Critics assail reform plans for elections

Election 2012 -- with its surge of Latino voters, increase in impossible-to-track campaign donations, and hotly fought ballot measures -- is reverberating at the Legislature in a flurry of bills that seek to remedy the problems exposed by last fall's contests.

THE BILLS

Bills proposed to address the problems that occurred during the November general election would do the following:

Pare down early-voting lists.

Make it more difficult to deliver other people's ballots to polling places.

Make it more difficult to place citizen initiatives on the ballot.

But many of the bills, including three approved in the Senate last week, could backfire. County elections officials promoted much of the legislation in the name of trying to avoid a repeat of last fall's issues, when a flurry of provisional ballots caused final results to be delayed for more than a week. Many voters were forced to file provisional ballots because their names appeared on early-voting lists.

But new restrictions could alienate voters and lead to further confusion, if not lawsuits, critics argue.

One bill would pare down early-voting lists; another would make it more difficult to deliver other people's ballots to polling places; and other bills would make it more difficult to place citizen initiatives on the ballot.

The loudest complaints have come from Arizona's Latinos, who led aggressive voter-registration drives that added thousands of new voters to the rolls. Those voters tend to cast their ballots overwhelmingly for Democrats.

Others have criticized the double standard that would be created for petition-signature requirements: strict compliance for citizen-driven initiatives, but a looser standard for candidates.

"We should be working on encouraging folks to participate in our elections, not taking that right away," said Sen. Steve Gallardo, D-Phoenix, who has led the charge against bills that would tighten rules for Arizona's popular early-ballot program.

Sam Wercinski, executive director of the Arizona Advocacy Network, said the bills are not so much a reaction to the 2012 election as to the protests sparked by the two-week wait for results.

"We've always had large numbers of provisionals," said Wercinski, whose group lobbies for voting access. "I think politicians saw how powerful the permanent early-voting list and vote-by-mail are for new voters, and particularly Latino voters, and that's why we have all these bills."

Even elections officials, who would have to enforce whatever changes the Legislature approves, say the best solution to confusion over early voting is increased voter education. However, there is no money in the current bills to provide for greater voter outreach.

Lee Rowland, an attorney at the New York-based Brennan Center for Justice, said Arizona is not alone in reacting to last fall's elections with a stream of proposed changes.

There was an "unprecedented level of restriction" in the 2012 election, she said, such as the refusal of Florida Gov. Rick Scott to extend early-voting hours to deal with long lines and confusion in Pennsylvania over a new voter-identification law.

"It's really important that the focus be on actual problems, not manufactured problems," Rowland said. "What we really shouldn't see is a return to some of the restrictive practices that happened before the election."

To hear the backers of some of the key bills at the Capitol, Arizona's laws weren't restrictive enough. From trying to rein in who can return a voter's ballot to how much scrutiny should be given to voter signatures on petitions, the bills seek to tighten the rules.

Early-vote troubles

Many of those provisional ballots that caused problems in last fall's election came from voters who had signed up on the permanent early-voting list and received a ballot in the mail. But on Election Day, for any number of reasons, people who received an early ballot walked into a polling place and either dropped it off or asked for a ballot. Those who got a new ballot had to vote provisionally so elections workers could verify that they had not voted twice. That process added time to the tabulation process.

It's not a phenomenon unique to 2012: Ever since Arizona created the early-voting list, late-arriving "early" ballots have slowed elections returns.

Senate Bill 1261 would thin out the permanent early-voting list by automatically removing any voter who does not vote by mail for two consecutive election cycles.

The clock would start ticking with the 2010 election, meaning voters who didn't cast an early ballot in 2010 and 2012 would be purged. They could still vote, but would have to do it the old-fashioned way by going to the polls.

The Arizona Voters Coalition doesn't like the automatic nature of the purge. Rather, this collection of civic groups said, the state should let voters opt out of the list. Coalition members include the League of Women Voters of Arizona, the Inter-Tribal Council and Mi Familia Vota.

The group also objected to the bill's original penalty of imposing a Class 5 felony, punishable by up to 11/2 years in prison, on anyone who knowingly altered a voter-registration form without consent of that voter. Sen. Michele Reagan, R-Scottsdale and the sponsor of SB 1261, reduced the penalty to a Class 6 felony, which often is bargained down to a misdemeanor.

