bid, and some conservative leaders said they remained unconvinced that Mr. Mourdock would have any trouble in November.

But Dan Parker, the chairman of the Indiana Democratic Party, described Mr. Mourdock as an “extreme Tea Party candidate,” who would not appeal to a general election audience. “Dick Lugar was the mainstream Republican,” he said. “Indiana is not crazy conservative.”

Senator Chris Coons of Delaware, a Democrat, who rose from nowhere to be elected in 2010 after Republicans there rejected a popular moderate and nominated Tea Party favorite Christine O’Donnell, said he reached out to Mr. Donnelly Tuesday night after Mr. Lugar’s defeat.

“I think there’s a very good chance he could be the Chris Coons of 2012,” the senator said.

State Republican leaders, calling on Wednesday for party unity following Mr. Lugar’s loss, stood beside Mr. Mourdock on a stage here and seemed eager to play down his Tea Party ties and emphasize his traditional Republican credentials. Complicating the efforts, Mr. Lugar, who was not in attendance at the gathering, issued a sharp statement condemning what he suggested was a rising trend of rejecting political independence and bipartisan conversation.  

“He comes right out of the heart, right out of mainstream of our party, and I think that was really, among many, his longest single suit in the huge win that he had yesterday,” said Gov. Mitch Daniels, the governor, who had endorsed Mr. Lugar and had previously said he viewed Mr. Mourdock as a friend.

Indeed, Mr. Mourdock is in his second term as state treasurer, and he has been known for appearing at local Republican events and county dinners for years; when he announced his bid for the senate, he had a surprising majority of endorsements from the party’s county chairmen and chairwomen around the state.

“The first label they’re going to try to put on me is that Mourdock is this wild-eyed Tea Party guy,” Mr. Mourdock said. “But as the governor said, I’ve been swimming in the pool of Republican politics a long time,” he said, growing choked up as he described his love for the party.

Jonathan Weisman contributed reporting from Washington, and Steven Greenhouse from New York.

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Republicans in Senate Block Bill on Student Loan Rates

A Democratic bill intended to prevent the doubling of some student loan interest rates is in limbo now that Senate Republicans have blocked its consideration, Jonathan Weisman reports:

Along party lines, the Senate voted 52 to 45, failing to clear the 60-vote hurdle needed to beat back a filibuster and begin debating the measure. Senator Olympia J. Snowe, the retiring moderate Republican from Maine, voted present.

Republicans said they wanted to extend Democratic legislation passed in 2007 that temporarily reduced interest rates for the low- or middle-income undergraduates who receive subsidized Stafford loans to 3.4 percent from 6.8 percent.

But they oppose the Senate Democrats’ proposal to pay for a one-year extension by changing tax law that currently allows some wealthy taxpayers to avoid paying Social Security and Medicare taxes by classifying their pay as dividends, not cash income.

“They want to raise taxes on people who are creating jobs when we are still recovering from the greatest recession since the Great Depression,” said Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee, who instead wanted to pay for it by eliminating a preventive health care fund in President Obama’s health care law.

What are your thoughts about the Senate’s vote? Should Congress keep the reduced student loan interest rate from 2007, or allow the reduction to expire? Let us know your thoughts in the comment box below.

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Senate Votes to Renew Violence Against Women Act

But a political fight still looms when the House takes up a version of the legislation next month that is shorn of the hot-button issues added in the Senate.

The final vote, 68 to 31, including 15 Republicans, belied the partisan maneuvering that preceded Senate action on the bill, which extended landmark legislation first passed in 1994 to give courts and law enforcement new tools to combat domestic violence.

The latest version — the third reauthorization since 2000 — followed tradition and was drafted by a Democrat, Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, and a Republican, Senator Michael D. Crapo of Idaho. But it ran into a wall of Republican opposition in the Senate Judiciary Committee, and cleared the committee in February without a Republican vote.

