Senator’s Absence Worries Democrats as Gun Votes Near

Mr. Lautenberg, a New Jersey Democrat and the oldest member of the Senate at 89, has been out for weeks dealing with health complications partly from cancer treatment he received several years ago.

But with Democrats scrambling to come up with enough votes to overcome resistance to the most sweeping gun-control legislation in a generation, Mr. Lautenberg’s presence (or absence) is shaping up to be critically important.

Aides insist that Mr. Lautenberg, who has been undergoing physical therapy for weeks, will try to get to Washington once the voting begins on the assortment of gun-safety measures, which are expected to come to the floor in the coming weeks.

Mr. Lautenberg’s aides say he is eager to return, particularly given that he introduced an amendment to ban high-capacity ammunition magazines.

“Senator Lautenberg is feeling better and hopes to be in Washington for gun votes,” Caley Gray, a spokesman for the senator, said in a statement on Monday.

For weeks, rumors and concern have been swirling about the health of Mr. Lautenberg, who this year announced that he would retire rather than seek a sixth term in 2014. The senator cast his most recent vote in the Senate on Feb. 28.

The preoccupation with Mr. Lautenberg, one of the chamber’s most ardent advocates of gun control, has only intensified as the Senate moved in recent days to begin the most significant debate on gun legislation in two decades.

For the last few weeks, Mr. Lautenberg, who received a diagnosis of stomach cancer three years ago, has been grappling with debilitating and long-term consequences that powerful chemotherapy treatment has had on his leg muscles, according to people close to him.

As a result, he has been using a wheelchair while undergoing physical therapy to regain his strength. But Mr. Lautenberg, an extraordinarily proud man who served in World War II, has not wanted to show up in the Senate in a wheelchair, according to those who know him.

For Democrats, the interest in Mr. Lautenberg’s health goes far beyond the coming votes on gun legislation.

Should Mr. Lautenberg decide to retire before his term ends, his departure could have a significant impact on the balance of power in the Senate, where Democrats hold 53 seats and are typically joined by two independents.

Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, a Republican, would have the legal authority to make an interim appointment to the seat. And he would almost certainly select a Republican, depriving Democrats of a crucial vote in the Senate.

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Presidential candidates seek votes from bloc of new American citizens

SAN FRANCISCO — SAN FRANCISCO From Florida to Virginia, Massachusetts to California, candidates and political parties seeking to squeeze every vote from a divided electorate are targeting America's newest citizens. It's a relatively small bloc but one that can be substantial enough to make a difference in razor-close races.

In Florida, which President Barack Obama won by less than 5 percentage points four years ago, a new analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data shows people who naturalized as Americans since 2000 make up 6 percent of the population of voting-age citizens. For months, the Obama campaign has been sending volunteers to citizenship ceremonies to register people and canvassing Miami-area neighborhoods where immigrant families live.

In California, where new citizens comprise nearly 9 percent of potential voters, Republicans hope House candidates Ricky Gill and Abel Maldonado can reach that group by highlighting their families' journeys from India and Mexico.

Georgina Castaneda, who grew up in Veracruz, Mexico, and now lives in Los Angeles, is the type of person the campaigns are targeting. After years of waiting for her citizenship application to go through, she passed the U.S. civics test and swore her allegiance to the flag along with thousands of others at a ceremony in March at Los Angeles' Staples Center.

Castaneda said Democratic Party workers walked down the aisles handing out brochures to the crowd. She filled one out while still seated.

"My idea was that one more vote could do something, so I registered at the ceremony," she said.

Political parties have tried to engage new arrivals since at least the 1790s, when New York City's fabled Tammany Hall political machine organized immigrants.

"The trick with politics is to get to people early, so what you want to do is make sure that your party gets in on the ground floor of any new citizen's thinking," said Stephen Farnsworth, a professor of political science at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Va.

First-generation citizens historically have leaned Democratic and registered at lower rates than U.S.-born voters. But during the past decade, the registration gap has narrowed, partly because the newest Americans have been motivated by the immigration debate, said Manuel Pastor, director of the Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration at the University of Southern California.

Nationwide, there are 7.8 million people of voting age who naturalized since 2000, or 3.6 percent of all potential voters. Two swing states -- Florida, at 6 percent, and Nevada, at 5.1 percent -- have higher concentrations than the national average.

States like California, Massachusetts and Illinois that are considered likely to go for Obama have significant populations of new citizens who could decide congressional races.

In Massachusetts, where the newest Americans make up 5 percent of all potential voters, GOP Sen. Scott Brown often emphasizes his support for legal immigrants who have "played by the rules" as he competes with Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren for the swath of undecided voters.