The Senate approved the amended bill last week on a party-line 16-12 vote, with Democrats opposed. It's now in the House.

The state Democratic Party assailed Reagan over the bill, as well as two others approved by the Senate, sending out a news release headlined "Help stop voter suppression in Arizona" and charging that the bills were part of her strategy to nail down the GOP nomination for secretary of state in 2014.

Reagan, who's been clear about her interest in the top elections post, said the bills come with the backing of county elections officials, both Democrats and Republicans. They resulted from study sessions last year that involved an array of people involved in the elections process who were trying to plug the holes plaguing the system.

However, she never invited the Latino organizing groups that mobilized thousands of new voters. They held a news conference, testified at the Elections Committee hearings Reagan chairs and, just last week, staged a silent protest that led to their ejection from a Senate hearing room. About a dozen young people held up small signs claiming Reagan was anti-Latino.

These grass-roots groups are particularly upset with another Reagan bill that would limit who can carry a voter's ballot into a polling place. It carries a Class 6 felony penalty. Currently, anyone, or any group, can take in ballots, a practice that Reagan last month said she found appalling.

SB 1003 would require anyone who delivers a ballot on behalf of a voter to sign a statement that they have the voter's permission to do so. It's a concession to critics of the original bill, which would have limited the practice to immediate family members or roommates.

Reagan questions whether protesters realize she's amended the bill to allow the voter to designate anyone they want to deliver the ballot. And she has set up meetings to discuss concerns with these groups, saying they had never asked before they launched their protests.

SB 1003 is a response to the practice of grass-roots groups that signed up thousands of Latino voters and then collected their ballots for delivery to the polls.

"A lot of people trust us more than the U.S. mail to take in their ballots," said Brendan Walsh, who worked on voter registration and turnout with Central Arizonans for a Sustainable Economy.

SB 1003 also passed the Senate on the same 16-12 party-line vote. Sen. Jack Jackson Jr., who represents the Navajo and Hopi tribal areas, said SB 1003 could have a "devastating" impact.

"Republicans want to make a felon out of someone helping their neighbors to vote, but many members of our tribal communities live in remote areas and depend on help to deliver their early ballots," Jackson, a Democrat, said in a statement.

Initiative reform

Last summer saw courtroom battles over two of Arizona's most contentious ballot initiatives: to dedicate a permanent sales-tax increase to education and to create an open-primary system. Both withstood their challenges but lost at the polls.

But the legal battles could have turned out differently if SB 1264, also sponsored by Reagan, had been in place. The Senate approved the bill 16-12.

Among the two dozen changes the bill proposes is one that would make "strict compliance" the standard for voter signatures on initiative petitions.

In the court challenge to the open-primary system, the judge relied on a "substantial compliance" standard that allowed certain voter signatures to be counted, although opponents argued they should be tossed.

Chris Herstam, an attorney and former state lawmaker, questioned why the Legislature is creating a tougher standard for voter-initiated measures while not imposing it on their own candidate campaigns.

"An obvious double standard exists by giving candidates the benefit of the doubt, but not citizens who wish to utilize their constitutional rights," said Herstam, who supported the open-primary system.

This provision of SB 1264 would "neuter" the 101-year-old citizen-initiative process, he said.

Jim Drake, staff attorney for the secretary of state, said the rules for candidate petitions are in a different statute and should be looked at separately.

Another provision of the bill would clarify that only a copy of a citizen initiative that is time- and date-stamped by the Secretary of State's Office would qualify as the official version.

Backers of the education sales tax relied on a version of their measure that had been submitted electronically when they circulated petition sheets. The courts upheld the education supporters, and the measure qualified for the ballot over the objection of opponents.

However, the ensuing campaigns on the education sales tax and the open primary were defeated largely because of an infusion of money from non-profit corporations that are not required to disclose their donors.

Reagan said she couldn't find a way to force those groups to disclose their donors, and the Senate last week defeated a Democratic amendment that was an attempt to put the disclosure burden on the recipient of the outside contributions.

Copyright 2012 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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Clinton plans to stump for Carmona

Former President Bill Clinton, a Democratic Party superstar and the last Democrat to carry Arizona in a presidential election, is set to headline a Wednesday rally in Tempe for U.S. Senate candidate Richard Carmona.