Amid partisan brawls over abortion and contraception, some Democrats saw the Violence Against Women Act as the next battle in what they framed as a Republican “war on women.” But Senate Republicans did not rise to the bait. Republican senators like John Cornyn of Texas made clear their concerns, but even before amendments to address those concerns were voted on, many of the same senators who had expressed reservations signaled that they would vote for the bill, regardless of whether it was changed. No Republicans spoke out against it before the final tally.

“I intend to vote for the underlying bill even with its flaws,” Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas announced even as she pressed for changes, including one that would limit advertising on Backpage.com, a Web site that has an “adult services” section.

If there are to be fireworks, they will have to come when the Senate version comes up against the House’s. House Republican women this week announced that they would introduce a version of the violence act when they return from next week’s recess, with a final House vote expected by mid-May.

The House bill is likely to be stripped of three provisions that have incensed some conservatives. One would subject non-Indian suspects of domestic violence to prosecution before tribal courts for crimes allegedly committed on reservations. Another would expand the number of temporary visas for illegal immigrant victims of domestic violence. The last would expand Violence Against Women Act protections to gay, bisexual or transgender victims of domestic abuse.

“We’re not going to be looking at the controversial issues,” said Representative Sandy Adams of Florida, who is the main sponsor of the impending House bill. 

Republicans say the American Indian courts provision could deny due process in some cases and could be ruled unconstitutional. They suggested Democrats were stealthily expanding “amnesty” to some illegal immigrants while pursuing pro-homosexual social policy under the guise of domestic violence legislation.

Stripping out those provisions, Mr. Leahy responded, “would result in abandoning some of the most vulnerable victims ... battered immigrants, Native women and victims in same-sex relationships.”

Mostly, however, Republican leaders accused Democrats of adding those provisions to the reauthorization expressly to pick a fight for political advantage. But it is unclear how potent those concerns will be. Only 36 senators voted Thursday for the version shorn of those measures.

For some conservative groups, however, even the core of the nearly 20-year-old law was unacceptable. The Concerned Women for America and Independent Women’s Forum had said the law had devolved into a “slush fund” for feminist causes that harms men unfairly and encourages the dissolution of marriages.

But from the beginning, many Republicans were declining to take up that cause. The legislation had five Republican co-sponsors, including Mr. Crapo, at its introduction. The two Republican senators facing the toughest re-election races, Dean Heller of Nevada and Scott P. Brown of Massachusetts, quickly signed on.

Democratic protests aside, the bill’s passage was secured well before the final vote was called when eight Republicans signed on as co-sponsors. The final vote was supported not only by moderate Republicans like Susan Collins and Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, but also by Republican stalwarts like John McCain of Arizona and unflinching conservatives like David Vitter of Louisiana.

Jennifer Steinhauer contributed reporting.

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Conservative Groups Spend Heavily in Senate Races

Already, they have committed at least $17 million to television commercials in more than a dozen states from Florida to Hawaii, in most cases dwarfing what their Democratic opponents have spent. Their plans call for an effort that will exceed $100 million by Election Day, strategists for these groups said, far surpassing their efforts in 2010, a high-water mark for outside money in politics.

In the weeks ahead, they will pour more resources into states like Nebraska and Missouri, which have already seen some of the heaviest spending, in addition to intensifying their campaigns in New Mexico, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

Their immediate objective: use hard-hitting television ads to tether Democratic candidates to the budget deficit, lackluster economic growth and the perception that government has become too intrusive and unmanageable.

Except for the candidate, and the phone number that flashes on screen at the end, the ads follow a strikingly similar script.

Senator Fill-in-the-Blank supports business-smothering regulations and will raise your taxes. He also added trillions to the deficit by voting for “Obamacare” and will cut your Medicare.

In Missouri, Senator Claire McCaskill, a Democrat, has been buffeted with more than $2.2 million in television ads from Crossroads GPS, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a group called the 60 Plus Association, which bills itself as a right-leaning AARP and uses Pat Boone as its pitch man. “Call Senator McCaskill,” Mr. Boone says in one ad. “Tell her unaccountable bureaucrats should never have the power to deny you the care you deserve.”

Ms. McCaskill and her allies have countered with ads of their own but are being outspent by more than 3 to 1, data from Kantar Media show.