In downtown Oakland, Calif., the Alameda County Republican Party has been erecting folding tables with voter registration forms in Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog and English outside naturalization ceremonies.

The success rate for Republicans in this traditionally Democratic stronghold is unclear -- local GOP Chairwoman Sue Caro noted sometimes new citizens pose with the party's cardboard cutouts of Mitt Romney and Ronald Reagan, then walk down the sidewalk to the Democratic Party's table and take family photos with likenesses of Michelle and Barack Obama.

In Florida, the Obama campaign for months has sent volunteers to the conference halls where the federal government holds its citizenship ceremonies.

"Our campaign is about inclusiveness, and to that end we encourage all citizens, including our newest citizens, to get involved in the democratic process," Obama campaign spokesman Adam Fetcher said.

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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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Claim of Fraud as Votes Are Counted in Brooklyn Special Election

Ángel Franco/The New York TimesThe city’s Board of Elections on Wednesday began counting absentee ballots in a special election to fill a vacant State Senate seat in Brooklyn.

What began as a pleasant day of official vote-counting in the undecided special election for state senator in south Brooklyn devolved into claims of fraud and disenfranchisement from both campaigns on Wednesday afternoon.

In other words: nothing new.

On Wednesday morning, at the city’s Board of Election’s headquarters in Brooklyn, the Republican candidate, David Storobin, 33, a lawyer, led the Democratic candidate, Councilman Lewis A. Fidler, by 119 votes.

By the end of the day, when about a third of the roughly 1,500 absentee ballots and affidavits were counted, Mr. Storobin’s lead was down to 37.

The counting will continue on Thursday, and most likely on Friday, when lawyers for both campaigns are expected to appear in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn so that a judge can review the ballots in dispute, including 151 from Wednesday.

The candidates had already taken a contentious, if not ugly, approach in the campaign for the 27th District. Now, their representatives are continuing the trend.

“We have identified significant patterns of fraud, including a good number of people who sent in absentee-ballot applications who stated they were permanently disabled but then showed up to vote,” Kalman Yeger, Mr. Fidler’s campaign manager, said.

Lawyers for Mr. Fidler’s campaign said they had identified 177 people who had filled out applications for absentee ballots claiming permanent disability, ballots that were collected by the same woman.

“These votes are being targeted ethnically for exclusion so it can go to court,” David Simpson, a spokesman for Mr. Storobin, said. “We believe every vote should be counted the same way.”

The machine totals last week showed that Mr. Storobin, who was born in the Soviet Union, had a slight edge in primarily Russian-American neighborhoods like Brighton Beach and Gravesend. His campaign considered that a moral victory, considering that Gregory Davidzon, a power broker with a popular Russian radio show, had endorsed Mr. Fidler, originally considered the front runner.

“It’s the height of ridiculousness to say that there’s any effort to disenfranchise anybody,” Mr. Yeger said.

Proving a voter’s disability before a judge could be a difficult task, however, and it is possible that testimony from private investigators hired by Mr. Fidler’s campaign will seek to determine the authenticity of the absentee ballots.

“It is shocking that the lies from the Storobin campaign continue a week after the election,” Mr. Yeger said.

Mr. Storobin’s campaign was just as outraged. “David Storobin made a concerted effort in this historic election to empower Russian-American voters and better include them in the democratic process,” Mr. Simpson said in a statement. “It is wrong for the Fidler campaign, now that they are losing an election, to try and subvert the democratic process by specifically excluding voters from the Russian areas of the district, many of whom are participating for the first time.”

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Democrats Hold Their Ground In Wisconsin Recall Votes (The Atlantic Wire)

Wisconsin Democrats, at least, didn't lose any more ground last night in the state's recall elections. Sens. Jim Holperin and Robert Wirch (pictured) held on to their seats and kept the the Republican majority in the Senate to a 17-16 margin, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. The recall elections--which lost their drama when GOP won four of six elections last week--were seen in part as a referendum on labor organizing efforts in response to the controversial anti-union legislation that Gov. Scott Walker signed amidst large protests earlier this year.

Related: Wisconsin Republicans Keep the State Senate in Recall Vote

But even though Democrats failed to take the Senate, the Sentinel notes, "the narrower [GOP] majority would make it tougher to win approval of controversial legislation, such as stricter abortion restrictions or tougher penalties for illegal immigrants." Which led the Democratic party chairman, Mike Tate, to spin the result into a moral victory (Via National Journal): "[The recall elections] forced Walker and the GOP to pay public lip service to moderation and bipartisanship for the first time since they took power in January. All of these facts show that voters gave Democrats the overall victory in this summer's historic senate recall elections."

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