The "Get Out The Vote" event is scheduled for 8 p.m. on Arizona State University's Sun Devil Performance Lawn, 650 S. Athletes Place, Carmona's campaign announced Saturday.

Early voting for the Nov. 6 election begins Thursday.

The rally is free but anybody wanting to attend must register online at carmonaforarizona.com/early-vote.

Carmona, a former U.S. surgeon general who is running as a Democrat, is locked in a tough fight against six-term Republican U.S. Rep. Jeff Flake for the retiring GOP U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl's seat.

An automated poll of 595 likely Arizona voters conducted last week by the Democratic company Public Policy Polling indicated the race is still close, but showed Carmona leading Flake for the first time, 45percent to 43percent, with 12percent undecided.

The poll's margin of error was plus or minus 4 percentage points.

The poll has energized the Carmona campaign and his supporters.

Clinton defeated Republican challenger Bob Dole in 1996 to become the only Democrat to carry Arizona since President Harry Truman did so in 1948.

Third-party candidate Ross Perot also was on the ballot in 1996.

In 2006, Clinton stumped in Arizona for Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jim Pederson, who wound up losing his hard-fought battle to unseat Kyl.

In other developments:

Carmona and Flake are expected to square off several times in the next few weeks.

On Wednesday, the candidates will appear before The Arizona Republic's editorial board for a 1:30 p.m. meeting that will be live-streamed on azcentral.com.

At 5 p.m., they will debate Libertarian candidate Marc Victor on Channel 8's (KAET) "Arizona Horizon" program.

Flake and Carmona will meet again Oct. 15 for a 6 p.m. debate on Tucson's Channel 6 (KUAT); Oct. 17 for an 11 a.m. debate on KJZZ (91.5 FM) radio's "Here and Now" show; and Oct. 25 for a 12:30 p.m. debate in front of an audience at Arizona Western College in Yuma that will air later on local TV and radio.

U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the 2008 GOP presidential nominee, praised Republican Mitt Romney's performance in his Wednesday debate against President Barack Obama.

Four years ago, McCain, R-Ariz., debated Obama three times.

"The difference is this time he had a record that he had to defend," McCain told The Republic.

Nowicki is The Republic's national political reporter. Follow his blog at azdc.azcentral.com.

Copyright 2012 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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Group plans ads attacking Arpaio

Sheriff Joe Arpaio's massive financial advantage over his challengers in the November election is well documented and on display on Valley airwaves daily as television advertisements tout his 20 years in office.

But an independent expenditure group formed late last month aims to raise money to highlight the sheriff's mistakes and buy airtime for ads focusing on fiscal mismanagement, misguided investigations and other issues. The group said its ads will be designed to appeal to a base of conservative voters who view some of the sheriff's projects with increasing skepticism.

The founders of Citizens for Professional Law Enforcement have a track record of success. The group's chairman, Phoenix attorney Jesse Wulsin, and its treasurer, Phoenix attorney Stephen Benedetto, were also behind a non-profit political group named Phoenix Citizens United that targeted Mayor Greg Stanton's opponent in last year's mayoral race.

Independent expenditure committees are not allowed to contribute money to a candidate, but they may spend money to influence an election. State law prohibits a candidate from having any involvement in the operation of an independent campaign committee.

Phoenix Citizens United was the subject of a complaint filed last year with the Arizona Secretary of State's Office alleging campaign-finance violations during the Phoenix mayoral race. That investigation is open and ongoing, according to a spokesman for Secretary of State Ken Bennett.

As an independent committee, the anti-Arpaio group does not expressly endorse either of his two opponents, former Scottsdale Police Lt. Mike Stauffer, an independent, or former Phoenix police Sgt. Paul Penzone, a Democrat.

The independent committee plans to focus on financial issues in Arpaio's office instead of attacking his treatment of inmates and undocumented immigrants, as many of his critics and prior opponents have with little success, said Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Phoenix, a co-chairman of the group. The recent decision by the U.S. Justice Department to close a long-running criminal probe into Arpaio's agency without filing charges does not detract from that message, he said.