In Nebraska, Bob Kerrey has been mocked as a liberal Manhattan interloper in a trio of TV commercials from Americans for Prosperity. In one, set to music that vaguely recalls Bernard Herrmann’s score from “Psycho,” a narrator warns, “Bob Kerry is moving back to Nebraska, and he wants to bring his liberal agenda back to our Nebraska home.” Stern-faced citizens object. “Not in my house,” says one man. “Not here,” says another.

Mr. Kerrey, a former Nebraska governor and senator who left office a dozen years ago to run the New School in Manhattan, has responded with nearly half a million dollars in commercials of his own. That is a considerable expense for his fledgling campaign, and almost as much as the amount of cash he had on hand at the end of March.

The conservative groups’ strategy makes clear that they — traditional Republican allies like the Chamber of Commerce along with newer players like the Karl Rove-backed Crossroads GPS and Americans for Prosperity, a Koch brothers-affiliated venture, among others — intend to be even more aggressive this year than they were in 2010, when they greatly expanded the role of outside money in Congressional elections.

By forcing their opponents to respond with expensive ad campaigns of their own, these conservative groups are achieving at least part of their goal. But their strategy is not without its risks, namely that they are dumping money into advertising long before voters are really paying attention.

The focus on the Senate reflects conservative hopes for a sweep of the White House and both branches of Congress, and frustration with the Senate’s role in blocking legislation passed by the Republican-controlled House, especially on the budget and fiscal issues that have come to dominate the debate in Washington.

“You could argue that what happens in the Senate and the House matters more on a day-to-day basis, on key legislative matters, than an administration does,” said Tim Phillips, president of Americans for Prosperity.

The Chamber of Commerce, which, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, spent more than $30 million on Congressional races in 2010, said it will commit “measurably more” this year to House and Senate campaigns in what officials called the most significant political effort in its 100-year history.

“We’re going to shape the environment now instead of waiting for the environment that comes to us later,” said Rob Engstrom, national political director for the Chamber of Commerce. For over a year, the group has enlisted strategists to comb through candidates’ voting records and public statements, looking for material useful in an ad.

“We’re prepared to quickly engage if developments warrant,” he added.

Crossroads plans to spend about $60 million on Senate races alone and an additional $30 million on House races. That would more than double what it and its sister organization, American Crossroads, spent in 2010. These sums will come atop the nearly $18 million in air time that the National Republican Senatorial Committee has reserved for the fall.

Americans for Prosperity, which has been an important supporter of the Tea Party movement, and others promoting various aspects of the conservative agenda, like Club for Growth, a group that promotes fiscally conservative and free-market principles, have each vowed to spend millions more.

Democrats acknowledge that they are outgunned, but expect the Republicans’ financing advantage to dissipate as the general election nears. Money being spent on ads now, Democratic strategists argue, is being wasted on voters who are not paying close attention to their local races. And it will leave less money for Republicans and their allied groups come the fall, they contend.

“Even Karl Rove’s money becomes finite at some point,” said Matt Canter, communications director for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, who added that Democratic incumbents had plenty of cash on hand that would go further because candidates, unlike outside groups, get the lowest possible advertising rates. “We will not be outspent in practice as much as it might appear.”

In addition to lacking the large donors who have provided much of the money for outside conservative groups, Democrats find themselves at a further disadvantage because President Obama’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee do not plan to finance the Congressional campaign committees this year.

Democrats are trying to turn their underdog status into a political benefit by using it to raise money and portray their Republican opponents as beholden to their big contributors. Indeed, Ms. McCaskill features the attack ads being run against her in an ad of her own that rails against the “special interests” behind the commercials.

“What they’re doing to Claire McCaskill is nothing compared to what their special interest agenda will do to you,” the narrator says, going down a list that includes tax breaks for the wealthy, “ending Medicare as we know it,” and trade policies that benefit China over the United States. “Claire says, ‘Make it in Missouri,’ ” the announcer adds, pronouncing it the way many locals do: Muh-zhur-UH.

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