"No matter what the DOJ came down with, if you look at the mismanagement, the lack of control over spending, the misappropriation of time and energy to chase down a conspiracy theory using taxpayer dollars, those are the issues that are appealing to these people, including to Republicans, with this campaign," Gallego said. "The history of Sheriff Joe in terms of misappropriation of funds, targeting political enemies and using tax dollars to do that is what's going to drive participation."

Arpaio has been criticized by his opponents for raising more than $7.5million for his campaign largely from out-of-state donors. Arpaio critics also have made an issue of the fact that a former sheriff's captain lost his job this year for lying to investigators about his role in the Sheriff's Command Association, a political-action committee that raised money from affluent, out-of-state donors. That money was used to run ads against Arpaio's opponent in 2008.

Complaints against independent expenditure committees are common, and Arpaio's camp could raise questions about Citizens for Professional Law Enforcement. But the nature of the committee allows Penzone and Stauffer to maintain a distance from the fundraising group while enjoying the benefits of campaign attacks on Arpaio.

"We feel, unlike with what the sheriff did with SCA, we're certainly going to be complying with the law and being transparent as possible," Gallego said. "Our goal is, at the end of the day, to inform the public about Arpaio's shortcomings, and we will be partnering with any donors and, of course, complying with the law in terms of financial disclosure."

Arpaio's campaign has dealt with a variety of other campaign groups, some targeting the sheriff and others ostensibly raising money on his behalf.

The sheriff's campaign had $4.3million on hand as of early August, and Arpaio's campaign manager, Chad Willems, said the campaign would show similar results on a finance report due late next week.

"There are several groups out there that are purporting to be doing a variety of different things. This is just another one of them," Willems said. "We're just going to continue to run our campaign."

A pro-Arpaio committee, Americans for Sheriff Joe, requested contributions from donors around the country based in part on the rumor that billionaire liberal George Soros was going to bankroll an anti-Arpaio group. Americans for Sheriff Joe has raised more than $2.2million, according to the most recent filing, but spent more than $1.8million on operating expenses.

Penzone, meanwhile, has reaped the rewards of the Democratic Party's work on his behalf. Earlier this week, state Democratic Party executive director Luis Heredia sent an e-mail to supporters as part of a "nationwide call to action" to generate financial support for television ads on Penzone's behalf. The effort raised $24,000 in a single day, according to Penzone's campaign.

Penzone's campaign welcomed the arrival of Citizens for Professional Law Enforcement as another sign that Penzone, the former public face of Silent Witness, was gaining the traction to unseat Arpaio.

Stacy Pearson, Penzone's campaign manager, said three things were needed to successfully challenge Arpaio this year: "A strong contender, which voters get in Paul Penzone. There had to be continuing missteps by Arpaio, which he's demonstrated in 'birther' investigations and ongoing sex crimes. And there had to be citizens that got involved beyond complaining. Those groups mobilizing, that's going to be the difference between what happened in 2008 and what happens in 2012."

Copyright 2012 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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Clinton plans to stump for Carmona

Former President Bill Clinton, a Democratic Party superstar and the last Democrat to carry Arizona in a presidential election, is set to headline a Wednesday rally in Tempe for U.S. Senate candidate Richard Carmona.

The "Get Out The Vote" event is scheduled for 8 p.m. on Arizona State University's Sun Devil Performance Lawn, 650 S. Athletes Place, Carmona's campaign announced Saturday.

Early voting for the Nov. 6 election begins Thursday.

The rally is free but anybody wanting to attend must register online at carmonaforarizona.com/early-vote.

Carmona, a former U.S. surgeon general who is running as a Democrat, is locked in a tough fight against six-term Republican U.S. Rep. Jeff Flake for the retiring GOP U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl's seat.

An automated poll of 595 likely Arizona voters conducted last week by the Democratic company Public Policy Polling indicated the race is still close, but showed Carmona leading Flake for the first time, 45percent to 43percent, with 12percent undecided.

The poll's margin of error was plus or minus 4 percentage points.

The poll has energized the Carmona campaign and his supporters.

Clinton defeated Republican challenger Bob Dole in 1996 to become the only Democrat to carry Arizona since President Harry Truman did so in 1948.

Third-party candidate Ross Perot also was on the ballot in 1996.

In 2006, Clinton stumped in Arizona for Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jim Pederson, who wound up losing his hard-fought battle to unseat Kyl.

In other developments:

Carmona and Flake are expected to square off several times in the next few weeks.

On Wednesday, the candidates will appear before The Arizona Republic's editorial board for a 1:30 p.m. meeting that will be live-streamed on azcentral.com.

At 5 p.m., they will debate Libertarian candidate Marc Victor on Channel 8's (KAET) "Arizona Horizon" program.

Flake and Carmona will meet again Oct. 15 for a 6 p.m. debate on Tucson's Channel 6 (KUAT); Oct. 17 for an 11 a.m. debate on KJZZ (91.5 FM) radio's "Here and Now" show; and Oct. 25 for a 12:30 p.m. debate in front of an audience at Arizona Western College in Yuma that will air later on local TV and radio.

U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the 2008 GOP presidential nominee, praised Republican Mitt Romney's performance in his Wednesday debate against President Barack Obama.

Four years ago, McCain, R-Ariz., debated Obama three times.

"The difference is this time he had a record that he had to defend," McCain told The Republic.

Nowicki is The Republic's national political reporter. Follow his blog at azdc.azcentral.com.

Copyright 2012 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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Ind. Dems end boycott, GOP plans initial vote (AP)

INDIANAPOLIS – A divisive labor bill is back in Republican hands after Indiana House Democrats on Monday ended a three-day boycott of the chamber to stall the measure.

Republican House Speaker Brian Bosma said the right-to-work bill will get a committee vote Tuesday morning and could make it out of his chamber by the end of the week if Democrats continue to attend House sessions.

Indiana House Democrats returned to the Legislature after spending three days blocking the contentious bill but did not promise to stay long enough to allow a final vote on the measure. House Democratic Leader Patrick Bauer told The Associated Press that Democrats were returning "just for today."

The Democrats' return put the issue of Republican vote-wrangling back on the table, at least for a day. Bosma needs 51 votes to pass the measure. Although Republicans outnumber Democrats 60-40 in the House, some Republicans such as Rep. Ed Soliday of Valparaiso have said they plan to vote against the measure.

Bosma said he is confident he will be able to lock in the votes needed to pass the measure. "We'll just keep calm and carry on," he said, echoing the British World War II motto he has adopted for the right-to-work battle.

Republicans want to make Indiana the first state in more than a decade to enact right-to-work legislation, which bans employment contracts that require employees to pay mandatory union fees for representation. Supporters claim it would bring more jobs to Indiana, where the unemployment rate has crept back up to around 9 percent in the recent months. Opponents say it is a move aimed at breaking unions in Indiana and claim it would depress wages for all workers.

House Democrats stalled work at the opening of Indiana's 2012 legislative session last week by denying Republicans the 67 members on the floor they need to conduct any business.

The measure is expected to find an easy path through the state Senate, where Republicans outnumber Democrats 37-13.

National right-to-work advocates came close in November to making New Hampshire the first right-to-work state since Oklahoma passed the measure in 2001 but could not find the votes to override a veto from Democratic Gov. John Lynch. The issue had been largely dormant since the late 1940s and '50s but has enjoyed a resurgence following the GOP's sweep in statehouses across the nation in 2010.

Indiana Republicans approved new $1,000-per-day fines for prolonged absences after a five-week walkout by Democrats last year over the same issue.

Rep. Jerry Torr, R-Carmel, said that if House Democrats stay in session the right-to-work measure could make it to the governor's desk as soon as two weeks from now.

But if they use a start-and-stop approach to stall the measure further, Republicans will be ready with the same fines they levied last year, he said.

"So if their idea is, come in one day be gone two days, come in a day be gone two, that's not going to fly for very long at all," he said.

The measure could reach Gov. Mitch Daniels' desk before the Feb. 5 Super Bowl in Indianapolis. Daniels has made the labor bill one of his top priorities for the 2012 session and appeared in television ads pushing the measure. Last week, the NFL Players Association called the bill "a political ploy designed to destroy basic workers' rights."

Daniels has kept his involvement to mainly wholesale lobbying pitches, talking with newspaper editorial boards and filming television ads for the measure, but said he will personally pitch House lawmakers if needed.

"I'm willing to in case there are some who are on the fence," Daniels said.

Some Republican lawmakers, such as Rep. Bruce Borders of Jasonville, say they are looking at exempting Indiana's construction workers from the ban but have not said definitively whether they will support the bill.

"I'm still keeping my powder dry," Borders said last week.

Bosma did not discount the idea of carving the Indiana State Building and Construction Trades from the measure, noting that he pushed for that exemption last year.

"I'm a little leery about that approach, but I know there are some people interested in that," Bosma said, adding that he would oppose efforts to put the measure on the ballot for voters in 2013.

___

Tom LoBianco can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/tomlobianco

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Competing fiscal plans blocked in divided Senate (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Senate Republicans and Democrats rejected each other's economic stimulus bills on Thursday, underscoring their inability to craft a bipartisan solution on job creation before next year's elections.

All 47 Senate Republicans, joined by two of President Barack Obama's fellow Democrats and one independent, stopped a key piece of Obama's $447 billion economic stimulus plan.

The $35 billion proposal would raise taxes on millionaires to create or protect 400,000 jobs for teachers, firefighters, police officers and other first responders. In a 50-50 vote, its backers fell short of the needed 60 votes in the 100-member chamber to clear a Republican-led procedural roadblock.

"For the second time in two weeks, every single Republican in the United States Senate has chosen to obstruct a bill that would create jobs and get our economy going again. That's unacceptable," Obama said in a statement vowing to continue pushing for passage of the plan "piece by piece."

Democrats fired back by blocking a Republican bid to repeal a 3 percent withholding tax on business set to take effect on January 1, 2013. The 57-43 vote was also short of the needed 60 to stop a procedural roadblock by Democrats. Ten Democrats crossed party lines to vote in favor of the measure.

Democrats control the Senate, 53-47.

Both sides accused the other of jockeying for position in advance of the 2012 presidential elections that seems certain to feature the economy as the top issue.

"Protecting millionaires and defeating President Obama are more important to my Republican colleagues than creating jobs and getting our economy back on track," charged Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid.

"The American people want us to do something about the jobs crisis," said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell. "What Republicans have been saying is that raising taxes on business owners isn't the way to do it."

WASHINGTON GRIDLOCK

Obama's approval rating is only about 41 percent largely because of his inability to bolster the economy. But Congress is even more unpopular: its approval rating is about 12 percent after budget battles pushed the government to the brink of a shutdown and an unprecedented default.

With the U.S. jobless rate stuck above 9 percent for five straight months, a recent Wall Street Journal-NBC poll showed that voters back Obama's bill by a two-to-one margin.

Obama spent three days this week campaigning in North Carolina and Virginia, key states in his reelection bid, to promote his jobs bill and crank up pressure on Republicans.

The president's strategy is to force Republicans to accept his proposals or be painted as obstructing economic recovery.

Republicans counter that Obama's plan are laden with wasteful spending and job-killing tax hikes on millionaires.

McConnell argued that the Republican bill to repeal a pending 3 percent withholding tax on business mirrored a provision that Obama included in his own jobs bill.

Democrats disagreed, noting that Obama's proposal would have delayed implementation of the tax, not repealed it.

In issuing a veto threat shortly before the Senate vote, the White House also pointed out that the Republican measure, unlike Obama's proposal, called for $30 billion in spending cuts to cover lost tax revenue.

Obama's overall $447 billion bill seeks to create jobs with a mixture of stimulus spending and tax cuts for the middle class and small businesses. It would be financed by a 5.6 percent surtax on millionaires.

McConnell rejected Democratic charges that his party is trying to hurt the economy to damage Obama's reelection bid.

"If Republicans wanted the economy to fail, we'd all line right up behind the president's economic policies, rather than opposing them," McConnell said.

(Reporting by Thomas Ferraro; editing by Anthony Boadle)

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Justice Ginsburg's future plans closely watched (AP)

WASHINGTON – Democrats and liberals have a nightmare vision of the Supreme Court's future: President Barack Obama is defeated for re-election next year and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, at 78 the oldest justice, soon finds her health will not allow her to continue on the bench.

The new Republican president appoints Ginsburg's successor, cementing conservative domination of the court, and soon the justices roll back decisions in favor of abortion rights and affirmative action.

But Ginsburg could retire now and allow Obama to name a like-minded successor whose confirmation would be in the hands of a Democratic-controlled Senate. "She has in her power the ability to prevent a real shift in the balance of power on the court," said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California at Irvine law school. "On the other hand, there's the personal. How do you decide to leave the United States Supreme Court?"

For now, Ginsburg's answer is, you don't.

There are few more indelicate questions to put to a Supreme Court justice, but Ginsburg has said gracefully, and with apparent good humor, that the president should not expect a retirement letter before 2015.

She will turn 82 that year, the same age Justice Louis Brandeis was when he left the court in 1939. Ginsburg, who is Jewish, has said she wants to emulate the court's first Jewish justice.

While declining an interview on the topic, Ginsburg pointed in a note to The Associated Press to another marker she has laid down, that she is awaiting the end of a traveling art exhibition that includes a painting that usually hangs in her office by the German emigre Josef Albers.

"Couldn't think of leaving until after it is returned to me, which won't be anytime soon," she wrote.

Certainly there is no indication that Ginsburg is slowing down on the job, even after she underwent surgery two years ago for pancreatic cancer that her doctors said was detected at a very early stage.

Appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1993, she served for the first time this term with two other women, Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, and as the senior liberal-leaning justice, a role that gives her the power to assign dissenting opinions when she is on the losing side of ideologically split rulings.

On a personal level, she appeared to take comfort in her work as she adjusted to life without her husband, Martin, who died a year ago.

And she doesn't have to look very far ahead to imagine having a vote in some of the most important cases of her time on the court, including the challenge to Obama's health care overhaul and the fight over gay marriage.

Laura Krugman Ray, a Widener University law professor who has written about Ginsburg, said it is easy to believe Ginsburg would want to have a voice in those cases.

"I think the court is enormously important for her," Ray said. "And especially now after husband's death, you wonder what she can see herself doing if she were not on the court."

Ginsburg, the second woman on the bench, has only to look at the first for a cautionary tale about retiring. Sandra Day O'Connor announced her retirement in 2005 in part so she could take care of her ailing husband, John. Two months later, Chief Justice William Rehnquist died in office.

Meanwhile, John O'Connor's health declined much faster than his wife anticipated and he soon was living in a nursing home in Arizona. Would she have quit the court had she known what awaited?

In retirement, O'Connor has maintained a busy schedule, hearing cases on federal appeals courts as well as advocating for Alzheimer's funding, improved civics education and merit selection, rather than partisan election, of state judges.

O'Connor, now 81, also has said she that she regrets that some of her decisions have been "dismantled" by the Supreme Court. Justice Samuel Alito, who took her seat in 2006, has voted differently from O'Connor in key cases involving abortion rights, campaign finance and the use of race in governmental policies.

But some on the left say that the focus on the personal is misplaced. Ginsburg needs to put self-interest aside and act for the good of the issues they believe in, Harvard law professor Randall Kennedy wrote recently. Kennedy said 72-year-old Justice Stephen Breyer should leave, too.

Too much is at stake and both life and politics are too fickle to take the risk that everything will work out as the justices desire, Kennedy said.

David Garrow, a Cambridge University historian who follows the court, said Ginsburg's situation points to an institutional problem for the court, "the arguably narcissistic attitude that longer is better."

The longest-serving justice, William Douglas, was on the court for more than 36 1/2 years, reluctant to retire even after a debilitating stroke. "History teaches us that often longer is not better," Garrow said.

Justices sometimes look at electoral projections when considering retirement, he said, adding that Ginsburg probably still could decide to retire next summer if Obama's electoral prospects seem shaky.

Chief Justice Earl Warren never envisioned retiring during the presidency of his nemesis, Richard Nixon. Yet that is exactly what came to pass in 1969.

Warren planned to step down early in what he hoped would be Lyndon Johnson's second full term. But then the Vietnam War got in the way of Johnson's re-election plans and Robert Kennedy fell to an assassin's bullet.

At that point, Warren thought Nixon had a reasonable chance of winning the presidency "and desperately tried to leave under a lame-duck LBJ presidency on its last legs," said Artemus Ward, a political science professor at Northern Illinois University who has written about court retirements.

Johnson's nomination of Abe Fortas as chief justice failed amid election-year politics in the Senate and the first allegations of financial improprieties that eventually would drive Fortas from the bench. Early in 1969, Nixon nominated Warren Burger as chief justice.

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